The Red Sox showed why they are the best team in baseball, not just in record, but in their ability to put a great team together. Tuesday was the trade deadline and they added what every team needs to win a world series, which great pitching. Gagne was by far the best pitcher available, and historically was one of the strongest closers in baseball. He is coming off two years of being hurt, but he has been strong this year, and has pitched very well. He will be a great setup man for Papelbon, and if he proves himself I anticipate that we will be able to sign him to close next year so that Papelbon can move into the rotation. If we dont sign him then we will get two extra first round draft picks as compensation for letting him go at the end of the year. Win win situation.

As far as who we traded, probably neither of the two position players were ever going to be playing for the BoSox, and Kason Gabbard, though he pitched well in his time up, was not a top prospect for the Red Sox and had yet to prove himself against good major league teams. Giving him up for a proven guy like Gagne was a no-brainer.

By the way you might be wondering what big move the Yankees made to counter the Red Sox slick dealing. They signed a back up out fielder and first baseman who will sit on the bench because the Yankees already have a crowded first base and outfield. I am not just saying this because I am a Red Sox fan. Really everyone is scratching their head now concerning this move by the Yankees, and though they are winning games now, they did nothing to improve their chances of catching the Red Sox or doing well in the playoffs. If they make the playoffs, and thats a big if, then they will be hard pressed to make it past the first round.

By the way there is a great video in the link above of Gagne’s first interview as a Red Sox. I can easily see him becoming a fan favorite and fitting into Boston well.

Who wouldn’t want to be a Red Sox fan?

So not very far below (since I haven’t written in so long) is what my fantasy baseball team looked like just after the draft. Since then it has changed a lot. Its amazing looking back and seeing how some who you thought were good turned out to be not so much, and others who weren’t even drafted ended up making a significant impact. Overall I think that in making trades I was able to increase the overall value of my team a little, and the new team looks much better then what I drafted when looking at it from a keeper league perspective. It got younger with much more potential upside.

So here is the team now:

• C: Victor Martinez
• 1B: David Ortiz
• 2B: Kaz Matsui
• SS: Khalil Green
• 3B: David Wright
• OF: Alfonso Soriano
• OF: Carl Crawford
• OF: Ty Wigginton
• Util: Chipper Jones
• Bench: Willy Taveras
• Bench: Freddy Sanchez
• Bench: Sammy Sosa
• Bench: Brendan Harris

• SP: Carlos Zambrano
• SP: John Lackey
• SP: Ian Snell
• SP: Jared Weaver
• SP: Randy Wolf
• RP: Mariano Rivera
• RP: Jeremy Accardo
• Bench: Homer Bailey
• Bench: Ryan Dempster
• Bench: Oliver Perez

So as you can see, the only guys left from the team that I drafted are Martinez, Ortiz, Wigginton, Snell, and Dempster. 5 out of 22. At the end of the year it will be interesting to see how different that team looks from this one.

Hey I’m back! Its been a while I know, but for those who still check in now and then here are a few things:

First of all happy fourth of July! Its glorious to be American and we should all appreciate the risk, dedication, and sacrifice it took to sign the declaration of independence and officially make America the land of the free.

As many of you know I am in MA for the week for work and went to see a Red Sox game last night with Jillian. It was a great experience, almost unreal, and it was a learning experience too. I would like to say that it was like returning home, but it really felt more like an introduction. Its been so long since I was last at Fenway that it felt like my first game and my first day as a fan. Sweet Caroline!

Here are some links:

NC State was endowed with $2 million to promote capitalism. Wouldn’t surprise me if UNC countered with some socialism.

Tom O’Brien has been very successful recruiting, not for this comming year, but for the next years football season. Sounds like he is putting a good program together.

The Swiss won the America’s cup over New Zealand, 5-2. I am kind if disappointed because New Zealand was dominant coming into the Americas cup, and it just doesn’t seem right for Sailings most esteemed trophy to be held for another four years by a landlocked country.

Yesterday the Mets beat the cardinals (something that should have happened about 5 months ago) to open the baseball season. Today the rest of the league begins games. The day has finally arrived! GO RED SOX!

Last night we had the draft for our fantasy baseball league and this is the team that I picked:

• C: Victor Martinez
• 1B: David Ortiz
• 2B: Tadahito Iguchi
• SS: Miguel Tajada
• 3B: Hank Blalock
• OF: Vladamir Guerrero
• OF: Corey Patterson
• OF: JD Drew
• Util: Jim Thome
• Bench: Frank Thomas
• Bench: Curtis Granderson
• Bench: Ty Wingginton

• SP: Jake Peavy
• SP: CC Sabathia
• SP: Jason Schmidt
• SP: Nate Robertson
• SP: Ian Snell
• RP: Billy Wagner
• RP: Jorge Julio
• Bench: Brad Penny
• Bench: Adam Wainwright
• Bench: Ryan Dempster

Overall I am happy with the draft. The league is tilted in favor of power hitting more then speed and I definitely got more power. 2B and 3B are a little weak and I have two DHes, and I can only play one. However I anticipate that trades will come. I wouldn’t mind trading Thome or Thomas for some speed in the outfield or at 2B. We’ll see how things go but as of now I am pretty excited!

I have been busy lately and not very inspired which is why I haven’t written much. Here are a few things:

• At the Raleigh REI garage sale I got a hammock with a mosquitoe net that packs up super small and will be really nice in the summer for backpacking on sunny weekends since I’ll be able to leave my tent and sleeping pad and still wont have to worry about bugs. I also got Ian a LED head lamp (absolute backpacking necessity) and got dad a new backpack. All great deals.
• The fantasy draft for my fantasy baseball league is tonight and I am too excited. Its the first year of a three year keeper league so that adds a new element, and things should be really interesting. I hate the pressure of not knowing what kind of team you are going to end up with but I love the excitement of the draft. Once its over then it’ll be a relief to at least know who I have to work with this year.
• We are planning a backpacking trip for next weekend that should be a lot of fun. James Ian and I are going with mom out to shining rock. We are all geared up and ready to go and just need some nice weather. Shining rock is so beautiful year round and should be even more so in the spring.
• I am very excited for baseball season to start next week. The Red Sox are looking good, with their one major question mark answered, moving Papelbon into bullpen as the closer. The rest of the guys in the pen should be great, and Taverez should be ok holding down the fifth spot in the rotation until Lester is ready to start. One guy that has been great this spring is Devern Hansack. Some are saying he could take over the role of closer by the end of the season and allow papelbon to move back into the rotation. Lester could then fill in for any injuries to starters down the road. You can never have too much pitching.
• NC State baseball is doing well this year too. They have won their last two ACC series, both two games to one, over VT and WF, after losing their opening ACC series one games to two. I would like it better if they were sweeping series, but the ACC is very good and winning series is doing very well. The greatest thing about the win over WF is the emergence of Jimmy Gillheeney as a dominant starter. He is only a freshman, but against Wake forest he pitched 5 and 2/3 three hit innings with nine Ks. Pretty awesome, and its nice to know he’ll be sticking around for the next two years. NC States series this weekend is at Boston College.

They had the garage sale in Durham this morning and boy did we make out. I personally didn’t get much. Just a pair of nice shoes that can replace my current pair that is getting really worn out. But this time I brought others with me, and they all walked out with piles of booty. We got three backpacks, two from the garage sale for $30 and $50 and one full price. They got shoes, clothes, and Melissa got a nice down sleeping bag that was only like $8 because it has a tear in it that mom will easily be able to fix. Its pretty awesome that we were able to get what we did because we are planning some trips with them for later this spring and they will now be geared up and ready to go.

The backpack we got full price was an Osprey Ariel that James, Melissa, and I got for mom. She really likes my Osprey Aether, and the Ariel is the womans version of that. She tried it on with weight and it was love at first sight. If she was excited to go backpacking before she is really stoked now.

I also enjoyed a double header that the pack played against VT in baseball at the Doak this afternoon. Their game yesterday was rained out, so they played two today, and I went to one whole game and stayed for an inning of the second. We won the first 12-8 and the second 5-2 and as usual it was great baseball. Here are some pics I took:

A little while ago Curt Schilling started a blog called 38 pitches and i have been enjoying every post. Everyone knows that Curt loves to talk, and he usually has lots of great stuff to talk about. Some notable topics:

• how he feels after every outing, sometimes a pitch by pitch review
• lots of optimism for the coming season
• shares his testimony as a Christian
• tells why he is a republican
• shares thoughts on his team mates and other guys in the league, without saying anything stupid… yet.
• he talks about his family
• his cousin who was part of the real black hawk down
• and much much more

So check it out. He has said he will keep the blog going at least for this whole season and perhaps beyond. I think its awesome that he has bridged the gap between the big time star and the fans, and its really neat to see the kind of person he really is.

Someone suggested to me that we should add OBP as a stat for our fantasy baseball league.  Here is my response:

Yeah I have thought about that too, but I don’t think we can change it.  Its true that in baseball OBP is important, but traditionally in fantasy baseball it never has been.  The traditional stats for fantasy baseball are HR, R, RBI, SB and AVG, and on the pitching side W, K, ERA, WHIP, and S.  I added TB because that factors doubles and triples into things, and to balance it out I added CG because that rewards a fantasy team if one of their pitchers has a really great game.  I could see adding OBP as a batting stat, but then we would need to add another pitching stat.  I did fantasy baseball one year when we had tons and tons of stats that were evaluated and it wasn’t very good and I’m afraid if we keep adding stats it will turn out like that again.

What you need to do as a fantasy baseball manager is understand what stats are counted ahead of time and draft accordingly, and manage your team accordingly.  Really it doesn’t matter what stats are counted so long as everyone understand them ahead of time.  If we chose only to have SB and AVG as a category then we could have an OK year and people would just draft accordingly with SB guys being very valuable and HR guys not being valuable at all.  There are lots of things in fantasy baseball that don’t quite match real baseball and OBP is one of them.  Remember that just as adding OBP would make some guys more valuable it would also make a lot of other guys less valuable.

Also I think the truth is that if a guy like arod is slumping your team SHOULD be negatively effected, even if he is managing get walks.  If you add too many stats then it doesn’t matter how your guys are doing they will be doing SOMETHING good and the outcome of each head to head match up is more of a coin toss then a judge of which team plays better.

Ok so now that I have thought about it a little more here is the long answer:  The more stats you add the less important each stat becomes.  Also, the more stats you add the more players move into the “really good” category.  For an example right now Albert Pujols pretty much stands alone as the best player in baseball in standard 5×5 leagues.  He rules HRs, R, RBI, and AVG.  That is 80% of the batting stats, and so he is extremely valuable.  If you add OBP to the stats that are counted then suddenly Pujols becomes a little bit less valuable.  his OBP was 431 last year, which is good, but is not incredible.  Pujols now dominates only 66% of the batting stats.  He instantly became less valuable.  Lets say there is another guy who wont hit as many HRs, but will get as many Runs, RBI, and AVG and in addition have an incredible OBP.  That other guy will now be dominant in 66% of batting stats.  He is thus just as valuable as Pujols.

There is already some of that happening because SB is a stat.  Albert Pujols is ranked first because he rules 80% of 5×5 stats.  Jose Reyes is ranked second and almost as high as pujols because he too is projected to dominate 80% of batting stats, since he dominates R, RBI, AVG, and SB.  The fact that he doesn’t get as many HRs is offset by the fact that he gets tons of SB and his value is increased to that of Pujols.  The more stats you add the more players move up into that top tier of really valuable players, and by the same token the less valuable each player in that highest tier becomes.

If you think about fantasy baseball you are dividing up players that play for 30 teams among 12 teams.  This means that already each fantasy team has many more elite players on it then an average MLB team.  If you add more elite players to the fantasy pool (as adding a stat would do) then it would become harder and harder for one fantasy team to be better then another.  For example lets go back to comparing Pujols and Reyes.  Lets say SB isn’t a stat for a second.  If SB wasn’t a stat then the team that had Pujols would clearly be better then every other team (if everything else was equal) because Pujols would dominate 100% of the batting stats.  Once you add SB as a stat then the team that has Pujols becomes worse and the team that has Reyes becomes better.  The more stats you add the more the good teams are made worse and the more the bad teams are made better.  If you have too many stats then all the teams become about the same, with some teams dominating some stats and other teams dominating other stats.

By the way I am not advocating removing SBs.  I think with the standard 5×5 stats there is a perfect balance and it allows for just enough elite players for 12 teams.  This is why so many leagues adopt the standard 5×5 stats.

So that is the long explanation as to why adding another stat would be bad for the league.  I know that adding OBP wouldn’t be the end of the world or anything, but when you have the perfect balance with 5×5 stats then why change?

Also by the way I am not trying to discount the value of OBP to baseball or player evaluation.  You may find it as a very useful measure of a hitters patience and his likely hood of scoring runs and increasing his avg.  But in drafting and managing your team don’t draft someone or leave someone in the lineup if all they have is a great OBP since that stat by itself isn’t counted.

By the way if a player goes 0-1 but walks three times it does impact your score because walks don’t count as ABs, so your AVG is increased (by virtue of it staying the same rather then going down.)  Also if that guy walks then he has a chance of scoring a run, which increases your score, or getting an RBI (walk with the bases loaded), which increases your score.  He can also steal a base.  So a walk, though it does not directly impact your score, can secondarily impact every batting statistic except for HRs.  If Arod goes 0-1 with 3 walks then he will also have a couple of runs, his average will only drop a tiny bit since only one AB is counted against it, and he might even have an RBI or a stolen base.  If Arod goes 0-4 in four ABs (more likely then his average drops quite a bit and he has no chance for a run, an RBI, or an SB.  So OBP is counted secondarily, just not directly.

For all the reasons that I stated above I think that we should remove TB and CG from the stats that we count in our league and go with the traditional 5×5 stats.