A Whole New Ballgame, part 2


It's just a few days after the draft and after a slew of transactions, everyone's rosters are beginning to take shape.  My own took a turn for the better when the Jamie Walker became available.  I had targeted him originally because he was effective against lefties and about as cheap as players get.  He's not quite as good against southpaws as Ricardo Rincon or Brian Shouse, but the difference in salary was significant enough to allow me to drop Michael Cuddyer, who was in large part redundant on my roster, for Cliff Floyd.  So instead of Chipper Jones .797 OPS against righties as my DH, I now have Floyd and his .886 OPS.  His speed will add another tool to the line-up and hopefully being used strictly as a DH will keep him healthy.  Chipper now settles in as the regular DH against righties and takes Cuddyer's position as the back-up third baseman and left fielder. 

All this because Jamie Walker was available.  That pick-up also meant that I no longer have to consider dropping Gagne or Guardado for a less expensive and perhaps less effective closing option in order to bolster my offense.  The keys to my pitching staff are the superior infield defense and a relief corps that, like the Nasty Boys did for the 1990 Reds, should in effect reduce the game to a six-inning affair.  Having to drop one of the guys at the end for someone less-than-dominating like Danny Kolb, Danny Graves or Braden Looper could have been at the very least risky, and possibly devastating.

One of the neatest aspects about sim games like Strat-o-matic, Dynasty League, Diamond Mind and others is that they incorporate more than just the hitting numbers into the game.  Like real GMs, one has to take into account everything about a player.  One has to weigh talent, durability, salary and position flexibility when deciding on which players to choose and then try to fit together the pieces so that the sum created is greater than it's parts.  A guy like Alfredo Amezaga has little or no value in a roto league, especially a mixed league.  But in a sim, he's a terrific defender at three positions, has speed and can bunt.  Those attributes may only be needed in 10-15 games over the course of an entire season.  Being able to get down a bunt or steal a base or turn a key double play late in a one-run game could be the difference between winning and losing those games, which in turn may mean making or not making the playoffs. 

Anyway, the division is beginning to take shape and it looks like it will be a pretty interesting season.  In my division are Tristan Cockroft of ESPN.com, Jeff Erickson of Rotowire and Al Melchior of Baseball HQ.  And unlike me, each of them has played this before and knows what they are doing:

Detroit Dozers - Al opted for spacious Comerica Park, then stacked his rotation with Randy Johnson, Freddie Garcia, Ted Lilly, Bobby Madritsch and Carl Pavano.  Had the Unit pitched there last year instead of the hitter-friendly BOB, he might have set a record for lowest ERA in history.  That didn't leave a lot of room for spending in the bullpen, but he got quality and depth with Noah Lowry, Steve Kline and Luis Ayala topping the list.  On offense, he got some inexpensive sluggers like Carlos Delgado, Luis Gonzales, Keith Ginter and Casey Blake along with catching standout Ramon Hernandez.   Naturally in such a big ballpark, he also got speed with Coco Crisp, Brady Clark and Willie Bloomquist. 

The Bank of New York - Tristan's squad will call Yankee Stadium home.  I was a bit surprised to see that he didn't load up on lefties given the dimensions of the right field short porch, but then I noticed he did one better - he loaded up on switch hitters.  I'll bet the current Yankees would love to have his collection of Mark Teixeira, Milton Bradley, Lance Berkman and Mark Bellhorn.  Throw in Miguel Tejada, Frank Thomas, Pat Burrell, Joe Crede and Vinny Castilla and it's easy to see his team is all about the thunder.  Well, except that he also has a pretty decent starting staff that begins with Jason Schmidt and Tim Hudson.  Javier Vazquez will again try to make a go in the House that Ruth built, as will Adam Eaton and Zack Greinke.  In the bullpen he has four guys with closer experience - Latroy Hawkins, Troy Percival, Damaso Marte and Lance Carter.

Florida Fishbones - Jeff chose Florida's Pro Player Stadium as his stomping grounds and stole away both Jake Peavy and Oliver Perez at the draft.  He also slipped in Jaret Wright for perhaps the best starting three in the league, although Brendan Roberts can certainly make a strong case for his troika of Curt Schilling, Ben Sheets and Brad Radke.  Fortunately, one of those guys is in a different division.  The back end of Jeff's rotation isn't too bad either with a choice of Jon Lieber, Nate Robertson and Brett Myers.  Closing will be Ugueth Urbina and he'll be set up by a competent and occasionally dominant crew of Matt Miller, Rudy Seanez, Raphael Betancourt and Brian Fuentes.  His offense is led by all-world hitter Bobby Abreu, with a solid supporting cast of Melvin Mora, Javy Lopez, Mark Kotsay, Lyle Overbay and Kevin Mench.  Not forgetting about the speed, he also grabbed Chone Figgins and Julio Lugo.  However, I suspect he'll opt for superior middle infield defense with Khalil Greene and Ron Belliard more often than not. 

Obviously I have my work cut out for me.  It will be interesting to see how my groundball staff fares against the multitude of sluggers in the division.  It will also be interesting to see how much injuries play a part as the season unfolds.  Next Monday, my Montreal Funiculars open the season in Detroit and all the guesswork and questions will be answered.


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