I’m out of the Maine woods now, woods I was in last week shortly after posting and which is why I didn’t plug last week’s excellent Ask Rotoman column in these pages. This week’s is being promoted as an analysis of Juan Rivera, though in retrospect I don’t really pay enough attention to him. What I wanted to say, however, I said: Nick Markakis is a better alternative than Shawn Green. Also this week I advise against Chien-Ming Wang tepidly, before he threw seven scoreless innings against the team with the best record in baseball, I choose, tepidly, between three youngsters as freezes for next year and beyond (they’re Jason Kubel, Carlos Quentin, and Ryan Shealy). Plus there is chatter about Kevin Mench, who is getting an unmanly amount of playing time in Milwaukee, and a cage match between Delmon Young and Chris Duncan. Ouch.
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When fantasy meets reality
Jeff Passan hits with another tear jerker, though this one is really only happy news and a fun read for fantasy fans. Even before I started playing roto one of my stated goals in life was to some day own a big league team. That seemed the only way to get into the business. But then, as now, it turned out that there are other paths, as my friends Keith Law, Tony Blengino and Ron Shandler have demonstrated. For me, ownership is still probably the best route, but you might find another way. If you’re interested.
Instant Replay set to consign line disputes into history
This is a story about tennis and television technology implemented to correct erroneous calls by the umpires and judges. In the first tournament it was used in about one-third of the challenged calls were upheld.
I think baseball’s biggest problem (bigger than roids, bigger than Paul Lo Duca gambling) is that umpires do not consistently call balls and strikes the same way, and often blow the incredibly close plays they’re forced to judge. This is not a knock on the umpires, but I think as the game gets comfortable with using technology to make better calls on the strike zone and to review judgement calls on the basepaths, everything we think we know about the game is going to change in significant ways.
This is important, but I’m not sure what the right way is to handle the neighborhood play.
Judge: Fantasy leagues allowed to use MLB player names, stats – MLB – Yahoo! Sports
My opinion is that this will was the rational conclusion, and it will also prove to be the best one for the fantasy sports business and the leagues, too. MLB has plenty to sell beyond the stats and names, and they will benefit because the grass roots development of leagues and games won’t be squelched before they start.
The Physics of Ball on Bat
Thanks to James in Kansas City, this link is to a story that mostly recapitulates Robert Adair’s research on how far a ball might be hit by a human. So give props to James and to Robert Adair, but don’t snub the Alaskans who remind us of this question. Could it be true that none of the steroid enhanced sluggers of the past 30 years matched the distance of the besotted Mick?
Ask Rotoman The Column
Major League Baseball : Fantasy : Fantasy
The new one went up yesterday afternoon, with a look at the demise of Chris Shelton and Dan Johnson, trading a phenom for a flake (a really good flake), and why you shouldn’t cancel even a really bad trade. Plus chatter about that flukey outfielder in Detroit.
Ask Rotoman, July 26, 2006
The new one has been up since Wednesday, though there was a bad link until sometime Thursday that made it a little hard to find. You’ll find answers to questions about adding batting average, improving pitching, and, um, well, a catchall that has some advice about asking questions of Rotoman.
Floyd Landis’ positive test shows why drug testing will never work. By Brian Alexander
Makes sense to me, though you’re going to have to convict them first.
Shameless pursuit – Cycling –
“It is possible that in a sport overloaded with cheats Armstrong overcame cancer and utterly dominated for seven years, but is it really probable?”
It has come to this. If you’re tested and come up positive you are a immoral lout, a cheat, a disgrace. And if you’re tested and come up negative you must have come up with a way to beat the test.
The crisis here, as Wetzel actual gets to after a while, is one of the nature of sports and competition. It’s hard to see bicycling as more corrupt than any other, but maybe the physical pressures caused the many to turn to PEDs first.
In any case, with the IOC now looking to ban those tents that simulate high-altitude conditions endurance athletes use for training, but not high-altitude training itself, the contradictions are starting to come to a head.
Somehow calling athletes who cheat immoral seems way beside the point.
Soriano to White Sox? Not so fast.
Major League Baseball : News : Major League Baseball News
We don’t know how this thing is going to turn out, of course, but my reaction yesterday to the so-close Soriano for McCarthy deal was that it sounded like a typical last-minute leak intended to either sink or force an agreement. Most trading deadline deals have a whiff of surprise about them, because it is very hard to operate when everyone is standing around commenting on what you’re doing.
The denials of Kenny Williams (McCarthy is going nowhere) and Jim Bowden (There is no deal for Soriano) may just be window dressing, allowing them time to put all the pieces in place, but when it comes to baseball trading at the deadline, it’s best to remember that where there’s smoke there often isn’t any fire.