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The Indians placed closer Joe Borowski on the 15-day disabled list on Tuesday with a strained right triceps. Borowski, who somehow led the American League with 45 saves last year despite a 5.07 ERA, was on his way out the closing gig anyways. His 80 mph fastball (yes, it was a fastball) that he served up for Manny Ramirez in the ninth inning Monday night that landed in the seats sealed the deal. It was obvious that something was wrong with his arm since Borowski can usually deliver his ho-hum heater in the 88 mph range. It was also obvious, after blowing his second straight save opportunity and seeing his ERA inflate to 18.00, that “Joe Blow” was likely done closing games for the Tribe.
Indians manager Eric Wedge doesn’t exactly have thrilling solutions to replace Borowski as closer, so fantasy owners will need to take some fliers. The first guy who should be picked up and the first guy who will likely get a chance to save games for Cleveland now is Rafael Betnacourt. As a setup man, Betancourt was fantastic last year, registering 31 holds and a 1.48 ERA. But as a fill-in closer since 2003, he has been awful; he has blown 17 of 29 career save opportunities. Moreover, his stats this season include a 5.14 ERA and 1.71 WHIP. Not good.
Therefore, fantasy owners may also want to consider making a speculative pickup of Masahide Kobayashi, Jorge Julio, or Rafael Perez. All of them could get a shot at filling the Indians closer role should Betancourt’s struggles continue. Julio has 99 career saves, but in 2007 he blew all seven of the save opportunities he had for the Rockies and Marlins. I plucked Kobayashi out of the free agency pool in one of my leagues late last week just in case Borowski completely imploded. Before signing with the Indians this past winter, he averaged more than 30 saves a season over the last seven years in the Japanese Pacific League. Even though Kobayashi apparently is not first in line to replace Joe Blow, I can either use him as trade bait or hold him on my bench in case he gets a shot to save games down the line.
The baseball season is less than a week old. Many teams haven’t even made it to the fifth starter in their rotations yet. There are still some players rehabbing down in extended spring training for cryin’ out loud. Yet some fantasy baseball owners are already starting to panic, as they are wont to do, because their team is not playing up to their expectations.
Don’t be that owner.
Of the many things I have learned in my two-plus decades of playing fantasy baseball, perhaps the most beneficial is importance of patience. I don’t get too worked up about where my team is in the standings or how most players are doing until Memorial Day. If your team is near the bottom of your league’s standings at the end of May… then you can start reaching for the panic button. Until then, relax and realize that it’s still early. Your team might be in last place in your roto league right now, but it could very well be in first place by the end of the weekend. Have some faith that the homework you did to prepare for draft day was worth the effort and don’t start second guessing yourself about every player who happens to be off to a slow start. There’s still more than 150 games left to go. If this were a fantasy football season, we’d still be in the first quarter of the first game of the season. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, blah, blah, blah…
Case in point: 2006 MVP Justin Morneau. The Minnesota Twins slugger was probably the first AL first baseman selected in your fantasy draft, yet he struggled during spring training and after four regular season games he is still hitless and his owners are pulling their hair out. Chill out, people. Morneau will be fine. It’s not like he hasn’t scuffled through rough stretches at the plate before. In fact, during his aforementioned MVP campaign he batted just .208 in April.
In Morneau’s first 10 at bats this year, he struck out twice and grounded out eight times. The lack of line drives or anything resembling a fly ball was rather alarming for Morneau. He usually winds up chasing and diving after pitches when he is in a funk at the plate, often times missing wildly with his unconventional Fred-McGriff-meets-Bobby-Orr-type swing. At least he’s making some contact.
There are good signs. On Thursday, Morneau started driving the ball in the air a bit more. Sure he flew out a couple times, but hey at least one of them was a sacrifice fly, so he’s got that going for him, which is nice. He’s reportedly been taking lots of extra batting practice too. And, in a sign that he hasn’t started pressing too much, he has been playing gold glove defense. He’s not taking his bad at bats out to the field on defense.
If the Morneau owner in your fantasy league is panicking, the best thing you can do is offer to take him off their hands. It’s called buying low. Of course, you might opt to wait on that trade offer until after the Twins weekend series with the Kansas City Royals, whose pitching staff just got done inexplicably mowing down the 1927 Yankees, er… the Detroit Tigers rock-star lineup. Morneau had more at bats (69) against the Royals last year than any other team, but he hit just .232 against them, with a .639 OPS, zero home runs, and only four RBI. The trends suggest his early-April lack of production could last until Monday.
Just don’t wait too long to make lowball offers on struggling fantasy studs because Morneau, like many others who are currently slumping, is just one good game away from snapping out of it.
And for those of you with Morneau, or Matt Holliday, or Alfonso Soriano, or Placido Polanco, or (insert name here), there’s no need to panic yet.
Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.
Just because I’m known to some of my friends and colleagues as the biggest Brett Favre fan among lifelong Vikings fans does not mean I need to be kept away from sharp objects. I am not in denial. I know the gunslinger has decided to retire.
I don’t know if I can say the same about my in-laws who live in Wisconsin and wore Packers gear to my wedding rehearsal dinner last fall. I have not heard from them all day and, quite frankly, I’m a bit worried.
Brett has decided to hang up the cleats, to put the gun back in the holster… to retire. I have come to grips with that and, as a Vikings fan, that’s good news.
As many have pointed out today, he’s played in more straight games, thrown more passes for more completions, more interceptions, more yards, and more touchdowns, won more games, and won more MVP awards than anyone who has ever played quarterback. Favre has all the records and accolades, he has a Super Bowl ring, and his bust is already being worked on in Canton.
The question then is: why retire now? After years of flirting with retirement, why retire after one of his best seasons with a team that almost got to the Super Bowl?
Packers’ general manager Ted Thompson and head coach Mike McCarthy held a press conference this afternoon looking as though they hadn’t slept a wink. Asked why Brett decided to retire, they kept coming back to the fact that he was mentally tired.
How will his heir apparent, Aaron Rodgers, fill his shoes? You might be surprised to know that I’m not totally down on him. Rodgers knows the Packers offense well, has good size, an accurate arm, two Pro Bowl caliber wide receivers, the support of a solid running game (assuming Ryan Grant was not a mirage) and he looked good in his limited opportunities this past season. I would not want him as my starting quarterback in a standard 12-team fantasy league, but as a backup, I’m listening. Have you seen what passes for “quarterbacking” for at least half the teams in the NFL lately? Then again, maybe Grant, Greg Jennings, Donald Driver, et al. looked as good as they did because of ol’ number 4. In the end, none of them will be as valuable to fantasy owners.
Skeptics will point out that Favre conveniently waited until his name was atop the record books in several more prestigious passing categories to retire. I don’t buy it. He was still wrestling with the decision last week when he spoke to McCarthy and ultimately didn’t make up his mind until Monday. There are also those who will mock and chide Favre over the reports that he spoke with then-free agent Randy Moss last week and was prepared to play another year or two if the team signed him. And then when the Patriots re-signed the record-breaking receiver, he decided to take his ball and go home. Again, I’m not buying it. Favre made no mention of Moss in the infamous voicemail he left Chris Mortensen nor did he mention it to McCarthy or Thompson.
You can’t call me a homer for not believing the negativity about Brett because, again, I’m not a Packer fan. By all rights I should despise the guy after all he’s done to my Purple-helmeted warriors over the years, but I don’t. You didn’t have to be a Packer fan to enjoy watching Favre play the game with the youthful exuberance of a kid in his backyard for the past 17 years. You just had to be a football fan.
I know I’m just teeing myself up for ridicule from those I know, but I’m going to say it anyways. In my years of watching and covering sports, rarely have I truly, seriously missed watching a player perform after their retirement, but I’m going to miss watching Brett Favre. I wish him well.
It was a heckuva nice run.
I think it’s unlikely that the Miami Dolphins will hold onto the first overall pick in April’s draft, but if they don’t trade it away to some team gaga over Darren McFadden or Matt Ryan, I think they might just grab Michigan All-American tackle Jake Long.
Nope, taking an offensive lineman is never a sexy pick, but as my good friend John Tuvey is fond of saying: “It all starts up front!” Of course, he just says that because he played on the line in college… and because he likes to mock Dan Dierdorf.
Where was I? Oh yeah, taking an offensive lineman is never sexy, but something tells me that new Dolphins GM Bill Parcells could give a crap about sexy. What he does care about is loading up with talent, which is why if he doesn’t stockpile picks by trading away the first one, I think he just might address one of their many positions of need by grabbing Long number one.
Long just got done turning in one of the most, if not THE most, impressive workouts at the combine in Indianapolis this week. The 6-7, 315-pound, heavily-tattooed monster wowed the stopwatch-carrying scouts in all the drills, but especially in the bench press where he tied with Vernon Gholston by putting up 225 for a combine-high 37 reps. Coincidentally, Gholston is the only player to beat Long for a sack during his senior year.
Going with Long is hardly a (ahem) long shot. He’s the safest pick in this year’s draft.
For my complete first round mock draft, please visit www.fantasyfootballchamps.com.
Hitting .327 with 32 home runs and 103 RBI is called a great season nine out of 10 times; the exception is Albert Pujols. The Cardinals All-World first baseman has set the bar so absurdly high, that anything short of the spectacular production he usually provides gets labeled as an “off” season.
The inclination is to dismiss Pujols 2007 campaign as an aberration and return him to his usual place among the top-ranked players in fantasy baseball—perhaps as high as No. 2 behind Alex Rodriguez. However, blindly doing so would be to ignore the giant red flag waving over him this spring.
Pujols is one of my favorite baseball players. His is the only baseball bobblehead I own. He has helped me win in fantasy baseball many times. But I won’t be drafting him this season because of the right elbow injury he should have had surgery on following last season.
What elbow injury, you ask? Normally, I’d accuse someone asking such a thing of living under a proverbial rock, but I understand the confusion. As players begin reporting to spring training in the aftermath of the Mitchell Report, the Clemens saga on Capitol Hill, and the drama surrounding the Johan Santana trade, Pujols’ elbow woes get lost in the shuffle.
Pujols’ elbow has been bothering him for several seasons, and he when he found out after the 2007 season how much time he would miss if he had to have surgery on it, he elected not to do so. This has led to widespread speculation that he needs Tommy John (ligament replacement) surgery on the elbow—a procedure that would cost him the entire season.
Just how much is the elbow bothering him? He showed reporters last month that he couldn’t straighten his arm all the way and admitted that it had limited his weight training during the offseason.
Those expecting Pujols to continue playing through elbow, or any other injuries, should know that he has a new philosophy heading into this season. Regarding last year’s leg injuries, Albert told the St. Louis Post Dispatch, “After May, I just felt it was hurting and it was hurting pretty bad. … If that same problem is happening this year, I don’t think I’m going to play the whole year the same way. I sacrificed my body. That’s how I put it.
“I’m telling myself that I ain’t going through the same pain that I went through last year.”
Umm, that doesn’t sound promising.
Drafting Pujols is the biggest risk/reward in fantasy baseball this year. To get him, you need to spend a high first-round pick. But how excited are you to do so, given what we know of his condition and his stated intention not to play in excess pain this year?
Daniel Snyder and Chad Johnson deserve each other.
That’s why the more rumors I hear about the Bengals less-than-gruntled (some would even say disgruntled) wide receiver wanting out of Cincinnati and possibly going to Washington, the more I like it. The latest rumors come out of Tuesday’s Washington Post and suggest that Johnson’s agent Drew Rosenhaus (talk about another match.com dream pairing!) and the Redskins are working on a deal behind the proverbial scenes, or outside the beltway or something.
For their part, the Bengals have stated that they have no intentions of trading Johnson. Of course, they gain nothing by saying otherwise. However, the team would reportedly take an $8-million hit against their 2008 salary cap if they were to trade him, making a deal pretty unlikely.
Then again, Johnson obviously wants out of Cincy. His rift with head coach Marvin Lewis is well documented and the rumors that he had threatened to sit out the 2008 season if he was, God forbid, forced to live up to the contract he signed and play in Cincinnati didn’t just emerge from nowhere.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of this man who calls himself “Ocho Cinco.” I mean, I don’t mind some of the post-touchdown antics… I can stomach originality in TD celebrations more than players who have a parade for themselves when they get a first down or stuff a running back. It’s his general “pay attention to me, everybody!” attitude both on and off the field when coupled with his overrated production that galls me.
You know he couldn’t wait to make headlines after the season ended. He just couldn’t wait to stir the pot. He couldn’t wait to make the undeserved trip to Hawaii for the Pro Bowl so that he could talk cryptically to some reporters, blow off others, and even shove aside a NFL public relations representative.
Sure, Johnson is talented. He gets yardage in bunches, even set a franchise record for receiving yards. But his consistency leaves much to be desired—his all-or-nothing production from week to week makes him one of the more frustrating fantasy players and is the primary reason I don’t want him on another one of my fantasy squads. To wit, he has scored in just four of his last 22 games. Of course, when he does score, he usually goes off big time; of the last six games in which Johnson has scored, five have been multi-touchdown efforts. Then he routinely disappears from the box score for weeks at a time…though he somehow never strays too far from a microphone.
All of which goes back to my point: Snyder would be the perfect owner to acquire Johnson because he seems to be more concerned with style than substance. You can bet that the Redskins chief will be opening the company wallet wide this offseason, throwing money around with no regard for how the pieces will all fit together, in an attempt to “fix” all the good that Joe Gibbs did while he was back at the helm. As long as Snyder shows everyone how much money he has, he’ll be happy.
I can’t say that I would be too crazy about Johnson’s fantasy value if he were to land in Washington. It’s going to be a new offense (again) this year for the Redskins, but their wide receiver production in 2007 was pitiful; they were the last team in the NFL to record a wide receiver touchdown this past season. Having Johnson demanding the ball from a kid like Jason Campbell who is still trying to gain his NFL bearings doesn’t seem like a good recipe.
Oh well, if the deal somehow goes down at least Johnson and Snyder will be happy.
I’ve had an unnaturally strong craving for fettucine alfredo ever since reading the accounts of the tendon remnants in the right shoulder of Curt Schilling. In case you missed it, the 41-year-old hurler’s doctor, Craig Morgan, recently described the shoulder as Emeril Lagasse might describe a pasta recipe, “Instead of being a single tendon, it’s like three pieces of spaghetti or linguine, and when that happens it’s end-stage disease in the tendon,” Morgan told the Associated Press.
Reading the ominous description of Schilling’s shoulder and the associated pain he is enduring (11 on a scale of 1-10) leads me to two conclusions beyond boiling water and tossing in some noodles: first, there is a strong possibility that he may undergo season ending, and perhaps career ending, surgery. Secondly, even if the cortisone injection he recently received successfully masks the pain for a while, he won’t make more than 20 starts this year.
Both scenarios should scare the Prego out of fantasy owners. Stay away for your own good; do not draft the man even if you agree with his political leanings. Fantasy owners would be much better off spending their late round draft picks or a few auction bucks on the youngsters who are poised to round out the BoSox rotation like Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz.
I wonder if the Red Sox are kicking themselves now for not making one last push to deal for Johan Santana?
Yesterday Johan Santana was introduced to the Big Apple media as the newest Met as well as the newest (and richest) member of the infamous $100-million pitcher club. I’m done debating the merits of the trade—the Twins were devoid of leverage and thus were robbed—and I’m opting instead to look beyond the lopsided deal to the fall-out…beginning in, of all places, Cleveland.
Like Santana, the Indians C.C. Sabathia is one of the best starting pitchers in the game. Like Santana, he is a left-hander with Cy Young distinction on his resume. Santana will be 29 in March. Sabathia will be 28 in July. They were both set to become free agents after the 2008 season. Now that Santana’s extension is done, Sabathia is in line for his huge pay day and the Indians offer, believed to be in the $17-million per year range, is looking a tad small.
Will Sabathia and his agents get creative and find a way to get things done with Cleveland—the organization Sabathia has been with since he was a teenager? Will he back off what the market set by Santana is dictating and give a discount to Cleveland, a place he considers his second home? One thing seems pretty certain: barring a total collapse, the Indians will not trade him. The Tribe has a team that came within a whisker of the World Series last year and should contend again this season. Moreover, the Indians have let it be known that they fully intend to get something done with their ace and not let him get away as others like Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez did.
My guess is that Sabathia falls a little short of last year’s Cy Young numbers and winds up staying in Cleveland in a discounted fashion like Jake Peavy in San Diego when all is said and done. If he approximates or somehow exceeds last year’s numbers, all bets are off. There are not many teams that can afford Sabathia if he hits the open market. The Yankees and Red Sox would clearly have interest, but a move to the more pitcher-friendly National League (C.C. reportedly likes swinging the bat) is not out of the question. Sabathia is from Vallejo, CA and he might like pitching in Dodger Blue… what pitcher wouldn’t like pitching in that stadium?
The good thing in all of this for fantasy owners, especially those that have Sabathia’s rights in keeper leagues, is that none of the above scenarios are negative. If the big fella holds up to the increased workload (last year was just his second with more than 200 innings) he should be embarking on a nice string of seasons in which he is an elite fantasy hurler.
