First MLB Trade of the Year

And once again, Andy B. gets shafted by his Pirates. Last year, they traded away Bay for a case of light bulbs, this year they 'unloaded' the multi-talented, affordable McLouth for a gift certificate to Outback Steakhouse. Well done, sirs. I know Thacker is happy to know that he'll get his hands on McLouth next year.

The real life trade has implications for our league. Basically, it forces Andy B. to add another crappy Pirate player to his roster to reach the minimum for home team players. Sorry bout that, man. Not all the Pittsburgh teams can be champions.

Come to think of it, I'm so tired of hearing about how good the Pittsburgh teams are right now, of how many titles they've won this year. This Pennsylvania media bias is killing me!

Three weeks in and we're runnin'

Return of the Ryan Express?

Not since the days of Nolan Ryan have we seen an Astros team as good as the one that Chu is putting out there. The fantasy Stros have 20 wins in 3 weeks. Impressive. Leading the league in 5 categories. Impressive. Starting only 3 real life Astros. Not so impressive.

Let's take a look at the team stat leaders of our early season.

Houston Astros: leading league in R, HR, SB, ERA, WHIP, and obnoxiousness of team logo. Pujols and Kinsler are absolute studs so far. Victor Martinez has power again. Bedard doesn't suck. And Chu stills stars in those AT&T commercials.

Tampa Bay Rays: leading league in RBI, SV, and annoying comments. Seriously, who let this guy in the league? Nothing but trouble. On the field, the Rays are playing the part of the World Series loser letdown. Upton and Burrell combined for 1HR and 3SB so far. Carlos Pena's 9HR and 24RBI have been the key to the Rays success so far.

Washington Nationals: leading the league in starting retired players. Like spelling your team name wrong on your jerseys, starting a retired player is just plain wrong. Welcome to the league, son. Time to step it up.

Pittsburgh Pirates: leading the league in W. The Pirate pitching has been excellent this year (both real life and fantasy) but as Kid will tell you, it's all gonna implode at some point. Otherwise, this is a solid team that might just possibly be able to overcome the injury to Jack Wilson.

New York Yankees: leading the league in unsold front row seats. Gotta love the new Yankee stadium, acts like steroids for players with the ability to loft lazy fly balls to right field. Although Posada and Cano have returned from the land of the living dead, the autodrafting of two underperforming shortstops could haunt this team all year.

Detroit Tigers: leading the league in players named Ryan. That's a stat, right? The Tiger offense is fierce...like a tiger. The pitching however is as stable as the Detroit real estate market. Jerod Washburn ... tick, tick, tick ... Tim Wakefield ... tick, tick, tick ...

Chicago Cubs: leading the league in underachievement. Soto didn't realize the season started, D Lee hasn't hit a fastball in nearly three years, the ace and the closer have 1W and 1Sv between them. You have to believe this team is going to get much, much better as the season goes on.

Boston Red Sox: leading the league in OBP and pitchers with ERA's over 6.oo. Seriously, half of the staff have stats that would be bad in beer league softball. But, the biggest problem is the 0HR, 0SB, .300OBP production of David Ortiz and Matt Holliday. That's bad, that's real bad.

Atlanta Braves: leading the league in K and underachieving lefty pitching. Liriano, Mike Gonzalez, and Randy Johnson have given up approximately 213 earned runs so far this year. Watch out for Andre Ethier, though. That kid can play. I smell keeper material.

Chicago White Sox: leading the league in wildness. Gavin Floyd and Umbaldo Jimenez have combined for 31 walks in 42 innings. Lindstrom adds another 8 walks in 6 innings. Throw a fucking strike! (I'm just bitter cause I have Floyd and Jimenez in another league. Fuckers.) Bright spot = Carlos Quinten and his bat of thunder. He hits the ball like a fat kid eats cake.

That's all for now. Comment below. I will read all the positive ones.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

April is a great month: the end of March Madness, NBA starting to matter a little bit, hockey playoffs (does anyone care?), and best of all, Opening Day!

Good luck to everyone!

Hope all set their lineups correctly, although the massive rain cloud over the US is gonna reek havoc. Just ask Kovacs about that.

Draft moved to Sunday!

Just a quick reminder that the draft was moved to Sunday, March 29 at 8:45pm ET. See league site for more details.

P.S. Try not to do this on Sunday:

Draft on Wednesday!

One last thing to take care of before the draft: a little fantasy baseball welfare. We voted as a league (question 8) to give the talent-poor teams a little boost before the draft, like we did last year. Looking at the rosters, it's pretty clear that the Pirates and Nationals qualify for this bonus, as each team has only 1 player in the top 100. So, like last year, these two teams are getting a supplementary pick before the draft. It's only fair.

Here's how we're doing it:

• I asked Andy and Scott for two players from the pool that they want.
• Coin flip for who gets first choice. I'm doing this right now in real time. Andy is heads, Scott is tails. I'm flipping a quarter. It's in the air. Result = tails. Scott gets first choice, Andy will have first pick in the draft.
• I'll add this extra good non-home player to their rosters, replacing a home team player. That home team player will then replace their last pick in the draft to bring them back up to the 11 home team players.

Now the draft pool is set. Be prepared. Be ready. Be there Wednesday.

Non-home team keepers for the newbies!

To figure out the order, I wrote the names of the new teams on a piece of paper, put them in a hat (Red Sox hat, of course), and picked them out one by one. I then used the ranked lists each team gave me to assign the two non-home team keepers. And the results are...

#1 Detroit Tigers = Tim Lincecum
#2 Washington Nationals = Chase Utley
#3 Houston Astros = Albert Pujols
#4 Tampa Bay Rays = Grady Sizemore
#5 Tampa Bay Rays = Johan Santana
#6 Houston Astros = Jimmy Rollins
#7 Washington Nationals = Cole Hamels
#8 Detroit Tigers = Ryan Howard

That ends our keeper allocation and now all the players on the waiver wire (i.e. the Players tab in the league) will available in the draft. Start your draft prep, make those cheat sheets, and get ready for next week.

Keepers! Get your keepers here!

I love going to baseball games. Great times often began by buying tickets on a whim, recruiting a co-conspirator, and heading to Fenway Park. Until now, I never realized that my behavior was inappropriate. Instead of abusing my liver with over-priced beer, I should have been abusing the opposing teams with my fists...my fists of fury.

Alright, back to the business at hand. Two things to deal with.

Number 1: The results are in, thanks for voting. A few small changes: 6 teams in the playoffs, 11 players from your home town team, and 3 SP each week instead of 2.

Here's what we need to do next (Deadline: Wed, March 18):

• EVERYONE needs to send me a list of the 11 players they want from their home town team.

AND

• Teams from last year: tell me your 2 non-home team keepers

• New teams: you get 2 keepers as well. Please rank (in the order you want them) the top 8 players from the list of players from the teams that dropped out and the waiver wire.
  

Keep in mind: we get first dibs on the players on our home town team. For example, while Jason would love to keep Texeira as a non-home team keeper, the Yankee's manager, Charlie, will undoubtedly choose Tex as a home team keeper. Sorry Jason.

Number 2: Decide on draft day and time. Season starts Sunday, April 5th. Most of you said the week of March 22rd to 29th was good. Does this day/time work for everyone?

Wed, March 25 at 8:00 pm ET

If not, let me know what days work/don't work for you that week.

Dagan

Let's get this started!

We get ready for baseball season in our own ways. Some grow a sweet stache like Youk, some sit unshowered on a Saturday afternoon watching Duke basketball and looking at spring training box scores (me), and some lead productive lives (the rest of you). To each his own.

I know one thing: the season starts in a month and we have a little housekeeping to do. I just activated the league, deleted the dead weight, and added a few new people (welcome fellas). Look for your invite soon. We have a few more things to take care of:

• Recruit 1 more manager. We have another new member: Brian "Moose" Bishopppppppppp. He's a hell of a competitor, watch out. That brings us to 9. We need one more. I've asked Diddy to take the Phillies, but he's afraid. Get on him and we're full.

• Vote on league issues. I put a documents with things to vote on in the links to the left. I'll email the document as well. Vote early and often...Chicago style.
  

• Schedule the draft. There's a list of deadlines on the left. The draft is the big one. Let me know what day/time works best for everyone.

That's all for now. Stay classy, San Diego.

Spring is in the air...well not here in Chicago...but in other places, like Arizona and Florida where the pitchers and catchers are doing what they do. And that means the season isn't too far off. Joy oh joy, welcome back fantasy baseball!

With the long tosses and fielding drills comes the 2nd year of the Local 9. The email invite has been sent, new members recruited, and a discussion of rule changes will follow.

We have 8 teams so far (we'll add 2 or 4 more):

• Dagan: The Boston Red Sox
• Jeff K: Chicago Cubs
• Jason T: Atlanta Braves
• Kevin C 'aka New Guy': Houston Astros
• Andy B: Pittsburgh Pirates
• Jesse C: Chicago White Sox
• Charles C: New York Yankees
• Andrew C: Detroit Tigers
  

Updates to follow.