It’s amazing the deafening silence given the way roto news sites and the baseball media obsess over who is “the man.” Not a peep from anyone with any credibility. And the news on Zimmerman is not good…
The above was written by a guy named John Krempasky at the usenet site rec.sport.baseball.fantasy. And the news on Zimmerman is not good.
Krempasky’s comment provoked me. I’d read the news that Rocker was demoted to the minors after blowing Tuesday night’s game, and my reaction, frankly, was to hope that Todd Van Poppel (who is on my ADL team) would get the saves. But Van Poppel’s been much less effective so far this year than last. My second thought was that Francisco Cordero would be in line, because he was promoted with Rocker’s demotion. But really, Cordero is just barely back in the game after a controversial demotion. So while I knew that someone had to get the job, I didn’t really have an idea who.
But the papers (and Rotowire and Rotoworld) reported that it would be Hideki Irabu who would get the save situations, and tonight, on the first day of the rest of the Texas Rangers’ lives, “the fat pussy toad” got the save. I’m not sure what Jack Krempasky means about credibility. Most of the posters at r.s.b.f. mentioned Irabu, at least. RotoWire said it looked like Irabu was the man, though they thought it would be foolish to assume until an announcement was made.
RotoWorld reported that Irabu and Rudy Seanez were going to get first crack at the job, but opined that Van Poppel was better suited to the task.
RotoTimes is not a serious player in this game. (I love the RotoTimes site. It’s set up is the most logical and helpful. But it isn’t as exhaustive, and so important bits of info slip through.)
But the larger point is that nobody can possibly know anything until John Hart and Jerry Narron make up their minds. And if they aren’t speaking than everybodys’ guesses are purely conjecture. As fantasy players, we have to both get the real news fastest, and we have to guess what the real news is ahead of time. It looks to me like both RotoWire and RotoWorld did a decent job on both accounts.
I’m a little embarrassed that I didn’t jump in with an opinion this morning. Which is why I’m running this rather lengthy piece. But the truth is that I didn’t know. I hoped for Von Poppel, I suspected Cordero. To be honest, the idea that someone would make Irabu their closer didn’t occur to me. Which is why I didn’t write about it.
RotoWorld and RotoWire have to have an opinion. I get to pick and choose my spots. Thanks for stopping by.
Which is why I have Van Poppel on my team. It probably won’t work out. But the goal is to corral the most likely to advance, as well as the best at what they do.