Hope Springs Eternal

Just a couple of points about the basketball games yesterday. I really thought Georgetown would handle Ohio State but I guess Jeff Green was busy Monday and didn't want to play another game. Also how did UCLA make it to the final four? They have streaky shooters and no low post presence. It's not like they went on some hot run either. They were ranked number one for a large potion of the year and were always in the top 5. Kevin Love can't come fat enough.

You know how I called out Lee Humphrey and he responded with his best game of the year. Well on Friday I was all ready to call out either Brewer (who was turning the ball over too much and not making his outside shots) or Chris Richard (who was giving us nothing in the post) Anyways I never got around to writing anything Friday and I don't even care that you don't believe me. The point is Noah I'm calling you out for the finals. With Horford on Oden they have no one who should handle you. It's time to make everyone remember why you could have been the top pick last year.

Alright today is the start of the baseball season and I participated in two fantasy baseball drafts. One of them was a 14 team league where everyone knew what they were doing. The other was an 8 team league that a couple of people took as a joke and I ended up with a ridiculously good team. Anyway here's my team and my preseason rankings that I posted in the message board.

My Team
1B: Ortiz
2B: Phillips
3B: Chipper
SS: Furcal (Cabrera)
OF: Soriano
OF: Crawford
OF: Dunn
UT: Hafner
Bench: Swisher
Bench: Giambi
SP: Oswalt
SP: Webb
RP: Ray
RP: F. Cordero
P: Isringhausen
P: Young
P: Haren
P: Bonderman
P: Capuano
P: Patterson
P: Vazquez


Alright as promised the official preseason rankings but before I get into them just a couple of thoughts about the draft.
1) Small league so everybody's team is loaded some more than others but still everybody has quality players everywhere.

2) With the small league that means that there are and will be very good players on the waiver wire. So teams that aren't sitting pretty right now can jump right back into the thing with some key pickups

3) Nice to see everybody hold off on closers (First one picked was round 8) they just don't throw enough innings to give you anything real substantial besides saves.

4) Just my opinion but it seems that the majority of guys have way too many hitters. This might be because not everyone was there at the draft but you've got to realize that hitters on your bench might get in the starting lineup one game every two weeks whereas you can work in your entire pitching bench every week because unlike everyday players starting pitchers pitch once every fifth game.

5) Only other point is to remember that we don't count average only on base percentage. So guys like Troy Glaus with a poor 252 batting average become much more valuable with a solid 355 on base percentage. People seemed to do a good job with this

Enough of that on to the rankings. Rather than rank them by number I've separated them into three groups based on their probability of winning. Snowball's chance, Puncher's chance, Legit contender.

Snowball's Chance
Team Mr. Pink: Nice to see you take the draft seriously. Even though you could have waited to round three if not later to grab Jeter why fool around. If this were a draft of guys you want to pick up chicks with then Jeter would be the no brainer choice and the draft would probably unfold like this:
1) Jeter
2) Sizemore
3) Beltran
4) Billy Beane
7,851,654) Randy Johnson

The G-Dot Stars: Another guy who did his homework. Maybe the veteran leadership behind the plate will payoff big in the postseason. If this were 1999 though we'd all be in big trouble.


Puncher's Chance
Cornbat Cowboys: Good balance and fire power on offence but just way too many hitters. Only three starting pitchers and two of them are over forty (Smoltz, Johnson) luckily every year there are lots of solid starters on the waiver wire.

Legit Contenders That's right 5 of the 8 teams are legit contenders
Danger The Bat: In your quest to field the same team as last year you seemed to forget that last year you finished second and that last years league had ten teams in it not eight. With that said still some solid players on offence and a deep pitching rotation. (Anyone who's first name is pronounced Dice K is alright in my books)

John Kruk: Solid team top to bottom and some stud pitchers. Only thing that concerns me is the lack of pitching depth but that can be addressed in the waiver wire.

Cox of Seagulls: Absolutely loaded offensive lineup. lots of quality pitchers. Here's a guy that knows what he's doing.

Zinger Tosses K's: Another loaded offensive lineup and some ace pitchers and closers to boot. Plus he's got the secret to my past winning teams which is be fortunate enough to have Pujols on your team. Only downside is a couple too many batters but that is easily correctable.

The Vanilla Thrilla: Obviously I like my team also. I kind of wish I would have taken A-rod over Soriano because he's more consistent and has better plate discipline but going back to the Jeter analogy that's like Jeter complaining about not banging Jessica Alba anymore even though he's banging Jessica Biel. Anyway this took a really long time to write, time I should have spent studying but if I fail my midterms tomorrow I can always take them again next semester. You need to remember what's really important in life things like fantasy baseball. Seeing as how this is a really long season and guys tend to drop out at some point during the season I'll try to write something up here at least once every two weeks or so. That way maybe it will entice them to stick around longer and if some guy with no training and no talent writing about a pretend league with no money on the line doesn't get you excited then there's no hope for you.

(Some of it doesn't make sense and I had to edit a couple of points)