Oh, Schmidt

I had attempted to deal Jason Schmidt earlier in the week, hoping someone would take him for their DL slot in the hopes of him coming back later in the season. But today, we found out he's done for the season... Some kind of surgery... Torn labrum... Frayed ligaments or something... I don't know, my eyes glazed over and I stopped reading. I went into a kind of shock temporarily... The kind of shock you only get when one of your key players goes down with season-ending injury. It's like... "Well, shit."

Season line on Schmidt: 1 W, 6.31 ERA, 1.79 WHIP, and approximately 15 UGHs. At least he gave me 22 Ks.

Schmidt was a pretty fair bet, I figured in the pre-season, in a pitcher's park like Dodger Stadium, to be a Cy Young candidate. So this is a huge blow for the Squirrels. But it could be worse; I could be the Dodgers GM who gave him a $47 million contract. He should've let the Giants keep him.

WHIP'd Cream on Top

My plan to lower my WHIP turned out to be fairly genius. All Jeremy Guthrie did was go 8 innings allowing only 4 hits and a walk. The W was a nice bonus. And the 9 Ks? That's like jimmies on the whipped cream! BTW, this kid is for real. His 2.42 ERA is 2nd and his 0.89 WHIP is best in the AL. And I found him on the waiver wire? And he's still only 27% owned? Next start will be a test vs the Yankees (Tuesday, June 26). I think I'll keep him and see what happens.


His opponent, Justin Germano, had a rough first inning, then showed the mettle to settle down. His WHIP for the game ended up a 1.17, which actually raised his season WHIP to 0.96. His 7 Ks were a season-high surprise. I think I'll keep him, too.

Offensively, everybody in my line-up had at least one hit (.422) and 2 steals from Ichiro, who's running wild lately. I got a save from Alan Embree, who's better than everybody thinks.

As of this writing, I've moved up 2 places in WHIP, which has translated into a move from 6th to 4th in the league.

All in all, not a terrible day, considering I lost my 5th draft pick.

WHIP It, WHIP It Good!

Time to kick it old-school, Devo-Style. Break out the red plastic flowerpot hats everybody!

See, I have a WHIP problem. My ERA has been as good as 2nd in the league for much of the year (it's down to 5th now) but my WHIP has remained in 2nd to last. That's a big divergence. Everybody else in the league is ranked nearly the same in the two categories, except the Ticks, who get 12 points for their WHIP and only 5 for their ERA. I can offer no explanation for this anamoly, except to assume it will even out in the end. Meanwhile, I'm WHIP hunting in an attempt to mitigate my position.

Among pitchers with any kind of innings, relievers dominate the WHIP leaderboard. I see names like Putz (0.64), Soriano, Neshek, Betancourt, Isringhuasen, Saito, Shields, Okijima, Hoffman, and Fuentes. Now kids, what do these all have in common? That's right, they're all relievers! (The first starter you see when sorting by WHIP is Danny Haren, (0.88). I'm not likely to pry him away in a trade.)

Good news here is that I own Neshek and Okijima. Bad news is, I'm still 2nd to last in the category. Jason Schmidt, Felix Hernandez, and other struggling starters have really dug me a hole, and it's clear that, although helpful, Neshek and Okijima aren't going to be able to fix my problem an inning at a time.

I had added Casey Janssen last week, hoping for a vulture W or save along with his superb ERA and WHIP (both are 0.97!), but as a shortman, he's not helping, and at 3% ownership, he's expendable. I've also got Ryan Doumit, who I like for his power, average, and C eligibility, but he's not been playing consistently and is 1% owned. These guys I can drop for two spot starters.

We're looking for sleeper starters on the waiver wire with super-low WHIPs. Here's what I found:

IP H ER BB K W ERA WHIP Owned
Jeremy Guthrie, Bal 73.2 55 21 13 47 3 2.57 0.92 18.7%
Justin Germano, SD 42.0 34 11 5 17 5 2.36 0.93 13.5%

Guthrie I've been watching out of the corner of my eye, and Germano has already made one spot start for me, so I've already done my homework on them. I added both without hesitation for their upcoming starts, which happen to be today. Against each other. In San Deigo. Yes, if you see my light on at 1AM, you'll know I'm watching Baseball Tonight for highlights of the late games!

Ongoing Obsessive Post-Trade Analysis:
Berkman is 7 for 23 with 4 runs scored, a .304 BA, and (inexplicably) a steal thus far for the Squirrel Squad.

Lowell is 6 for 29, 3 runs scored, a homer, 3 RBI, and a .207 BA for the Tick-Killers.

The TKs remain atop of the standings, while I remain in 6th some 15 points behind. But I'm only 3 homers away from passing him in that category. Of course, without the trade, I'd be 1 homer behind. Oh well, it's still early.

My Season Starts Today

Today, June 11, is the beginning of the rest of my fantasy baseball season. Sure, we've been playing for 11 weeks. But this could be a turning point. My season could be made or broken on this date. What better time to start my hotly-anticipated, long-planned, much-procrastinated fantasy blog?

See, last week, I made a trade offer to the Tick-Killers, a multi-player offer that included Mike Lowell. I knew he needed a 3B -- I mean, seriously, Mark DeRosa?! -- and I was interested in trying to do a buy-low/sell-high deal for slumping slugger Lance Berkman. He countered with an e-mail containing essentially a standing offer: "Thanks but no thanks, however, I'd do Lowell for Berkman straight up whenever you want to submit it."

My first reaction was an impulsive one: "Wow! Really?!" I wanted to jump on it but quick before he changed his mind!

But I had to do my due diligence.

Let's check the pre-season draft value. Berkman was his 2nd overall pick, drafted 18th overall. Lowell was my 23rd pick, 291st overall. Yikes. This is even better than I thought!

But I still hesitated. As a die-hard Red Sox fan, I'd watched Lowell every day on NESN produce at a prodigious rate for me all season long. I'd grown attached to him. He'd even been part of one of my all-time favorite moments in baseball, when the Sox hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back homers. What's better than the Sox hitting 4 homers in a row? Hitting 4 homers in a row against the Yankees. What's even better than that? Owning 3 of them in one fantasy league, and the other in another! Thus far, Lowell had given me 11 homers, 46 RBI, and a .312 batting average. Berkman, OTOH, had woefully underperformed to date: 8/37/.250.

From a needs basis, Tick-Killers were in first place and has a plethora of power-hitting 1B -- Sexon, Delgado, Berkman, and he just picked up DL'd Lyle Overbay. He was dealing from strength. In 5th place, I had Kevin Kouzmanoff -- a "can't-miss" rookie who had been doing a lot of missing thus far -- at 1B/3B, and if I did the deal, I would need to add a 3B from free agency to fill the 3B void left by Lowell. 1B offered no reasonable alternatives on the wire. 3B Brandon Inge, he of the grotesque .050 BA for me to start the season, was starting to hit and represented my best option on the waiver wire. Maybe he'd get the chance to redeem himself with the Squirrels? It wasn't a no-brainer, that's for certain.

Next, and most importantly, I evaluated their potential for production for the rest of the season. This, of course, was the most -- really, the only -- salient issue at hand. Let's go to the stats. Turns out Berkman has averaged 34 homers, 114 RBI, and .301 over the course of his career. Being an AL guy, that's better than I expected. No wonder he went 18th in the draft! Lowell, to his credit, has averaged a very respectable 23/95/.275. Nothing to sneeze at, but not exactly Berkman level stuff. A little quick 5th grade math -- hey, I'm an English major for crissakes, no complex algorithms for me -- and it seems I could reasonably expect 12 more dingers, another 48 RBI, and a decrease in batting average from Lowell. Not bad, but in order to reach his career average, Berkman could put up serious numberage: 26 HRs, 77 RBI, and a whopping +.50 points of batting average.

Still, I was pulling on my beard whiskers over this deal. What if I'm giving up a bird-in-hand for a turkey-in-the-bush? Berkman could be having a down year, and what I see now is what I'm going to get. Then, reviewing his profile for the 12th time, I noticed something else of interest. His birthday. February 10, 1976. He was born on my 9th birthday! Mere months, in fact, after Carlton Fisk had hit the homer in the '75 World Series -- at the time, the galvanizing event of my life thus far. Was it a sign? Damn right it was! (No one ever accused me of being Vulcan.)

I logged in and sent the offer, Lowell for Berkman, straight up.

Over the weekend, as we waited for the deal to process, it came out that Lowell had a strained ligament in his thumb and had been playing though the injury. That explained his recent 2-20 skid. Meanwhile, Berkman was about to be suspended for a temper tantrum. Both players had issues, but neither was a deal-breaker. Nobody in the league protested a veto, if they even paid any attention at all.

The deed was done. My season has begun.