Draft #2 Complete

Little did I know that the staff of Dr. Freddie Thomas High, with the exception of a few diamonds in the rough, have little to no idea how to win in Fantasy Baseball. The draft went very well.

I tried some things I don't usually do, such as drafting a pitcher before round 5. I got into the draft and got a little crazy.

ChicksDigShrunkBalls
1. (3) Russell Martin
2. (18) Lance Berkman
3. (23) Chris Davis
4. (38) Alex Gordon
5. (43) Chase Utley
6. (58) Mike Aviles
7. (63) Yunel Escobar
8. (78) Matt Holliday
9. (83) Andre Ethier
10. (98) Nelson Cruz
11. (103) Ryan Doumit
12. (118) Pablo Sandoval
13. (123) Lastings Milledge
14. (138) Jason Motte
15. (143) Kyle Lohse
16. (158) Johan Santana
17. (163) John Lackey
18. (178) Félix Hernández
19. (183) Ricky Nolasco
20. (198) Mike Pelfrey
21. (203) Joakim Soria
22. (218) Brian Fuentes
23. (223) Matt Lindstrom
24. (238) Ubaldo Jiménez
25. (243) John Smoltz
26. (258) Kevin Gregg

These are not by round.

I took Utley first (8th pick), Santana 2nd, Matt Holliday 3rd, Fat Elvis 4th and so on.

I will keep the page reasonably updated on how were doing.

The Draft Is Complete

Bear's Brawlers
1. (1) David Wright
2. (24) Lance Berkman
3. (25) Matt Holliday
4. (48) Álex Ríos
5. (49) Dan Haren
6. (72) Ryan Doumit
7. (73) Joakim Soria
8. (96) Yovani Gallardo
9. (97) Mike Aviles
10. (120) Howie Kendrick
11. (121) Bobby Jenks
12. (144) Josh Johnson
13. (145) Yunel Escobar
14. (168) Alex Gordon
15. (169) Mike Pelfrey
16. (192) Ubaldo Jiménez
17. (193) Heath Bell
18. (216) Mark Reynolds
19. (217) Armando Galarraga
20. (240) John Smoltz
21. (241) Joey Devine
22. (264) Daniel Murphy

I had the first pick in the draft which means that I had the last pick in the second round and the first pick in the third, so on and so forth.

In general I am happy with this team. I try very hard to not rely on guys with a history of injuries. Which means banking on guys like Yovani Gallardo and Howie Kendrick, both of whom are tremendous when healthy, to stay that way is a gamble. Like I said yesterday, I don't put a ton of stock into the draft, there are going to be any number of players availible who will perform at a talent level equal to or above many of the players who were taken in the middle rounds.

I am counting on Fat Elvis (Berkman)to stay healthy. Which could be a huge gamble for me.

I am trying not to freak out and drop half my team right now. We will see how things shake out.

Next draft, Saturday. I have the 8th pick.

Draft Day

Draft Day is here. I tend to not put a ton of stock into the draft. There will be an absolute ton of players availible that go undrafted that are going to have a ton of value.

I have demonstrated a knack for finding value late (I drafted Josh Hamilton in the 17th round last year, and Jon Lester in the 21st).

I have my eye on some guys this year that I think might break out in a big way. I will post my team probably tomorrow morning.

I love draft day.

Where The Wild Things Are

"And now" cried Max, "Let the wild rumpus start!"

I Had To Post This

One of the funnier things I have ever seen.

And in case you are like me and were wonder what he was really yelling about:

WBC Finals-Baseball At Its Best

Baseball before performance enhancing drugs. Baseball before A-Rod's ridiculous salary. Baseball

The WBC was a huge success as far as I am concerned. No major injuries to pitchers. Chipper Jones got hurt, and all that really means to me is that Chipper Jones did was Chipper Jones always does.

I did notice a theme among the talking heads on ESPN where all they wanted to focus on was the injuries, whether it was on the radio or TV, every WBC conversation started with "Injuries, Injuries, Injuries".

Classic

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Michael Steele's Rap Battle Response
comedycentral.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Mark Sanford

This is awesome.

A Real American Hero

Of all the nights to fall asleep early.

I stayed awake for Vince Young v. USC

I stayed awake for Boise State v. Oklahoma

I stayed awake for Aaron Boone v. Wakefield

I stayed awake for Dave Roberts v. Mariano Rivera

And I fell asleep for this.

The WBC is awesome. It does however, have its flaws. The schedule sucks, too many off days between rounds. The tickets are too high priced and there are too many empty seats in the stadium. There is no reason that the WBC can't sell those seats.

Besides Chipper Jones getting hurt (Shocking I know) I think this tournament has been a huge success.

How We Got Here: Short Selling

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

The Money Honey Bee

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Seriously this is awesome.



This is how we got here. You guys are awesome.

Meghan and Rachel

Part I

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Part II

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I like Meghan McCain, I think she is doing a good job doing what she is doing. I do take issue with some of what she said here though. She says she loves the Republican Party, she loves everything about Republicans. But when pressed about how she feels about Republican fiscal policy, specifically her father's idiotic proposed "Spending Freeze" she had no idea what Republican fiscal policy is and she admitted it.

So my question to you Meghan is this, what aspects of (Disasterous) Republican policy is it exactly that you "Love".

Foreign Policy?

Fiscal Policy?

Domestic Policy?

Education?

The Environment?

Health Care?

Which of these spectacularly terrible Republican Philosophies is it exactly Megs that you "fell in love with".

The Republican party is failing to reach young, old and in the middle not because they are failing to spread their message, hell they have an entire cable news network and 10 times the talk radio stations spreading their message 24/7/365.

They are failing to reach people because the last 30 years have demonstrated that Republican policy is failed policy.

Wake up Meghan.

The "No Attacks" Mythology

I used to hate Chris Matthews and his saliva soaked jowels. I wish he had been tough like this in 2003 when the entire Main Stream Media was caught up in the Iraq ferver.

Better late than never I guess.

John v. Jim Part II

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Basic Cable Personality Clash Skirmish '09

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Economic Crisis

I am greatly enjoying this feud, I think Jim Cramer and his ilk are as responsible as anyone for this mess. It was all a big joke to everyone when the market was up and there was money to be made. Cramer would spazz out on the set of his stupid show and tell the world what to do with their money, now he looks like he is ready to cry every time I see him on TV.

Cramer is on the Daily Show tonight.

WBC

This was stunning.

I love this tournament. I really do. Watching the excitement and passion that these guys are playing with. It is not contrived, they really care.

John v. Jim

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

In Cramer We Trust

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Economic Crisis

John crushes Jim Cramer...

Jim looks like he is ready to cry...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Robots

Watchmen

This might be hard to see. Click on the image to see it larger. (http://www.pvponline.com/2009/03/02/ombudsmen/)

Watchmen, WBC and my Birthday

So I went to see "Watchmen" on Friday night. Aside from it being very long (which I am not complaining about, I think many movies are too short) I thought it was great. It stuck to the important parts of the book while hinting at some of the less important aspects without spending too much time on them. All in all I thought the film was great and did an excellent job of transposing words and images to film.

The best part of the movie may have been the trailers however. My summer movie lineup is extensive. Harry Potter, Wolverine, Terminator, 9, Star Trek, and now this one with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. It is going to be an awesome summer at the movies.

Dad and I went to the WBC Saturday


Which was awesome and we had amazing seats.


I try to sit somewhere different at every game I go to. I think that it gives an awesome perspective on the game to see it from as many different angles as possible. The Rogers Centre is an awesome place to watch a game (although not Fenway) and we had a really good time.

I have stated before that I am a huge, huge fan of the WBC. I think that it is a great idea, and that this is the best time of year for it to be played. I have heard the arguments that it should be held in November and I disagree whole heartedly. I think that after the season would increase the possibility of fatigue induced injuries as well as more players bowing out.

Seeing the USA team bonding and high fiving each other after home runs or good plays, or Adam Dunn checking his pulse in the dugout in the 9th with the tying run on second, I can tell these guys care. It is really an awesome thing. Seeing David Wright and Jimmy Rollins hug after a win is a cool cool thing.

It was an awesome trip and an awesome game. I am an even bigger fan of the WBC now than I was on Friday. 42,000 fans on their feet cheering in the 9th inning of a game in March. Too cool.

and it's my birthday today.

Saturday Morning Watching

This is Hilarious.

Bait and Switch

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Rachel is Awesome here. Watch for the segment of the interview (8 Minutes in) where she asks "You made a profit at a cost to our health, why should we pay now to clean up the enviornment". She leaves him speechless.

Book 12

A MEMORY OF LIGHT to be Published in November 2009
Posted by Jason on March 2nd, 2009 in the A Memory of Light, Brandon Sanderson, Tor Books category

Tor Books, the US publisher of The Wheel of Time, is now suggesting that A MEMORY OF LIGHT, the 12th and final novel in the series, may be published in November of this year.

The publisher has published a “widget” that anybody can post on their website. This widget (seen here below) counts down to November.

www.createyourcountdown.com
No official word has come yet from Tor about a more specific release date, or even whether or not November is just when they hope the book will be ready by.

Brandon Sanderson, the up-and-coming fantasy author who has been selected to complete the novel, frequently blogs on his website about the progress that he is making. From what he has said so far, it seems unlikely that the entire novel would be ready in time for a November release.

The idea has been discussed several times that A MEMORY OF LIGHT may be broken up into two parts. Brandon has discussed this possibility in great depth both on his website and in a podcast interview he did with Dragonmount’s 4th Age Podcast team. Although the decision to divide the book into multiple parts has not been made (or at least not made public), if this were to happen, a November release date for the first installment would become much more possible.

It should be noted, however, that most novels require several months of lead time from the time they are “turned in” the authors to the time they show up in stores. With Robert Jordan’s previous WoT novels, Tor has always expedited that process and published them in about six weeks, which is an extraordinary speed. With that in mind, if Brandon has a deadline of late September to finish the entire novel, a November release date for A MEMORY OF LIGHT may still be possible.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


For those of you who have no idea what this means, it means a lot. It means I have a lot of reading to do this summer because I am somewhere in the middle of book 7.

You will notice the sweet countdown to November widget on the right hand side.

Twitter, Stalker, Grunter and Voweler

I think I am a tad bit tech savvy. I have my own website. It has a sweet sidebar with stuff from Amazon.com that I want you all to buy me for my birthday (which is in 6 days). I am just struggling to get into Twitter. I get facebook. I get myspace. We are part of the My generation. We have all become dependant on instant access, instant gratification, instant messages, instant relationships. We are now the fat people from Wall-e


I will be the first to admit that I am guilty of this mentality. I get frustrated when things take a long time in the mail. Never mind that I clicked a button on a machine and entered some numbers from a piece of plastic in my pocket and what I wanted is being dropped off at my door. I want my shit. I know how bad this is.

I suppose Twitter makes sense if you are someone who is important enough for people to care what you are doing.

For example, Matt Cerone is the writer of Metsblog.com and he is a fan of the mets who, through his website has been given the same access that journalists have. So it is interesting to read his twitter because it gives quick updates of what awesome things he is allowed to do that all mets fans would love to be doing without the filter of being an unbiased journalist.

But why the hell would I Twitter?

"Just woke up, making coffee really tired today"

"driving to work, I think my eyes should probably be on the road"

"sitting at my desk, just like yesterday"

that is boring even to me. If anything really important comes up, I will throw it up here, or on my Myspace, or my Facebook, or I will text you, or call you, or stop over and tell you. Is this seriously where we are at?

Terry to the WBC

Terry will be in attendance at the first game of Pool C for the World Baseball Classic Saturday in Toronto.

Some of you will remember that the last time I was in Rogers Centre I came away with a signed ball from A's Closer Huston Street (after throwing the ball at his head) if only I can be so lucky this time around with David Wright.

Our seats are about half way down the third base line between third and LF, prime autograph territory if we can get there early enough and prime foul ball territory which means Terry will be bringing his clove.

Two side bars:

7 days until my birthday.

This is my 401 post on this site. That's a lot.

Oh My God

I agree with Steve Phillips. What is the world coming to?

By Steve Phillips, ESPN

Managers and others have been complaining that the World Baseball Classic just makes spring training, which is already too long, unnecessarily longer. Some complain that it makes the season as a whole too long and say players are getting fatigued earlier. I don't accept that.

There have been a lot of players who have bailed on the tournament, some for understandable reasons. But I don't think the injury risks that would be involved with the WBC are any greater than they would be for any standard spring training schedule. If there was no WBC, the players would be throwing the same number of pitches and getting the same number of at-bats while getting themselves ready for the season. They could just as easily get hurt in a spring training game as they could in a World Baseball Classic game.

In fact, their risk for injury during spring training could actually be greater, because when players pull back a little bit, that is the time when they get hurt. As a general rule, players are not going to be operating at the same level of focus during a regular spring training game as they would during the WBC.

To people who say pitchers will be throwing much more intense pitches in the Classic than they would normally and who contend that this will tax pitchers' arms, I say it's a minimal difference and one that can be offset by players' getting themselves in shape a little bit earlier. The notion that players will be more fatigued by the end of the season doesn't ring true, either, because whether it's playing in the Classic or just going through spring training, they are going to be on the field for roughly the same amount of time.

Now, having been a general manager, I understand the fears of not wanting to put a multimillion-dollar player at risk of injury because it could potentially ruin your season before it's begun, but I just don't think those fears are legitimate in this particular case. Nobody can honestly say a WBC game would cause an injury any more than a spring training game would.

In fact, all of the issues we seem to have about the Classic don't seem to be much of an issue to the teams in Japan, Korea and Cuba. So I think we need to re-evaluate our concerns and complaints to see how legitimate they really are. I think the interest from fans and media is greater overseas, and that may have something to do with the general attitudes toward the tournament.

It also may have a little to do with the fact that it's "our game," and we don't feel we have to prove our superiority. But actually, maybe we do when you consider that Japan won the last WBC and Korea took the 2008 Olympic gold medal. I think it's time for the U.S. to restate its position in the baseball world by winning the WBC.

I'd like to see all the world's best players there. Japan sent its best players in the middle of their regular season to represent their country at the Olympics. I don't think Major League Baseball would ever even consider doing that.

I think the preseason is the best time of year for the WBC. To interrupt the regular season when it's not necessary doesn't make sense and the end of the season, when players are naturally run down, doesn't work, either. The players are at their freshest in the spring and you can always get them properly prepared for the competition when you know it's coming.

You can find points and counterpoints around almost every issue, but in the end, if we are serious about growing the game internationally and have a real sense of pride in our place in the baseball world, the teams and players should do everything they can to support the WBC.

Even if there were a minuscule risk of increased injury -- and I don't believe there is -- the global benefits that the game of baseball gains from the World Baseball Classic would far outweigh those risks.

World Baseball Classic

The 2009 World Baseball Classic starts later this week. Aside from the lingering fear that Jose Reyes will die, I am very excited about this. I love this event. I think that it brings energy and excitment to a time in the baseball season that is usually reserved for arguments over how many left-handed relievers the Mets will carry on their 25-man rosters.

I think that the fear over injuries is over played to a degree. Don't get me wrong, I am concerned that guys like K-Rod are going to be going all out to close games for Venezuela when they should be tossing meaningless innings in Port St. Lucie. I am chosing to enjoy the games and not worry about injuries, they are going to happen. At least one guy is going to blow out a major joint, but that guys major joint was most likely hanging by a thread and was due to blow anyways. (I am looking at you Luis Ayala).

Round 1 starts this weekend with the USA taking on Canada in Toronto Saturday at 2pm. The game can be caught on ESPN.

3/6/09

The weekend of my birhday is becoming the best weekend for new movies. Two years ago it was 300. This year, Watchmen.