Manlio Rules

from a few weeks ago:

“the red sox signing ken griffey jr. would be like having children to save a marraige. sure, it could help things. but it could also end really really badly for a lot of people”

greetings all,

Alex suggested that i write a post about the state of the Red Sox as a team, and given my readership (PT, i’m looking at you), i thought that it would be a huge hit (not to be confused with a huge salary).

so, let’s review what we have. if the season were to start right now, this woudl be the sox presumable starting lineup:

2B: Mark Loretta
1B: Kevin Youkilis
DH: Ortiz
LF: Manny
RF: Trot Nixon
C: Varitek
3B: Mike Lowell
SS: Alex Cora
CF: Adam Stern

SP: Beckett
SP: Schilling
SP: Wakefield
SP: Wells
SP: Clement
SP: Arroyo
CL: Foulke

i have to say that this doesn’t make me feel good. add that we have good depth at 3B/1B (marte, snow) and almost no depth in the OF or the MI positions. I think that changes will happen before the year starts. as you can see, we have a glut of SP’s, and Wells will almost certainly be shipped off for OF help, with current rumors being that Jay Payton will get the nod. Dustin Pedoria is presumably working furiously on converting to SS, a position he hasn’t played since high school or something.

truth be told, this team reminds me of a poorly drafted fantasy team. It’s round 15 or so, you took too many pitchers in the first 7, and now you realize that grabbing two second basemen and no shortstop was a stupid idea, cause no one wants to trade you a SS without asking for something ridiculous. I did this a few years ago with a fantasy team, drafting a bunch of pitchers in the first 10 rounds, an almost no offense, and it was the only year in which i didn’t end up in the money for some fantasy baseball league of mine.

Of course things work differently with the red sox, and i can’t disparage any singular decision that they’ve made, but this is a team that is relying on quite a few “big ifs”. such as:

IF Beckett’s blister problems don’t continue
IF Lowell regains some semblance of form as a hitter
IF Schilling can be even somewhat effective
IF Foulke doesn’t shit the bed
IF Dustin Pedoria can contribute in the 2nd half
IF Kevin Youkilis turns into a decent hitter with 500AB’s (they’re projecting 15-20HR with a .400 OBP)
IF Manny remains somewhat happy
IF no one else gets injured (we are one jason varitek injury away from a starting lineup with John Flaherty)

then, and only then, will the red sox be a decent 95 win team this year. which, given toronto’s retooling and oaklands potential of having a full year with their rookie starters, will be exactly what it takes to win the WC

the yankees? forget about it. the yankees are the division front runners, and barring injury or rapid degredation amongst several of their players, i see no reason why they won’t take yet another division title.

now, things can change between then and now. one thing i did not mention is the Jo(h)ns, Papelbon and Lester, who the sox managed to hold onto this year, could both be excellent additions to the pitching staff, and would give us some room to trade a starter (arroyo) for a decent position player in case the Alex Cora at SS experiement doesn’t work out. There’s always the chance that Kapler can come back and contribute, but that was a pretty serious injury late in the season, and i don’t think he’s a full time player anyways. but we still need a 4th OF and pinch runner. besides, Trot will inevitably go on the DL for 3 weeks or so, as he does every year (not that i don’t love trot, but let’s be honest, he’s not durable).

So, with 45 days to go till pitchers and catchers report, we’re heavy on pitching and weak up the middle. And i don’t think those deals can be made now. so we hope that our strengths can beat out our weaknesses, and that toronto isn’t the looming giant they appear to be.

(sidenote: i actually think this is very possible. i like all of torontos additions, but each one of them had a pretty big question mark attached to them, be it experience as a closer, ability to get on base, or injury risk. Toronto could be a mirage)

my preseason prediction is that the sox win 92 games, and very very narrowly win the wild card.

and yet, we won. cause the other team didn’t show up. Which will make us the #1 seed going into the playoffs this weekend. but man, do we look like the weakest #1 seed ever. We scrimmaged each other in a nice little “keep your skillz up” game (team ITP vs the others), and i’ve seen better bocce played by cats, even cats who are currently doing other stuff and ignoring the game.

to make an excuse, let’s run down the roster:

Daya (was 4 martini’s deep by the time she got to the bar)
Sara (was exhausted)
KB (was sick)
Kevin (was jet lagged)
Alex (was fine, and it showed as he was the only one to play well consistently)
I (was in a pissy mood and hadn’t eaten, so i got trashed pretty quick)

i won’t go into the specifics of the game for everyone, but i personally threw several balls waaaaaay off target, and basically looked like a complete amateur (to the point where after i made 1 good shot, alex came out of the john, and was like “wow, manlio came through”). And playing poorly is ok, if it’s game 1. but this was game last. we come out with that crap on sunday, we’ll be the best #1 seed ever to not make it past our first playoff game.

6abc.com: Dance-Off Leads to Rumble

i really love stories which include characters who decide at some point to try and get in their car and run people over. it’s just classic.

after 2 weeks, my 3 fantasy teams are a combined 1-5. most of hte losses haven’t even been close, and the win was sort of an accident. i pretty much chose every dissappointing player in the league this year. Culpepper? got him. Jamal Lewis? got him in 2 leagues. Ravens D? also in 2 leagues. to give you a little taste of what my teams are looking like (keep in mind that the blue icons mean “cold”):

yesterday i participated in the first atlantic avenue triathalon. bocce, darts, pool, and good times. plus some alcohol. i didn’t make hte finals, and none of us even got int he final game, but it was still fun. then kevin and i won a few games of bocce at floyd, where people were really really emotionally involved in their bocce, to the point where i almost got in a fight over absolutely nothing with one of the guys… anyways, it was good times.

with all the fantasy drafting going on for football season, i thought i’d give a list of my 10 greatest and worst moments of football drafting. 5 good, 5 bad…

The 5 worst moments of my fantasy drafting career

5. Baseball 2003 season. Drafting from a ski trip in colorado, i somehow forget my cardinal rule of not taking 1B early, and draft Jim Thome in the first round. his first year in the national league is a tough one, and I wind up in 6th place out of 12 and out of the money for the only time in the 4 years of the Gamblers Anonomyous leage

4. Baseball 2004 season. Stormy and I draft a team together, my first experience doing so. in the middle rounds we’re looking at miguel cabrera, high on my list, and Ryan Klesko. Stormy swears that cabrera will be around next pass, so we draft klesko. Cabrera goes 3 picks later, and klesko hits 3HR’s that year. i fully believe that this was the difference between our 3rd place finish and a potential 1st place trophy.

3. Football 2002 season. my first season of fantasy football in a really deep 16 team league. this entire draft was a disaster, i think i finished in 12th place. i don’t even remember who was on my team, i think it was stephen davis back in his redskin days and travis henry in his rookie season.

2. Football 2005 season. in my first draft of 3 leagues, i am unable to make it online, so i use the robot. the robot proceeds to draft 4 defenses, 3 QB’s, and 2 TE’s, without taking a kicker, or any backup RB/WR’s.

1. Baseball 2003 season. deciding that pitching is the key, i take Bartolo Colon, Wade Miller, and Mark Buerhle among my first 7 picks. All of the are .500 or below at the break, i trade buerhle before his amazing 2nd half, and my team never recovers.

The 5 best moments of my fantasy drafting career:

5. Baseball 2005 season. Everyone had given up on Pat Burrell. not me. i grab him in both leagues with a mid (12 or so) round selection and ride his productivity to early season excellence.

4. Baseball 2002 season. i grab a former LA 5th starter named Eric Gagne as a backup 3rd closer, and ride his breakout season to a sole 1st place finish.

3. Football 2004 season. my first 5 picks are: LT, TO, Vick, Andre Johnson, and Thomas Jones. this is an amazing setup for exactly 4 weeks, until Vick falls apart and Grossman goes down, ruining TJ’s effectiveness. still a brilliant 5 rounds of drafting.

2. Football 2003 season. I am unable to make the draft and at the last minute have to use the robot, setting my list frantically with help from classmates. the robot ends up taking Tom Brady, Torry Holt in his breakout year, Stephen Davis in his carolina resurgance, and a few other brilliant picks. Lyandra remarks that i’m “drafting well”, not knowing that it’s a machine.

1. Baseball 2001 season. In the last few rounds of the draft i take Mark Buerhle, at that time a middle reliever rookie for the white sox who even stormy (a rabid chi sox fan) isn’t aware of. i win the award for “only player never heard of” drafted that year, and buerhle joins the rotation later that year and wins 10 games. later picks in that draft also include Eric Milton in his 15 win season for the twins, Jon Lieber during his 20 win season for the cubs, and Jamie Moyer for his first resurgence year.

grrr… we can’t BUY a win. another 7-6 loss, running our regular season record to 1-9. and that’s it. playoffs start next week, we’ll go in as the 20-22 seed out of 23. we played great again. i went 0-3 but tatooed a ball that their SS got to somehow. oh well. playoffs baby, playoffs.

sigh. we get closer and closer, but we just can’t pull it out. tonight El D lost a game 5-4, allowing the winning run to score in the bottom of the 6th, and then failing to score in the top of the 7th. i went a pitiful 0 for 3, grounding out to the pitcher twice and popping out once. I also botched the first ball I saw at 1B. so not a great night for me, or the team. we’re just so close to pulling it together. i hope it happens by the time playoffs roll around (the week after next)

a crushing loss for el destructo last night. up by 3 in the bottom of the 7th, yours truly let a ball get by him at 1B that ended up being a 3 run home run. then we lost the game in extra innings. truly deflating. on the bright side, i went 2 for 4, with 2 runs scored and 2RBI. of course, the big 2RBI triple was as a result of their center fielder playing the ball like a moron. still, i’ll take it.