The UPL Blog

An O.N.Thug's Perspective: Episode III - Eating Popcorn, While the Cheese (Sandwich) Stands Alone, Part I

2011-09-29T14:34:00.002-05:00

This is the first of a 3-part review of the 2011 UPL Baseball season, and given the exciting finish, I'll start at the end. In a nutshell, this is UPL Keeper Era: 3 seasons, 3 champions, 6 teams on the podium, with only 3 teams repeating podium performances. Things have not settled like you may have figured a keeper league would. And a lot of it was on display last night, when for the 2nd season in a row, game 162 in real-life baseball changed the fortunes of UPL Baseball. And this is what this post is about. But first some context.

About 6 or 7 weeks ago, Westy made a trade with Pauly, sending Craig Kimbrel to Hats for Bats, in exchange for Michael Pineda. Most of the audience thought that it was a reasonable trade, moving a closer to get a live, young SP who had been pretty good through his first 4 or 5 months. Rupert begged to differ, posting one of his classic messages about how he had been offering much better deals, and bemoaning the fact that Westy had settled on trading Kimbrel for a "cheese sandwich." More on cheese sandwiches later.

The other prominent feature of the final weeks of 2011 UPL Baseball was popcorn. Back in late June, Greg, in another of his subtle-so-as-to-not-be-subtle jabs, was commenting on how the O.N. Thugs were being uncooperative in his efforts in acquiring Clayton Kershaw, and how that it was clear that the Thugs were pushing for a Hats for Bats championship. And before I had the chance to respond, the conversation was continued by Westy and C-Lauff, and Greg threw in this gem:

Passive-aggressive. It's what's for dinner. That and popcorn.

In any case, at this point, Hats for Bats were dominating the league, flying over the 140 mark. And the O.N. Thugs were about 3 weeks into their annual comeback efforts, having moved from about 80 points up to about 95 points. And mind you, the Thugs were in 5th of 6th place at the time (though it was better than the 7th or 8th place they were in at the start of June). Naturally, the Thugs found reason for confidence. And of course, there had to be a reply.

The latest in UPL icons: Greg enjoying popcorn, while I remind people to never get in a land war with China.

As an aside, I've been proud of how little explicit vulgarity I've been using in my trash talk.

For the first couple months, the Thugs were publicly quiet about their 2011 team, but privately, they liked the squad. After all, the disastrous May/June that led to the mediocre results had to be the worst-case scenario (Dunn being awful, Jeter looking old, Carpenter getting smacked around, Volquez getting demoted, Kershaw not hitting his stride, yet). In conversations with OD and CJ, the Thugs would explain how things were trending upward, how they still had the best pitching staff in the UPL, and how Pauly was going to come back to earth, as Bautista and Weaver came back to earth. The thought was that there was too much variance in Pauly's pitching for this to keep up. And in these conversations, OD and CJ would just say "uh-huh" while rolling their eyes. To paraphrase OD, "Uh, yeah. I was pretty sure that you were talking out of your ass."

By any fair assessment, back in June, an O.N. Thugs victory would have been uber-Sisyphean.

Of course, this is how an O.N. Thug (or any other delusional person) sees the world.

But at the end of June, the Thugs went public by co-opting O.N. Thugs icon, Terrell Owens, and telling everyone who wasn't going to be involved (like Greg and Westy) to just sit back and enjoy the show (despite the fact that the Thugs well back in the standings). But by the time September rolled around, the O.N. Thugs had moved all the way up to about 110 points, pretty much passing Greg up in the standings, to be in 3rd place. And at the same time, C-Lauff had made a run, and was emerging as a winner in the duel w/ Pauly for first, with both teams running around 125-130 points. So the O.N. Thugs had the task of making up 15-20 fantasy points, and jumping 2 teams. Clearly, the O.N. Thugs had the title in the bag :-)

And amazingly enough, the picture of the UPL was sort of like this, through Game 161, out of 162, as the O.N. Thugs were in 1st place on the penultimate standings, with 123.5 points, with Pauly and C-Lauff just behind.

Generally, in situations like this, you bet on Rock. Paper and Scissor are generally afterthoughts.

But like Dr. Jones, the Jabrones make an epic escape, aided by two cheese sandwiches.

If you've ever played in a poorly designed head-to-head league, one of the features is the churning of pitchers. Basically, you pick up and drop pitchers so you can use them for a given start. Generally, a keeper league will dissuade you from doing that too much. However, the last few days of the season end up being like those head-to-head leagues - you figure out who your keepers are, and anyone who you know won't be kept may get dropped so that you can pick up an SP to get an extra start or two in the hopes of chasing an extra W or getting a miracle bump in ERA or WHIP. Similarly, you may start to try to find a random HR or SB with an offensive player that would hurt your OBP or SLG in the long run, but may be a quick miracle cure. From an aesthetic standpoint, it's sort of an ugly way to win - much like hitting your opponent with a steel chair while your manager distracts the ref. From a practical standpoint, you have to do it, because it maximizes your chances, and if you do it right, can steal you a point or two at the end of the season.

In anticipation of the churning, the Thugs evoked some of Rupert's imagery:

Channel your inner Homer... mmm... cheese sandwiches...

Now, I have to admit that when I posted this, I knew that I had an advantage. First of all, I was up by one W on both Pauly and C-Lauff. And more importantly, I wouldn't get hurt by an L, as I was 3 L's behind Pauly. So I had some room to work with. And in fact, I sort of wanted Pauly and C-Lauff to stretch. My logic was that the Fantasy Gods would punish anyone who was going to start a cheese sandwich, if not with an L, but at least with a bad ERA/WHIP. And Pauly and I were dueling over both ERA and WHIP, and C-Lauff was at risk in WHIP (with, ironically, Cheeseheads). My thought was that the churn could easily take a turn for the worst, and hang them with 1 or 2 L's (which would be worth 0.5 to 1 points), and that they could backfire in ERA and WHIP. And the second thought that I had was that I had a guy who wasn't a cheese sandwich (Carpenter) who had a pedigree, who was on a roll in September, and who was playing in a must-win game. I liked my chances w/out churning an starter, especially when I looked down the list.

Wade LeBlanc didn't look bad starting in SD, but the Cubs felt like the sort of team that may go off and hand a dozen runs on a team when the game is meaningless.

Ted Lilly looked reasonable, but I had bet against the D-Backs twice with Tim Lincecum, and gotten bit both times. Basically, I didn't feel like messing with the D-Backs with the season on the line.

Christ Volstad against WAS wouldn't be terrible, but he was going up against Stephen Strasburg, who was looking solid.

And really, that was about it for me.

When I saw that Pauly got Miguel Batista, my first thought was that "Pauly's an idiot. Miguel Batista died years ago." But I looked closer, and it turns out that Batista was, in fact, alive, and starting for the Mets against my Reds. My Reds who finished 2nd in the league in runs scored. So my thought changed to, "Pauly's crazy - he's about to give me that point in WHIP, too." It was at that point that I decided that I was going to start Volquez, as well (I did check to see if OD, who I was tied with in W, had starters going, and saw that he had 2). I figured that I needed to give myself a chance to stay ahead of OD, in case he got a W. That and it would be fitting for me to let Volquez atone for his fantasy baseball sins. So I had one cheese sandwich going, and it was one that had a high ceiling. So I felt that I was in a stronger position than either C-Lauff of Pauly with my pitching.

So the morning comes, and I roll out of bed. I see that Volquez was pitching well, but the Reds were down 1-0. Eh. Whatever. Then I notice that Volquez gave up a 2-run HR. Uggh. Oh well. At least the Reds will get to Batista and punish him eventually, right?

So I get showered, and roll out to lunch. And I see this show up on my Blackberry.:

Sometimes there's no justice :-) Also, Pauly had that icon before Sheen had his #DuhWinning meltdown.

Really? And sure enough, Volquez gets stuck w/ the L, though his line of 7 IP, 3ER, 6H, 1BB, and 5K is actually pretty decent. But at this point, my grip on ERA had slipped, so that I was percentage points behind.

And a little while after, I see this on my Facebook feed, from Tom, White Sox fan, one of Mikey's old roommates, and former UPL Football dim-wit turned finalist (Tom was the guy who didn't look at the rules and drafted Pittsburgh DEF early in the first round, presumably because "defense wins championships," and was labeled as Tweedledum [or Tweedledummer, I don't really remember] by myself).

Tweedledum (or dummer) as the bearer of bad news.

Of course, I thought to myself, "Sucks to be Greg (who owned Sergio Santos). Sale just tossed 1 2/3 last night to get the SV. He's young, and they're going to build up his arm strength to be a starter next season. There's no way they're going to jeopardize that." And then I realized that this was the White Sox we were talking about. The same White Sox that seem to botch player development and had everything go wrong this season. So I just had to check. And sure enough, somehow it was Chris Sale on the mound. At least he didn't blow out his arm (I don't think). But the damage was done. 1/3 IP, 2ER, 2H, 3BB. I don' t know exactly how close it would have been. But I lost a point in ERA to Pauly after the Volquez and Sale debacle, and it didn't look like I could get it back (I was then at 3.20, while Pauly was down to 3.17). Happily, the 2 L's didn't factor into it. And in all honesty, I probably would not have been gutsy enough to start Volquez had L's mattered.

At that point, Pauly was in first, I was behind, and C-Lauff had lost ground. I still had hope because I had other avenues to victory (namely by scoring some runs on offense, swiping a few bases, or racking up some OBP). And there was plenty of play left, as Pauly still had one more cheese sandwich, and C-Lauff had 2 cheese sandwiches to eat.

Which set the stage for the exciting finish to the season, where the UPL championship wasn't won until the last pitch was thrown.

More on that in Episode III, part II.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Evan's Stolen AK

2011-09-18T21:56:00.003-05:00

Like some in the UPL, I'm in a couple of different leagues each fantasy season. One of those leagues is run by my buddy Pat, and Roland once described it as having some of the craziest scoring of any league he'd seen. How so? Well... take a gander:

Offensive Positions:
C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, OF, OF, UTIL, UTIL UTIL

Offensive Scoring Categories:
R, H, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI, SB, BB, K, AVG, OPS (BB scored by most, K by least)

Pitching Positions:
SP, SP, SP, RP, RP, RP, P, P, P

Pitching Scoring Categories
W, CG, SV, BB, K, HOLD, ERA, WHIP, K/9

So... yeah, there's a lot of things that can go right, or wrong, or screwy at any given time. Add in 5 bench spots, and a 10 team league, and you get a few different strategies that could emerge all of which would be driven by a combination of factors such as draft, waiver watches and luck. My draft, as you'll see, was a bit of a mixed bag, which led to me being much more active on the waiver wire than I would've liked to have been. I drafted 7th, and these are my results:

1. Miguel Cabrera
2. Alex Rodriguez
3. Buster Posey
4. Josh Johnson
5. Jay Bruce
6. Mike Stanton
7. Jered Weaver
8. Elvis Andrus
9. Matt Thornton
10. Gio Gonzalez
11. Gordon Beckham
12. Craig Kimbrel
13. Brett Gardner
14. Aroldis Chapman
15. Johnny Venters
16. Jon Sanchez
17. Joel Hanrahan
18. Manny Ramirez
19. Luke Scott
20. David Ortiz
21. Edwin Jackson
22. Chris Sale
23. CJ Wilson
24. Gavin Floyd
25. Jim Thome

So, obviously, my team at the end of the season doesn't really resemble that at all. Manny was busted for steroids and out by the end of the second week. Posey exited early with a season ending injury. Josh Johnson was dominant, then hurt. Luke Scott flashed the kind of inconsistency that drives me insane as a fantasy team owner. Thome was hurt and ineffective early. And my plan to have the closer/setup guys for teams that I expected to do well only half-worked, as Thornton and Sale struggled early and both were dropped by week 4. Veneters / Kimbrel were lights out, though, and Hanrahan did well while fill-ins Rauch and Isringhausen provided clutch saves before falling off. The following players were longtime contributors to the Stolen AK, picked up off free agency:

SP. Michael Pineda
SP. Derek Holland
SP. Matt Harrison
SP. Brandon McCarthy
2B. Dan Uggla (post All Star Break)
3B. Brett Lawrie
3B/OF. Alex Gordon
OF. Logan Morrison

I also was somewhat active on the trade front, executing 3 key trades:

3B Alex Rodriguez for 2B Dustin Pedroia (June 4)
2B Dustin Pedroia and SP Jered Weaver for 1B Prince Fielder and SP Mat Latos (June 17)
3B Alex Gordon for OF Brett Gardner (June 24)

The only clear "win" trade for me was the A-Rod for Pedroia trade. In both of the other two, I traded productive players (dominantly productive, one could say) for players who were on a hot streak that was unsustainable. In the end, though, Prince Fielder's power and Brett Gardner's speed provided enough of a boost to carry me over in key stats during the Championship week.

That's right kids, its time to crown Evan's Stolen AK's ass.

Now if only I could carry this over into the Jimmy Dix Longballs' 2012 incarnation.

Worst Draft Ever?

2011-08-05T23:32:00.000-05:00

My debut post here on The UPL Blog chronicled my Draft Day Dilemmas. Seeing as how now we're in August, I've gone back and looked at the draft. It's actually quite stunning to see how poorly I did. In fact, I probably shouldn't be doing anything to bring attention to this embarrassment, but here goes:

Round 1 - Ryan Raburn (2B/OF) - Some people thought Raburn was ready for a breakout season, putting up 20+ HRs at the weak 2B position. Well, those people are never to be trusted again. We're well into August and Raburn has only 10 jacks, 35 RBI, and a paltry .266 OBP. 32 2Bs are rated ahead of Raburn.

Round 2 - Chris Sale (RP) - Sale got his chance to close just as I had hoped. But then he promptly went on to prove that he can't close. He struggled mightily early in the season with an ERA of 5+ and WHIP of 1.6+ through May.

Round 3 - Luke Gregerson (RP) - He's been injured for much of the season; and when he hasn't been injured, he's been mediocre.

Round 4 - Mike Minor (RP) - Last name says it all. With a 1-2 record and ERA of 4.59, he's right were he belongs: The minor leagues.

Round 5 - Alcides Escobar (SS) - With a .287 OBP, I have no idea what I was thinking when drafting him. I also have no idea what he's currently doing on Westy's roster.

Round 6 - Marlon Byrd (OF) - Normally when an outfielder has 6 homers and 2 steals heading into the 2nd week of August, I'd make fun of him. But at this point, Byrd rates as one of my best picks.

Round 7 - David Murphy (OF) - His 5 homers and 6 steals make him my team's "Draft Pick of the Year." Not bad for a part-time player.

Round 8 - Eric Young (OF/2B) - After spending nearly the whole season in the minors, Young got his big break and has even been batting leadoff for the Rockies. He also has an OBP of .308 and SLG of .225, which probably means the Rockies can't wait to send him back down to the minors.

On the bright side, from here there's nowhere to go but up!

Evan's Stolen AK: The Story of my season so far...

2011-04-17T12:08:00.012-05:00

"I'm not out of it yet..." I remember saying, "but I'm definitely not in it at the moment."

This season could've easily started off in a much worse way than it has, but at the same time I've caught a bunch of bad breaks early. I made the choice in the "preseason" to trade Cliff Lee, BJ Upton and Sergio Santos to Roland before the keepers were announced for a definite keeper shortstop, Brandon Morrow's strike-throwing young arm and potential closer Johnny Venters. If Cliff Lee continues to age well, it means that I'm trading 3+ years of elite pitching away but hopefully right at the point where he has the most value (assuming a bit of age-related decline since he's in his early 30's). Upton had underperformed last year, as he had the year before, but still provided some pop and speed in an outfield slot. And Sergio Santos, whose name will come up again later, had been a lockdown reliever in his rookie season with the White Sox. One of the open secrets of last season was strong pitching teams using these high K, low ERA relievers such as Daniel Bard, Matt Thornton, and Kuo to lower their team ERA's to augment the results from their starting pitchers. A mediocre outing from a starter that lasts 5.2 innings with a no-decision due to a few earned runs doesn't have the same negative impact when you add a reliever who goes an inning with 2 K's and no earned runs - and maybe a win for the cherry on top.

Looking at my team going into the draft, I thought that adding strong starting pitching was the most critical task, unless an uber-prospect dropped my way. Sadly, I got distracted in the first round when I noticed that Ricky Nolasco was available, and whiffed it on the chance to pick up Mike Trout, who fell to Roland (much the same way that Aroldis Chapman did last year). I end up going with the pitching inclination twice, going Nolasco and Edwin Jackson. Then went Ackley as a superprospect for the future, Luke Scott for power production, Montero as a value superprospect, Justin Masterson and Phil Coke. A few moves were immediately necessary, as Brandon Morrow and Brad Lidge started the season on the DL.

And then the season started, and I had two things happen that have just crushed me: Matt Thornton proved ineffective in his new role as closer and Evan Longoria got hurt immediately. Instead of starting out the year with Thorny in his usual unhittable, potentially big save position, the White Sox defense has crapped the bed repeatedly and Thornton's made mistakes, leading to big runs and losses. Longoria, on the other hand, was my MVP, a strong offensive Third Baseman and the waiver wire is amazingly devoid of true talent. Can my team survive without saves and with an offensive void at Third? I'm skeptical. While I did make a quick pickup of Jed Lowrie, and nabbed the Marlins' setup guy, it might be time to get creative.

Feeling Drafty

2011-04-05T19:38:00.006-05:00

Since our newest contributor of the UPL Blog has posted his take on the 2011 UPL Baseball Draft, I feel compelled to do the same. Although, I have to be honest, my levels of preparation for these things are really dropping.

Basically, I like my team going into the draft. I've got 8 slots to fill up. I go in there with the goal of finding a couple young guys to hang on to. I'm willing to have 1 (maybe 2) roster spots devoted to guys with late 2011 (or even 2012) ETA's. But I'm of the belief that you should use the guys on your roster to win now, if your team's got a shot.

Obviously, the pitching is a strong part of my team. I pulled off a useful trade before the draft, to get Cliff Lee. In addition to Lee, my rotation is Lincecum, Kershaw, Carpenter, Volquez, and Peavy. My RP are Soria, K-Rod, and Bailey. Assuming that I get about 200 IP out of those 3, I've got about 1250 IP to use up with my SP. I know that Peavy is hurt, but there's a reasonable chance that some of the guys go more than 200 IP. So, really, SP isn't a priority. I know that Bailey is on the DL to start the season, so I need to get some cheap SV, so I think about a couple possible RP to pick up. But it's nothing too pressing. I figure that worst case, I can trade for a RP at some point. But getting 2 cheap RP in the draft is what I'm thinking.

On the hitting side, there are a few holes. Obviously, 2B, since I don't actually have a 2B on the roster. And I'm giving up games at C, with only Posada on the roster. So at some point I'll need to get a 2B and a C. And last year, there were problems with power, so figuring out how to get some more power in there was important, as well. So, I can go with some potential power.

As far as who I'm thinking about, there were a number of possibilities.

For getting offensive production, there were a number guys who were dropped that had pedigrees: Rafael Furcal, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Carlos Beltran, Chipper Jones, Alfonso Soriano, Hideki Matsui, Jason Kubel, James Loney. And some hyped prospects that had lost luster: Alex Gordon, Dexter Fowler, Travis Snider, Adam Jones. The younger guys were all reasonable choices. Of the veterans, I was most interested in the guys that had been injury risks, since there was better chance that the decline was injury-based, and not from loss of skill. And the younger guys were all intriguing, but seemed to carry more risk than I wanted. Furcal and Thome were two familiar faces to the O.N. Thugs. Beltran and Chipper were two players that I though were interesting, as well.

At 2B, things are always tight. Prado would have been the best choice, but he's probably not getting to me at the 11th pick. Juan Uribe had a productive season last year, but he has such a low OBP, that he's a little scary to me. And Chone Figgins has put up decent rate stats in the past, though not last year, and would be good for about 45 SB. Neil Walker put up a .810 OPS last year, and would have been intriguing, as well. Ryan Rayburn qualified at 2B, and had produced, though wasn't a full-time player. And I actually had Omar Infante last year at some point. And the Japanese dude Nishioka was going off in drafts, as well, and was going to be the starting 2B in MIN. I figure that I'd have time to get one of those guys in the first few rounds. And if not, there would be someone I could get in free agency, after I put some guys on the DL. Good ol' Freddy Sanchez, Orlando Hudson, or Skip Shumaker. But I wanted to get someone in the draft, since I did need to fill that spot in the roster.

At C, there was actually more playable depth. Two familiar faces were Russell Martin and Ryan Doumit, two former O.N. Thugs. Arencibia got some hype last year. Ruiz, Hernandez, and a few other names could have been passable, as well. But this was a lesser concern. I figured that I had at least 110 games from Posada (maybe even more now that he was DH'ing). This could wait until free agency, if it needed to.

As far as RP goes, there weren't many true closers there, save for Brandon Lyon, who's a little problematic to own because he's not good. Brandon League and Matt Capps were probably going to get a couple saves early on, as Aardsma and Nathan got into the swing of things, and could have been a temporary option. Either Contreras or Madson was going to get a few saves in PHI, and one of the Blue Jay pitchers had to get saves, I figured. And after that, you had some set-up guys, ranging from younger guys like like Sale, Meek, and Walden to older guys like Farnsworth, Motte, and Uehara. None of these options looked particularly sexy to me.

With the prospects, I figured that Bryce Harper and Mike Trout (the consensus #1 and #1a top prospects this year) would be gone by the time I was drafting in the 1st round. A number of the top prospects were already on rosters (Hellickson, for example). There were a number of names that were certain to be picked at some point in the draft: Domonic Brown, Mike Minor, Brandon Belt, Desmond Jennings, Dustin Ackley, Kyle Drabek, Mike Moustakas, Julio Teheran, Jhoulys Chacin, Jose Tabata, Michael Pineda, Freddie Freeman, and Jesus Montero. My goal was to get to two of these guys, ideally one of whom was going to be a 2011 contributor.

So the draft starts up.

And Bryce Harper goes #1. No surprise. Jeff had actually e-mailed me about my thoughts, and I told him that I'd be very surprised if Harper or Trout would get to him in the 2nd round, since I'd be 99% to draft them at #11 and 100% to draft either at #16 overall. Then Prado goes off at #2. Again, sure. Zambrano goes off at #3. I almost kept him, before I pulled off the Cliff Lee trade (and thought about keeping him as a 7th SP). Then Neil Walker goes at #4. So my options at 2B look worse at this point. Probably waiting another round or two before I go down that road. Then Brandon Lyon goes at #5, and I laugh a little, because I figure that he'll go over like Dotel did for Greg last year.

Initially, I was figuring out if I liked Beltran at the #10 slot, and was talking myself into it. But after Lyon goes off, I start wondering if Trout may fall to me, like Aroldis Chapman did last year. I figured that there was no way, since CJ was picking at #10, and had indicated that he'd go young this draft, and that he'd lock down either Trout or Harper if they fell to him at #11. But I wondered.

Adam Jones and Rafael Furcal go off at #6 and #7. Again no surprise. Then Ryan Rayburn goes off to Greg at #8. That was a bit of a surprise, since he's got other needs. And C-Lauff's picking at #9. I start heckling him with Ricky Nolasco, since he was his guy last year. And CJ chimes in on the chat, saying for me to shut up. At that point, I remember that CJ was also targeting SP, and was interested in Edwin Jackson. And evidently Ricky Nolasco, as well. All of a sudden, I wonder if Mike Trout was going to be an option for me.

C-Lauff goes with Figgins at #9. CJ quickly grabs Nolasco at #10, and I fall into Mike Trout. Happy outcome for me. Particularly since Rup and Pauly lay off Beltran, and he's there for me to grab at #16 overall. As the draft continues, it comes to me in the 3rd (37 overall), and I realize that it's either draft Infante now (or maybe wait until my 4th round pick - #42 overall), or wait until FA to get a 2B. Decide that I shouldn't risk having Rup or Pauly randomly grab Infante (though it was a small chance), and just pick now, figuring that Chipper (who I was debating) would be there in the 4th. It worked out OK, and I ended up with Infante as my 2B (eh, needed a starter), and got Chipper as my 2nd offensive lottery ticket. So, I'm pretty happy. I get my prospect, get 2 offensive lottery tickets, and get a 2B with my picks.

Here, the RP situation looks to be tightening up, to the point of looking ugly. So I'm thinking about just ignoring it, and taking more offensive lottery tickets and prospects. And I set my sights on Domonic Brown, Jesus Montero, and Mike Moustakas. Brown and Moustakas go off in the 5th round. But meanwhile, I had sort of gotten bored of the draft. I'm off on Facebook or Twitter or something, and checked back in to see that Hisanori Takahashi had been selected, so I made some joke about the tsunami of Japanese players being selected, and then I went back to goofing around on the internet. I had Montero set up in my queue, and figured that I had time to figure out who I was going to take in the 6th.

But sure enough Montero gets picked up by CJ at the pick right before mine. Only I don't notice this. So I end up with like 20 seconds left on the clock, and I'm looking around for who to select. I do a quick check of the Blue Jays team, looking to see their RP situation, and have Arencibia catch my eye. So, I decide that if I couldn't get Montero, I'd still go with a prospect C. And as I'm about to click "draft," my time runs out, and I get an auto-pick.

Koji Uehara. Japanese guy. Part of the tsunami of Japanese players :-) Whoops. So there was extra irony in that pick. Later CJ commented that he thought that pick was deliberate after I made the tsunami joke. My first thought is, "Who the hell's Koji Uehara?" The screen told me that he was a RP with BAL, and my next thought was, "Dammit. I have an Orioles RP, this can't be good." But I looked at his stats from last year, and saw that Kevin Gregg was their closer, and I figured that there was a reasonable chance that he turns into gold this year. So I was less annoyed.

So, I queue up Arencibia for my pick in the 6th. As I'm figuring out who Koji Uehara was, the draft continues. And again, my guy gets picked right before I'm going to draft him, as Pauly gets him in the 6th. And again, I don't notice until there's like 45 seconds left on my clock. At this point, I'm horribly bored, and knew that it was too early to get after prospects who probably weren't going to be drafted. Since I had looked at the Blue Jays team information, I just stick with one of the RP on that staff. Figured that there was some karma at work somewhere, and I go with Octavio Dotel, particularly after I had made fun of Greg last year. So I pick him up.

And at this point, I'm just guessing, as most of the prospects that I had on my radar had been picked up. In retrospect, I didn't realize that Brandon Belt was still available, and had I noted that, I wouldn't have gone Dotel. But since I didn't catch that Belt was available, and since I had just read about the Blue Jays, I pick up Kyle Drabek in the 7th. Then Belt goes to Pauly right afterward, and I'm instantly annoyed at myself for how badly I had botched the last 3 rounds because I got bored. I do manage to get things under control, and was happy to get my guy Russell Martin as my last pick, hoping that the change of scenery to NY would do him well.

As I look back, things have worked out OK so far with the late picks. Dotel's been hurt, which I knew. Uehara has tossed well, Martin has hit a HR and has a SB in his new role as the starting C in NY, and Drabek had a stud outing in his first start. As for the early picks, Trout's in the minors, Beltran and Infante have had slow starts, but Chipper looks to be back to his old self. As I look back, I'm pretty happy with the draft because I filled the slots I needed, and got a couple good prospects and lottery tickets. Obviously, I've gotten a little lucky with the results of my Uehara and Drabek picks. On the other hand, I'm back to the drawing board at 2B, as Infante has been bad so far. I've picked up Jose Lopez, who doesn't qualify for 2B for a few more games, but that's not exactly the next coming of Joe Morgan.

In any case, the season is off and running. We'll see how everything plays out.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Draft Day Dilemmas

2011-04-03T11:38:00.000-05:00

The UPL Baseball Draft has come and gone again. This season I found myself falling into some traps that I thought wouldn't plague me again. For instance, I once again focused on need over talent. I also didn't prepare a deep enough list of players to draft, and thus found my game plan collapsing by the later rounds. This was compounded by the fact that my Internet kept going out every 3 to 4 minutes.

Heading into the draft my team desperately needed 2B, SS, and RP. (With Brian Wilson on the DL, I only had one closer, Drew Storen, and his spring was very concerning.) Last year I focused on closers early in the keeper draft, and while my bullpen did well last year, I never managed to get a quality SS on my team. And with McGehee losing 2B eligibility, I found myself in a similar position as last season in terms of needs. But unlike last year, I was determined to address both SS and 2B before RP.

When I saw that Rafael Furcal was available, I did lots of research on him and decided his upside was worth the injury risk. I was picking 8th, and Furcal was the #2 rated hitter available (after Martin Prado), so my chances of getting him were slim. But I held out some hope. And when the Cheeseheads were picking 7th with Furcal still on the board, I actually thought I was going to land him because the Cheeseheads already had Troy Tulowitzki. But no, the Cheeseheads went with the proven talent and took Furcal.

When researching 2B/SS before the draft, one name that caught my eye was Ryan Raburn of the Tigers. He had barely played enough at 2B last season to qualify at that position, but he was really an outfielder with some power. Grey at Razzball was high on him (in the good sense), and lots of people seemed to think that Raburn could have a breakout season. Yes, he was nearing 30 years old, but he had already shown decent MLB production over the past 2 seasons. He had played in 113 games in each of the last 2 years -- and if he could get into more like 140, he was somebody who could give you 20+ homers at 2B. That would be nice.

Ideally, I would have loved to have taken Furcal at #8 in the 1st round and then Raburn at #19 in the 2nd round. With Furcal off the board, I felt compelled to take Raburn while I could. My thought was that he has a chance at going .360/.490 with 24 homers at 2B eligibility, and that would be really nice. Yeah, he probably would have dropped to the 2nd round, but I didn't want to take that chance. Maybe if I had known at the time that my guy Mat Latos would be heading to the DL, I would have taken a starter like Ricky Nolasco. But other than that, I'm not sure that I would have been too high on the guys who went right after Raburn. It's not that they're bad, it's just that these are all guess at this point anyway. Mike Trout has more trade value right now than Raburn, but I don't like the idea of having a guy in the minors sitting on my bench, especially when he's still so young (19) and unproven.

When my 2nd pick came around, I looked at the available SS's and didn't like what I saw, so I bailed out with safe pick--Chris Sale as an elite middle reliever with potential to hawk a few saves (and potentially more if Thornton doesn't get the job done). I also had Luke Gregerson qued up here in case Sale went off the board; this info is significant because my Internet connection later went out and I auto-drafted Gregerson with my 3rd pick. That might turn out OK, but I would have preferred to go after someone else in that spot since I already had Sale--for instance, Chipper Jones could have been on my radar.

In the 4th round, I was a little surprised to see Mike Minor still on the board. Yes, I knew that he had unexpectedly lost out on the 5th starter spot for Atlanta, but at the same time he's still an elite prospect who performed well at the major league level toward the end of last season. Just because a prospect gets sent down to Triple-A at the end of spring training doesn't necessarily mean anything is wrong. Based on my research, Minor had pitched well, but so had Brandon Beachy. The Braves decided to go with Beachy for now. Okay. In the short term, Minor's stock takes a hit. It also means he's available in a garbage round. Since I wanted to get at least one elite prospect in this draft, I went with Minor.

In the 5th round, I had to take a SS. My team had zero SS's on the roster, and while part of me thought my chances were better with no SS compared to who was available, ultimately my brain told me my odds were slightly better by taking the best SS available. (I use the word "best' here loosely.) I went with a young guy with some speed who'd would be hitting toward the top of an anemic lineup. His name is Alcides Escobar, or something like that. Unfortunately, I was basically in exactly the same position as last year when late in the draft I took some young guy with speed who would be hitting toward the top of an anemic lineup (Padres). Although, I can't remember that shortstop's name. Seriously, I can't. He's just some guy who underperformed last season and made me want to forget all about him. I hope this Escobar guy can do better, but I'm not holding my breath...

By the 6th round my player list had collapsed and I was basically flying blind. With a spotty Internet connection, I couldn't cruise the web looking for last-minute research. So I went with who I thought was the best proven hitter still available: Marlon Byrd. I know, that was a terrible pick. But at that point I was just trying to minimize damage.

In the 7th round my Internet attacked again and I was left with the autodraft: David Murphy. Let's pretend I didn't write that last sentence.

In the 8th (and last) round, I was thinking about steals. Bourn was one of my keepers, but I wouldn't consider him a reliable player (and most speedy guys aren't very reliable due to a slightly higher risk for injuries that prevent them from getting as many steals). I had remembered from some of my reading a few days before the draft that Eric Young was battling for a platoon spot with the Rockies, but that he still might be a good late-round pick in case he was able to put things together. My thought here was that maybe Young would get off to a good start and get more playing time than expected--which might lead to season where he bats .275 (maybe a .320 OBP?) with 35+ steals. Yeah, I know, that was an extremely optimistic outlook, but it's the thought I had in my mind. Of course, I soon as I picked him, Pauly noted that Young had already been sent down to the minors. Whoops.

So how did I do? Well, as usual, during the draft I feel like I'm doing poorly compared to the group, but after a few days I settle down and feel better. Realistically, if Raburn can be a top 5 2B, my draft right away starts looking better. If Sale and Gregerson both put up elite pitching stats and mix in some saves, then that's nice, too. If Mike Minor eventually blossoms into a top 20 starter pitching for a good team (Braves) in a pitcher-friendly park (Atlanta), then that's pretty good, too. Those results would move my team forward a step, and really, that's all you can hope to do in this type of draft.

But will it happen? Nobody can predict the future, and each pick is always a risk. If Raburn is a bust, if either Sale or Gregerson implode, and if Minor lives up to his name and spends most of his time down on the farm, then yeah, my draft will look stupid.

Each year people comment about how the UPL's competitiveness is increasing, and this year seems to be no different. When I finally realized yesterday that Storen didn't get Washington's save, I tried to pick up Sean Burnett but Rupert had beat me to him by about an hour. These types of things are happening more and more often, and when I look back at our draft, I do see some savvy picks were made that I wouldn't have known about until I read about some of these guys after the draft. I've also missed out on some starting pitchers on the waiver wire recently because I didn't want to risk a waiver priority but others did (Wade Davis and J.A. Happ come to mind). In the UPL, it feels like you have to go after almost any small advantage possible. To make an analogy, it's like playing against a great-shooting basketball team and if you don't get all the way out to defend the three, they'll make you pay. Early on I've had some slips, and I can already see some of those threes swishing in.

Another thought on my mind is that last year I was not aggressive enough with trades. I probably should get busy on that front soon...

New Face

2011-03-29T21:04:00.003-05:00

We're welcoming a new face, which is really a familiar face, here at the UPL Blog. Greg, of '90 Reds fame, is joining as a contributor. As (we think) he will continue to post baseball trivia and other baseball fantasies, we're not sure if this is going to be a short-term or a regular thing, but we figure that he'll post about as often as C-Lauff and CJ do out here. So,welcom to Greg, the latest part of the motley crew that brings you the UPL Blog.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

UPL Baseball Keepers: Forget Everything You Knew (Or Not)

2011-03-10T20:17:00.005-06:00

2010 UPL Baseball taught us something. Everything that you thought you knew may have been wrong. Sure, last year, my predictions had the O.N. Thugs and Phatsnapper being good. The Phatsnapper call was only a minor reach (7th place in 2009, but suffered from lack of managerial interest). But where in the world did Hats for Bats and JimmyDix come from? They were tied for 10th in 2009, and were projected to be 7th or 8th place teams in 2010. And what happened to the '90 Reds, IamJabrone, and Westy's Sluggers (the podium from 2009)? They finished 6th, 5th, and 9th, respectively.

It turns out that in the new UPL, there's a lot of variance in the 2nd year of a keeper league. And if I had to guess, we'll see some more movement across the next couple seasons, before things settle a little bit. But what we're finding is that even in a keeper league with deep keeper rosters, things can be shaken up a lot.

Part of it was the influx of impact rookies and 2nd year players, which seemed to play a much larger role than in previous years. And it just so happened that the 3 teams that made big leaps upward were all a big part of the youth movement. And it seems that sticking with a team full of middling veterans is instantaneous death. So questions that emerge are 1) at what stage do you play the prospect game, and 2) how do you play the prospect game.

The first stage is where conventional wisdom may need to be reconsidered. The standard thought process is that if you're playing to win a championship, you want a solid veteran keeper base, and then you draft to round out your stats. Given that the average performance is going to be high, the goal is to minimize variance in your keeper performance. This is the O.N. Thugs' continual modus operandi. And this was probably the basic strategy we saw from a number of teams in 2010.

However, if there are game changing prospects, the level of fantasy impact can be remarkably high. For example, look at a stat category like HR. In the UPL, the number of HR a team will hit ranges from about 150 to about 250. This is across 1620 games played (10 starters). Now, compare this to basketball, where the category with the lowest rate is either 3PM or STL, which range from like 400 to 800 or so, across 820 games played. Relatively speaking, this means that there's roughly about 6 times more variance in HR (and even more so in SB and much more so in W, L, and SV). The conventional wisdom used to be that stats even out over 162 games. But the amount of variance in some stat categories can change the landscape. So the "certainty" that veteran-oriented teams bank on can be turned upside-down with one player. For example, last year Jose Bautista shows up on the scene and swings HR by about 40 or so (and RBI, R, and SLG to a lesser degree), and from out of nowhere, swings about 10 fantasy points for Hats for Bats, the eventual runner up, and changes how the teams at the top competed, tactically. Now Bautista wasn't a "prospect" at 30 years old, but the impact of those players that come from "nowhere" can't be overstated. When I say "nowhere" what I mean is without major league performance pedigree. And the major source of these players is the minors, i.e., prospects.

I think that the story is that more teams should be looking at "rebuilding" with prospects (or other players coming out of nowhere). But when does a team look to minimize variance, and when does a team look to roll the dice? Oddly enough, my take on this used to be that if you look at your team, and you see that your average expected performance would be a top-half team, then you'd try to minimize variance, and then try to make the moves in free agency that rounds out the team. Now, I'm not sure that top-half is good enough. I'd almost say that if you're going to try to minimize variance, you should have the look of a top-3 team. If your keeper base doesn't have a clear look of a podium team, then you're in "rebuilding" mode. But rebuilding doesn't mean that you're necessarily punting on the season, as the amount of variance involved in a number of categories (HR, SB, W, L, SV) can really swing a season. And the impact of draft picks, which was originally assumed to be marginal, is actually big. In some sense, the first round of the draft is the 19th round. But it's only the 19th round, if you take an established veteran. It also gives you the chance to get a 14th round caliber veteran off of a good team (which has some value), but it also gives you the chance for a future top-4 round caliber player, as well. So I think that more teams should be playing the prospect game to a greater extent.

With regard to how to play the prospect game, a big part of it seems to be via the trade. Going full on with prospects, and figuring out how to move them, seems to be one play here. This lets you improve your keeper base when you get a little lucky with some prospects. And gives you a better shot of getting really lucky and finding a franchise cornerstone with the next Pujols (who was an "out of nowhere" guy as a 21-year old back in 2001). And this makes sense for the teams that are in the lower tier of the league. In some sense, this is what Phatsnapper did in the initial UPL Baseball keeper draft, going young over and over.

But even playing from the top of the league in a more traditional sense, the prospect game matters. But it's less of a massive movement to youth, but more of a selective game. Trying to get younger, even by a couple years is an important aspect of this game, but so is picking up some very young players, and letting them become trade chips or potential back-end keepers. Even the O.N. Thugs, who have traditionally been associated with veteran players, have been active in building youth into the roster in a systematic way.

In doing this, of course, drafting matters. But so does moving players with trades. But that does lead to some uncertainty. The trading of prospects seems to be something that the league hasn't quite settled on, as evidenced by the Wieters for Cano trade that didn't draw any comments and the Smoak/Scutaro for Weaver/Stanton trade that was vetoed (and subsequently led to a revamping of the league's protest rules).* But the teams that did well last year all were involved in prospect-oriented trades, as buyers or sellers. The upshot is that standing pat, and trying to do thing completely internally probably isn't as likely to work as it has in the past. And gone are the days where completely veteran teams steamroll the rest of the league. Of course, all this could change if there are two or three seasons that are full of rookie duds...

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

*Sort of an aside: One common theme of the UPL, which has been railed against by some owners, was the prevention of rip-off trades via veto. The intent was to keep some balance in the league, and to maintain an atmosphere of fair play across the board. The major protest against this came from folks like Phatsnapper, who maintained that part of the fun of fantasy was ripping off other owners in trades. In my mind, this created a more conservative, but consistent playing field. The commish watched over the field, and the field watched over the commish (with protests able to overturn any of the commish's trades). The major concern with the new protest system (requiring more protests than approvals, with a minimum of 4 protests needed to overturn) is that this no longer becomes a level playing field.

From a selfish perspective, this becomes messy for the O.N. Thugs, as it seems that this system will drive up the cost of trades for the O.N. Thugs more than other teams. This was evidenced by the Cabrera for Chapman/Nathan/Bard/Posey trade. In short, it took 4 likely keepers to get the Miggy trade done, and it was still officially protested by at least one owner and concerns voiced by others. On the other hand, there were no voices at all for the Smoak/Weaver trade, largely because of the teams involved (who were perceived as bottom-tier teams). It will be short jump to seeing how this setup could handcuff trades involving teams that are successful. Given the poor ability of evaluating teams (and the amount of variance that we saw last year), it's a bit of a concern on my end. We'll see if this ends up being a symmetrical landscape, or if this will lead to some permanent biases. But this ends up being a potential game changer for bottom-tier teams, as the trade waters are loaded for them, and playing the prospect game (where valuations can swing wildly) can be good.

2011 UPL Baseball Draft Lottery

2011-03-10T19:34:00.003-06:00

In case you have forgotten, the results from 2010 UPL Baseball:

So, using the same formula (order of finish, divided total number of points assigned) the corresponding odds were given for the 2011 UPL Draft Lottery:

Team	Rank	Odds
Milwaukee Whiffers	13	14.2857%
Mushheads	12	13.1868%
Benver Droncos	11	12.0879%
SuckMyCurveballs	10	10.9890%
Westy's Sluggers	9	9.8901%
BlackSox	8	8.7912%
Cheeseheads	7	7.6923%
'90 Reds	6	6.5934%
IamJabrone	5	5.4945%
JimmyDix	4	4.3956%
O.N. Thugs	3	3.2967%
Hats for Bats	2	2.1978%
Phatsnapper	1	1.0989%
TOTAL	91	100%

And with some help from CJ, Westy, C-Lauff, and Greg (who generated random numbers for this process), the results are in:

CJ	Westy	C-Lauff	Greg	Winner	Winning Team
1	3	1	6	1316	Milwaukee Whiffers
0	2	3	8	238	BlackSox
2	5	3	6	2536	SuckMyCurveballs

So the draft order has been set:

1. Milwaukee Whiffers
2. BlackSox
3. SuckMyCurveballs
4. Muddy Mush Heads
5. Benver Droncos
6. Westy's Sluggers
7. Cheeseheads
8. '90 Reds
9. IamJabrone
10. JimmyDix Longballs
11. O.N. Thugs
12. Hats for Bats
13. Phatsnapper

This is starting to feel familiar, but without further ado...

Jeff, you are on the clock.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

A Thug Walks Into a Pawn Shop...

2010-12-14T16:57:00.005-06:00

So, the O.N. Thugs and Westy's Ballers have completed a trade. The O.N. Thugs' response? That it was an odd feeling, like walking into a pawn shop in an alternate universe that had reasonable items on the shelves. They went on to note that perhaps the only thing stranger would be to complete a trade with C-Lauff. Westy's response? That C-Lauff would never complete a trade with a competitive team. Ouch. C-Lauff's response? He thought it was a strange trade, that the O.N. Thugs would win the trade this year, but that the jury would be out for the future.

I don't know how strange it is. Obviously, for a team that's in title contention, winning a given trade for that year is a must, unless there's a young superstar involved (think Blake Griffin or something like that). And doing so without gutting the keeper base generally makes the trade a win. As for a rebuilding team, the goal is to get value for older veterans that are borderline keepers, to get younger, and to get likely multiple-year keepers. I think that both teams got what they wanted.

The trade basically went like this. Westy wanted Conley, as an emerging top 10-12 PG, and top 50 player, and someone who the "advanced stats" have always loved. Remember, how he drafted Conley last year, instead of Tyreke Evans? And then he dropped Conley, only to have him start playing well for the O.N. Thugs? And then let Conley slide to the O.N. Thugs in the 4th round of the draft this year, only to have him emerge with a career year? Well, the theory is that Westy wanted to correct that. Given that the O.N. Thugs actually had Conley as their 3rd PG, this was a distinct possibility. The initial offer from Westy was for some bland bench players (think someone like Jamal Crawford, who we've talked about being a non-O.N. Thugs sort of guy here before), which wasn't to the O.N. Thugs liking.

The O.N. Thugs responded with an offer for Al Jefferson in a 1-for-1, but noted that they'd also go for Millsap.

Player A: .453/.767, 15.1 PTS, 1.0 3PM, 7.0 AST, 3.1 REB, 2.1 STL, 2.547 A/TO
Player B: .469/.851, 16.5, 8.8 REB, 2.0 OREB, 1.8 AST, 0.5 STL, 1.7 BLK, 1.438 A/TO
Player C: .550/.725, 17.9 PTS, 8.1 REB, 2.2 OREB, 2.4 AST, 1.5 STL, 0.8 BLK, 1.771 A/TO

The logic was that Conley (Player A) and Jefferson (Player B) had similar scoring, similar percentages, and that Millsap (Player C) was close enough to Jefferson, though he didn't qualify at C. Conely is a plus STL, AST and A/TO guy, and gives you some 3PM. The Thugs needed REB, OREB, BLK, and wanted some FG% in return, if they were going to move Conley.

As a total aside, there was also a secret, illogical reason for the request for Jefferson/Millsap. The O.N. Thugs wanted to have a 2nd good Jazz player on their roster so that they could enjoy watching Jazz games more (since the Jazz have become one of the Thugs' favorite real-life teams, now that D-Will is out there). In the original UPL Keeper Draft, the O.N. Thugs even chose Carlos Boozer over Dwight Howard for the reason that watching D-Will/Boozer for the next few years would be more fun/time-efficient. Yeah. Sometimes, trades work like that.

Westy balked at the 1 for 1, and countered with an improvement from his initial offer that included Tyson Chandler, but still was an awkward 2-for 1 deal for the O.N. Thugs' roster to take, and wasn't enough value to overwhelm the roster makeup.

The O.N. Thugs were intrigued at the possibility of reacquiring Chandler, a valuable part of O.N. Thugs championships in years past, and offered Cousins for Chandler, as a youth for veteran help now, which seems to be a fair deal, based on UPL moves in the past.

It seemed that Westy was OK with the Cousins/Chandler move, but it became clear that Westy still wanted Conley. Last last night, the offer of Cousins for Chandler, plus Conley for Millsap, plus Gallinari for Pierce was offered. If you put together the events from earlier in the negotiations (Westy's refusal to move Millsap for Conley; Cousins for Chandler seeming like a reasonable trade), the conclusion is that Gallinari has more value that Pierce. And if you look at the stats, both have awfully similar stats this year:

Player A: .400/.909, 15.3 PTS, 2.0 3PM, 4.9 REB, 0.9 OREB, 1.7 AST, 0.7 STL, 0.5 BLK, 2.048 A/TO
Player B: .497/.843, 18 PTS, 1.1 3PM, 4.7 REB, 0.3 OREB, 2.7 AST, 0.7 STL, 0.8 BLK, 1.575 A/TO

The key issue is that Gallinari's 11 years younger (and is Player A, above). In fact, across the entire trade, Westy picks up Conley (23), Gallinari (22), and Cousins (20), whereas the O.N. Thugs get Millsap (25), Chandler (30), and Pierce (33).

Of course, this is just the start of trading season. As teams figure out if they're rebuilding (i.e., Sparty) or contending (SMDB), a little more certainty will emerge. And somehow, the O.N. Thugs will keep finding ways to improve their team to make their annual late-season run at the title.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

OT: Baseball Winter Meetings - A tale of Two Sox

2010-12-12T15:38:00.004-06:00

Okay, so while I stare at the Bears/Pats game and obsess over the first week of the UPL - Who the F-ck Is Anne Frank? playoffs I figured I'd contribute something to the site and write up a bit on the early returns from the Hot Stove League on behalf of the two footwear-themed teams.

WINNERS:
The "Beantown Bombers"
Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and the rest of the Boston Red Sox lineup. Gonzo in particular looks to have an upgrade from both the ballpark and lineup, as he might actually have to be pitched to next year while also having runners on base. Crawford's upgrade probably wont be as marked, but means he should maintain his value for some time. Youk's value will go up slightly, as the time he'll see at 3B should qualify him for the position in the following year as well as reaping the benefits of the lineup. Its a good month to be OD. Or an Adrian Gonzalez owner.

The "South Side Hit Men, Part II"
The Chicago White Sox needed an offensive upgrade over last year's rotating DH model. While there will always be a bit of a disconnect between the true value and fantasy value of a player, Mark Kotsay proved that sometimes you can have neither but still eat up a great deal of at-bats. To remedy this the Sox added Dunn, and what they hope is his slugging RBI lefty bat. In a move that Keith Law hated on, but that was the most obvious in retrospect, they also locked up what they hope are the last few productive years of Paul Konerko. If the Sox can find a way to upgrade their bullpen without trading Quentin, the Sox could field a lineup that looks something like this...

LF - Pierre
SS - Alexei Ramirez
CF - Rios
DH - Dunn
1B - Konerko
RF - Quentin
C - AJ
2B - Beckham
3B- Morel

Dont bet on Morel producing like Mark Reynolds, he's a contact hitter with plus baserunning skills, but considering that Pierre's RBI weapon is a bunt or a contact swing which led to double-play more often than not. Personally I'm hoping that combined with a solid-bounce back year this means Beckham produces like a true keeper.

And the Bears are getting destroyed by the Patriots, which is depressing me beyond my ability to continue this post. Bear down.

WakeupWithoutTheKing

2010-11-12T23:24:00.004-06:00

We have our first blockbuster trade of the UPL Basketball season.

Lebron James going to the Milwaukee Bricks
Joakim Noah and Eric Gordon to Stephan, who will also have to rename his fantasy team. I've suggested WakeupWithoutTheKing as an option.

This will either be the most brilliant or the most idiotic trade in the history of the UPL.

Let's break it down.

LeBron, typical: 29.5 PTS, 1.5 3PM, 49.5% FG, 76% FT, 1.1 OREB, 7.1 REB, 7.5 AST, 1.7 STL, 1 BLK, 2.1A/TO.
LeBron, this year: 22.2 PTS, 0.9 3PM, 44% FG, 79% FT, 0.2 OREB, 6 REB, 8.7 AST, 1.8 STL, 1 BLK, 2.0 A/TO

The major difference? His FG% has dipped, especially from 3. And he's taking about 4 fewer shots (including 2 fewer 3-pointers) per game. Also, his OREB's have gone down quite a bit, as well. Why is this happening? The Heat are playing at a tempo at about 102 points per game, virtually the same as what the Cavs did last year. The problem is that there are more players who actually want to score (and are actually good at it).

So why might you want to hang on to LBJ? His peripheral stats are still darned good. You're picking up an extra AST, though you're giving away an OREB in doing so. Everything else is basically the same. LBJ has likely peaked statistically (since it's really hard to do more than he has done the last few years). But if you believe that the Heat are going to keep playing at 102 points per game (and not 110 PPG), then you may need to temper your scoring expectations. So in that sense, now may be the perfect "sell high" opportunity. And he's not quite as untouchable as he would have been being a 1-man show in Cleveland or wherever else.

Which leads to the 2nd part of the equation. Joakim Noah and EJ Gordon

Gordon, this season: 21.1 PTS, 0.9 3PM, 47.7% FG, 76.6% FT, 0.6 OREB, 3.7 REB, 4.7 AST, 1.3 STL, 0.7 BLK, 1.375 A/TO.
Noah, this season: 15.9 PTS, 0 3PM, 52.6% FG, 77.5% FT, 4.1 OREB, 13.9 REB, 2.6 AST, 1.0, STL, 2.1 BLK, 1.286 A/TO.

Now, these numbers may improve a little bit for Gordon, as he develops (and by all accounts, he's getting better). He's largely limited to being a scorer, for fantasy purposes. And 21.1 PTS is good by any evaluation. However, I'd argue that if you are only going to get about 4 REB and 4 AST, (both below average for a UPL championship-caliber team), then you need to get a little more than 21.1 points (unless he's a real 3PM guy). This is sort of my argument against guys like Rip Hamilton, Jamal Crawford or Jason Terry.

On the other hand Noah has been tearing it up, scoring reasonably well, and leading the league in OREB and REB, and being a definite asset in BLK. He's scoring about 5-6 more points per game than last season, and this is coming from 3 more FG attempts and 2 more FT attempts. The major reason? 9 more minutes per game. Personally, I'd be a little suspect that this will stay the case throughout the season. Why? There's some dude named Boozer that the Bulls paid a lot of money for last season that will be coming back in a few weeks. In addition to scaling back to something like 32 minutes, there may be some other things decreasing. Given Noah's team-oriented nature (and Boozer's black-hole-ish game), he may be deferring on those extra shots on offense, and may give up a few of those REB. We shall see.

Of course, the comparison to similar trades should be made. Last season, there were only minor rumblings when the O.N. Thugs and SuckMyDribblingBalls swung a major trade. The Thugs acquired Kobe Bryant, and send Monta Ellis and David West over to SMDB. At the time, West was ranked somewhere in the high 20's, low 30's, Ellis was ranked in the 40's (coming off injury), and Kobe was ranked 5th, I believe. And Ellis was trending upward at the time. So, the idea is that it would take roughly two 3rd round picks to get a clear first round pick. And since then both parties have been pretty happy with the results. Kobe's done his thing (despite gimping around the last half of the season in 2009-10), Ellis has gone nuts for a bad GS team, and David West keeps churning out games of 19 and 8 with high efficiency.

Now, given that LBJ is much younger than Kobe, in a keeper league, you'd expect a premium to what was paid for Kobe. I'm not sure if Gordon and Noah would be better than Ellis and West. Ellis is clearly better than Gordon (about 5 PTS , 1 more REB, about 2 more STL per game, and 51.1% FG). West is a little older, and has been unselfish (and let Okafor get more established), so his numbers of dropped off a bit this year as he's gone from 36 to 30 minutes per game. Noah is getting about 6 more REB than West right now (scoring slightly favors West). But I'm not sure that the margin between Noah and West will be as high as it is now, once Boozer gets into the mix. Maybe you're getting a slight premium to Ellis/West. But I'd argue that LBJ should be getting a heavier premium to Kobe than that. That isn't to say that this trade doesn't help Stephan's team. Noah is the sort of player that definitely helps you win - single-handedly keeps you competitive in 3 categories, about neutral in PTS, and is a plus FG% guy.

Would an open market for LBJ have fetched more? Jeff - make sure that you're reading this next section, because I have a suspicion that you could get yourself 2 or 3 keeper pieces, which probably makes sense for your franchise. But I think that it would have. So in that sense (and I don't say this often), Jeff made a great trade. I don't know how many times those words show up in the same sentence here on the UPL Blog. So savor it :-)

I'd bet that C-Lauff would have at least thought about Carmelo and David Lee. Reasonable chance he bites on Carmelo and Horford. And he'd definitely move Carmelo and Collison. If you offer LBJ to OD, you can probably get D12 and Raymond Felton. Or Monta Ellis and Tim Duncan. Probably not D12 and Monta Ellis, though. From the O.N. Thugs, you 2 pieces out of Roy, Aldridge, Boozer, and maybe even Westbrook/Lopez. I'd guess that Robby would move 2 pieces out of Rondo, Z-Bo, Bosh, and Gay.

My prediction? Jeff plays this one savvy and moves LBJ again (maybe with another marginal keeper) and locks down 3 legit keepers that he can really build a team around.

Meanwhile, on a completely unrelated topic... Jeff, are you a Trail Blazers fan? They play basketball the right way, and two guys that really do it well are Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge.... and a guy with huge upside is DeMarcus Cousins. I really think that these guys would be a nice set of players to build a strong UPL franchise around...

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Assumptions

2010-11-10T02:16:00.004-06:00

I'm copying and pasting parts of an e-mail exchange that I'm having with Westy about some basketball stats. Mainly, it's me making fun of John Hollinger's power rating statistic, which has somehow become a fixture on ESPN.com. A second issue worth thinking about is how perfectly smart people (like Westy) can fall into common traps. Basically, on the front page of ESPN.com, there was this slick graphic that showed that the Heat were the top team in the NBA sofar, based on John Hollinger's Power Ratings. And of course, I thought that was crap.

My initial e-mail was intended to give a little ribbing to Westy about his love for "advanced" stats like the stuff that John Hollinger uses. Just one sentence and a picture from ESPN.com:

Westy - I guess that I see why you love your advanced stats and hate winning :-)

Note the "winning isn't everything" lead-in. We don't need wins; we have numbers with decimal points.

Also, note that this is before my man D-Will led a 4th quarter comeback, which in turn led to an upset of the Heat by the Jazz in OT.

Of course Westy's response is that Hollinger uses strength of schedule (SOS), with the idea being implied that a statistician like Hollinger wouldn't post anything as ridiculous as a 5-2 team being better than a 7-0 team, unless there was a good reason. To be honest, I had no idea what Hollinger's methodology was, other than it was spitting out shady results. So I took a peek at what was under the hood by looking at the methodology. And of course, I'm appalled.

So, I shoot off an e-mail to Westy. I make some smart ass comment about how going 4-0 against the Nets, T'Wolves and Sixers, while going 1-2 against the Magic, Celts, and Hornets clearly makes you the best team in the NBA. But more importantly, you notice that the Hornets have a higher SOS than the Heat, yet are ranked well below them by Hollinger (despite winning head-to-head). I'm OK with using margin of victory as a component in team evaluation, but you probably shouldn't use it straight up. At this point, I hadn't scrolled far enough down to see the actual equation being used, but I did see that the Hollinger starts off by talking about margin of victory, which suggests that's the major component of this ranking (which is what it looked like at first glance). Part of my comment to Westy:

Seems that Hollinger's first criteria is margin of victory, probably w/out any sort of cap or deeper view beyond the final score. In that sort of scenario, you're rewarded more for winning by 54 points against the T'Wolves and Nets and losing twice by "only" 3 and 8 points (only 2-2, but still +43), than you would be for, say, going 4-0 and winning by 9 points each game (+36). Don't get me wrong. Margin of victory/loss should count, but once you get beyond, say 15 points, you'd have to show me a strong case for why it matters.

Now, I'm sure that Westy didn't look at the Hollinger methodology very closely, and my guess is that he assumed that a statistician that's associated with the "advanced stat" movement wouldn't use a crude tool. At least, certainly not to the extent that I was insinuating. Westy suggests that Hollinger is actually using offensive and defensive efficiency, which would be the best (simple) predictor of team performance. Westy's probably right about how team efficiency stats would be a pretty good predictor, at least compared to the readily available stats. But the assumption is that Hollinger is using something that has built off of those stats.

I had a suspicion that Hollinger's stuff just couldn't be as useful as Westy was suggesting, with the results it was spitting out. So I went back to the explanation of the methodology. And sure enough, we see this:

RATING = (((SOS-0.5)/0.037)*0.67) + (((SOSL10-0.5)/0.037)*0.33) + 100 + (0.67*(MARG+(((ROAD-HOME)*3.5)/(GAMES))) + (0.33*(MARGL10+(((ROAD10-HOME10)*3.5)/(10)))))

Basically, here's what this equation says. Everyone starts with 100. Then, you look at strength of schedule, and measure how much it differs from .500. Then you divide this difference by 0.037 (no explanation for why he uses this number). Do this for the entire season, weighting it 2/3, and do this for the last 10 games, weighting it 1/3 (so that you're placing greater emphasis on the last 10 games). Also, note that he doesn't explain why he chooses the 2/3 and 1/3 weighting (or 10 games for that matter). Finally, you look at the scoring margin, and add an adjustment of 3.5 points for each game played on the road. Again, do this for the entire season, weighting it 2/3, and for the last 10 games, weighting it 1/3. Seems simple enough. But what does this really tell you?

Look at some recent NBA history, readily available on ESPN.com. Since 2002, NBA teams SOS at the end of the season will range from 0.484 to 0.514. The reason that everyone doesn't have a .500 SOS is that you have unbalanced schedules, and the certain conferences/divisions are stronger than others. But if you take the difference from 0.500, and then divide by 0.037, you find that SOS will impact a team's power rating anywhere from -0.378 to +0.432. Okay. So what?

Well, remember that we're starting off at 100 points. SOS impacts you less than half a point either way. So how do you get teams with ratings of 86.814 (the Wizards so far this year) and 116.15 (the Heat, before their loss to the Jazz)? Well, SOS can be a bit skewed right now, but even with a 0.600 SOS, the contribution to the power rating would only be about 2.7. The only other component is scoring margin. Again, if you look at the stats since 1999, you'll see that the lowest/highest scoring margins have been -11.5 and +10.2 points per game. Remember that SOS contributed somewhere between -0.378 to +0.432 points in power rating, we're seeing how scoring margin contributes about 25 times more. This suggests that over 96% of the power rating comes from scoring margin, and less than 4% comes from SOS. Basically Hollinger's power rating is just point differential with a slight tweak based on SOS. Not quite as advanced as something based on offensive and defensive efficiency.

As for the Heat, and their 116.15 power rating? So far this year, their SOS was a very high .595. Divide by .037, and you get 2.57. So, if 100 is the baseline, their SOS contributes 2.57, then their scoring margin contributes the other 13.58. If you place this in context, and look at the actual results, then the interpretation is that the Heat are the best team in the NBA because a) they've smoked the Nets and T'Wolves and Magic, and have lost two relatively close games. Now, if we were in a game where you took all of the points that a team scored in a season, and then subtracted the points that were scored on them, and then awarded a trophy to the team that had the greatest differential, then scoring margin by itself would be a great stat. But, in a game where you have discrete wins and losses, you really should capture the variance of margins in wins and losses. I'm not inclined to look in depth at creating these measures right now (mainly because I'm lazy). But you should be able to tell that once you look under the hood, this Hollinger power rating isn't quite as advanced as the the slick graphics and front-page placement on ESPN.com would have you believe.

In an ideal world, Westy would be safe in his assumption that something that makes the front page of ESPN.com as something from an "advanced stat guy" would be truly useful. Smart people would actually be putting together useful information that extends existing knowledge. Unfortunately, in our world, people have an incentive to sandbag on the truly useful stuff, and instead, we're exposed to the stuff that can fool most of the people most of the time. I'll give Hollinger the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he's got better stuff that he's keeping under wraps, hopefully because it's proprietary for some NBA team that he's consulting. In fact, he even admits that this power ranking needs some caveats. But I don't think that most folks think that it's as crude as I've (hopefully) demonstrated it to be. After all, when you see that the Heat are 116.150, and the Wizards are 88.814, you have all these decimal points that suggest that there's something smart going on under the hood.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

2010-11 UPL Basketball Fantasy Outlook

2010-11-09T14:14:00.008-06:00

As we head off into the latest iteration of UPL Fantasy Hoops, the keeper era is well under way, and we definitely see how the sins and successes of the past have laid a path for the performance of today. The keeper era allows teams to keep 8 out of their 10 starters, which means that only 2 starters and the 4 bench players from a given season need to be replaced. So teams that are good one one year probably won't become awful the next year, barring major injuries. However, there's no guarantee that a championship team one year will automatically do it again the following year.

In fact, in our first two seasons, we've seen some heavy variance from our 1st year podium to our 2nd year podium. Back in 08-09, it was the O.N. Thugs and European Sellouts (aka WakeupWithTheKing) tied for 1st, and Sparty in 3rd (with IamJabrone, Chowtime, and Westy close behind in 4th, and tied for 5th, respectively). However, there was a bit of a shakeup in 09-10. The 4th Jabrones took the title, the O.N. Thugs slipped to 2nd, and SuckmyDribblingBalls rose from 7th place into 3rd. Sparty and Westy stayed in that 2nd tier. But the co-champion WakeupWithTheKing dropped all the way into 8th place. So what we've seen is that there's generally not a ton of movement, but it's possible to have massive rises/drops in performance. And when you look at what happened in UPL Baseball from 2009 to 2010, you'll see that there massive improvement could be even more common.

THE KEEPER STORY

Having said all that about team mobility, keepers matter a lot. If you recall, my analysis of last year's keepers was very favorable for the O.N. Thugs and IamJabrone. However, I allowed myself to be fooled when I placed the Jabrones lower in my actual season preview. In fairness, I thought that he botched the #1 draft pick (he did), and that the Hawks were going to tank (they didn't). Though Westy's team had highly ranked keepers, the makeup of that looked off (lots of age, and a hole as the 8th keeper), and didn't seem like it would be quite as strong as he was the previous season. And the keeper list suggested that WakeupWithTheKing was in for a bit of a struggle last year, which indeed was what happened. So what about 2010-11?

As you look through the rosters, in particular the keeper rosters, you see a clear top tier. IamJabrone and the O.N. Thugs finished 1st and 2nd last year, and are loaded again. When Derrick Rose and Carlos Boozer are the lowest rated (by Yahoo! pre-rank) keepers on these two teams, you know that there are 8 solid options to start off. If things play out, like I think they will, we'll probably do a more in-depth breakdown of these two teams in the future.

Right behind these two teams is Love T'Wolves and last year's 3rd place team, SuckMyDribblingBalls. I liked Robby's keeper core from last year, though that hasn't really been added to, they run a legit 6 deep (Durant, Rondo, Bosh, Z-Bo, Gay, Love). Andre Miller and Michael Beasley are somewhat questionable, but could be solid pieces. For SMDB, having the improved D12 and ageless 'Ason Kidd (no J, much like his protegee Ra'on Rondo) leading off, followed by Monta Ellis, David West, and Timmy give a legit top 5. However, the other keepers (Raymond Felton, John Salmons, and Greg Oden) are question marks of varying degree.

I would say that the tier after this looks to be Sparty Rules, WakeupWithTheKing, and Chowtime. These are top-heavy teams with noticeable drops in quality.

Sparty has CP3, Chauncy Billups, and Marcus Camby. So the non-scoring stats should look awfully good. But with Bargnani, Troy Murphy, Jeff Green, Hedo, and Diaw, the rest of the keepers look suspect (at best). But any team with CP3 will have roster flexibility, because that one player will guarantee points in AST and A/TO.

The same story holds for WakeupWithTheKing. Any time you have LBJ, you'll compete because you'll be getting help in so many categories. Add on Steph Curry, Gerald Wallace, and you'll be competitive in rebounding and 3PM. Add on youngsters Tyreke Evans and Brandon Jennings, and you've got a nice core to start, though they may be a couple years away from really flourishing. OJ Mayo is still only a scorer, but is a reasonable keeper (though you'd like to improve there). The only major question mark is Bynum, with his injury history.

Chowtime is a bit more balanced, and has 4 awesome keepers, and 4 question marks. Any time you can lead off with Dirk, Granger, and Pau, and then follow up with Blake Griffin, you're starting off solid. However, when you go with guys like Manu and Yao, you're hoping for some luck. And I'm not sure that Chris Kaman and Tony Parker feel like keepers on a championship team.

Then you get to Westy's Ballers (or Impresarios or whatever the hell they are now). Given Westy's past UPL Basketball success, you'd assume that he'd be a top half team. But then you look at his keepers. AI 2.0, Big Al, The Other Gasol. A couple older guys in Baron Davis and Paul Pierce. Devin Harris. Anthony Randolph. Paul Millsap. I see some nice pieces. But you don't look at this team and think"podium." I look at this group, and I'm thinking 7th or 8th place.

After that, you run into three bottom-tier teams. Floor Burns, Milwaukee Bricks, and Phatsnapper all have rebuilding efforts in front of them, of varying degrees. Of the three, I'd say that Phatsnapper has the most talent, given the Nash/Stoudamire combo, but definitely needs to make some trades. The Bricks have a nice group of Eric Gordon, Joakim Noah, Nene, and Aaron Brooks to build around, but definitely need to get an infusion of young talent in there (and may need to try to pull off a 2 for 1 or a 3 for 1 sort of deal).

So off of the keepers, the UPL preview looks something like this:

Likely Championship Contenders: O.N. Thugs, IamJabrone
Possible Championship Contenders: Love T'Wolves, SuckMyDribblingBalls
Outside Shots at the Championship: Sparty, Chowtime, WakeupWithTheKing
Heading for Limbo: Westy's Impresarios
Rebuilding Now: Phatsnapper, Floor Burns, Milwaukee Bricks

DRAFT AND EARLY SEASON PICKUPS

The next step in the formula is to look at the actual draft, to see how things play out. And I'll be the first person to say it. The draft is huge for rebuilding teams, and for championship contending teams. For rebuilding teams, it's a chance to get at young talent. For championship teams, it's about rounding out your stats. When you brick a draft, you set yourself up for failure. Last year, I put myself behind the 8-ball in the draft when I overslept the draft, and ended up with the best white player available as my auto-pick motif (Spencer Hawes, Peja, etc.). Needless to say, I revamped my bench very early on in the season last year. On the other hand, when you luck out in the lottery like C-Lauff did last year, you get a huge advantage by jumping to the front of the line for superstars-in-waiting like Blake Griffin, who looks to be a double-double machine for the foreseeable future... er. Wait. Check that. You end up with guys like Anthony Randolph who... uh... can't get run on Westy's team.

And an extension of the draft is the early season pickups that you make, as real-life playing time gets sorted out. For rebuilding teams, the goal is to find young potential impact talent, to find potentially underpriced veteran talent, and otherwise tradeable pieces. The goal should be to worry less about rounding out a roster. The contending teams, the goals is to balance that upside with performance in specific stat categories (as the team's stat base should be largely set). So how did teams do?

The winner of the draft was the winner of the lottery, because this year, the lottery winner (Phatsnapper) took the #1 overall NBA draft pick, John Wall. Phatsnapper gets a keeper building block. They also got Evan Turner, who I'm not nearly as high on, but seems to be a reasonable investment. His roster still has a long way to go, but adding on 2 easy keepers makes this draft a win.

IamJabrone's moves have leaned toward stable, veteran players (Crawford, Rashard Lewis, Okur, Ibaka, Augustin). But has found a couple guards with (Augustin and Bledsoe), as he looks for this year's version of Darren Collison. On the other hand, the O.N. Thugs took slightly more balanced route, taking on some youth (Cousins and Favors) and some players for specific stats (Dalembert, Delfino), and buying low on some veterans (Conley, Hickson). Both teams seem to have helped themselves out, though I'm guessing that the benches will be pretty fluid throughout the season. I'd guess that the O.N. Thugs have more attractive trade pieces, and the Thugs seem to be able to pull of a useful move each season. But the draft doesn't really do much for separating the two teams.

I'd argue that Love T'Wolves helped themselves the most out of any non-Phatsnapper team in the draft, picking up 3PM help (Channing Frye and Ben Gordon), as well as some emerging talent in Roy Hibbert and Rodney Stuckey. I think that his draft should create a little separation from that of SMDB, who added a couple solid pieces in Elton Brand (who's been awesome thus far) and Jameer Nelson. However, SMDB seems to have whiffed with this remaining picks (George Hill, Barbosa, Heyward, and Dunleavy).

Chowtime took an interesting route by drafting young with Wesley Johnson, Derrick Favors, Jrue Holliday, Marcus Thornton, and Yi (in addition to the old veteran KG). But has since backtracked, moving Johnson and Favors for guys like Kirk Hinrich and Richard Jefferson. We'll see how that plays out, but the implication is that this is going to be a run for this year, rather than trying to rebuild for 2011-12.

The opposite of what Chowtime did was what Sparty did in the draft. All vets. AK-47, Tyrus Thomas, Brendan Haywood, Jarrett Jack, Mike Miller, Beno Udrih. The implication is that he's trying to win now. However, Sparty's roster is starting to look like the Milwaukee Bricks, plus CP3. I'm not sure if that's enough to win, and that draft doesn't give you as many trade options with rebuilding teams. Westy took a similar approach, hoping for bounce-back seasons from veterans (Caron Butler, Luol Deng, Kleiza), and an improvement due to change in scenery (Dorrell Wright). Unfortunately, Westy's team is looking like it's going to become the Milwaukee Bricks, without CP3. It'll take some savvy moves (and maybe swallowing a bitter pill this year) to keep that from happening.

WakeupWithTheKing has the biggest lottery ticket of the draft in Gilbert Arenas. His roster leans young anyway, so adding some veterans into the mix could help reduce some of that variance. But the rest of the draft doesn't seem to have revealed a difference maker. Similar story for the Bricks and Floor Burns, who may have found some reasonable pieces (Biedrins, Robin Lopez, Drew Gooden for Bricks; Blatche, McGee, Young, and J.R. Smith for Floor Burns). But you don't get the impression that there's going to be a major change from the draft. The major difference is that WakeupWithTheKing started his rebuilding last year (Brandon Jennings, Tyreke Evans, Steph Curry who is not Blake Griffin), and is probably going to be back in the top half of the league this year. The same can not be said for Floor Burns or the Bricks.

So where does this have things shake out?

Likely Championship Battle: O.N. Thugs, IamJabrone, Love T'Wolves
Fighting for a Podium Spot: SuckMyDribblingBalls, Chowtime, WakeupWithTheKing
Stuck in Limbo: Sparty Rules, Westy's Impresarios
Rebuilding: Phatsnapper, Floor Burns, Milwaukee Bricks

Overall, there are a lot of moving parts to consider. You've got 3 teams that should finish in the top half, and 3 teams that will finish in the bottom half. How the 5 teams in the middle compete will really influence how the points are distributed in the league. I have a suspicion that one or two major trades, and perhaps one or two random free agents will influence how everything plays out. Given the relatively tight competition 1 through 8, the makeup of this list could change drastically.

But like I always say, I never bet against the O.N. Thugs.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

2010 UPL Baseball Wrap-up and Post-Season Awards

2010-10-25T14:15:00.005-05:00

Once again, props to the UPL owners who were playing the season out until the last day, when we had a bit of an upset when Phatsnapper took over first place from Hats for Bats, and became the latest UPL multi-title owner. Phatsnapper took a somewhat risky route to the title, deciding to sacrifice multiple categories (SB and SV), and hoped that no one was going to put together an elite season. In the past, I've briefly written about the numbers behind punting on a categories. Part of the thought process is that you only can surrender so many points, and expect to win. In the past, we generally have teams win with somewhere between 114 and 116 points (in 11 or 12 team leagues). If you bump that up to a 13 team league, and assume that teams in contention would probably get most of those extra points, then you'd probably expect 125 to 127 as the magic number you'd need to get to.

Bearing in mind that in a 13 team league, we're looking at 156 possible points, that means that surrendering 30 points is the most you'd want to do. When you punt on a category, you're automatically surrendering 12 points. To give up on SV and SB means that you're surrendering 24 points. This means that across the remaining 10 categories, you need to average a little better than 12 out of 13 points. This means that you'd have to finish 2nd or better across the board, which is awfully tough to do. And even then, you may run into a buzzsaw of a team. If you run into one of the top UPL teams from years past, surrendering a category, much less multiple categories, probably dooms you.

Generally speaking, when you run a strategy where you're surrendering 1 category, it's risky. You have to trust that you're going to come awfully close to maxing out everything else. But, if you execute, you can still pretty much control your destiny. Surrendering 2 categories is a bad strategy, unless you know some other things, namely, whether anyone else is going to also punt on those categories. If you don't know these things, then even if run perfect, there's a chance that you can still get beat. Now, if you know that other teams are going to give up on SB and SV, then this becomes a little more viable, since you can reasonably expect to make some tactical adjustments for a few points.

That said, the execution still matters or the strategy matters. But I'd argue that your optimal strategic move is to assume perfect execution, so that you're not relying the breaks falling your way. If you look at how the breaks went, some specific things went right that you can isolate. Hats for Bats lost out on his skirmish in SLG, a potential 2.5 point swing, and basically played his OBP competition at par (could have gotten another 1.5 points, but could have lost 2 points), when his offense let him down in the last 2 weeks of the season. Similarly, the O.N. Thugs had unexpectedly disastrous stretches from Tim Lincecum (0-5, 8.00/1.80 in August)and Chris Carpenter (2-5, 4.50/1.30 from 8/26 until end of season) that swung the W/L numbers by anywhere from 5 to 7 points. If the breaks had fallen the way of Hats for Bats or the O.N. Thugs, then this could have been a very different result.

But, one thing that the Phatsnapper strategy does is make your execution much easier. From a theoretical sense, you're removing some moving parts from the equation. This lets you devote more of your roster to fewer categories. If you look at the "upward/downward mobility" in the categories, you can see that Phatsnapper was pretty much locked in to his points, save for a few minor skirmishes here and there. On the other hand, the teams that were chasing Phatsnapper were all involved in heavy competition for points, with a lot of possible variance across multiple categories.

That said, I think that's a relatively less interesting discussion than the more pertinent discussion about the UPL trade waters, which I will comment on in a future post. As for the rest of this post? It's time to give out some hardware:

All-UPL First Team:

C: Joe Mauer, Phatsnapper
1B: Albert Pujols, IAmJabrone
2B: Robinson Cano, Phatsnapper
3B: Jose Bautista, Hats for Bats
SS: Troy Tulowitzki, Cheeseheads
OF: Carlos Gonzalez, '90 Reds
OF: Carl Crawford, Cheeseheads
OF: Josh Hamilton, Phatsnapper
UTIL: Joey Votto, Muddy Mush Heads
UTIL: Paul Konerko, SuckMyKnuckleballs
SP: Roy Halladay, Hats for Bats
SP: Adam Wainwright, Phatsnapper
SP: Ubaldo Jimenez, Benver Droncos
SP: David Price, Phatsnapper
SP: Jon Lester, JimmyDixLongballs
RP: Brian Wilson, '90 Reds
RP: Heath Bell, Hats for Bats
RP: Joakim Soria, O.N. Thugs

All-UPL Second Team

C: Victor Martinez, '90 Reds
1B: Miguel Cabrera, O.N. Thugs
2B: Dan Uggla, IAmJabrone
3B: tie, David Wright, O.N. Thugs and Adrian Beltre, Westy's Sluggers
SS: Hanley Ramirez, Black Sox
OF: Ryan Braun, SuckMyKnuckleballs
OF: Matt Holliday, Milwaukee Whiffers
OF: Adam Dunn, O.N. Thugs
UTIL: Jayson Werth, Black Sox
UTIL: Adrian Gonzalez, JimmyDixLongballs
SP: Felix Hernandez, Phatsnapper
SP: Roy Oswalt, Milwaukee Whiffers
SP: C.C. Sabathia, IamJabrone
SP: Josh Johnson, Black Sox
SP: Justin Verlander, Black Sox
RP: Mariano Rivera, SuckMyKnuckleballs
RP: Rafael Soriano, Cheeseheads
RP: Billy Wagner, Milwaukee Whiffers

All-UPL Team Killers

C: Matt Wieters, Benver Droncos
1B: Justin Morneau, Benver Droncos
2B: Chase Utley, Westy's Sluggers
3B: Mark Reynolds, IamJabrone
SS: Jimmy Rollins, Benver Droncos
OF: Jacoby Ellsbury, IamJabrone
OF: Justin Upton, '90 Reds
OF: Jason Bay, SuckMyKunckleballs
UTIL:Matt Kemp, Phatsnapper
UTIL: Dustin Pedroia, SuckMyKunckleballs
SP: Zack Greinke, Phatsnapper
SP: Josh Beckett, SuckMyKunckleballs
SP: Javy Vazquez, free agent (kept by '90 Reds)
SP: Wandy Rodriguez, '90 Reds
SP: Scott Baker, free agent (kept by Westy's Sluggers)
RP: Bobby Jenks, JimmyDixLongballs
RP: Johanthan Broxton, IAmJabrone
RP: Chad Qualls, free agent (kept by '90 Reds)

Team of the Year: Phatsnapper
Manager of the year: Pauly (honorable mention, Rup and CJ)
UPL MVP - Josh Hamilton, Phatsnapper
UPL Cy Young - Roy Halladay, Hats for Bats
UPL Fireman Award - Brian Wilson, '90 Reds
UPL Rookie Pitcher - Neftali Feliz, Phatsnapper
UPL Rookie Hitter - Buster Posey, Cheeseheads
UPL Out of Nowhere Pitcher - Mat Latos, '90 Reds
UPL Out of Nowhere Hitter - Jose Bautista, Hats for Bats

2010-11 UPL Hoops: The Decision

2010-10-06T00:32:00.008-05:00

EDIT: THE DRAFT HAS BEEN MOVED TO 8:45 PM, BUT STILL ON SUNDAY OCT. 24.

So it doesn't look like we've got much in the way of new features for the 2010-11 UPL Basketball: The Decision. But we are continuing with the UPL Draft Lottery, the results of which we will be announcing later in this post. The draft itself will be in prime time for the first time ever. Given the difficulty we've had with Saturday morning draft times, we've made an executive decision to move the draft to Sunday, October 24, at 7:30 pm (central), in prime time.

What this means is that we need to get our keepers e-mailed to me a week in advance, by Sunday, October 17th. After you sign up for this year's league, you can look at last year's results and see who is on your rosters. Also, trades can be made - contact me via e-mail, and I'll send out a notice to the other owners for evaluation.

And without further ado, the results of the 2010 UPL Draft Lottery. Based on last year's order of finish, each team receives a number of "lottery tickets" in this season's draft. The numbers that correspond to each team are randomly assigned. Each teams will receive the following number of tickets.

Team	Rank	"Tickets"
Phatsnapper	11	1667
IamJabberjaw	10	1515
Floor Burns	9	1364
WakeupWithTheKing	8	1212
Chowtime	7	1061
Love T'Wolves	6	909
Westy's Ballers	5	758
Sparty Rules	4	606
SuckMyDribblingBalls	3	455
O.N. Thugs	2	303
IamJabrone	1	151
TOTAL	66	10000

The process is similar to the procedure used in the past, and is detailed here and here. This year, Jeff, C-Lauff, Westy, and OD provided the numbers for the winning lottery tickets. The results are as follows:

Picking 11th: IamJabrone. Last year's defending champions are choosing last in the 1st round.

10th: O.N. Thugs. Things progress according to plan, as the 6-time UPL Hoops champions pick at the end of the draft again.

9th: SuckMyDribblingBalls. Again, the order of draft is continuing on as one would expect.

8th: Sparty Rules. Still no changes, as the lottery remains on track.

7th: Westy's Ballers. The lottery is still on track.

6th: Love T'Wolves. So far each of the picks are what the statistics would predict.

5th: Chowtime. Last year's 7th place team is picking 5th this year, as expected. This is the most predictable draft that we've ever seen in the UPL.

4th: Floor Burns. Finally, a minor shakeup. Last year's 9th place team (3rd to last) is picking 4th. This means that WakeupWithTheKing has won one of the three lottery slots, in a minor upset.

3rd: IamJabberJaw. Last year's 10th place team is picking 3rd, which means that WakeupWithTheKing will be jumping up at least 2 spots.

2nd: WakeupWithTheKing. The lucky streak as run out, but moving up two spots in the draft is a nice little bonus. And more importantly, this means that...

1st: Phatsnapper. For the 2nd time this week, Phatsnapper has won a UPL event. He starts off the week pulling off a last day victory in UPL Baseball, and today, he has won the 2010 UPL Basketball Draft Lottery. Congrats to Rup.

Phatsnapper is on the clock.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Dark Days Behind

2010-10-05T14:33:00.005-05:00

It's been 5 months now. And I think that I'm finally ready to talk about it. At first, I was in denial. I can't believe that it happened. Then anger. I kept my composure on the surface, but underneath the calm exterior, I was fuming. I blamed others. Mikey. The airlines. God. But that went away. There wasn't much bargaining. There isn't much to bargain with when it's you versus numbers on a computer screen. Instead, I continued straight into depression. For 5 months, I replayed scenarios in my head, wondering how I could have let things fall apart like that. But today, I have reached the final stage of grief. Today, I accept what has happened, and am prepared to move forward.

What am I talking about?

Fantasy hoops. Specifically, 2009-10 UPL Fantasy Basketball. I will tip my cap to C-Lauff for the win - he took advantage (sort of) of his lottery victory, and put together a very solid team, that persevered despite the loss of shooting guard Gilbert Arenas.

However, let me set the record straight.

C-Lauff writes:

"As much as Roland wanted everyone to think that it was his to lose, I've had him teed up for a while in the AST and OREB categories, which is where the season was won and lost. Obviously, it was close and could have went either way, but I don't think it was as a sure thing as Mr. Thug wanted us to believe."

That statement is out and out wrong. In some sense, basketball is the fantasy sport that you have the most control over, because the performance is somewhat predictable, whereas even in baseball, events like HR and SB (and even R and RBI) happen so sporadically that you get a lot of variance. But you have to play the games for the predictability to matter. If you look at the compete standings, you will see a shortage of games played on my end. Specifically, three games short, and they came at big-man positions (which you can't see). This league came down to AST and OREB, which C-Lauff is correct about. However, from the situation that we were in, he could not have won both, had both teams executed properly. But we'll get to that later.

The easy answer is that I made a mistake in my lineup on the last day of the season. I was making final adjustments the night before, as I was flying up to Chicago for Mikey's (I Giocatori from UPL Football) wedding. Basically, I thought that I had Taj Gibson in the lineup, but had not saved the changes properly. Instead, Carlos Boozer took a DNP. I was so sure that I had Gibson in the lineup, that when I was driving from the airport to the north suburbs, I explained to Mikey that I had Gibson in the lineup. And then I got on to the internet and saw that Gibson had a huge game, pulling down 7 OREB. I figured that the title was locked. Of course, when I logged in, I saw that I actually have Boozer in there, and that I needed a miracle from some guy named Reggie Williams. That was the start of the denial. And actually, we went into anger awfully quickly. I started being upset about flying up on Wednesday night to be able to help out with errands on Thursday before a Friday wedding (which C-Lauff blew off, by the way), costing me a 5-peat. But as I look back, I reach some level of acceptance.

But even before the poor execution on the last day, the Jazz had hurt me, with Boozer and D-Will taking a couple other DNP's, which messed up my endgame scenario. Basically, I was staggering my games so that I could get to 163 games each at C and UTIL, and then play 2 players on the same night, so that I could cheat the 2 extra games. This is how you see teams get to 822 games played (and in case anyone didn't know that originally, I've let the cat out of the bag). With the Boozer DNP's going on, I ended up unable to max out my GP. Additionally, D-Will's DNP's in the last week (I actually had to pick up and play Kirk Hinrich in the last week), set things back in AST. But even I had set it up so that I'd come in with a safe landing by the tightest of margins. So what was the endgame that I had setup?

Basically, I knew that if I won either AST or OREB over C-Lauff, that I would win. The calculus was pretty simple, as those were the only categories that were in play. However, about 3 weeks before the end of the season, I saw that AST was likely going C-Lauff's way, as he was pushing that category big time. He lucked out with Darren Collison's play after the CP3 injury, and was fortunate that CP3 was shut down for the season, which extended Collison's contributions. So, he does this by going after guys like Jrue Holliday, and Shaun Livingston. At this point, I make a semi-bluff by acquiring Mike Conley (who actually started playing well in the 2nd half of the season). The idea was that he was going to push hard for AST, then OREB would open up for me (since he was using in his UTIL spots to get AST, while I'd be using my UTIL spots for OREB). So, I quietly started pushing OREB, coming back from about 50-60 OREB back into a dead heat. Plus, I'd have a moderate chance to still hold him off on AST, if D-Will and/or Westbrook went off a couple games. And, I even put out a semi-bluff on the UPL Blog, talking about AST to a great extent. The idea was to go hard after OREB on my end. In reality, going after AST was going to be hard. I moved Brandon Jennings for Tyrus Thomas in an ill-fated attempt to get more BLK and OREB. So, I probably didn't have the horses to hold off a team that was devoting both UTIL spots to AST, which C-Lauff was doing a lot of toward the end of the season.

Instead, we ran into a worst-case scenario. I get a couple DNP's from D-Will so that he can rest for the playoffs. Based on season averages, this probably costs me about 16 AST. If D-Will goes off in one of those games, then we're talking about a potential 25 AST swing. The final standings had me 25 AST behind C-Lauff. So, the analysis that I had was about right. But that wasn't as big of a deal as D-Will's then-teammate, Carlos Boozer.

Boozer took the DNP's that D-Will did, which ended up costing me extra games in UTIL and C. I had benched guys so that I could arrange the lineups to get me up to 163 games for both UTIL and C. Then, you'd play 2 games the same night to get you to 165 games. However, when Boozer took those DNP's, that left me at 162, and the only night that had two players going was early, so that stuck me behind my strategy. And then to cap it off, on the last night of the season, I figured that Boozer would get the night off, so I'd roll with Taj Gibson.

Only it didn't happen. I mean, not getting the lineup right is clearly user error. But this does challenge the notion that I was "teed up" in OREB, both tactically (not getting the lineup right for the last day of the season), as well strategically (my endgame move). C-Lauff had no way of knowing that I was surrendering the point in AST, but I think that he didn't appreciate how fortunate he got with OREB. My estimates, based on Boozer playing out the string, and me maximizing my games with 822 had me with about a 10 OREB buffer. Instead, I end up with an inferior play for 2 games at PF (which cost me about 3-4 OREB), but more importantly, I left 3 games on the table, all of which were intended to be PF/C, for which 9-12 OREB is a reasonable number. Given the margin in OREB was 6, the endgame scenario that I had envisioned was a very reasonable one.

As far as what I was saying about C-Lauff hurting himself with his moves, what I was talking about was his overlooking of OREB in terms of his lineup choices (he went all out for AST, when he needed to win both - in retrospect it ended up good for him, but had I played optimally, it would not have). A major part of this was that he kept Anthony Randolph on his roster for the majority of the season, and kept Gilbert Arenas on there, as well. Evidence that even C-Lauff acknowledges that the Randolph move was a mistake was that he dropped him in the last week. More importantly, I'd assume that he could have gotten a taker at a slight discount for Arenas early on in November, before the gun issues started. And if not, then at a larger discount after the gun issues. Arenas was not a crucial contributor for the Jabrones, particularly once Collison emerged. Arenas should have been expendable for a championship run. Obviously, things worked out great, as C-Lauff holds on to Arenas, and wins the ring. However, I'd argue that not seeing Arenas as a an expendable piece was a strategic error, and that C-Lauff got a little lucky with the outcome. But regardless, he's the 2010 UPL Basketball champ, and he's in a good spot to be strong again for the 2011 championship. Of course, the O.N. Thugs will have something to say about that, as well others like Love T'Wolves, WakeupWithTheKing, and Sparty.

In any case, this was the endgame recap that I had promised. Next up? 2010-11 UPL Basketball previews, and hopefully lottery results.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Press Release - The Jimmy Dix Longballs 8-25-2010

2010-08-25T19:15:00.003-05:00

It is with mixed emotion - but great excitement - that the Jimmy Dix Longballs announces the return of Colby Rasmus to its ranks. The 24 year old Rasmus was traded away from the Longballs in the preseason as part of a package deal for B.J. Upton, whose speed filled a role that the team struggled with in 2009. The addition of Mr. Rasmus and his .343 on base percentage and .504 slugging percentage is a welcome compliment to our other young outfielders, Mike Stanton, Nelson Cruz and Chris Coughlan. In order to make space on the 25 man roster, outfielder Marlon Byrd was released to the waiver wire. The 33 year old Byrd was having a strong year, posting a .365/.453 stat line and most notably had a very strong April and May which accounted for much of the Jimmy Dix Longballs early success. We wish him the best in his future endeavors, but feel strongly that the move for Rasmus was the best for the long-term contention of the Longballs.

We also anxiously await the return of our many players from the DL, including shortstop Rafael Furcal, right handed reliever JJ Putz and outfielders Nelson Cruz and Chris Coughlan. Coughlan is expected to make a full recovery, though he will not return to the field until 2011. The Jimmy Dix Longballs currently sit 4th in the UPL standings, and are searching for the spark to carry the team through a strong rush to the end of the season.

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend....

2010-08-08T23:18:00.002-05:00

Okay so the title of this post has nothing to do with the actual post. Sorry. But today the Jimmy Dix Longballs designated Mark Buehrle for assignment. As someone who has been a die-hard Buehrle fan (I even have a Buehrle authentic jersey, courtesy of friends of a friend, who are now on probation for their part in a jersey theft and resale ring) its a tough day, but his K/9 and WHIP were just too ugly to stick with as a fantasy starter. I wish him nothing but the best success in real life, and as the Sox are in a pennant race I would not begrudge anyone who picks him up and catches him as he gets hot. I hope he helps bring us back to the postseason, where the Yankees will beat us like they caught us robbing the new Yankee Stadium. Although I reserve the right as a fantasy manager to write a letter, Dan Gilbert style, about him if he helps another team beat me. Just saying.

The Anatomy of a Blockbuster: A New (Cabr)Era

2010-07-31T16:03:00.003-05:00

ACT I - SOME HISTORY

Trades involving truly big names are hard to come by in the UPL, where teams have historically preferred the status quo. The O.N. Thugs are generally not a huge player on the trade market, preferring to tinker in free agency. They made a big trade when they were sure they had a loaded offense early on, and traded for Pedro Martinez back in 2003, sending over Manny and another hitter (Robbie Alomar, maybe?) to OD. Even after the trade, the O.N. Thugs featured probably the best offense in the history of UPL baseball, winning 64 out of 66 possible points on offense (11 team league). They team featured Bonds, Pujols, and Delgado, and also had Reggie Sanders, Jose Guillen, and Preston Wilson hit over 30 HR (Wilson had 141 RBI that year). Add in speed from Carl Crawford, Scott Podsednik, Rafael Furcal, and a speculative pickup of Mark Teixeira, and you had a ridiculous offense. This team ended up hitting .391/.527 (the team put up a .918 OPS - yikes!), with 1031 R, 294 HR, 980 RBI, and 125 SB.

Over the last few years, the O.N. Thugs have not quite been able to replicate this offense (not even the 2004 O.N. Thugs, probably the best team in UPL Baseball history, though they were built on pitching first). It got to the point in 2009, where a failure on offense (ironically, led by Carlos Delgado's injuries - well, maybe not so ironic given his age) led to the lowest finish ever by the O.N. Thugs, 4th place. So something had to give. The O.N. Thugs had been fairly disciplined in their approach to the keeper era, working to acquire young, high ceiling talent, which is in stark contrast to the O.N. Thugs' traditional road to victory, which employed established veterans. They had also managed to hang on to their waiver priority, and managed to luck into Buster Posey, when he was dropped by IamJabrone, right at the start of his hot streak.

The Cheeseheads were a team that had been stuck in the middle of the pack throughout it's UPL history, and the keeper era was no exception. This team featured some very high-end talent, in the form of Miguel Cabrera, Troy Tulowitzki, Carl Crawford. They also had some potentially solid parts in Geovany Soto and Adam Lind. And they had some veterans who were going to be kept for a few more years Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Pena, and Vernon Wells. Unfortunately, the pitching looked suspect - Matt Cain was the best of the bunch, and only Rafael Soriano was actually performing well at closer (though John Axford had established himself as the closer in MIL). Gavin Floyd, Clayton Richard, Ted Lilly, Ian Kennedy, Randy Wells, Anibal Sanchez, and Jason Vargas didn't strike you as the sort of guys that you wanted to build a franchise around - they were nice pieces to take a chance on, and hope for the best.

ACT II - REBUILDING

The O.N. Thugs were chatting with JimmyDix, about potential trade ideas, when JimmyDix noted that Cheeseheads were looking to rebuild. Immediately, the thought of Miggy being available in the UPL caught the imaginations of both the O.N. Thugs and JimmyDix. The O.N. Thugs had inquired about Carlos Pena earlier in the season, but talks never moved past an initial, random offer. But now, with rebuilding officially on the way, some thoughts started swirling. The major goal was to be able to make a move for a top tier player (either Miggy or Tulo), without sacrificing the ability to win in 2010. Unfortunately, right before the trade talks started up, Jake Peavy had sustained a season-ending injury, which left the O.N. Thugs with only Lincecum, Carpenter, Kershaw, and Cecil as starters, Vincente Padilla recently picked up, and with Volquez about the come off the DL. So, starting pitching really couldn't be moved.

At this point, Corey Hart was at the tail end of his HR binge, so the Thugs were looking to sell high. And the Thugs also had a fairly long list of keepable talent of varying quality and age that could have been moved (Russell Martin, Elvis Andrus, Dexter Fowler, Shin-Soo Choo, Daniel Bard, Aroldis Chapman, Joe Nathan) without really hurting the 2010 team's chances (Choo was on the DL at that point). Some initial offers involving Corey Hart as a major component failed (despite the Cheeseheads presumed affinity for all things Milwaukee). And a counter-offer was made on July 17. Miguel Cabrera for Buster Posey and Clayton Kershaw.

At this point, the basic price was set. Two high end, young players. And the O.N. Thugs were pretty sure that a deal could get done, so confident that they had sent out a message to JimmyDix on the night of July 17 indicating a likely press conference within the next 48 hours. But the problem of the O.N. Thugs' lack of SP still remained.

ACT III - LOOKING FOR PLAN B

Posey was gaining national recognition, and was putting up .410/.570 sort of production, which is ridiculous at C. But he was somewhat superfluous at C, with Jorge Posada still producing well. Of course the raw production of Cabrera made that sort of move palatable. So that part of the equation was OK. But Clayton Kershaw was a different story. His 2010 stats were awfuly good: 10-5, 2.96/1.22 with 138K in 130.2IP. But the key stat was "22." As in his age in 2010. But the dearth of SP for the Thugs made the other part of the equation too expensive. The Thugs decided that this couldn't happen, unless some SP could be acquired, or a different piece was involved.

At this point, Volquez had made his first start, and looked spectacular. So moving a starting pitcher became a possibility, but the Thugs front office remained firm on Kershaw, particularly if Posey was going to be involved. So there was some work to be done.

So, Brett Cecil was the piece that the Thugs tried to market. Cecil, for whatever reason, hadn't caught the imagination of a lot of fantasy folks, who prefer Ricky Romero as the sexy prospect in TOR. But Cecil was 1 year younger, was 8-5 in over 100IP in 2010, and had a very respectable 3.89/1.16 with 6.3 K/9. He also had a strikeout pedigree from the minors (228K in 228.1 IP) similar to Jon Lester's (446K in 483.2 IP).

So a counter-offer was made on July 18. Buster Posey, Brett Cecil, and Aroldis Chapman for Miggy. This was three pieces, two of which were producing at the major league level, and one a large lottery ticket. This trade was quickly rejected, and the O.N. Thugs quietly hit the pavement, looking for pitching help, that would have made losing Kershaw palatable. An inquiry about Roy Oswalt were made to the Whiffers , who were in last place and should have been looking to rebuild. Chapman and Bard were made available. But the Whiffers politely declined. An inquiry was made about Shawn Marcum, but the price was a bit on the high side. The JimmyDix announced that they were possibly moving Cliff Lee. Some talks started, with Bard, Cecil, Chapman, and Peavy being offered for Cliff Lee and B.J. Upton (who JimmyDix has been shopping). But that offer was rejected on 7/25. At this point, there had been no new communications from Cheeseheads. And without the ability to find SP to replace the production of Kershaw, the Thugs could not pull the trigger on the trade and still feel comfortable about their chances in 2010. It appeared that Miggy was not going to be an O.N. Thug.

ACT IV - RESOLUTION

At this point, the Miggy for Posey and Kershaw trade had been in play for 8 days. Trades are automatically canceled by Yahoo! after 10 days. The O.N. Thugs' front office made the decision that they weren't going to bid against themselves in this trade. A quick look across the UPL suggested that the only teams that had the pieces to really make a run at Miggy were Phatsnapper and Black Sox. But, it appeared that Phatsnapper was content with his offense , and neither Phatsnapper, nor Black Sox, seemed inclined to move their core, young pitching. JimmyDix had deemed Lester to be untouchable, and would have been selling his other young talent at a low price. Other teams teams like IamJabrone, Westy's Sluggers, or '90 Reds didn't have the depth of keepable, young talent to move.

At the same times, they were keeping an eye on 2011, and was pretty content with the direction of the team. Posey and Posada formed the best quality/depth at C in the UPL. Dunn, Jeter, Wright, Choo, and Markakis could be counted on for solid production. Andrus was the SS-in-waiting. And the core of the pitching staff was still Lincecum, Kershaw, Carpenter, Volquez, Soria, K-Rod, and Bailey. Being able to hold on to Nathan and Bard until mid-March would add certainty to the keeper decisions. And choosing from Cecil, Willingham, Hart, and Fowler as the 18th keeper wouldn't be a terrible option.

The Thugs were ready to move forward with this team, so they moved Russell Martin for Howie Kendrick, mainly with the intention of getting some value for Martin, and having Kendrick help make up some games at 2B, with a slight chance of being a keeper in 2011. The front office figured that they'd be able to create some offense through team management, and making up another 4 or 5 games at 2B would be good enough.

The Thugs were about the prepare a thank-you note for Cheeseheads, and officially decline the trade, when another trade offer showed up. Buster Posey, Aroldis Chapman, Daniel Bard, and Joe Nathan for Miggy and Joel Zumaya. Joel Zumaya was completely irrelevant in this trade. He was an injury prone set-up man, who was stuck behind Jose Valverde even when he was healthy. What required a little thought was the inclusion of Bard and Nathan, over Cecil.

Bard was already contributing this year (1.84/0.86 with 51K in 49IP), and pitched at a similar level in 2008. The rampant speculation amongst Red Sox folks (in particular Bill Simmons, which makes it folk wisdom amongst the masses) was that Papelbon was going to be moved at some point, since someone was going to sign him to a 4-year, $56 million sort of deal in free agency, and that Bard was going to take over at some point in 2011 or 2012 at the latest. The story with Joe Nathan was that he had Tommy John surgery back in April, and was out of 2010. His rehab had started, and he was projected to be ready for spring training. His value was in his contract. He was signed through 2011, with a club option for 2012. This meant that the Twins were going to have him as their closer, as long as he was healthy. For small market teams, money matters, and a guy making $11 million was going to get first dibs at a money position. Combined, these two looked to be valuable pieces, particularly in 2011. If either one of them came through, then someone like K-Rod could be shopped for a frontline player.

What tipped the deal was that none of the pieces, save Posey, would really change the championship calculus for the O.N. Thugs in 2010. Chapman's a 2011-12 lottery ticket. Nathan was on the DL all year, and is a 2011 piece. Bard was helping the rate stats, but similar production could be found. Obviously, losing Posey makes C a much more tenuous position for the O.N. Thugs. But the thought is that Miggy's numbers would more than make up for it in 2010. And the biggest factor for the O.N. Thugs' 2010 chances is that neither Kershaw nor Cecil were moved (which has been doubly important with Volquez being smacked around his last 2 starts). So, with that a new (Cabr)Era in O.N. Thugs history has started.

EPILOGUE?

The O.N. Thugs still have some speculative talent, to go with the established talent. Miggy, Wright, Dunn, and Choo appear to be the offensive cornerstones. Jeter and Posada have at least one more year of keepable value, and Andrus is the SS-in-waiting. Markakis is still a bit of a question mark, but will be adequate at the very least. Lincecum, Carpenter, Kershaw, Cecil, and Volquez anchor a strong rotation. Soria, K-Rod, and Bailey form a good bullpen. And the Thugs have two more spots to choose from Hart, Willingham, Fowler, Kendrick, Peavy, Porcello, Morrow, and Venters. This makes for a competitive keeper roster, particularly on the pitching side of things. This was very similar to how the O.N. Thugs entered 2010. With a major difference being the addition of Miguel Cabrera.

The Cheeseheads may still be rebuilding, but at the very least add more depth to their discussion. Posey, Tulo, Crawford, Soto, Soriano, Ike Davis, and Carlos Pena seem to be players that you have to keep. Probably Adam Lind, as well. With regard to pitching, Cain, Rafael Soriano, Axford, Chapman, Bard, and Nathan are guys that will be committed to, and Clayton Richard, Gavin Floyd are likely keepers, as well. After that, you will have two choices between guys like Vernon Wells, Raul Ibanez, Ian Kennedy, David Aardsma, Jason Vargas, Randy Wells, and Ted Lilly. The story of this trade for the Cheeseheads is that they will get to choose from a deeper crop of keepers with much higher ceilings for 2011 and beyond.

As for the future? That's still to be written. If this ends up with another O.N. Thugs Championship, then the trade's a resounding victory. When you're gunning for championships, you take your runs when you can without wrecking your future, your happy. And even if the future for the pieces you move end up being great, so long as your team is still great, you're still happy.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

2010 UPL Baseball Mid-Season Report Cards - The Short Bus

2010-07-26T18:25:00.003-05:00

To wrap up, let's take a look at the short bus. Note that these places in the standings have adjusted slightly from when I started giving out Mid-Season grades.

Cheeseheads - 10th Place

Strong Moves: Found a lot of offensive help in the draft (Adrian Beltre, Corey Hart, Vernon Wells). Unfortunately, this didn't address the major weaknesses of the team coming in, which was pitching. Got some much needed youth in Ike Davis. Found Kelly Johnson early, who's been very good at 2B. Got younger with Gavin Floyd, who has been good over his last 9 starts (after being dreadful to start the season). Found Clayton Richard and Ian Kennedy early on, both of whom are young and have been solid. Found John Axford, who seems to have a solid hold on the Brewers' closing role.

Boner Moves: Struck out with the arms in his draft. Gave up on Corey Hart way too early. Taking on Ibanez seems to be moving against the strategy of getting younger, as Granderson was younger (but has been on a downward trend the last few years).

Future Outlook: Huge question mark with the Miguel Cabrera trade, which is a classic high-risk, high-reward situation. Posey and Bard immediately step in and become legitimate starters, and both have super high ceilings. If Nathan comes back in 2011 as the closer, then the bullpen is stabilized, and some trade pieces can emerge. Chapman is a huge lottery ticket, that you won't find out about until half-way through 2011, at the earliest. In addition to these 4 players, there are some very solid veteran, keepers to build around longterm (Crawford, Tulo, Soto), as well as in a 2-3 year frame (Soriano, Wells, Pena) on the offensive side. Some decent, young pitching can also be built on (Cain, Richard, Kennedy, Floyd), and there are some closers to round out the roster (Soriano, Axford, Aardsma). Overall quality of the roster needs to continue to improve to move into podium contention.

Mid-term Grade: B. Is currently in the middle of getting younger. Has found some nice, young parts. But the grade probably should be an incomplete - the real result is what happens with Posey, Bard, Chapman, and Nathan.

Westy's Sluggers - 11th Place

Strong Moves: Drafting Bucholz, Loney, and Latos, which gives quality and youth. Picking up Ike Davis, and using him to get Beltre. Keeping Alex Rios from last year, who has been very good this year. Carl Pavano and Brett Myers have been solid veteran contributors. Finding a likely keeper C (Martin) at a low cost (a 3rd 2B in Kendrick).

Boner Moves: Giving up on Latos too early (while hanging on to questionable pieces - who the hell's Scott Baker?). Selling Matt Holliday too cheaply (and has been intent on doing so for a while, it seems). Moving their best pitcher (Lester) for Kinsler, who's redundant at 2B and only so-so at UTIL, without an obvious follow-up plan. Not addressing closer effectively enough in the draft.

Future Outlook: This roster needs an overall quality increase, and needs to get younger. Dotel, Pavano, Abreu, Hunter, Young, and Berkman are all 33+ this year. Lackey, Webb, Beltre, and Utley are 31. Myers is 30. Really, only Loney (26), Bucholz (26), Nunez (27), Martin (27), Kinsler (28), Sizemore (28), Rios (29) look to be keepers under 30, and none are exactly young anymore (and some of serious questions, like Sizemore). This means that some trades need to happen, otherwise, this team will be in purgatory.

Mid-term Grade: C-. The drop-off from 2009 is stark, though many of the players from 2009 had career years. An honest assessment of 2009 success should have prompted more urgency in the trade market, particularly with Abreu, Hunter, and Berkman. Got unlucky with injuries at 2B, so there wasn't a real opportunity to get value for Kendrick. But when C-Lauff starts mocking you and telling you to "Have fun in 19th place," then maybe you need to get things straightened out.

Muddy Mush Heads - 12th Place

Strong Moves: Found Mike Leake, who looks to be a nice, young arm. Rode some success from Carlos Silva, who has since cooled a bit. Has gotten solid pitching efforts from Benoit and Gorzelanny.

Boner Moves: Got off to a horrible start by gambling on Jermaine Dye as a keeper. Gave up on Chris Young way too early. Has dropped Cueto and Tommy Hunter, who have both been solid and are still young. It appears that the Derek Lee trade isn't going to be a winning one, as Jonathan Sanchez has continued his solid play.

Future Outlook: Probably should have rode Cueto and Hunter for longer stretches - those two would look awfully nice with Johan Santana, Phil Hughes, and Mike Leake as your starting rotation in 2011. This is a very old offense, with guys like Carlos and Derek Lee, Ichiro, Furcal, Brian Roberts, and Chone Figgins being relied on heavily. The only legit, young star on offense appears to be Joey Votto. There isn't enough value on Roberts or either Lee to get a worthwhile trade done. However, there may be some willing takers for the speed.

Mid-term Grade: C-. This team needed to have a major overhaul, and get at least a little lucky. Neither has really happened. In fact, the good moves are relatively small in magnitude, in comparison to the Cueto and Hunter drops.

Chicago Zambroneheads - 13th Place

Strong Moves: Acquired Matt Holliday and spare parts for Michael Young and Grady Sizemore, which has worked out very well. Solid production from Tyler Clippard, Mike Pelfrey, Jose Guillen, Alex Gonzalez, and Ty Wigginton, all of whom were found in free agency. Getting some speed from Scott Podsednik in the draft.

Boner Moves: Gave away David Ortiz, right before Papi righted the ship. Wasn't able to find any value for Ibanez. Bad draft restricted the ability to make trades to improve team. Has held on to Billy Wagner (who is retiring after this season) too long - the gameplan should have been to hope for a strong start from Wagner, and then move him out in May/June to get good value. Now, may not be able to get as much for a 2 month rental.

Future Outlook: There are always going to be hiccups with expansion, and this team needed to be perfect to get into the top half this year. The goal is to end up with 18 reasonable keepers, and try to attack in 2011 or 2012. The team started with about 10 or so of these players, and at this point, only have 8 or 9 on the roster, so this has been a bad opening set. Looking at ways to get value should be the key between now and the trade deadline.

Mid-term Grade: C-. Even if the moves had been perfect, there's a chance that this team could have been stuck in the bottom 1/3 of the league. But in reality, a few small wins was overwhelmed by one big mistake (Big Papi).

-Chairman (O.N. Thugs)

2010 UPL Baseball Mid-Season Report Cards - The Rest of the Pack

2010-07-18T23:54:00.002-05:00

After the first cut of teams, there are about another 5 teams that are in the rest of the pack, led by last year's runner-up.

IamJabrone - 5th Place

Strong Moves: Strong draft, picking up young players who have performed (Santana, Posey, Bard), particularly at the tough-to-find C. Made a play for Andre Ethier who has been as advertised (though it cost Josh Johnson, who's been lights out). Has gotten above average production out of a less than ideal pitching staff, by finding some talent along the way (Cueto, Medlen, Simon)

Boner Moves: Who the hell's Buster Posey? Have also fed the O.N. Thugs Daniel Bard,a quality set-up man, and probable BoSox closer in 2012. Mystifying lack of moves by the front office, as guys coming off of 2009 career years have fallen back to earth (Reynolds, Hill). Has lost out on trade value, while holding on to extra 2B who aren't quite good enough to play at UTIL. Pinned SS hopes to Alcides Escobar, who has been bad, and hasn't changed course. Testing the theory that any offense with Albert Pujols will be competitive.

Future Outlook: Doesn't look like this team's got it for 2010, and it's hard to tell if they're rebuilding or if they're trying to compete. You don't get the impression that this roster is one that just needs a couple tweaks to win in 2011.

Mid-term Grade: C-. This team could have been a podium team, though asking for a championship may have been a bit much. But a reluctance to trade definitely has hurt the chances. Now, players like Aaron Hill and Ian Stewart are much less likely to get back enough value to matter this year. But the rebuilding seems to be somewhat muted. Stuck in-between is a tough place to be.

SuckmyKnuckleballs - 6th Place

Strong Moves: Has gotten the better end of the Gavin Floyd for Paul Konerko trade. Found potential SS of the future in Starlin Castro, who has performed reasonably so far. Excellent production out of Andy Pettite (2nd round draft pick), and has gotten good results out of other un-sexy veterans (Scott Rolen, Tim Hudson)

Boner Moves: Run into a couple tough seasons by a couple talented pitchers (Beckett, Burnett). Has held on to some under-performing vets that don't have much upside (Tejada, Cameron, Hoffman).

Future Outlook: If Beckett and Burnett get their heads on straight, and guys like Bay, Braun, and Matsui have big 2nd halves, this team could sneak onto the podium. But more likely, it's looking like a team that's headed for a finish between 4th and 8th.

Mid-term Grade: B-. This was a 5th place team last year, and has been in the same ball park this year. This suggests a pretty average grade.

'90 Reds - 7th Place

Strong Moves: No need to play Frankenstein at 2B, as McGehee has been solid. Has gotten enough production out of the Frankenstein at closer (Capps and Lindstrom). Taking a chance on Big Papi, who's looking like he's back to being a legit fantasy player. Getting enough production out of top set-up guys (Kuo, Storen, Gregerson) to get back into competition in pitching. Has found some young SP to perhaps rebuild staff (Travis Wood, Wade LeBlanc, Mat Latos).

Boner Moves: Believing that Bartlett's fluky 2009 would continue, and not having a backup plan. Using the 3rd overall draft pick on Octavio Dotel. Couldn't move any veteran SP who overachieved in 2009 (Javy Vasquez, Wandy Rodriguez, Edwin Jackson), and have been saddled with poor 2010 results (combined 19-25 with about a 4.60/1.35). No trades, despite the underperformance across the board?

Future Outlook: This is a team that's sort of in transition. There's some good young pieces (Gonzalez, Upton, Sandoval?). Some veterans in their primes (Ryan Howard, Victor Martinez), and some that you don't want to predict anything about (Manny, A-Ram, Papi).

Mid-term Grade: INC. This team has managed to pull itself up from the bottom of the standings to the middle of the standings. We'll see if this continues. A move into the top tier would make this year's grade an A, whereas staying in the middle of the pack makes it a C.

Benver Droncos - 8th Place

Strong Moves: Great trade in picking up Rasmus and Volquez for Upton. Has gotten a lot of production out of free agency (SP - Colby Lewis, Barry Zito, Trevor Cahill; Austin Jackson). Jon Rauch (4th round) has been helpful for SV.

Boner Moves: Cano for Weiters has been absolute disaster for 2010 chances, though this may balance out in the next few years. Jury is out on the Volquez for Neise trade. Dropped Jose Bautista way too early.

Future Outlook: Has been willing to make trades to get younger and give the team a shot in 2011 or 2012 - has turned Upton and Cano into Weiters, Rasmus, and Neise. Young A's arms (Cahill and Brett Anderson) could help anchor pitching staff, along with Ubaldo Jimenez, who's still only 26. Will need to sort out what they want to do with some vets (Jimmy Rollins comes to mind, but also Vlad, Kuroda, Zito, Victorino, and maybe even Morneau). Those pieces can probably fetch some solid prospects.

Mid-term Grade: B+. This was the last place team from 2009.

Black Sox - 9th Place

Strong Moves: Gotten all-star production out of Miguel Olivo and some SV from Kevin Gregg, both from free agency. Nice job moving quality for quality, getting Josh Johnson. Drafting Strasburg #2 was pretty much a sure thing, but still qualifies as a strong move.

Boner Moves: Not many moves made - the offense is above average, but could use one or two more pieces. Not so much of a boner move, but rather just taking some lumps with the young pitching, which has had ups and downs.

Future Outlook: Awfully good looking, young pitching staff (Johnson, Strasburg, Verlander, Romero, Billingsley), with a couple wild cards that could still pan out (Marcum, Joba, Kazmir, Matusz). This is a roster that's begging to be tinkered with in trade talks.

Mid-term Grade: B+. Last season's 8th place team has made a somewhat lateral move, but has stockpiled some serious arms, to complement the solid offense. Maybe a bit late to make a move for 2010, but the idea of being a podium in 2011 should entice some more moves.

Next time, we'll wrap things up by taking a look at the kids on the short bus.

-Chairman (O.N. Thugs)

2010 UPL Baseball Mid-Season Report Cards - Head of the Class

2010-07-16T18:13:00.003-05:00

As we head into the back half of 2010 Baseball, there are some surprises at the top of the UPL, but the team currently sitting on top of the UPL is a very familiar one:

O.N. Thugs - 1st Place

Strong Moves: Drafting enough potential power so that 2 guys worked out (Glaus and Willingham). Working the waiver wire to improve squad ( lucking into Buster Posey; getting power out of Andruw Jones and Corey Hart; finding some arms like Brett Cecil, Jonathon Niese, Tommy Hunter, Johnny Cueto, Trevor Cahill, Dallas Braden). Getting a Volquez lottery ticket for Jonathon Niese (though in 3 starts w/ Benver, Niese is 2-1, 3.55/1.18, with 25K in 25.1 IP). No panic trades after slow offensive start.

Boner Moves: Dropping Braden right before perfect game, and not afterwards. Hanging on to losing players too long, and as a result, cycling through high ceiling pitchers a little too quickly (Cueto, Cahill, Hunter), and not being patient enough w/ Thome.

Future Outlook: Still the team to beat, in 2010 and beyond. Still a number of fantasy points that the O.N. Thugs are legitimately chasing. There's enough roster flexibility left to take a couple shots at some talent, and to position team for future.

Mid-term Grade: A-. Still some work to be done. Position on top of the UPL looks somewhat tenuous in comparisons to some prior O.N. Thugs seasons. But you can't argue with the results to this point.

Hats for Bats - 2nd Place

Strong Moves: Drafted young talent, which proved to be useful in new UPL trade environment, which led to... Stealing Jered Weaver away from JimmyDix for Justin Smoak, at least for 2010 (jury will be out on this one until 2014 or so). Finding all sorts of young talent in free agency (Jamie Garcia, Brennan Boesch), as well as 2010 production (Jose Bautista, Chris Young, Aubrey Huff).

Boner Moves: Very unlucky, but the Heyward/Kendry Morales for Marlon Byrd/Jose Valverde/Adrian Gonzalez trade looks really lopsided for 2010 (though will probably look much better in 2011 and beyond). Aside from this, it's been a relatively boner-free 1st half. Dropped Hong-Chih Kuo, who has proven to be a plus-fantasy player, and real-life all-star.

Future Outlook: This is the team that Greg was hyping last year (saying that anything less than a podium-type performance would be disappointing), which never materialized until this year. Will be hard pressed to make up for the production lost w/ Morales, without hurting other stats

Mid-term Grade: A. Will have to balance future position w/ the chance to win in 2010. But a bunch of solid moves, with virtually no boner moves, have taken Hats for Bats up the standings, and shows that a rise from the bottom to the top is definitely possible.

Phatsnapper - 3rd Place

Strong Moves: Martin Prado in the 1st round of the draft worked out well. Absolute swindle of Robinson Cano (for Matt Weiters) before opening day. Shifted quality for quality, and picked up some speed with Brett Gardner (for Martin Prado). Picking up young talent in free agency (Delmon Young, Jose Tabata, Pedro Alvarez).

Boner Moves: Not making a play for SV, which would make team legit championship contender. Rest of draft, aside from Prado was not very helpful. Probably sitting on a little too much potential on the bench.

Future Outlook: Quality young SP, and some top-end offensive talent makes this team a contender for the long-haul. This year, we're looking at somewhere in the top 4. But a little more management would go a long way.

Mid-term Grade: B. This team has largely managed itself since the start of the season, so the design of the team has been pretty good to be in podium position. But this team could easily be sitting on top of the UPL, so it's hard to give a higher grade.

JimmyDix - 4th Place

Strong Moves: Despite taking grief, Marlon Byrd in the 1st round has been a solid pickup. Getting Jon Lester for Ian Kinsler. Filling a hole at 2B by getting Martin Prado for Brett Gardner. Finding some quality in free agency (Gardner, Mike Stanton, Jim Thome, Tyler Colvin, Mike Leake)

Boner Moves: Giving away Jered Weaver, which has stymied some potential trade opportunities. Overpaying for B.J. Upton (Rasmus and Volquez). Dropping Mike Leake twice. Giving up a little too early on Andruw Jones. Giving up way too early on Corey Hart, Clayton Richard. Seems that day-to-day lineups are a bit sub-optimal, given how the overall offensive stats look.

Future Outlook: Pieces are on the roster for a top-4 finish in 2010, but may not have quite enough to make a run for the title. Positioned reasonably well moving forward. Probably not done making moves (and seems to make a lot of moves - some of which are brilliant, while others are awful...). But if you told me that this team would be a podium in 2011, I'd believe you, and if you told me that this team would be a bottom-4 team in 2011, I'd believe you, too.

Mid-term Grade: B. How do you average out a couple A-moves with a couple D-moves? I think that this grade is a reasonable one, given the rise in the standings from last year.

Next time, we'll move from the Head of the Class to the Rest of the Pack. And after that, we'll look at the Kids on the Short Bus.

-Chairman (O.N. Thugs)

2010 UPL Baseball Mid-Season Awards

2010-07-16T01:38:00.004-05:00

So, without further ado, your 2010 UPL Baseball Mid-Season Awards

All-UPL First Team:

C: Miguel Olivo, Black Sox
1B: Miguel Cabrera, Cheeseheads
2B: Robinson Cano, Phatsnapper
3B: David Wright, O.N. Thugs
SS: Hanley Ramirez, Black Sox
OF: Vald Guerrero, Benver Droncos
OF: Carl Crawford, Cheeseheads
OF: Josh Hamilton, Phatsnapper
UTIL: Albert Pujols, IAmJabrone
UTIL: Alex Rios, Westy's Sluggers
SP: Ubaldo Jimenez, Benver Droncos
SP: Adam Wainwright, Phatnsapper
SP: Josh Johnson, Black Sox
SP: Jon Lester, JimmyDix
SP: Tim Lincecum, O.N. Thugs
RP: Mariano Rivera, SuckMyKnuckleballs
RP: Billy Wagner, Milwaukee Whiffers
RP: Heath Bell, Hats for Bats

All-UPL Second Team

C: tie, Brian McCann, JimmyDix and Geovany Soto, Cheeseheads
1B: Joey Votto, Mush Heads
2B: Dan Uggla, IamJabrone
3B: Evan Longoria, JimmyDixLongballs
SS: Rafael Furcal, Mush Heads
OF: Carlos Gonzalez, '90 Reds
OF: Adam Dunn, O.N. Thugs
OF: Corey Hart, O.N. Thugs
UTIL: Kevin Youkilis, SuckMyKnuckleballs
UTIL: Justin Morneau, Benver Droncos
SP: Clayton Kershaw, O.N. Thugs
SP: Jered Weaver, Hats for Bats
SP: Roy Halladay, Hats for Bats
SP: David Price, Phatsnapper
SP: Yovanni Gallardo, Phatsnapper
RP: Rafael Soriano, Cheeseheads
RP: Brian Wilson, '90 Reds
RP: Joakim Soria, O.N. Thugs

All-UPL Team Killers

C: Matt Weiters, Benver Droncos
1B: Pablo Sandoval, '90 Reds
2B: Aaron Hill, IamJabrone
3B: Aramis Ramirez, '90 Reds
SS: Jimmy Rollins, Benver Droncos
OF: Grady Sizemore, Westy's Sluggers
OF: Jacoby Ellsbury, IamJabrone
OF: Curtis Granderson, IamJabrone
UTIL: Kendry Morales, Hats for Bats
UTIL: Brian Roberts, Mush Heads
SP: Josh Beckett, SuckMyKunckleballs
SP: John Lackey, Westy's Sluggers
SP: Dan Haren, '90 Reds
SP: Wandy Rodriguez, '90 Reds
SP: Edwin Jackson, '90 Reds
RP: Octavio Dotel, Westy's Sluggers
RP: David Aardsma, Cheeseheads
RP: Francisco Cordero, Benver Droncos

Team of the Half-Season: O.N. Thugs
Manager of the Half-Season: Pauly
UPL MVP - David Wright, O.N. Thugs
UPL Cy Young - Ubaldo Jimenez, Benver Droncos
UPL Fireman Award - Mariano Rivera, SuckMyKunckleballs
UPL Rookie Pitcher - Jamie Garcia, Hats for Bats (apologies to Stephen Strasburg, Neftali Feliz)
UPL Rookie Hitter - Brennan Boesch, Hats for Bats (apologies to Buster Posey, Jason Heyward)
UPL Out of Nowhere Pitcher - tie, Colby Lewis, Benver Droncos and Mat Latos, '90 Reds
UPL Out of Nowhere Hitter - tie, Paul Konerko, SuckMyKunckleballs and Aubrey Huff, Hats for Bats

As usual, comment away. And be on the lookout for first half report cards for teams.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Field Trip: Livin Large at Miller Park

2010-06-03T23:17:00.005-05:00

Its been a while since I updated on this blog. A lot happened, but the results have been less than noteworthy. My pitchers are pitching - strong strikeouts, decent stats (esp WHIP, which held up despite Mark Buehrle's best attemps) but it hasn't translated to "W"s, and actually led to an increase in losses. My hitters are struggling, as I've assembled a group that gets on base, steals bases and scores runs at the cost of RBIs and Slugging.

So as you might expect, the Jimmy Dix Longballs should probably be re-named the Jimmy Dix Smallballs. Not, um, that theres anything wrong with that.

Additionally, I dont even have many good baseball stories from life in Chicago as both teams are struggling and looking like duds. Check that, the Cubs are digging a hole that'll be tough to escape from while the Sox are essentially stalling to draw as many fans before the big ticket games start up where fans of the opposing teams swarm the Cell and turn it into Midest-Fenway. This White Sox team is flat, uninspired and largely impotent. Which is to be expected when your GM trades off your farm system but doesn't have the money to sign star players. All that's left is a crew of Has Been's and Never Weres.

So when Memorial Day weekend rolls around and most friends / family are out of town, what's a guy to do?

Road trip! I headed up to Milwaukee, which might as well be called "Chicago's Lake House" with all the FIBs running around up there. I got in on Saturday and purchased a ticket to the game that afternoon online for about 20 bucks before the fees and taxes. Shortly before game time I hopped on a bus (solely running to get people to and from the game) and headed out to see what the Brew Crew's home was like. The first thing I noticed coming up on the park was the plumes of smoke and tightly packed condition of the parking lot - this is a fanbase that takes pride in their tailgating! There were so many people grilling out in the parking lot that it smelled like cooked pork and beef product - not that I'm complaining. The second thing that I observed was that their drinking was keeping pace with their grilling. While walking through the parking lot to get to the park, I was offered a beer brat by a drunk family and happily accepted it while I watched the people next to them play a drinking game called Dizzy Bat, which I hadn't seen before.

Dizzy Bat starts out with a whiffle ball bat (one of the thick ones) with the end near the handle cut off. A beer is poured into the bat, from a can, which is then crushed by the bat holder and then kicked off to a pitcher. The batter then chugs the beer - while being timed - then has to put their head against the bat and spin around for as long as it took them to drink the beer. The pitcher collects beer cans then tosses to the batter, who has 3 swings to make contact. If the batter gets a hit, the pitcher does a shot. If the batter strikes out, the batter does a shot. Either way the batter then becomes the pitcher for the next person.

People were drunk. And fat. As a consequence of the BMI of the average Milwaukee resident, Miller Park has some of the most comfortable seating of any sports venue I've ever been to. The seats, specifically, were made for someone slightly taller but much wider than I am. Which made them perfect for me to lounge in, since most ballpark seats feel like they're made for kids only. One major plus to Miller Park - the addition of tables and eating spaces in the concorse that maintain sight lines to the field so that you can follow the action while eating something in relative comfort. Also, in right field on the first base line there's a section where instead of seats they have tables set up. I watched the game from one of those tables and can say that they were a really cool addition to the ballpark.

But somehow, in a state known for its tendencies to live solely on meat and cheese, Miller Park failed to produce good ballpark eats. They played it too safe in their choice of offerings. The bratwurst I had was okay, kind of bland, and served with the Miller Park Secret Sauce (psst - its not a secret, its Arbys Special Sauce). Not a bad offering, but a weak effort from the state which may have perfected the beer brat. And despite a concourse full of specialty food shacks featuring nachos, sliders and pasta bar, Miller Park gets a D for not having a cheese curds stand. Nobody's demanding that food be unique - the Cell's strong points are the Chicago style dog, churros and a ripped off version of a Maxwell St Polish. But I fail to see why ballparks dont do a little something extra, especially if the little changes will bring in more revenue.

And the game itself? Not too noteworthy, as Manny Parra faced off against Nieve. The game didn't even make it out of the first inning before deteriorating into a slugfest. But the people in Milwaukee sure do love Ryan Braun. And Corey Hart. And Prince Fielder. And the people watching was epic, as a solid 10% of the fans at the game were wandering around in a near-blackout state due to many hours of hard-core drinking and grilling. Alas, I got tired of watching the Mets and Brewers bullpen falter and headed back to my hotel to drink in the bar and watch the end of the Hawks game. Gotta love cheap drinks at the hotel bar.

Damn Reds, Damn Yankees

2010-04-27T12:54:00.005-05:00

So lots of folks (myself included) had some hope for the Reds this year, mainly due to the starting rotation. Cueto was supposed to keep improving. Harang was supposed to bounce back. Arroyo was going to be his usual slightly above average self. We'd get some help w/ Chapman and Leake, and maybe Volquez could put us over the top in August.

Leake's been about what you'd hope for. But Harang, Cueto, and Arroyo are not owned in the UPL, and have a combined ERA of about 7. Ouch. Volquez has been suspended for taking unicorn hormone extract. And Chapman is still in the minors... and by the way, we're already 3 games under .500 and 4 games out of first - in late April. Damn Reds.

Between the Reds, Red Sox, White Sox, Cubs, and Brewers, the majority of the UPL is 9 games under .500 in real-life. Only Pauly's Fish are doing well (2 games over .500). If it wasn't for fantasy baseball, we'd probably have a dozen baseball fans grumbling through the marathon season that is Major League Baseball. In the past, my only recourse was to lease my soul and root for the Yankees once my Reds were out of contention (the typical change-over date would be May 15 or so).* While hope springs eternal, it seems to die pretty early for most baseball fans. However, fantasy baseball has given 2nd life for us suckers, who would otherwise spend the dog days of summer in purgatory. I'm a little less vested in the Yankees, while the O.N. Thugs make their annual pilgrimage to the top of the UPL. But win or lose, once October rolls around, I can't help but keep rooting for Derek Jeter and those Damn Yankees.

What's interesting is that in real life, I've started to actually like the players that put on the O.N. Thugs' fantasy uniform. Ascending fantasy gods (I hope) like Clayton Kershaw, who play for a team that I dislike (always hated the Dodgers - they always killed my Reds), would have ordinarily become a hated player, instead becomes "my guy" in real life. Established fantasy gods like David Wright (sans 2009) and Tim Lincecum, who I'd likely admire, but probably dislike, become some of my favorites. Guys like Julio Borbon, Akinori Iwamura and Shin-Shoo Choo, who normally would get mocked for their funny names and their ethnic heritages... well, they still get mocked, but only in a mildly racist way. Players like Jay Bruce or Joey Votto, who are on the Reds? Well, I want them to do well... good enough for the Reds to win, but maybe not so well that their fantasy owners really see a huge benefit :-)

And once in a great while there is an aspiring hero like Aroldis Chapman (or Deron Williams for me in hoops a couple years ago)? The prospects on my real life team, as well as my fantasy team? He ends up being Church. The Word. The Gospel. The One who bridges the gap between two worlds, the real life world and the fantasy world that we often look to when the tides of the real world are overwhelming. Sometimes we find a savior, and sometimes we find a false prophet. We don't necessarily know which path our aspiring heroes will take. But the matter takes on additional importance. Our fantasy salvation is at stake.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

*In my defense, I moved up to Albany, NY in 1993 at the start of high school, right when the Yankees were turning things around. Lots of games on TV. And we had the AA team right there in Albany, where I got to meet a young Derek Jeter, who was great with the fans and always stayed to sign every last autograph, including the small stack of rookie cards that he was gracious enough to sign. The leasing of my soul has become less and less painful over the years, to the point where I sort of look forward to rooting for a winning team in May or June.

2009-10 UPL Basketball Post-Season Awards v. 2.0

2010-04-23T19:47:00.003-05:00

So, tip of the cap to C-Lauff for his W, and for breaking the O.N. Thugs' deathgrip on UPL Basketball. And I'll chime in with my more traditional version of the UPL post-season awards. The major difference is that I don't adhere to the NBA positions, and instead include our fantasy starting positions. Also, I don't think that having a 3rd team is all that sexy :-)

All-UPL First Team:

PG: Deron Williams, O.N. Thugs
SG: Dwayne Wade, IAmJabrone
G: Steve Nash, Phatsnapper
SF: LeBron James, Wakeup with the King
PF: Dirk Nowitzki, Chowtime
F: Kevin Durant, Love T'Wolves
C: David Lee, IamJabrone
C: Chris Bosh, Love T'Wolves
UTIL: Jason Kidd, SuckMyDribbling Balls
UTIL: Brook Lopez, O.N. Thugs

All-UPL Second Team

PG: Rajon Rondo, Love T'Wolves
SG: Kobe Bryant, O.N. Thugs
G: Stephen Curry, Wakeup with the King
SF: Gerald Wallace, Wakeup with the King
PF: Carlos Boozer, O.N. Thugs
F: Danny Granger, Chowtime
C: Zach Randolph, Love T'Wolves
C: Amare Stoudemire, Phatsnapper
UTIL: Josh Smith, IamJabrone
UTIL: Carmelo Anthony, IamJabrone

UPL Keeper Killer Team

PG: Chris Paul, Sparty Rules
SG: Brandon Roy, O.N. Thugs
G: Gilbert Arenas, IamJabrone
SF: Caron Butler, Westy's Balltastics
PF: Atawan Jamison, Phatsnapper
F: Al Jefferson, Westy's Balltastics
C: Elton Brand, n/a
C: Andris Biedrins, n/a
UTIL: Jose Calderon, Chowtime
UTIL: Devin Harris, Westy's Balltastics

Team of the Year: IamJabrone
Executive of the year: C-Lauff*
UPL MVP - Dwayne Wade, IamJabrone
UPL ROY - Stephen Curry, Wakeup with the King
UPL Out of Nowhere Veterans- Channing Frye, Westy's Balltastics and Carl Landry, IamJabberjaw
UPL Out of Nowhere Young Players - Al Horford, IamJabrone and Anthony Morrow, IamJabberjaw
UPL Out of Nowhere Rookies - Marcus Thornton, Westy's Balltastics and Darren Collison, IamJabrone

*I have a hard time putting someone in here who botched the draft lottery, and then compounded the mistake by hanging on to Anthony Randolph way too long, and then misplayed the endgame... that said, there's no other choice. I can't put myself in there because you can't have an executive of the year that a) missed the draft, and b) missed the last day of the season and left 2-3 games on the table.

Thoughts - I'll talk more about the endgame and the O.N. Thugs/IamJabrone storyline, in a future post. Obviously, the botching of the Taj Gibson situation looms large (I thought that I had put him in at SF, not Reggie Williams - to the point, where I was telling Mikey that I had started him that Wednesday night, before I had a chance to look at my team that night). I'll explain how things went as planned for the O.N. Thugs, until the last 3 days of the season, how the O.N. Thugs deliberately chose to walk a highwire act (out of necessity), and how a handful of unexpected DNP's completely changed.

As for everything else, I think that it's clear that Love T'Wolves should be a scary team. If that team is shrewdly managed, then they are on the podium, and have a fair shot at winning this year. SuckMyDribblingBalls makes the podium, though it's not clear that his roster will have the firepower to really compete for titles. Sparty's team will have a chance so long as CP3 is healthy, Wakeup with the King did a nice job in the 2nd half of the season revamping it's lineup and still has LeBron. Chowtime was bit by injuries early on, and never recovered, though his team looks to have a chance next year. Westy? Don't know how that team will age, but there needs to be some work. As for everyone else? There's work to be done, as well.

2010 UPL Basketball Post-Season Awards

2010-04-21T20:19:00.005-05:00

Somehow, last year we were remiss by not handing out awards for the '08 UPL Basketball Season. So, in the spirit of giving equal treatment to all UPL sports, I've decided to give unofficial awards for excellence this year. Without further ado, here goes:

All UPL First Team
PG: Deron Williams - O.N. Thugs
SG: Kevin Durant - Love Timberwolves
SF: Lebron James - Wakeup with the King
PF: Dirk Nowitzki - Chowtime
C: David Lee - IamJabrone

All UPL Second Team
PG: Steve Nash - Phatsnapper
SG: Dwayne Wade - IamJabrone
SF: Carmelo Anthony - IamJabrone
PF: Carlos Boozer - O.N. Thugs
C: Chris Bosh - Love Timberwolves

All UPL Third Team
PG: Stephen Curry - Wakeup with the King
SG: Kobe Bryant - O.N. Thugs
SF: Josh Smith - IamJabrone
PF: Amar'e Stoudemire - Phatsnapper
C: Dwight Howard - SuckMyDribblingBalls

All UPL Apology Team (AKA Honorable Mention)
PG: Rajon Rondo - Love Timberwolves
SG: Joe Johnson - IamJabrone
SF: Gerald Wallace - Wakeup with the King
PF: Brook Lopez - O.N. Thugs
C: Zack Randolph - Love Timberwolves

All UPL Injury Team (top players who hurt their teams the most because of injury)
PG: Chris Paul - Sparty Rules
SG: Danny Granger - Chowtime
SF: Brandon Roy - O.N. Thugs
PF: Kevin Garnett - Westy's Balltastics
C: Pau Gasol - Chowtime

UPL Rookie Player of the Year: Stephen Curry (Wakeup with the King)
Honorable Mention: Tyreke Evans (Wakeup with the King)

Best Draft Pick: Stephen Curry in the 12th round (Chowtime, later traded to Wakeup with the King)

UPL Manager of the Year: IamJabrone (especially after being picked to finish middle of the pack by the O.N. Thugs and winning it all anyways)

Next year should be a very interesting transition year given the state of some teams and their rosters as they currently stand. There are teams that need to think about getting younger (Westy's Balltastics), teams with solid cores that need to start paying attention (Love Timberwolves), and teams with ridiculous young backcourt talent (Wakeup with the King). And, there are teams that are set-up to contend for the next few years (O.N. Thugs, IamJabrone) and teams that are oh-so-close (chowtime, Sparty Rules, and SuckMyDribblingBalls, Westy's Balltastics). In any case, next year should be interesting.

What do you think? Are these awards well-deserved or did someone get ripped off?

Endgame Houdini

2010-04-06T17:21:00.013-05:00

I'll come out and say it. If C-Lauff pulls out the upset in hoops, I will tip my cap to him. We haven't really gotten into an endgame situation, mainly for selfish reasons. I don't want to tip my hand or give out free advice in a potentially uncertain situation (though I don't know how uncertain it is, really).

	FG%	FT%	3PM	PTS	OREB	REB	AST	STL	BLK	A/TO	TOT
O.N. Thugs	8	6.5	4	10	10	9	11	7.5	6	10	82
IamJabrone	9	5	3	11	9	6	10	9	8	9	79
SuckMyDribblingBalls	10	1	6	5	8	8	9	10	11	6.5	74.5
Westy's Balltastics	5.5	3	5	7	6	11	8	11	9	8	73.5
Sparty Rules	2	9	10	3	7	7	5	6	10	11	70
Love Timberwolves	7	10	1	9	11	10	3	5	2	1	59
chowtime	4	11	7	8	5	5	6	2	5	3	56
Wakeup with the King	5.5	2	8	6	3	4	7	7.5	7	5	55
Floor burns	3	6.5	9	2	4	3	4	4	4	6.5	46
IamJabberjaw	1	8	11	4	1	1	1	3	1	2	33
Phatsnapper	11	4	2	1	2	2	2	1	3	4	32

As of right now, he's a few points back. It's not so much the current endgame situation that I'm commenting on, but rather the constraints that his roster structure have imposed on him (with average stats over the last month)...

	FG%	FT%	3PM	PTS	OREB	REB	AST	STL	BLK	A/TO
Jrue Holiday	0.522	0.778	1.4	14.3	1.3	4.5	5.9	2.1	0.4	1.745
Louis Williams	0.378	0.900	0.3	9.6	0.4	2.9	3.8	0.8	0.0	1.789
Derrick Rose	0.474	0.783	0.7	19.1	0.8	4.1	7.1	0.4	0.5	3.737
Carmelo Anthony	0.459	0.844	0.5	27.5	2.9	7.8	3.0	1.0	0.5	1.216
Josh Smith	0.457	0.554	0.0	15.4	2.9	8.7	4.8	1.6	2.0	1.718
Joe Johnson	0.435	0.784	1.5	20.0	1.0	4.5	6.0	0.9	0.0	3.667
David Lee	0.515	0.855	0.0	20.8	3.7	13.1	4.3	1.1	0.7	2.000
Anthony Tolliver	0.450	0.827	1.5	13.6	2.2	8.0	2.1	1.1	0.8	1.667
Al Horford	0.591	0.795	0.0	15.5	3.4	10.9	2.3	0.8	0.9	1.280
Dwyane Wade	0.510	0.779	0.8	27.5	1.5	6.0	6.3	2.1	1.3	1.872
Darren Collison	0.482	0.818	0.9	15.4	0.5	2.8	8.2	1.1	0.1	2.510
Jermaine O'Neal	0.537	0.796	0.0	17.2	1.2	5.9	1.1	0.6	1.7	0.667
Anthony Randolph	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Gilbert Arenas	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

You'll note a couple roster peculiarities. The first is that he's carrying a gunner. And I don't mean a guy that doesn't pass. Well, sort of. I guess that Arenas doesn't really pass. But he's a gunner for so many more reasons. It's tough to hang on to Agent Zero for the season, and still be able to make roster moves. So, basically what the Jabrones are saying is that Arenas is definitely going to kept next year. Similarly, hanging on to Anthony Randolph, despite his injury (and his spotty playing time before that) indicates that he'll be kept, as well. We've expanded rosters in our UPL keeper leagues so that we can accommodate situations like Arenas or Al Jefferson last year for Westy, so that you still have options. However, when you start carrying additional players that aren't playing, then your options tighten up - in a sense, you are handcuffed.

You'll notice that you see some interesting names on the Jabrone roster. The most interesting name is probably Darren Collison. Before Chris Paul returned, Collison was going nuts, going 16 and 9 on a regular basis. And as a result, the Jabrones made a bit of a run on AST and A/TO. However, since CP3's return, Collison has come back down to earth, averaging 11 and 4 in the last week, and has become only a borderline play. So, this means that to keep up the pressure on AST and A/TO, the Jabrones have to look elsewhere. Enter Jrue Holliday, who has been playing well. However in the 3 games that he's played for the Jabrones, plus the 5 (maybe 6) games that he will probably play, he will probably come up 50 to 55 AST short of what Collison was putting up, and likely at a noticeably lower A/TO ratio. But give the Jabrones credit, they're doing what they can to make up the loss. They got some mileage out of Randy Foye right after Agent Zero's incident. And that was going well until the Wiz had their fire sale, and that was when Collison entered the picture. That combination helped the Jabrones crawl back into the AST and A/TO race w/ the Thugs. But the return of CP3 has slowed things down. Theyve tried Toney Douglas, Jarrett Jack, and even Will Bynum. They've even gone after O.N. Thugs castoff Louis Williams (who's been ripped off in Philly this year).

Let's just say that the 2 point swing in AST and the 2 point swing in A/TO would be huge int he standings (that alone would reverse the standings). I don't know if they can pull off the miracle.

Part of it may be the numbers. But the Thugs do have something to say about this situation. The Thugs' AST total has been driven in large part by D-Will and Westbrook, who combine for just under 19 AST/g, which is a huge total, considering an average of 4.3 AST/g, across 820 games, would take that category. Throughout the first half of the season, the Thugs had padded their lead in AST by playing Louis Williams (until he broke his jaw) and Brandon Jennings (who was traded). Since then, they've been somewhat hanging on to the lead in AST, and their hold on 2nd place in A/TO. The Jabrones had been clawing back since then, so the Thugs looked for a little help in a very unlikely place.

Enter Mike Conley. This fella was much maligned by the O.N. Thugs when he was on Westy's roster. Westy's defense was that many advanced stats indicated that Conley was a good player. The O.N. Thugs' retort was to inquire about whether these stats included winning in fantasy. After Westy dropped Conley, he made the comment that advanced stats don't win fantasy. And after Conley was unemployed in the UPL, save for some random stints. Then on March 17, the Thugs swallowed their pride, and picked up Mike Conley, after noticing that he had been playing well in March. In fact, over the last month, Conley has gone 16 and 6, with pretty efficient rate numbers.

So, the question of whether or not the Thugs have quelled this little AST and A/TO rebellion by the Jabrones is still up in the air. But with the return of CP3, it appears that the O.N. Thugs are somewhat safe... and perhaps that the Jabrones won't get to play the role of Houdini.

Next time, I will post about how the O.N. Thugs may have played the role of Houdini this time around, and how the Jabrones may have cost themselves the biggest prize in UPL Basketball.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

The Jimmy Dix Restructuring

2010-04-02T07:46:00.003-05:00

I'll freely admit that the last few weeks have been a bit of a surprise to the Jimmy Dix Longballs. My team finished in the last third of the standings for 2009, and despite having quite a bit of infield flexibility, we lacked several critical factors. So, as David Bowie once said, "Ch-ch-ch-changes!" Lets start our little journey through the makeover of a team with a look at the top 19, the Protected Keepers and the Unprotected Keepers from last year's team:

Protected Keepers
C - Brian McCann
1B - Derrick Lee
2B - Ian Kinsler
3B - Evan Longoria
3B/SS - Gordon Beckham
OF - Nelson Cruz
OF/1B - Kendry Morales
SP - Cliff Lee
SP - John Danks
SP - Jered Weaver
RP - Bobby Jenks
RP - Brad Lidge

Unprotected Keepers
SS - Alexei Ramierez
OF - Colby Rasmus
OF -Nick Swisher
OF - Michael Cuddyer
SP - James Shields
SP - Mark Buehrle
SP - Edinson Volquez

All in all, its a team of mediocrity. A couple of elite players in Kinsler, Longoria and (when he was with the Phillies) Cliff Lee. A couple of shaky closers. Some pop, some speed, but not too much of either. Well, here's what my Protected Keepers (if we expanded again next year, everyone would keep 13) would look like this time around....

Protected Keeper
C- Brian McCann
1B - Adrian Gonzalez
1B - Derrick Lee
2B - Gordon Beckham
3B - Evan Longoria
OF -BJ Upton
OF- Nelson Cruz
SP - Jon Lester
SP - Cliff Lee
SP - John Danks
RP - Jose Valverde
RP - Brad Lidge
RP- Bobby Jenks

Just a little bit different, right? Well, lets walk through how that happened. Thanks to the wonders of statistics (and the Jimmy Dix Longballers' lackluster 2009) I had the first pick in the draft. Shortly before said draft, I got an email from Pauly offering me a trade for the first overall pick. After some negotiations, we came to this agreement:

Trade #1

Jimmy Dix gave up:
1B -Kendry Morales
1st Round pick (1st overall of expansion - i.e. Jason Heyward)
5th Round pick

Hats for Bats gave up:
1B - Adrian Gonzalez
RP - Jose Valverde
1st Round Pick (5th overall)

Now, if I hadn't let my overwhelming distrust of young fireballers take over for my common sense (i.e. the Mark Prior effect) I'd have called this trade a steal because I would've taken Aroldis Chapman when he fell down to the 5th pick. But instead I grabbed Marlon Byrd, fully expecting to make a trade or two and needing a backup outfielder with some pop to fill a void. It was stupid, because as common sense points out there's still plenty of those guys available on waivers now. As it is, I got a slugger in Adrian Gonzalez and a closer in Jose Valverde filling two big needs. I wasn't so concerned giving up Kendry Morales - 1B is a good hitter's spot - but I'll admit that I'm slightly concerned because when scouts and analysts talk about Heyward they talk about Junior Griffey. The idea of trading that kind of a player away is, to be blunt, terrifying. Then an opportunity with the Benver Droncos came up....

Trade #2

Jimmy Dix gave up:
OF - Colby Rasmus
SP - Edinson Volquez

Benver Droncos gave up:
BJ Upton

BJ Upton had a bad 2009. Speculation for the reasoning ranges from injuries to a coming down to earth from previous seasons. Justin Upton is sexier to most fantasy experts. BJ Upton, despite having a bad year, was on avg with the Jimmy Dix's runs, avg. and obp. He also had 10 more steals than anyone on the roster. If Upton returns to his career average numbers, this trade'll be a win for me. If Rasmus lives up to his potential, and Volquez bounces back from his injury strong I might miss them. Either way, I traded two Unprotected Keepers for one guy who's a Protected Keeper so I'll cross my fingers and hope for the best.

Trade #3

Jimmy Dix gave up:
2B - Ian Kinsler

Westy's Sluggers gave up:
SP - Jon Lester

Of all the trades I did this offseason, this is the one that may cost me the most. Ian Kinsler is a "five tool player", a 30 Homer 30 Steal 90+ Runs 90+ RBI guy. He's also injury prone. Jon Lester is a guy who'll pitch over 200 innings with over 200 strikeouts and decent stats and a team that should net wins behind him. Lester immediately became the ace of my staff. Kinsler... Kinsler will probably end up on Greg's staff, pending negotiations. Westy has a lot of negotiating power right now, as he just aquired 2B Robinson Cano as trade bait as well. What he doesn't have, at the moment, is elite starting pitching. Time will tell what I've enabled Westy to do here. I dont think I would've made this last trade if I'd picked up Chapman. Which means that my lack of preparation in the draft put off contending by one more year. But hey, its a long season, and I'm always willing to listen to a trade offer.

Now here's to hoping that Lidge and Jenks bounce back. I'd better stock up on beer and antacids.

UPL Baseball Draft : Ecclesiastes 3:1

2010-03-28T15:49:00.004-05:00

It's interesting to see the different strategies that the various teams employed in the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft. Obviously, with the start of the UPL keeper era, the draft takes on different meaning. First of all, the first round of the draft is really the 19th round... but that's a little misleading. In theory, the top prospects (like Heyward or Strasburg this year, who are probably gone by the 10th round if we were drafting fresh) who are available make the top of the draft much more valuable. And there are probably a handful of players who weren't top 18 on deeper teams who would have been 15th or 16th rounders. So there's some additional value there. The result is that there is a bit of a break point at the top of the draft, much like in football, where there's a handful of picks at the top who are worth a lot more, and then the next bunch of picks are worth roughly the same. So you get this interesting dynamic where trades matter, and swapping spots in a round could be a major issue.

But the thing that really makes this draft interesting is that different teams have very different goals. The teams at the top of the draft are probably looking to re-load, an probably should have a very forward looking approach. This is evidenced by Pauly's approach to the draft. On the other hand, teams looking to win, such as the '90 Reds, are looking for ways to round out their team. And folks like OD just go with the Best Red Sox Player Available strategy. And Westy posted on Facebook that his top 7 was: 1. Reimold, 2. Beltre, 3. Buchholz, 4. Loney, 5. Escobar, 6. Fowler, 7. Heyward. So this is evidence that some people don't use a strategy, so much as just guess blindly :-)

What makes it interesting is that these teams with very different goals are thrown into the same game, and some of the choices, which may be perfectly rational to one team, may be entirely nuts to another. In that sense, there's a time and a place for any strategy. And so long as you have a broader goal in mind, there's probably not a "wrong" move.

So here's how the O.N. Thugs' draft looked. You'll notice the lack of a 3rd round pick, and that I had lower than expected spots in the 4th and 8th. That was courtesy of my Kerry Wood trade, which we will know the results of in late May or June.

Round	Pick (overall)	Player
1	10	Aroldis Chapman
2	17	Travis Hafner
4	49	Troy Glaus
5	62	Josh Willingham
6	69	Skip Schumaker
7	88	Joe Nathan
8	101	George Sherrill

So what was the strategy? Well, the original plan was to go find some power, and to go old school... really old school. Not just in terms of older, players, but also the return to the O.N. Thugs' historical strategy of going with veterans. The idea is this. You build a base that will last for a few years, and then it's winning time. So this year, the plan was to find some undervalued hitters. Travis Hafner, Troy Glaus, Josh Willingham, and Adam LaRoche were high on the list. I also needed to pick up a 2B, but the pickings were slim. Martin Prado, Casey McGehee, Skip Schumaker, and Akinori Iwamora were the four that I was looking at. I didn't really have a preference for any of them, since I don't see Prado as a potential top 13 player (which is the magic number if we have future expansion), and probably not even a top 18. My plan was to just wait it out there. Finally, I had my eye on some of the less-heralded closers or potential closers (Capps, Dotel, Rauch, Perez, Madson, Sherrill, Bard) and a couple starters that I had on my roster at some point last season (Sheets, Latos, Marcum).

Now in terms of execution, drafting in the UPL has become a little less predictable than in the past. First of all, there are fewer auto-drafting teams (save for the O.N. Thugs when we sleep in), and the teams that are auto-drafting have generally pre-ranked players. And the other thing is that our preferences vary greatly from the Yahoo! pre-ranks. Part of it is our league format (6x6, 13 teams, 26-man rosters), and of course that we're a keeper league. So, players that would be "off the radar" in a public league may not be quite as "off the radar" as you may think. So whereas in the past, I'd often let the guy I really wanted slide a round, knowing that he'd still be there when I drafted again, I now tend to just grab the guy that I want now, and let things sort out afterward.

I had assumed that the top of the draft would go Heyward, Strasburg, Chapman, particularly since '90 Reds was, well, a Reds fan. I was ready to just pick Hafner, then get Glaus on the way back, and hope that Willingham would still be there in the 4th. So the draft starts off, and things go off like this:

Pick	Player	Team
1	Jason Heyward	Hats for Bats
2	Stephen Strasburg	Black Sox
3	Octavio Dotel	'90 Reds
4	Kevin Correia	Benver Droncos
5	Marlon Byrd	TheJimmyDixLongballs
6	Nolan Reimold	Muddy Mush Heads
7	Martín Prado	Phatsnapper
8	Adrián Béltre	Cheeseheads
9	Kevin Slowey	SuckMyknucklballs
10	Aroldis Chapman	O.N. Thugs
11	Clay Buchholz	Westy's Sluggers
12	Alcides Escobar	IamJabrone
13	Alberto Callaspo	Milwaukee Whiffers

It starts off as I had figured with Heyward and Strasburg, but then before the draft started '90 Reds was joking (or so we thought) about picking Dotel with the 3rd pick... and I was thinking to myself that I hoped that he wasn't joking... which he wasn't.

Then Benver goes with a relatively safe pick in Correia, who was probably the highest pre-ranked player left at that point.

JimmyDix makes a strange pick with Marlon Byrd, especially given that he hates the Cubs, who's been OK the last few years in a platoon role in TEX (figure that a conservative projection is something like .350/.450, with about 17 HR).

Reimold's getting a lot of hype, but was a 26-year old rookie last year who put up alright numbers (.365/.466 with 15HR in about 400 plate appearances).

Phatsnapper takes Prado, which basically settles the question of me drafting for positional need.

Now Adrian Beltre is an interesting pick, to me. He's 31 this season, had one great season in 2004 (which looks awfully suspicious now), and has a career .325/.453, and probably projects out to 25 HR, 80 R, and 90 RBI over 162 games. You can make a case for his numbers going up with the change in scenery (which I'm not entirely sold on), but I don't know if I'd go down that path. And then Slowey gets picked in the spot in front of me.

Slowey's a 26-year old pitcher, with a career 4.39/1.28 with just under 7 K/9 (though he went 10-3).

Now with all of these players who were picked 3 through 9, I don't see the potential for a top 18 status. And frankly, I didn't see it with the players who I was targeting... so when Chapman falls into my lap at #10, I'm pretty happy. I had to do a double-take to make sure that it was actually the case. But sure enough. He was there. So, it takes the O.N. Thugs roughly 4 minutes to abandon the plan of getting some veteran power, and jumping on Chapman. Now, I certainly don't expect Chapman to be a major contributor for the O.N. Thugs this year (or even in the first part of 2011). But I get to have a free look at him, and will probably keep him on as a keeper, so that I'll really have a 2-year look at him as a potential cog in the machine. The expanded rosters make hanging on to these prospects a real possibility, which was precisely why we expanded to 26-man rosters.

So, my concern turned toward getting some potential power on the roster. The first order of business was to lock up Hafner with the 2nd round. After that, I had a bit of a wait on my hands. I was hoping that I could get either Glaus, Willingham, or LaRoche in the 4th. It turns out that all 3 were still available. I figured that Glaus would be last one picked by someone else, but he was the one that I thought had the biggest upside (career 162-game averages are .360/.500, 35HR, 96R, 101RBI), but was underpriced because of his age and his injury. So Glaus goes my way in the 4th. At that point, I was pretty happy because the odds were that Willingham or LaRoche would still be available when I picked in the 5th. And sure enough, when my turn comes back, both are available, so I go with Willingham, who I like quite a bit, and actually considered keeping in my top 18 (he's basically Brad Hawpe, only he plays in a pitcher's park and not Coors Field).

Now, at this point, I'm pondering my options. The pitchers that I had at the top of my list considered were basically gone. I still didn't have a 2B, and we were down to Schumaker and Iwamura at that point. So, I had to figure out whether I wanted to go after LaRoche and hope that one of my 2B would still be there next time I was picking. Now, I was somewhat lucky because I was going to have 2 picks before C-Lauff would pick again. I had joked about maybe just not playing a 2B, and C-Lauff may have messed with me by picking up extra 2B with his roster space (I did this to him a couple years ago in football, after his QB went down, I picked up the next 2 highest rated free agent QB's just to mess with him). But I also had '90 Reds messing around with his "Frankenstein" strategy for RP and 2B, where he was just drafting random players in the hopes of cutting off body parts and sewing them back together to make a reasonable player. So I was a bit worried that he may have just gone with Schumaker. It turns out that I probably panicked a bit, when I picked Schumaker in the 6th, rather than LaRoche, since Iwamura didn't get drafted at all. Oh well. Relatively small price to pay.

What was interesting was that as I was taking my time on this pick, I noticed that Joe Nathan was available. This was problematic. Jeff had actually wanted Nathan as one of his 2nd wave expansion picks, but I had messed it up. So, I was hoping that Nathan would fall to me, so I could grab him and offer him back to Jeff for the player that I had accidentally placed on his team. I didn't really want Nathan, but figured that it was the right thing to do. We'll see if Jeff wants him or not. Now what's funny is that since then, I've had some inquiries about Nathan. The plan is to just stash him on the DL and see how his rehab looks next spring. But I suppose that a trade wouldn't be a terrible option.

My last pick ended up being George Sherrill. This was a total guess. But, he was on my radar because he played really well for me last year, though his value plummeted after he got traded to LAD to be the set-up man. But, there's always the chance that he could be traded off to MIN or somewhere else where they need a closer.

Now, as you look at my list of picks, I think that it makes sense for my team, which looks to be good with pitching, but needed some bats to put me over the top. I don't have the luxury of waiting for prospects like LaPorta, Gamel, etc. Hafner, Glaus, and Willingham are going to be batting 4 or 5 for their teams. Typical numbers from that spot in the batting order project out to at least 90RBI, and they're are all pretty high OPS guys, so that should bode well, if they get playing time.

Of course, these players, save Chapman, probably don't make a lot of sense for a team that is looking to rebuild, like Hats for Bats, Benver Droncos, JimmyDix, etc. So that adds an interesting wrinkle. You're likely drafting against the teams that have the same goals as you, but even then, the specific needs are probably different enough so that you aren't really competing for the same players. Even with me and '90 Reds needing 2B, our drafts were probably like ships passing in the night, with the possible exception of Casey McGehee, who I had on my radar - even the closers were gone before I would started thinking about them.

So when you take a step back and see these wildly different takes on a draft, you really have to put it back into context and realize that "optimal" choices are based on a lot of assumption. I think that they key assumptions are whether or not your team is in contention or rebuilding, and how many of the keeper slots you have filled up. If you've only got like 12 firm keepers, then you can take more chances on players who may be keeper material. But if your team runs deep, and you're looking to win? Keeper status probably isn't your concern, unless something falls into your lap, like Chapman did in my case. In all honesty, most of the players that Pauly listed on his top 30 weren't even on my radar, simply because I'm needing stats now. For example, had my team been a great hitting, so-so pitching team, a player like Andy Pettite, who Pauly would absolutely never draft (and rightfully so) would absolutely be on my radar, and probably relatively high on my radar.

Now what's really interesting is when you see some teams that you'd figure to be looking to win, instead draft like they're rebuilding. As I look through the drafts, I'm a bit surprised at how much youth Westy and C-Lauff took on. That either means that they really think that their top 18 is golden, or they're looking to rebuild. Either way, I don't think that's an optimal way to go, if they're trying to win now. Obviously, Greg spent a lot of time filling holes, looking to win now. On the other hand, Rupert's draft (which I believe was auto-drafted) tells me that he either is trying to add veterans to win now, or that he just didn't pre-rank players and got stuck w/ the computer's picks. OD appears to be happy to continue his strategy of picking Red Sox players, along with a couple vets along the way.

On the flip side, some teams that were definitely in rebuilding mode, didn't really continue that path in the draft. JimmyDix is a prime example, though his team is quickly moving into contender territory, with his acquisitions of Adrian Gonzalez and (soon) BJ Upton. So maybe he's looking to get into the top 4 this year. But the Milwaukee Whiffers' draft didn't really do much to help him rebuild. Nor did the Cheeseheads' draft. But teams like Benver Droncos, Hats for Bats, and the Black Sox seem to have helped along their rebuilding processes in this draft. And in a vacuum, I'd like the Mush Heads' draft, though I'm not sure how good of a draft it was for a rebuilding team.

As for the O.N. Thugs? We're always convinced that we're going to win, even when we're in 10th place at the all-star break :-) But I think that between Hafner, Glaus, and Willingham, I'll get 2 good performances, which will go a long way into putting my offense back in the top half of the league. Though to be honest, much like last season, Wright/Markakis are going to be the major factors. If both are good, then I've got the inside track. If only one is good, then I'll need to get creative. And if neither is good, then it will be really, really hard to get back into the winner's circle.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Check your Man Crush at the Door

2010-03-17T10:59:00.004-05:00

A wealth of energy and time is spent debating the rational approaches to fantasy stardom on the UPL blog. And, I'm glad it's here because I learn a lot from people who think more strategically than I do. However, competition is inherently emotional, so I'd like to touch on the irrational phenomenon known as the "Man Crush".

We all have them. We fall head over heels for a hurler's "stuff", or become enchanted by the sweet swing of a switch-hitter, even when the numbers suggest that our burning love is misplaced. And yet, there's something about that player that makes you draft him just one more year, in the hopes that he meets your unmet expectations. I remember Roland's infatuation for all things Tony Armas Jr. in the early 2000's. He would always wax poetic about how great Tony Armas' stuff was, and then be let down by a sub-par, injury riddled season. For me, that "man crush" is Francisco Liriano.

Despite Roland's declaration that the Liriano Era should be over for the Jabrones, I found myself taking him in my top 18 draft picks. Why you ask? Although Liriano's magical 2006 season is a distant memory for many, for some reason, Liriano's dominating employment of the changeup/fastball/slider in that season that lead him to a 12-3 record with a 2.16 ERA, 1.00 WHIP and 144 Ks in 121 innings gets my heart racing. He looked like Johan Santana's protege and mini-me. Since then, he's dealt with Tommy John surgery, confidence issues, and overall bad control. I was all set to let him go as Roland espoused, and then this came out in January - "Francisco Making Strides in Winter Ball", "Francisco Liriano Shows Serious Stuff", and "LIriano's Winter Work Has Twins Excited". So, like a teenager who can't let a past relationship die, I did the comparison of calling back an old flame who calls you after a year of radio silence. I asked him to be on my team, yet again, hoping to have the Liriano that is closer to the '06 version, rather than the disasterous '09 version.

So, why do I share all of this? Because it's important to identify these tendencies in all of us and manage them accordingly. Some of us may have the discipline to say no to the pitcher with the scintilating stuff who we know is bad for us, but some of us don't. And, if we recognize it early on, we can begin to develop more rationally based strategies for managing it. For me, I knew that I couldn't resist Francisco Liriano, but I also know that I don't have to rely on him to put up great pitching numbers this year. Knowing this, he becomes a nice 18th round lottery ticket and potentially frees up some room for me to trade one of my better starters. He offers me talent that we've seen in the majors that no other player available to me does.

Perhaps, you're facing or did face this same scenario. What do you do? Counter your emotional impulses for certain players by making sure you can run the risk of chasing a player that may be harmful to your UPL health. And, if he ends up being a heartbreaker, make sure you have some other able-shouldered players to cry on.

Creation and the Expanding Universe, Part II

2010-03-16T12:37:00.002-05:00

And on the 7th day...

...

...we looked at more potential franchise cornerstones for our creation.

Phatsnapper

Player	W	L	SV	K	ERA	WHIP
Madison Bumgarner (21)	0	0	0	10	1.80	1.10
Neftali Feliz (22)	1	0	2	39	1.74	0.68
David Price (25)	10	7	0	102	4.42	1.35

Player	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG
Kyle Blanks (24)	24	10	22	1	0.355	0.514
Jack Cust	88	25	70	4	0.356	0.417
Yunel Escobar (28)	89	14	76	5	0.377	0.436
Brad Hawpe	82	23	86	1	0.384	0.519
Matt LaPorta (25)	29	7	21	2	0.308	0.442
Casey McGehee (28)	58	16	66	0	0.360	0.499
Nolan Reimold (27)	49	15	45	8	0.365	0.466
Travis Snider (22)	34	9	29	1	0.328	0.419
Rickie Weeks (28)	28	9	24	2	0.340	0.517
Michael Young	76	22	68	8	0.374	0.518

Much like the O.N. Thugs' roster, there are all sorts of goodies available here. We don't know much about Madison Bumgarner, other than he looked solid last year getting his cup of tea w/ the big leaguers, and that he's young. Normally, you don't think about non-closing relievers, but Feliz is really young, and appears to be a closer in waiting. On offense, Hawpe is probably the most stable production, and Young is probably the most established player. LaPorta, Blanks, and Snider are all pretty highly regarded youngsters. I think that Michael Young's move to 3B will extend his stay w/ Texas. My opinion? I'm tempted by Price, though he hasn't shown enough to lock him down in my top 12, I don't think. The Moneyball approach probably says to go w/ Hawpe, since he's proven, plays in Colorado, and still only 31. But I've always had a soft spot for Michael young, plus his production at SS this year, and 3B in the future should count as a bonus.

Quick aside: I just don't know about those 24/25 year old prospects who haven't proven it, yet. I'm of the belief that true elite sort of players make an impact in the majors by 22/23. This is a bit of an old school, scout's approach. But it just seems that the guys who get to the majors late don't have the otherworldly ability to extend their careers. Basically the theory is that everyone learns on the job, that the learning increases your overall production, but that you can only learn so much. The phenoms don't really make use of the things they learn until they slow down, and then are able to maintain their dominance. On the other hand, the players that make an impact in the show late have already done their learning, and have maxed themselves out. Once their skills take them down, it's hard for them to learn more to keep themselves on top. So, in that sense, guys like LaPorta seem like they could make an impact for a few years, as they hit their peaks, but it's hard to see them extending this into their peaks into the mid-30's.

Black Sox

Player	W	L	SV	K	ERA	WHIP
Zach Duke	11	16	0	106	4.06	1.31
Frank Francisco	2	3	25	57	3.83	1.11
Jason Marquis	15	13	0	115	4.04	1.38

Player	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG
Mike Cameron	78	24	70	7	0.342	0.452
Jorge Cantú (28)	67	16	100	3	0.345	0.443
Chris Iannetta (27)	41	16	52	0	0.344	0.460
José López (26)	69	25	96	3	0.303	0.463
Nyjer Morgan	74	3	39	42	0.369	0.388
Cody Ross (29)	73	24	90	5	0.321	0.469

Here, it appears that the choices are Jose Lopez, Chris Iannetta, and Frank Francisco. It's hard to pass up 25 HR and 96 RBI from 2B, particularly with a relatively young guy. But that .303 OBP is scary to me. Iannetta is worth considering, since he's a C, and has the Coors Field thing going for him, and is relatively young. But my recommendation is to go closer again w/ Frank Francisco. Texas seems to always have high SV guys, and even if his rate stats are only OK, he'll be a trade piece, if needed.

MuddyMushHeads

Player	W	L	SV	K	ERA	WHIP
Johnny Cueto (24)	11	11	0	132	4.41	1.36
Tommy Hunter (24)	9	6	0	64	4.10	1.30

Player	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG
Casey Blake	84	18	79	3	0.363	0.468
Rafael Furcal	92	9	47	12	0.335	0.375
Felipe López	88	9	57	6	0.383	0.427
Grady Sizemore (28)	73	18	64	13	0.343	0.445

Ordinarily, you'd be estatic with the chance to add someone like Cueto to your roster, since he's young, definitely improving, and seems to have all-star potential. But then you look down the list and see Grady Sizemore, who was dinged up last year, but is still a Yahoo! Top 25 player, and even if you discount his 2009 season off of his career numbers, still figures to be a Top 50-60 sort of player. Makes this an easy choice.

Also, as I was talking w/ CJ, one of our resident White Sox fans. She starts laughing and says something to the effect of, "He knows that Dye still isn't signed, yet, doesn't he?" When the team drafting first makes fun of your keeper choices, you may be in for some mocking and/or a long season.

JimmyDixLongballs

Player	W	L	SV	K	ERA	WHIP
Mark Buehrle	13	10	0	105	3.84	1.25
Kevin Millwood	13	10	0	123	3.67	1.34
James Shields (28)	11	12	0	167	4.14	1.32
Edinson Vólquez (27)	4	2	0	47	4.35	1.33

Player	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG
Michael Cuddyer	93	32	94	6	0.342	0.520
James Loney (26)	73	13	90	7	0.357	0.399
Alexei Ramírez (29)	71	15	68	14	0.333	0.389
Colby Rasmus (24)	72	16	52	3	0.307	0.407
Nick Swisher	84	29	82	0	0.371	0.498
Ryan Theriot	81	7	54	21	0.343	0.369

Here, we see some more options. Volquez ordinarily would be the way to go, but he's coming off of surgery, and may not be right until 2011. Buehrle, Shields, and Millwood are established, solid vets, w/ limited ceilings. Chances are, one of those players will be available in the 2nd round of expansion, so I let them pass, especially since there's so much other SP available. On offense, there's some attraction to Rasmus, since he's only 24, and Loney is this very athletic player who just can't seem to hit at home, nor has he developed the power that you'd expect from someone his size. But I think that the money play here is Cuddyer, who's 31, and appears to be playing at the level that they were expecting of him 5 or 6 years ago.

Hats For Bats

Player	W	L	SV	K	ERA	WHIP
Erik Bedard	5	3	0	90	2.82	1.19
Derek Lowe	15	10	0	111	4.67	1.52
Jeff Niemann (27)	13	6	0	125	3.94	1.35

Player	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG
Corey Hart (28)	64	12	48	11	0.335	0.418
Nick Johnson	71	8	62	2	0.426	0.405
Ryan Ludwick	63	22	97	4	0.329	0.447
Bengie Molina	52	20	80	0	0.285	0.442
Juan Rivera	72	25	88	0	0.332	0.478
Marco Scutaro	100	12	60	14	0.379	0.409
Vernon Wells	84	15	66	17	0.311	0.400

Here, you've got a couple interesting choices. Bedard's the best pitcher, but he's hurt, an dmay not be back until this summer. Derek Lowe's the brand name, and will probably be solid in ATL. Niemann's the younger, less proven, but probably option. On offense, Vernon Wells is probably the most talented. Juan Rivera is the safest bet to put up solid numbers. Molina gives you 20 HR and 80 RBI at C. Scutaro should score 100+ runs this year playing everyday in Boston. And Nick Johnson is a high OBP guy who should get some counting numbers in that Yankees lineup. You probably want to gamble with Bedard or Wells, or go with a relatively safe, relatively young pitcher in Niemann. I think that I go with Niemann here.

Benver Droncos

Player	W	L	SV	K	ERA	WHIP
Brian Fuentes	1	5	48	46	3.93	1.40
Hiroki Kuroda	8	7	0	87	3.76	1.14
Jarrod Washburn	9	9	0	100	3.78	1.19
Kerry Wood	3	3	20	63	4.25	1.38

Player	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG
Marlon Byrd	66	20	89	8	0.329	0.479
Franklin Gutiérrez (27)	85	18	70	16	0.339	0.425
Brandon Inge	71	27	84	2	0.314	0.406
Garrett Jones (29)	45	21	44	10	0.372	0.567

Keep it simple. Fuentes. Anytime you can dig up the SV leader for all of baseball? You take him. He may not be in your long term plans, but there are a number of teams that would trade a legit position player for him.

So what does the roster look like now?

SP - Jurrjens, Lilly, Oswalt, Niemann,
RP - Wagner, Fuentes, Francisco
1B - Butler
2B/SS - Cabrera
SS/3B - Young
OF - Sizemore, Cuddyer

This is starting to look like a pretty decent team, and a top half finish starts to look like a legit possibility. You've got a couple relatively young arms (Jurrjens and Niemann) to go with a couple vets (Oswalt and Lilly). You have 3 closers, who you can hang on to, or trade for legit talent. You could look for one or two more SP, and looking for potential closers could make for trade pieces. But you've got the core of a nice pitching staff.

On offense, you have a potential superstar (Sizemore) some established talent (Young, Cuddyer) to go with some youth (Butler and Cabrera). Most teams are going to be scrambling for a C and a middle IF position, anyway, so you're not really missing out. Now, you need to round out the lineup with another OF, and maybe a couple potential production guys at UTIL.

Some of the rosters will still have some strong players left after the next 6 protected players, so you'll get some more help there.

And on the 8th day? Well, now it's time to prep for the next round of keepers, and get ready for the draft.

In any case, we'll see what the Milwaukee Whiffers choose to do (whose bright idea was it to place a 2nd UPL team in Milwaukee, anyway?).

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Creation and the Expanding Universe, Part I

2010-03-15T17:11:00.007-05:00

Our first ever UPL Expansion draft is upon us, and it's looking like there is going to be some talent available for our expansion teams. So if I were playing creator, how would I try to bring a franchise out of the cosmic mess known as the expansion draft?

I'm glad you asked.

In this 2-part series, we'll break down what's available, and of what's available, what's worth thinking about. First up, the top 6 teams from 2009. Then the bottom 6 teams, along with any possible changes. I've added ages for players under 30.

'90 Reds

Player	W	L	SV	K	ERA	WHIP
Homer Bailey (24)	8	5	0	86	4.53	1.47
Edwin Jackson (27)	13	9	0	161	3.62	1.26
Joe Nathan	2	2	47	89	2.1	0.93
Wandy Rodriguez	14	12	0	193	3.02	1.24
Javier Vazquez	15	10	0	238	2.87	1.03

Player	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG
Billy Butler (24)	78	21	93	1	0.362	0.492
Chris Coghlan (25)	84	9	47	8	0.390	0.460
Chipper Jones	80	18	71	4	0.388	0.430

Interestingly, the best offensive option, Billy Butler is also the youngest option. Joe Nathan is worth thinking about stashing away for the year, but the problem is that it may be a 2-year commitment. Javy Vazquez is probably the best pitcher, though he's old (34). Wandy Rodriguez is only 31. My recommendation? Take the young talent, even if he is on KC: Billy Butler, 1B.

IAmJabrone

Player	W	L	SV	K	ERA	WHIP
Clay Buchholz (26)	7	4	0	68	4.21	1.38
Matt Capps (27)	4	8	27	46	5.80	1.66
Jorge De La Rosa (29)	16	9	0	193	4.38	1.38
Ryan Dempster	11	9	0	172	3.65	1.30
Francisco Liriano (27)	5	13	0	122	5.80	1.55
Billy Wagner	1	1	0	26	1.72	1.02

Player	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG
Johnny Damon	107	24	82	12	0.365	0.489
Chris Davis (24)	48	21	59	0	0.284	0.442
Jason Kubel (28)	73	28	103	1	0.369	0.539
Mike Napoli (29)	60	20	56	3	0.350	0.492
Ian Stewart (25)	74	25	70	7	0.322	0.464

Here, you see a couple options. Kubel gives you a nice balance of production and age, though he may lose some AB this year with the acquistion of Thome. Stewart qualifies at 2B and 3B, and gives you decent counting numbers and a reasonable SLG (though his OBP is bad). Liriano is a few years removed from his status as the next Johan Santana, though he is following his former mentor's injury path. He's worth considering in later position, but probably not in the top 12. A better option would be to take a shot at Billy Wagner, who could have strong trade value if he gets off to a good start. De la Rosa seems to have found his stride, and will have a good team behind him. My recommendation? Take the shot at Billy Wagner, since he could have huge trade value by June.

Westy's Sluggers

Player	W	L	SV	K	ERA	WHIP
Scott Baker (29)	15	9	0	162	4.37	1.19
Matt Garza (26)	8	12	0	189	3.95	1.26
Jair Jurrjens (24)	14	10	0	152	2.60	1.21
Leo Núñez (27)	4	6	26	60	4.06	1.25
Carlos Zambrano	9	7	0	152	3.77	1.38

Player	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG
Russell Branyan	64	31	76	2	0.347	0.520
Rajai Davis	65	3	48	41	0.360	0.423
Nate McLouth (29)	86	20	70	19	0.352	0.436

Here, the cream of the crop appears to be Jurrjens, who put up a very good season on all fronts, save for his K numbers, and is still only 24. Nate McLouth is the other option - anytime you get a chance to get a 20-20 guy who will chip in solid R and RBI w/out killing your OBP or SLG (though they weren't great last yera), you have to consider it. The name out there is Big Z. My recommendation? Don't overthink this. Young arms w/ big league success are gold. Take Jair Jurrjens.

O.N. Thugs

Player	W	L	SV	K	ERA	WHIP
Rich Harden (28)	9	9	0	171	4.09	1.34
Ben Sheets	-	-	-	-	-	-

Player	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG
Elvis Andrus (22)	72	6	40	33	0.329	0.373
Julio Borbón (24)	30	4	20	19	0.376	0.414
Asdrubal Cabrera (24)	81	6	68	17	0.361	0.438
Alex Gordon (26)	28	6	22	5	0.324	0.378
Todd Helton	79	15	86	0	0.416	0.489
Russell Martin (27)	63	7	53	11	0.352	0.329
Jorge Posada	55	22	81	1	0.363	0.522
Josh Willingham	70	24	61	4	0.367	0.496

All sorts of goodies here. Harden has been intriguing with his stuff for a few years now, and was great in 2008. Of course, he's always injury prone. Another question mark is Ben Sheets, who's back throwing in the 90's, but is coming off of major surgery last year. There's all sorts of young talent available, between Andrus, Borbon, Cabrera, and Alex Gordon, and even Russell Martin's only 27. Posada's probably the best player, though he's old. My recommendation? Again, relatively young, proven arms are gold in this format. I've been intrigued by Harden all these years, and it would be like I was admitting I was wrong if I didn't go Harden... but the smart play here is probably to go with the most reliable of the youngsters, Asdrubal Cabrera, who's slated to be in the 2 hole between Grady Sizemore and Shin-Soo Choo in that Indians lineup.

SuckMyKnuckleballs

Player	W	L	SV	K	ERA	WHIP
Gavin Floyd (27)	11	11	0	163	4.06	1.23
Tim Hudson	2	1	0	30	3.61	1.46
Roy Oswalt	8	6	0	138	4.12	1.24

Player	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG
Mark DeRosa	78	23	78	3	0.319	0.433
Hideki Matsui	62	28	90	0	0.367	0.509
Magglio Ordóñez	54	9	50	3	0.376	0.428
Scott Rolen	76	11	67	5	0.368	0.455
Kurt Suzuki (27)	74	15	88	8	0.313	0.421

This is sort of interesting. While the O.N. Thugs' roster was full of young talent, this roster is not. Roy Oswalt is probably the best option for pitching. Hideki Matsui may have a couple years left in the tank and will be hitting 5th or 6th for the Halos. Similar story for Rolen, who will be in the middle of a decent Reds lineup. Magglio Ordonez may be worth thinking about, if you think that he can regain his 2008 form, or better. Best bet here? Take Oswalt, who's still only 33, and probably has another 4-5 strong years left.

Cheeseheads

Player	W	L	SV	K	ERA	WHIP
Ted Lilly	12	9	0	151	3.10	1.06
Joel Piñeiro	15	12	0	105	3.49	1.14
Randy Wells (28)	12	10	0	104	3.05	1.28

Player	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG
Clint Barmes	69	23	76	12	0.294	0.440
Paul Konerko	75	28	88	1	0.353	0.489
Adam LaRoche	78	25	83	2	0.355	0.488
David Ortiz	77	28	99	0	0.332	0.462
Alfonso Soriano	64	20	55	9	0.303	0.423

Here, we see more older vets. The three that pop out should be Ted Lilly, David Ortiz, and Alfonso Soriano. Lilly was his usual solid self, though he lost some time to injury, only loggin 177 IP. Pineiro finally put it together last year, and put up a really good season in STL, and now moves to ANA where he'll be the 3rd starter. He's a couple years younger than Lilly, and worth thinking about. Big Papi was off last year, and still managed 28 HR and 99 RBI, though his rate numbers were sort of painful, and he's struggled so far this spring. Plus, you should be able to trade him to OD at some point... Soriano was just off all of 2009, though he's probably more likely to bounce back that Papi, who appears to be done. I think that the play here is to go with Ted Lilly, and realize that you can get someone like Konerko/LaRoche/Ortiz with the next round of expansion, if you want.

So, it looks like this so far:

SP - Jurrjens, Lilly, Oswalt
RP - Wagner
1B - Butler
2B/SS - Cabrera

I'd be tempted to just go pitching heavy, and go after Harden, who fits the profile for expansion: young, high ceiling. I'd guess that he's a higher ceiling than Cabrera. This strategy sets you up for later, because you always seem to be able to trade pitching. And moreover, you can probably dig up some 20-HR power at 1B fairly easily. However, Butler's just too young to pass up. I'd also consider going with Ian Stewart over Billy Wagner, but Stewart's low rate stats are a little scary, and the potential return for a top closer is big enough for me to pass take a shot at.

Next time, we'll come back and see how the rest of the teams look... here's a hint. There's a Yahoo! top 25 pre-rank player available. And he's only 28.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Fantasy 101: The Run-Down, Heading into Year 3

2010-03-15T02:30:00.002-05:00

I just realized that the UPL Blog has just had it's 100th post, and we're closing in on the end of the UPL Blog's 2nd year in existence. Time flies, I suppose. Since the start of the UPL Blog, we've seen two more O.N. Thugs hoops championships, one of which was an unexpected tie w/ UPL Newcomer Stephan. And interestingly enough, we are coming down the stretch again, with another potentially exciting final week of fantasy hoops in play. We have also seen two championships from the Jabrones, the first in 2008 Baseball, followed by a 2008 Football championship, which set up the first potential non-O.N. Thugs Tiger Slam (holding all of the championships, but not in one calendar year) in 2009 Basketball. The UPL Blog has also coincided with a return to the top by the '90 Reds and a new UPL Champion, Dino.

There have been contentious trade scenarios, innovations in our draft orders, and the creation of keeper leagues in our roto formats. And of course, there has been speculation on my part about the potential success of the O.N. Thugs, with mixed results. Interestingly, there has been much less analysis about the O.N. Thugs, and more speculation of the moves of the other franchises of the UPL. I believe that one of the more interesting developments in the UPL is the analysis done in the pre-season analysis, between the draft recaps and the team previews. Those writeups are fun to write, are great for understanding the fantasy landscape, and are great to look back on after the season is over.

One thing that the UPL Blog hasn't been quite as successful at is with it's hope of incorporating the other UPL owners' voices. After all, many folks believe in the power behind the wisdom of the crowds (though, I have to confess that I'm of the opinion that the crowds are generally idiots). C-Lauff and CJ had originally signed on to be co-authors, but have not chimed in quite as much as originally hoped. One of the originally targeted authors, Greg, ventured off on his own to create his own Baseball Fantasy, where UPL banter is prominently featured. And UPL Newcomer Pauly has recently done the same. So there is some other UPL chatter, other than the message boards and the UPL Blog. Hopefully, this will continue to grow.

As always, the goal of this blog is to get an interesting, lively discussion going, and every once in a while, you have me making bold statements and outrageous claims. I don't really know how successful we've been. But in any case, for the UPL Blog, it's 101 posts down, and who knows how many more to go.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

UPL Baseball Draft Lottery and 2010 Preview - Pick 1

2010-03-13T21:12:00.003-06:00

The 1st pick in the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft goes to:

JimmyDixLongballs
History: UPL Newcomer, whose initial foray into baseball in 2008 resulted in a 4th place finish, but then fell to 10th place in 2009.

Tendencies: Our 2nd White Sox fan. Not sure about tendencies, yet, though JimmyDix doesn't appear to be afraid to make a deal from time to time.

2009 Result: 10th place

Likely Keepers:
Offense Locks: Evan Longoria, Ian Kinsler, Brian McCann, Gordon Beckham, Kendry Morales, Derek Lee, Nelson Cruz

Pitching Locks: Cliff Lee, Jared Weaver, Bobby Jenks

Probable Keepers: Michael Cuddyer, Nick Swisher, Colby Rasmus, Alexi Ramirez, Mark Buehrle, John Danks, Brad Lidge, Kevin Millwood, James Shields

Strengths and Question Marks:
Offensive Strengths: Deep offense with some redundancy at 2B and 3B, which is a luxury. Balanced production makes injuries a little less of a concern.

Offensive Question Marks: This offense is generally pretty solid, though the speed is so-so at best. Also, the OBP could be a struggle, with only D-Lee and Swisher as legit OBP guys.

Pitching Strengths: n/a

Pitching Question Marks: Which Cliff Lee will you get - it's probably the one that was awesome down the stretch for PHI, but you're not certain. Jared Weaver started to control his stuff better last year, and is a high ceiling pitcher. Guys like Buehrle and Danks are going to be solid, not great with their rate stats, and you hope that their W-L record justifies their spot on the roster. This isnt' the best way to put together a fantasy rotation, as K's will be a struggle, the ERA and WHIP has a low ceiling, and you have to hope for the best w/ W-L, which you're doing regardless. Two question marks at closer. Lidge was bad last year, and Jenks struggled a bit, as well. Got very unlucky with Edinson Volquez, who you probably can't keep.

2010 Outlook: If the luck flows for JimmyDix' pitching, then this team could be closer to the 4th place team of 2008, than the 10th place team of 2009. But lots of things have to go right. The offense should make this team OK, but the real strength should be the ability to deal some offense to get back some top-end pitching. If I had to put a guess on how things pan out, I'd go with something in the middle of the pack, maybe a little below average like 8th place.

The JimmyDixLongballs are on the clock.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

UPL Baseball Draft Lottery and 2010 Preview - Pick 2

2010-03-13T20:04:00.002-06:00

The 3rd pick in the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft goes to:

Black Sox
History:UPL Newcomer (relatively), with 2 disappointing finishes to begin his UPL Baseball career.

Tendencies: Limited information. Appears to be a White Sox fan (one of two, along with JimmyDix, who comprise the top 2 picks in the 2010 draft... probably not a great thing).

2009 Result: 11th place

Likely Keepers:
Offense Locks: Hanley Ramirez, Prince Fielder, Andre Ethier, Ryan Zimmerman, Carlos Quentin, Jayson Werth

Pitching Locks: Justin Verlander, Chad Billingsley, Joba Chamberlain, Scott Kazmir, Jonathan Papelbon, Frank Francisco

Probable Keepers: Andrew McCutchen, Nyjer Morgan, Chris Iannetta, Jose Lopez, Jason Marquis, Joey Devine

Strengths and Question Marks:
Offensive Strengths: Top heavy offense, mainly because they have the largest vegetarian in the history of man. Aside from obvious star power (Hanley and Prince), Ethier is emerging as a legit fantasy starter.

Offensive Question Marks: Carlos Quentin is coming off another injury-plagued season, and has only had one legitimate season (2008), and even then he only played in 130 games. His health would give this team a lot of flexibility. Morgan played well above his career numbers once he got moved to Washington, after he was replaced by McCutchen in Pittsburgh (who is still learning the game). Zimmermann and Werth both had career years - they should both be good in 2010, but replicating the output may be tough.

Pitching Strengths: Justin Verlander is good, and there are 3 other SP with high ceilings. Papelbon is a nice anchor for SV.

Pitching Question Marks: Obviously, the question of which Scott Kazmir you're going to get in 2010 is huge. Do you get the one who was very good in his 6 starts in ANA, or do you get the one who stunk in TAM? With Billingsley, you're going to get some glimpses of greatness, but his 2009 was a step back from his very good 2007 and 2008 campaigns. And of course, you have to hope that Joba gets to be the 5th starter, and not the setup man (unless Mo Rivera goes down).

2010 Outlook: Sometimes you look at a team, and you see exactly why they finished where they did. The offense should be solid, not elite. The pitching will need to get lucky to be above average. This team probably shouldn't be an 11th place team. But getting into the top half will require some effort. Out of 13 teams, let's put them a little higher than last year, maybe 8th.

Now, this leaves us with the winners of the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft Lottery, the JimmyDixLongballs...

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

UPL Baseball Draft Lottery and 2010 Preview - Pick 3

2010-03-13T19:25:00.003-06:00

The 3rd pick in the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft goes to:

'90 Reds
History: 3 time UPL Baseball champion, who has also seen some tough times (10th in 2003, 8th in 2004).

Tendencies: Strategy seems to be evolving. Originally, overvalued starting pitching, at the expense of offense. Currently appears to be looking to build off of elite offensive talent, while patching things together with value in SP. Able to make trades to shore up roster. Seems to get lucky in free agency in successful years (I still can't let go of Bret Boone's 2001* season).

2009 Result: 1st place

Likely Keepers:
Offense Locks: Ryan Howard, Victor Martinez, Justin Upton, Pablo Sandoval, Aramis Ramirez, Jason Bartlett

Pitching Locks: Dan Haren, Javy Vazquez, Edwin Jackson, Wandy Rodriguez, Chad Qualls, Brian Wilson

Probable Keepers: Michael Bourn, Carlos Gonzalez, Billy Butler, Manny Ramirez, Chipper Jones, Joe Nathan, Homer Bailey

Strengths and Question Marks:
Offensive Strengths: Deep offense with some positional flexibility, though Sandoval no longer qualifies at C. Ryan Howard almost single-handedly makes you competitive in HR and RBI. Bourn, Bartlett, and Upton give enough speed to compete for some points. Upton has an ultra-high ceiling.

Offensive Question Marks: Jason Bartlett is coming off of a career year in 2009, at the age of 30, where his OPS was about .190 higher than his previous 2 seasons (where he totaled over 1000 PA's). Which Bartlett will show up? A-Ram is coming off injury, and seems to be more a bit injury prone the last few years. Man-Ram turns 38 this year, is coming off a disastrous 2009* campaign, and has been his usual, unpredictable self, commenting on how this is going to be his last season in LA. Sandoval's weight has been a concern (basically, he's built like me, only he's a bit shorter, and much more skilled) - we'll see if this is something that actually affects performance, and perhaps he can team up with Ryan Howard and Jared for some low fat, Subway $5 footlongs.

Pitching Strengths: Deep SP, with good rate stats across the board. Dan Haren has been a rock for 3 years in a row.

Pitching Question Marks: Obviously, Joe Nathan's situation hurts, and also raises the question of what to do with SV this year. Javy Vazquez, Wandy Rodriguez, Edwin Jackson, and Brian Wilson are coming off of career years (all 1 run and about .15 below their career ERA/WHIP going into 2009). Which versions will show up in 2010?

2010 Outlook: Sometimes you look at a team, and you wonder how they did as well as they did. Looking at this roster, there were a lot of players who had career years in 2009 (Wandy, Jackson, Vazquez, Wilson, Bartlett), which explains the 2009 success. It's hard to imagine all of them coming up roses again in 2010. That said, assuming average luck, this team should be good enough to be easily in the top-half of this league. And the management should be strong enough to put the '90 Reds into the top 4. Where in that top 4 is an interesting question. If I was guessing (and I am), I'd say 3rd place.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

UPL Baseball Draft Lottery and 2010 Preview - Pick 4

2010-03-11T15:12:00.002-06:00

The 4th pick in the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft goes to:

Benver Droncos
History: UPL Regular, who apparently is now in Seoul Korea, enjoying Seoul Food, watching Seoul Train, and driving a Kia Seoul.

Tendencies: Since a 5th place debut in 2005, the Droncos have been mired in a huge slump, finishing last 3 out of the last 4 years.

2009 Result: 12th place

Likely Keepers:
Offense Locks: Justin Morneau, Robinson Cano, Hunter Pence, B.J. Upton, Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino

Pitching Locks: J.A. Happ, Scott Feldman, Ubaldo Jimenez, Francisco Cordero, Brian Fuentes

Probable Keepers: Vladimir Guerrero, Marlon Byrd, Franklin Gutierrez, Hank Blalock, Garrett Jones, Kerry Wood, Hiroki Kuroda, Brett Anderson

Strengths and Question Marks:
Offensive Strengths: Morneau is a quality player to anchor offense. Lots of speed with Upton, Rollins, Victorino. Balance to the team, with many players with 12-20 HR potential.

Offensive Question Marks: Unfortunately, the balance on offense will probably lead to mediocre performance, at best. Rate stats will be problematic, as there are many low to mid OBP guys, and not a ton of power. Bounce back year for Upton and Rollins would be very helpful. And being able to move some speed to get back some pitching or power would appear to be a priority.

Pitching Strengths: Some young talent who had good 2009 seasons (Happ, Jimenez, and Feldman). Two potentially elite closers in Fuentes and Cordero.

Pitching Question Marks: If Kerry Wood bounces back, the relief corps could really help in SV and the rate stats, though Fuentes' rate number last year were a little off. The youth (the three mentioned, plus Brett Anderson) needs to come through, and if so this pitching staff would be above average.

2010 Outlook: The offense looks to be average, given the lack of power and rate stats. However, trading speed for power could be a quick way to change the flavor of this team. The pitching looks to be below average, though if things fall correctly, that could push upwards. This team should be in rebuilding mode, and trying to acquire some more young talent, for a run at the podium next year (or more likely, in 2 seasons). This season? Hopefully staying out of the cellar again, but it will be tough to get into the top half of the league. This feels like a 10th place team.

Now, we move into the winners of the 2010 UPL Lottery...

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

UPL Baseball Draft Lottery and 2010 Preview - Pick 5

2010-03-10T23:59:00.002-06:00

The 5th pick in the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft goes to:

Hats for Bats
History: UPL Newcomer, who was hyped by eventual 2010 champion, '90 Reds. However, 2009 proved to be a learning experience.

Tendencies: N/A. Apparently is a Marlins fan?

2009 Result: 10th place

Likely Keepers:
Offense Locks: A-Rod, Jose Reyes, Adrian Gonzalez, Brandon Phillips,

Pitching Locks: Roy Halladay, Heath Bell, Jose Valverde

Probable Keepers: Ryan Ludwick, Juan Rivera, Corey Hart, Vernon Wells, Ben Zobrist, Erik Bedard, Derek Lowe, Jeff Niemann, Rick Porcello, Max Scherzer

Strengths and Question Marks:
Offensive Strengths: A-Rod and Adrian Gonzalez provide a nice foundation on offense. Jose Reyes and Brandon Phillips have the potential to be a potent 2B/SS combo at shallow positions.

Offensive Question Marks: As good as Phillips' counting stats are, his OBP is maddeningly low, and his SLG isn't particularly great. Ludwick regressed dramatically off of his career year in 2008. Corey Hart has been mediocre since his breakout 2007. Juan Rivera has been good in limited playing time in past, and will get the first shot at being in the OF everyday. Vernon Wells has shown glimpses of greatness in his career, but has also been a fantasy team killer in the past. This collection of OF'ers needs to come through. Ben Zobrist has a breakout 2009 and will be called upon to repeat in 2010.

Pitching Strengths: Roy Halladay is good. Two potentially good closers in Bell and Valverde.

Pitching Question Marks: Lack of certainty at SP is difficult. Scherzer and Bedard are high K guys with good WHIP. Health is the key for Bedard. Scherzer will have to adjust to the AL, though he will have a pitcher's park to do it in. Porcello has a high ceiling, but hasn't put it together, yet. Niemann has a lower ceiling, and looked solid in 2009. Both players will be called upon this year. Ideally, Derek Lowe becomes trade bait after a good start, since he'll win enough for you to play him, but his K rate and rate stats probably hurt you in the long run.

2010 Outlook: The offense looks to be average, but could become good if Reyes bounces back and Phillis gets some help in Reds real-life lineup. The pitching is going a work in progress, and success for this team will depend on youngsters Scherzer, Porcello, and Niemann. This team is in a funny spot where it's not quite obviously rebuilding, but contending this year probably doesn't happen unless everything clicks. This makes it harder to be definitive about a strategy. Assuming that Hats for Bats' luck is about average, we'll place them as a 7th place team, right in the middle of the road.

This is a very important outcome, since this means the JimmyDix has won the 3rd lottery spot. This means that last year's last place team, Benver Droncos has fallen out of the top 3 and will be selecting 4th.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

UPL Baseball Draft Lottery and 2010 Preview - Pick 6

2010-03-10T18:09:00.003-06:00

The 6th pick in the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft goes to:

Muddy Mush Heads

History: UPL Regular whose finishes range from middle of the pack to the bottom. Looking to find stride in a competitive UPL environment.

Tendencies: To be honest - no idea.

2009 Result: 9th place

Likely Keepers:
Offense Locks: Joey Votto, Carlos Lee, Ichiro, Grady Sizemore, Brian Roberts, Chone Figgins

Pitching Locks: Johan Santana, Johnny Cueto

Probable Keepers: Rafael Furcal, Jermaine Dye, Aaron Harang, Tommy Hunter, Phil Hughes, Takashi Saito, Jonathan Sanchez

Strengths and Question Marks:
Offensive Strengths: Good speed on offense.

Offensive Question Marks: Lack of depth and power. Much of the offense will depend on Sizemore bounching back after a terrible 2009 campaign. Votto is coming off of a bout with vertigo, though he appeared to come back reasonably well at the end of 2009. Figgins' change of scenery may not affect him as much, as his power isn't his strength.

Pitching Strengths: Johan Santana is good. Cueto has a high ceiling.

Pitching Question Marks: Lack of depth at SP and no closers makes for a problem. The pitching will likely be bad. What could save it: Harang with a bounce-back year. Hunter continuing to develop. Saito sharing the closer's role in ATL. Phil going into the NYY rotation, and throwing well as the 5th starter. The thing is, all of these have to go right, for the pitching to be above average.

2010 Outlook: The offense looks to be about average, and the ceiling isn't very high. Also, depending on aging speed guys generally isn't the blueprint that you want to follow, either in real-life or fantasy. The pitching is going to be problematic, and needs some help. Ideally, some of the veterans start off hot, so that these players can be moved for younger talent in a true rebuilding process. If Harang throws well off the bat, Saito gets a few early SV, Dye starts off hot, there may be some potential moves to be made. More realistically, players like Ichiro, Carlos Lee, Figgins, Brian Roberts, and even Johan Santana have to be examined as potential trade bait. This team should probably look to rebuild, as a podium finish is highly unlikely.

This means that a 2nd team has beat the odds, albeit in a slightly less exciting way than the '90 Reds. The Black Sox have jumped into the top 3 of the 2010 UPL Draft.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

UPL Baseball Draft Lottery and 2010 Preview - Pick 7

2010-03-10T17:26:00.002-06:00

The 7th pick in the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft goes to:

Phatsnapper

History: UPL Regular who has been feast (2006 champions) or famine (bottom half of league in '07, '08, and '09).

Tendencies: Has been focused on young players, even before the UPL became a keeper league. Appears to be an stat-based owner, though grasp of elementary logic and applied statistics has been questioned in the past. Tends to disappear once team is out of contention (which has been May/June in recent years).

2009 Result: 7th place

Likely Keepers:
Offense Locks: Joe Mauer, Mark Teixeira, Carlos Beltran, Michael Young, Matt Kemp, Adam Jones

Pitching Locks: Zack Greinke, Felix Hernandez, Adam Wainwright, Tommy Hanson, Yovani Gallardo

Probable Keepers: Josh Hamilton, Matt Weiters, Nolan Reimond, Brad Hawpe, Yunel Escobar, David Price, Madison Bumgarner

Strengths and Question Marks:
Offensive Strengths: Great top end talent (Mauer, Teixeira, Beltran, Kemp, Hamilton)

Offensive Question Marks: Many, many young unproven players. Even guys like Adam Jones have questions about whether they will end up being solid or spectacular fantasy players. Some injury concerns for Hamilton, Beltran, and Mauer, given their track records.

Pitching Strengths: Excellent SP. Greinke and King Felix coming off of a 1-2 Cy Young finish. Hanson, Price, Bumgarner and Gallardo are young and have high ceilings.

Pitching Question Marks: Giving up on SV, which may leave rate stats a bit more exposed than it would appear just by looking at SP. Greinke, Hernandez, and Wainwright are all coming off of career years. Will they replicate, or will they regress more to their career averages? Hanson and Gallardo are both 24 this season, so the variance could come into play (either good or bad).

2010 Outlook: The pitching will be at least good, possibly great, and should be competing with the O.N. Thugs for the top of the pitching categories. However, giving up on a category (SV) forces you to be perfect elsewhere. The offense may not be deep enough to compete, though if things all fall together, this team could contend for a title. This has the feel of a top-half team, and is one of 4 or 5 teams that should be looking for a championship.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

UPL Baseball Draft Lottery and 2010 Preview - Pick 8

2010-03-09T23:55:00.002-06:00

The 8th pick in the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft goes to:

Cheeseheads

History: UPL Regular who seems to always finish right in the middle of the league. One podium finish (3rd place in 2003).

Tendencies: Somewhat of a silent UPL owner. One of two Milwaukee fans in the UPL (really? 2 out of the 20 or so UPL regulars? Strange.)

2009 Result: 6th place

Likely Keepers:
Offense Locks: Miguel Cabrera, Carl Crawford, Curtis Granderson, Adam Lind, Carlos Pena, Troy Tulowitski

Pitching Locks: Matt Cain, Ted Lilly, David Aardsma

Probable Keepers: David Ortiz, Alfonso Soriano, Geovany Soto, Paul Konerko, Adam LaRoche, Randy Wells, Joel Pineiro, Randy Wolf, Mike Gonzalez

Strengths and Question Marks:
Offensive Strengths: This offense looks loaded for the counting stats, complete with speed. Good mix of guys hitting their prime (Lind, Tulo, Miggy, Crawford), and reliable veterans.

Offensive Question Marks: Oddly enough, the rate stats (particularly OBP) could be a concern, which is strange given the emphasis on OBP in the Moneyball-era. Some injury issues w/ Ortiz, Konerko, Soriano could arise. Soto looking for a bounceback year. There is some question about some guys who have only had one great season (Lind) or have been inconsistent (Tulo). And despite his big profile move to NY, Granderson has actually been trending downward as a player the last 2 seasons (though his HR numbers popped last year).

Pitching Strengths: Matt Cain was pretty good last year. Ted Lilly seems to always be solid. Aardsma looks to be the closer for an improved Seattle team. That's about it.

Pitching Question Marks: Many. Lack of depth and quality. The pitching looks as questionable as the offense looks good. Let's just say that you don't want to be looking to keep guys like Randy Wells, Joel Pineiro, and Randy Wolf. Those are the guys you want to find in free agency in July...

2010 Outlook: The offense should be solid, and competitive in the counting stats, though may give away some points in OBP. The pitching will struggle to get to average. A couple smart moves could really change the fortunes of this team, and make this team a podium contender - the offense could be that good. But until then, this feels like a 6th or 7th place team.

Since the initial shakeup with the '90 Reds getting into the top 3, things have moved according to plan. When we come back, we'll announce the 7th pick of the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

UPL Baseball Draft Lottery and 2010 Preview - Pick 9

2010-03-09T23:26:00.000-06:00

The current buzz in the green room is the potential of a 2nd expansion team in 2010. Apparently negotiations are still on going, but league sources suggest that one of the original UPL Football owners has reached a preliminary agreement to expand into 2010 UPL Baseball... More on this as things develop.

The 9th pick in the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft goes to:

SuckMyKnuckleballs

History: UPL Regular who generally finishes in the top half, though there are surprisingly few podium finishes (3rd place in 2008 is only baseball podium finish).

Tendencies: Generally willing to trade, though not the most active trade partner. Likes Red Sox players, which has been a good thing the last few years.

2009 Result: 5th place

Likely Keepers:
Offense Locks: Jason Bay, Ryan Braun, Dustin Pedroia, Kevin Youkilis, J.D. Drew

Pitching Locks: Josh Beckett, A.J. Burnett, Roy Oswalt, Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman, Ryan Franklin

Probable Keepers: Mark DeRosa, Hideki Matsui, Scott Rolen, Miguel Tejada, Kurt Suzuki, Tim Hudson, Dice-K, Gavin Floyd

Strengths and Question Marks:
Offensive Strengths: Overall offense should be strong. Braun, Bay, and Youks provide a very nice anchor to team.

Offensive Question Marks: There's a lack of speed on the current roster, which would have to be augmented in the draft or free agency. The offense (and the roster in general) feels old, with players like Tejada, Rolen, Matsui, DeRosa, etc. well into their 30's. Health will be a big concern.

Pitching Strengths: Three top flight options at closer, and will likely finish in the top 3 in SV, which also should help with the rate stats.

Pitching Question Marks: Starting pitching could be a bit problematic. Beckett and Burnett have been enigmas, dating back to their days together w/ the Marlins as flamethrowing prospects in the early 20-aughts. Again age could be a concern, as Beckett is 30 this season, and is the youngest of the starters that are certain to be kept. Gavin Floyd is still only 27, though he's likely on the bubble.

2010 Outlook: On both sides of the coin, this team looks to be solid, not spectacular. This should be another season where SuckMyKunckleballs finishes above .500, but may not have enough to get on to the podium. This feels like a 5th to 6th place team.

When we come back, we'll announce the 8th pick of the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

UPL Baseball Draft Lottery and 2010 Preview - Pick 10

2010-03-05T15:21:00.000-06:00

The 10th pick in the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft goes to:

O.N. Thugs

History: Self-proclaimed UPL GOAT, with 5 championships and 2 runner-up finishes. However, has had a relative lack of success in recent years, with only one shared championship since 2006.

Tendencies: Goes through players like Ari Gold goes through assistants. Will make one or two trades involving legitimately good players to round off roster. Historically favors veterans with predictable performance.

2009 Result: 4th place

Likely Keepers:
Offense Locks: David Wright, Adam Dunn, Nick Markakis, Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Shin-Soo Choo

Pitching Locks: Tim Lincecum, Cris Carpenter, Clayton Kershaw, Jake Peavy, Francisco Rodriguez, Joakim Soria, Andrew Bailey

Probable Keepers: Todd Helton, Josh Willingham, Julio Borbon, Russell Martin, Elvis Andrus, Ben Sheets, Rich Harden

Strengths and Question Marks:
Offensive Strengths: Strong OBP team, and strangely, has some speed with the young Rangers players. Has some talent at the shallow positions up the middle (C, SS, 2B).

Offensive Question Marks: It's all about the power. How will David Wright, Todd Helton, and Nick Markakis' power numbers look? Was expecting power from Delgado and Thome last year, but was let down. Still need to find power this year.

Pitching Strengths: Top talent across the board. At least 2 elite SP (Lincecum and Carpenter) and at least 2 top flight closers (K-Rod and Soria). Likely to get top tier performance out of either Peavy or Kershaw, if not both. Bailey appears to be a legitimate option for SV.

Pitching Question Marks: Injury questions for Carpenter (chronic) and Peavy (off of last season's surgery). Kershaw needs to continue development, but has high ceiling. Not sure about Ben Sheets or Rich Harden, but strong performances will allow for roster flexibility. A 4th closer may be in the works via draft or trade.

2010 Outlook: The pitching will anchor this team, and finishing in the top 3 in each of the pitching categories is not out of the question. On the other hand, this team will struggle to be in the top third of the league in the power categories on offense. The pitching alone makes this a top half team, and the high OBP and speed potential puts this team on the podium again this year. The power will drive the final finish. Predictions? Let's just say that you never bet against the O.N. Thugs.

When we come back, we'll announce the 9th pick of the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

UPL Baseball Draft Lottery and 2010 Preview - Pick 11

2010-02-27T19:06:00.000-06:00

And we're back from break. As we keep moving forward in the lottery, some thoughts related to the major news that the '90 Reds have beat the odds and will be selecting in the top 3 of the drafts: Who's going to be unkept? Where does someone like Stephen Strasburg (who's eligible to be drafted) go? What sort of strategy will we see in the first couple rounds? Obviously, we'll have more to say about this once keepers are announced in a few weeks. But until then...

The 11th pick in the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft goes to:

Westy's Sluggers

History: Traditionally a top-half UPL franchise, but a relative lack of success, with 4 podium finishes (one 2nd and three 3rd place finishes).

Tendencies: Westy's Pawn Shop was an early UPL comedy device that has stood the test of time, due to the lowball offers that keep coming from Westy (and draw some amusing responses).

2009 Result: 3rd place

Likely Keepers:
Offense Locks: Chase Utley, Lance Berkman, Matt Holliday, Raul Ibanez, Russell Branyan, Nate McLouth

Pitching Locks: John Lackey, Jon Lester, Brandon Webb, Carlos Zambrano, Jair Jurrjens

Probable Keepers: Bobby Abreu, Torii Hunter, Alex Rios, Stephen Drew, Howie Kendrick, Leo Nunez, Matt Garza, Scott Baker

Strengths and Question Marks:
Offensive Strengths: Utley, Berkman, and Holliday give you a lot of certainty on offense, and should combine for something like .395/.510, and on the low end, give you 80HR, 285 R, 285 RBI and 30 SB. Strong depth in OF, which should provide trade fodder. Bobby Abreu had a very nice 2009, despite his power being off, and contributed 30 SB.

Offensive Question Marks: Nate McLouth and Alex Rios were really off last season. Bounce back seasons from these guys will be helpful since... Torii Hunter, Raul Ibanez and Russell Branyan duplicating their numbers from is a big question. There should be enough depth so that the offense will stay strong, and if everyone comes through, this team will have a lot of pieces to trade. As with most teams, there is a lack of quality at SS and C. And if Branyan doesn't replicate his 2009, and instead plays to his career average, 3B could be a problem area.

Pitching Strengths: Depth at SP. The names of the SP all sound really good. But each of them has questions surrounding them...

Pitching Question Marks: How will Lackey adjust to Boston? Has Lester made The Leap? How will Webb come back from injury? Is Big Z's drop off the last couple years the new reality? Can Jurrjens replicate his success year-to-year? If the results are more good than bad, then the starting pitching will be strong. However, if it's more bad then good, then it will be tough - it's hard to give up on these sorts of names, and you can easily keep trotting these guys out for 4 or 5 more starts than you should. And these are the "lock" keepers. How do Garza and Baker develop? Garza appears to have a high ceiling, but had a bad 2009. Baker doesn't have as high a ceiling as Garza, but was good enough last year. And we haven't even gotten to the major issue. This team has no closers, save for Leo Nunez. Fernando Rodney managed to get 37 SV last year, but he'll be setting up Fuentes with LAA this year.

2010 Outlook: The decision to either a) give up on SV, or to b) try to trade for SV should be made early, and will influence early season moves. This team overachieved on offense last year, so expecting that level of performance again may be a bit of a stretch. But the offense should be good in 2010. Westy managed to make some solid moves to improve the SP, and if everything falls right, this will be a top 3 team. However, if things don't all fall right, something like a 7th place finish isn't out of the question. Best guess? We'll split the difference, and predict a 4th place finish.

When we come back, we'll announce the 10th pick of the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

UPL Baseball Draft Lottery and 2010 Preview - Picks 13 and 12

2010-02-26T12:48:00.000-06:00

This year, I'm going to combine the baseball preview and the lottery announcements, and put out a series of posts, counting down the lottery results. Currently, the plan is to have the UPL Draft on or around March 27, and it's looking like it's going to be an evening draft so as to accommodate the 17 hour time difference for our first international franchise: The Seoul Benver Droncos. And we are adding our first expansion team, the Milwaukee Whiffers. As a result, the keeper schedule will change slightly.

March 13 - All teams must submit 12 keepers from last year's final rosters.
March 17 - The Milwaukee Whiffers must submit a list of 12 players, one from each of last year's teams, who was not kept in the March 13 round of keepers.
March 20 - All teams must submit 6 more keepers, from last year's final rosters.
March 24 - The Milwaukee Whiffers must submit a list of 6 more players, from the remaining unkept players from last year's final rosters, with no more than 1 from each team.
March 27 - 8-round draft.

So without further ado, the results of the UPL Baseball Draft Lottery, with season previews.

The 13th pick of the 2010 UPL Baseball goes to:

Milwaukee Whiffers

History: Traditionally a middle of the pack UPL franchise, with a top finish of 4th place in 2007.

Tendencies: Not afraid to make trades to shake things up, but often trades work out poorly (and draw the ire of the Commish).

2009 Result: DNP - Wedding Planning

Likely Keepers: N/A

Strengths and Question Marks: N/A

2010 Outlook: Basically, it appears that the Whiffers will start off with twelve 13th round picks, and six 19th round picks... which doesn't sound all that great, but if you look at the players that were available beyond the 13th and 18th rounds last year, there is talent available. Top end result looks to be maybe 4th place? And 7th or above would be considered a win. The goal should be to compete by year 3, which is entirely possible.

This takes us to the results of the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft Lottery, where immediately, you see a major shakeup. The 12th pick of the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft goes to:

IAmJabrone

History: Traditionally a top-end UPL franchise, with 6 podium finishes, including a win and two 2nd place finishes.

Tendencies: Can be a feast or famine team, as they typically rely on draft and free agency, rather than trades to round out rosters.

2009 Result: 2nd place

Likely Keepers:
Offense Locks: Albert Pujols, Mark Reynolds, Jacoby Ellsbury, Aaron Hill, Dan Uggla

Pitching Locks: C.C. Sabathia, Josh Johnson, Cole Hamels, Jonathon Broxton, Huston Street

Probable Keepers: Jay Bruce, Johnny Damon, Ian Stewart, Jason Kubel, Clay Buchholz, Ryan Dempster, Ricky Nolasco, Billy Wagner, Matt Capps, Jorge de la Rosa

Strengths and Question Marks:
Offensive Strengths: Albert Pujols. You can live with Ellsbury never making contact when you have The Machine doing what he does. Power appears to be good, with a couple 20+ HR guys (Uggla, Damon) offering stability to go with Pujols' all-world numbers.

Offensive Question Marks: Major questions for players coming off of career years - Mark Reynolds, Aaron Hill, and Jason Kubel. The odds of that trio replicating their 2009 numbers would seem to be low, and those three played a major role in the 2nd place finish last year. Also looking for Jay Bruce to take a step forward. Needs an upgrade at SS, C, and perhaps UTIL2. The OBP looks like it will be weak, when you trot out a couple guys at .330. Could compete in SB, if one more speed guy is picked up.

Pitching Strengths: Top end SP; RP. Sabathia and Johnson are a stabilizing force for ERA, WHIP, and K. Broxton and Street are legit options.

Pitching Question Marks: After Sabathia and Johnson, the SP all has question marks. A bounce back season from Cole Hamels, a huge 2009 disappointment, and a continuation of the 2009 2nd half Ricky Nolasco will go a long way. Jorge de la Rosa seems to have good stuff, but isn't consistently dominant. Who knows what Buchholz and Dempster will get you. The Francisco Liriano Experiment should be officially over for IAmJabrone, and Westy should get his rightful place as the next experimenter. A little more certainty with SV will also be helpful, since we're not sure what Capps will look like in WAS or what Wagner's role in ATL will be.

2010 Outlook: Should probably try to send one of the SP question marks out to a team with excess at C or SS, since help in the draft or free agency is unlikely at those thin positions. Any time you send out Albert Pujols, you'll compete on offense, and you don't have to be perfect drafting or in free agency. More question marks will show up on the pitching side of things, and will decide if this team is a 5th place team or a title contender. Best guess? We'll go with history and guess that IAmJabrone is a top 3 team.

What's interesting is that this means that the defending champion '90 Reds have defied the lottery odds and moved into the top 3 of the 2010 UPL Baseball Draft... when we return, we'll announce the 11th pick of the draft.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

More UPL Voices

2010-02-13T16:50:00.000-06:00

Hey folks. In addition to Greg's musings, we have another place to hear about sports/fantasy thoughts:

Pauly's Fantasy Hoops and Baseball Corner

We may have to talk to Pauly about the name of the blog - not the sexiest name out there :-)

But in any case, anytime we get to hear from more folks, it's a W.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Announcement: 2010 UPL Baseball Draft Lottery

2010-02-10T19:47:00.001-06:00

Alright folks. Just like what we did with UPL Basketball, we're going to have a draft lottery. And following the NBA tradition, as well as the UPL Baseball tradition, everyone's eligible for the first pick.

Top 3 draft positions go via lottery, and then the remaining slots (4 through 11) will go in reverse order of finish. Tiebreakers will be settled by reverse order of finish the prior UPL Baseball season, with the team finishing lower getting preference. If needed, further tiebreakers will look back at prior UPL Basketball seasons.

Here's how the lottery works. I've given each team a set number of "lottery tickets," each of which correspond to one of the 10,000 possible 4-digit combinations (i.e., 0000 through 9999). Each team received an allotment of numerical combinations, corresponding to their order of finish. Specifically, their final rank was divided by 78, and then multiplied by 10,000.

Here's a reminder of the order of finish from last season, and the corresponding "tickets" assigned to each team.

Rank	Team	Tickets
1	'90 Reds	128
2	IamJabrone	256
3	Westy's Sluggers	385
4	O.N. Thugs	513
5	SuckMyknuckleballs	641
6	Cheeseheads	769
7	Phatsnapper	897
8	Black Sox	1026
9	Muddy Mush Heads	1154
10.5	TheJimmyDixLongballs	1346
10.5	Hats for Bats	1346
12	Benver Droncos	1539
78	TOTAL	10000

Just like in UPL Basketball, each team receives a number of lottery tickets, according to their order of finish. The number received is equal to their rank, divided by the total number of ranking points. Last year we had 12 teams, so the 1st place '90 Reds receive a 1 in 78 chance to win lottery, 7th place Phatsnapper receives a 7 in 78 chance, and 12th place Benver Droncos receive a 12 in 78 chance.

The specific number on each lottery ticket was randomly assigned. I will send out this master list to all of the UPL owners as a .pdf file that is password protected, and will provide the password to everyone once the lottery is completed. This ensures that no one gets to see the results beforehand, and also that whatever results I report are on the up and up.

The next step is to figure out which number combinations. Obviously, since I'm the only one who knows the list, I can't have anything to do with the number combinations. I will ask OD, Westy, CJ, and C-Lauff to randomly generate 30 digits between 0 and 9, (http://www.random.org), and e-mail them to me. The first digit that each one sends will make up the winner of the lottery. Specifically, the first digit will be OD's number, the 2nd digit will be Westy's number, the 3rd digit will be CJ's number, and the 4th digit will be C-Lauff's number.

The next number in each person's list of numbers will be used to determine the 2nd and 3rd overall picks, with repeat winners discarded (i.e., if the recipient of the 1st overall pick is selected, their winning combinations are then discarded, and replaced with the next number on the list).

If there are expansion teams, they will be assigned a slot at the end of the first round.

In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing everyone sign up, and announcing the draft lottery results.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Pitchers and Catchers (finally) Report

2010-02-10T14:25:00.000-06:00

2010 UPL Baseball is here! UPL: Fighting Jose Offerman is going to be our first examination of how our baseball keepers will affect our franchises long term fortunes.

In the coming weeks we'll be conducting our 1st Annual UPL Baseball Draft Lottery, announcing the 1st edition of the UPL Baseball Keepers (due on March 20th), and finally conduct our UPL Baseball Draft on March 27th.

In the meantime, if you are curious about what players are on each team's rosters, click here:

http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/archive/mlb/2009/172426/rosters

Be on the lookout for more announcements in the coming weeks!

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Not Bullish. Not Bearish. Definitely Thuggish: An (Almost) Decade of UPL Hijinks

2010-01-18T14:23:00.000-06:00

With the close of the Twenty-Aughts, the UPL has evolved from a haphazard grouping of random chumps into... well... uh... maybe we haven't evolved from a membership standpoint. But we've been innovating quite a bit. In both baseball and basketball, we've moved from a season-long points league, to a roto league. And this has probably been for the better, since our points leagues were always largely decided 2/3 of the way through (if not earlier). Now, with the roto format, we've had some incredibly exciting finishes the last few years, with a number of ties.

In football, we've always been a little ahead of the curve with our stats, and have been pushing the limits of roster complexity by having additional flex positions and allowing return yardage. And recently, we have added individual defensive players to the point where now we have 4 starting defensive players, in addition to a team defense. We haven't started drafting punters, but you better believe that as soon as Yahoo! adds that feature, we'll be figuring out what round we should draft Shane Lechler in (probably the 9th, if you had to know it).

Interestingly, leagues like this pretty much run themselves, once you have things up an running. And with as much momentum as we've gained in the 9 years since our start-up back in 2001 Baseball, we've been able to add on some innovations, including this space. The UPL Blog has been a fun little project, which we've undertaken (and are always looking for more authors!). But I think that need for a space like this really took off with the idea that we were going to try to extend the reach of the fantasy season by going with keeper leagues in baseball and basketball. And with any keeper league, you have to figure out new rules, like how you will handle keepers, the draft order, etc. The UPL Blog has let us make these announcements, even when Yahoo! doesn't have things ready to go. Part of the innovation has been things like doing a UPL Draft Lottery prior to the basketball season, which was a successful venture. I believe that we'll carry it over into baseball.

As much as I love thinking about how we've been able to improve the UPL, and having some ideas of where we want to go forward, that's not really why we play the game. At the end of the day, it's all about the jewelry.

Sport	Year	Teams	Champ	2nd	3rd	4th
Baseball	2001	10	'90Reds	O.N. Thugs	IamJabrone	Westy
Baseball	2002	?	O.N. Thugs	?	?	?
Baseball	2003	11	O.N. Thugs	IamJabrone	Cheeseheads	SuckCurveballs
Baseball	2004	14	O.N. Thugs	Champaign Toast	Westy	GenEric
Baseball	2005	12	O.N. Thugs	IamJabrone	Westy	SuckCurveballs
Baseball	2006	11	Phatsnapper	Westy	O.N. Thugs	IamJabrone
Baseball	2007	11	O.N. Thugs (tie)	'90Reds (tie)	IamJabrone	Milwaukee
Baseball	2008	12	IamJabrone	O.N. Thugs	SuckCurveballs	JimmyDix
Baseball	2009	12	'90Reds	Westy	IamJabrone	O.N. Thugs
Basketball	2002	9	O.N. Thugs	Tweedledumm	C-Lauff	SuperFriends
Basketball	2003	12	O.N. Thugs	Westy	3 Men & Afro	SuckBasketballs
Basketball	2004	9	Westy	O.N. Thugs	Sparty	Groove
Basketball	2005	7	Westy	O.N. Thugs	Milwaukee	Groove
Basketball	2006	8	O.N. Thugs (tie)	IamJabrone (tie)	SuckBasketballs	Milwaukee
Basketball	2007	10	O.N. Thugs	IamJabrone	chowtime	Westy
Basketball	2008	12	O.N. Thugs	IamJabrone	chowtime	Westy
Basketball	2009	11	O.N. Thugs (tie)	Stephan (tie)	Sparty	IamJabrone
Football	2001	9	I Giocatori	ChrisF	Dino	Panda Bears
Football	2002	12	I Giocatori	Westy	IamJabrone	GenEric
Football	2003	14	O.N. Thugs	Tweedledummer	I Giocatori (tie)	Tweedledumm (tie)
Football	2004	14	Tweedledumm	Tweedledummer	Cheeseheads	O.N. Thugs
Football	2005	14	I Giocatori	IamJabrone	O.N. Thugs	Yvonne
Football	2006	10	I Giocatori	O.N. Thugs	GenEric	IamJabrone
Football	2007	12	JimmyDix	O.N. Thugs	I Giocatori	Dino
Football	2008	12	IamJabrone	Stephan	I Giocatori	O.N. Thugs
Football	2009	14	Dino	Stephan	O.N. Thugs	IamJabrone

First of all, does anyone remember anything from 2002 Baseball (# of teams, who finished 2nd, 3rd, etc.). Yahoo! doesn't have any records of that year. All I remember is that the O.N. Thugs won, and it was was the last year we did a points league, because for the 2nd straight year, the season was over by mid-July, and people stopped checking their team. And I seem to recall Greg finishing in the bottom half, and not being able to follow-up his inaugural victory. If you could help me fill in the blanks, that would be great.

In any case, some interesting things to look at here. First of all in the roto leauges, the UPL has a definite Thuggish flavor, with the O.N. Thugs taking home 6 out of 8 championships in hoops, and 5 out of 9 in hardball. But that isn't to say that there isn't some competition in each. In both sports, there are repeat champs ('90 Reds with 3 baseball titles and Westy with 2 hoops titles). And those O.N. Thugs victories weren't all clean victories (a baseball tie w/ '90 Reds, and 2 hoops ties, one with IamJabrone, and one with Stephan). And recently, there have been some rumblings in baseball, where the '90 Reds have been champs 2 out of the last 3 years, and where IamJabrone has actually outperformed the O.N. Thugs two years running. In fact, the O.N. Thugs - IamJabrone interactions has actually started to look like a rivalry, with the two franchises going toe-to-toe on a regular basis, including this year's hoops rivalry which is essentially a dead heat between the two teams halfway through the season.

Perhaps the most impressive feat is in UPL Football, where resident savant I Giocatori has managed to win 4 times, with no one else able to claim more than one title. In fact, UPL Football has had the most diversity with 6 different champions over 9 seasons with 4 of those champs having never won a UPL title in another sport. Just for the record, we've had 4 champs in baseball and 2 in hoops.

We've had some unlikely champions throughout the UPL history. There was 2007 Football, where UPL newcomer JimmyDix not only rolls through the regular season as the #1 seed, but actually verifies things by rolling through the playoffs, en route to a championship in his first UPL experience, making UPL regulars like Schultzie and GenEric throw up in their mouths. There was 2004 Football, where Tweedledum and Tweedledummer played in probably the most unlikely football final in UPL history, with Tweedledum taking home the title, leaving Tweedledummer in 2nd place for the 2nd year in the row. This was a far cry from the Tweedledummer who neglected to look at the scoring rules, and decided that defense wins championships, and picked the Pittsburgh Defense in the 1st round back in 2002. And of course there was 2006 Baseball where Phatsnapper somehow took home a title, sandwiched between 17th place finishes every year before that and every year since.

And there have been some amazing wins by familiar faces. Like in 2006 Football, where I Giocatori backs into the playoffs with the 8th seed, at 6-7, only to punk Westy in the opening round, and then squeeze out two tough W's over the Jabrones and Thugs to win his 4th ring. There was 2007 Baseball and 2009 Basketball, where the O.N. Thugs were left for dead, lingering in 10th place or so at the half-way point, only to loudly storm back for championships, and betting on themselves along the way. In fact, the O.N. Thugs bet the Jabrones a dollar that they would finish ahead of them in 2007 Baseball. At the time, the O.N. Thugs were mired in 10th place, and the Jabrones were in 1st, so it appeared to be a sucker's bet, against the O.N. Thugs. What happened was a ridiculously rise into first, which resulted in the UPL Bill, which is signed by the Jabrones, carries the name of every UPL Baseball champion, and is currently the only UPL trophy. A similar story happened in 2008 Basketball, when the O.N. Thugs were decimated by injuries in the first half of the season, but managed to stay afloat long enough to wait for their players to get healthy and make a run at the title. Interestingly, in both instances, the O.N. Thugs actually managed to take a clean lead in the league, only to give back a half point on the last day of the season and end up in a tie for 1st.

As we open up the Twenty-Teen's, the UPL looks as strong as ever, with a healthy 14 team football season, and two healthy keeper leagues in baseball and basketball. Things should be exciting, as we move into decade #2 for the UPL.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

The Sins of the Past

2010-01-16T12:16:00.000-06:00

Recently, longtime UPL owner Jeff posed the question of why his team was so bad:

Jeff: Why does IamJabberjaw's team suck so badly? Please, help me!

Naturally, this had to become a UPL post.

My thoughts:

Dear Jeff,

My friend, you are paying for sins of years past. Well, last year's, past...er... sins... yeah.

Last year, you got really, really unlucky with your first 2 picks (Brand and Baron Davis). Your 3rd round pick was Calderon, who was traded for Okeafor, who you ended up not keeping (but has been pretty decent this year). Your 4th pick was J-Rich who has been really disappointing in PHX. Your 5th pick was Okur, whose numbers have also been way off the last 2 years. Your 6th pick was Biedrins, who you've since let go, and who was running the Nellie Curse. And your best draft pick was Derrick Rose in the 8th, who you traded for Eric Gordon (a good keeper) and Michael Beasley (who you didn't keep, probably rightly so).

So not only did you get unlucky with the top two (who you need to anchor a team), you're 4th, 5th, and 6th picks have underachieved. And you probably made a bad trade moving D-Rose.

This means, that coming into this year, you were already stuck behind the 8-ball. Normally, when you fill up your list of 8 keepers, there are a couple players that are absolutely obvious (think, LBJ, Wade, Kobe, Dirk, etc.) - the guys who would be drafted in the first 2 rounds of a non-keeper league. You didn't have any of those guys, so you started at a huge disadvantage. Instead, you had about 10 guys who would have been picked between the 4th and 10th round of a non-keeper draft. That makes it really hard to win this year.

But there's good news. You have a chance, moving forward, to right the ship.

Brooks, Ariza, and Landry have been pretty good for HOU, especially w/ them giving up on T-Mac. That's a good thing for you. Brooks and Ariza probably stay really strong when Yao comes back, though Landry's value next year may go down. Count this was a win.

You made a strong trade for Joakim Noah, who's looking to be a 3rd round pick in non-keeper drafts next year, and is probably your best big. This also counts as a win for you. Your other strong big is Al Harrington, who puts up nice numbers in the Knicks system (18.5 and 6, with some 3PM). So he alleviates pressure on your 3PM. In fact, you have a lot of excess 3PM to trade. You should definitely try to do that.

Eric Gordon's proving himself to be a legit pro, and is a good 3PM guy. That's also good. He's a keeper. Now, you also have a couple other players who are a lot like Eric Gordon, in fantasy terms (Ben Gordon, J-Rich, Jamal Crawford). Can you get any value from these guys? Ben Gordon's the most reliable of the bunch, but is stuck in a strange Detroit situation. J-Rich has a ton of upside, but is the 3rd or 4th option in PHX (behind Nash, Amare, and probably Grant Hill) Crawford is playing well, but comes off the bench.

You've got a couple bigs you have to make decisions on in Nene and Okur. And similarly, you have to figure out what to do with Bibby, Harden, and Morrow.

Now, it should be clear where your rosters is anchored: Eric Gordon, Joakim Noah, Aaron Brooks, and probably Trevor Ariza. The efficiency is suspect, but your hustle stats will be solid. This leaves 4 slots, give or take, and you still need to fill with keepers. The thing to remember is that when you're drafting next year, you're drafting no worse than a 9th rounder. So, the goal is to get as many players who should be 8th round picks or better.

This means, that as the season progresses, players may get dropped because they're hurt. You need to be all over that (for example, if someone like T-Mac or Yao gets dropped, they're great to have on your roster, since you have a ton of flexibility). This also means that you should continue working the trade game, big time. There are definitely teams that could use some 3PM, in the form of Ben Gordon, J-Rich, Crawford, Okur, or maybe even Bibby. You should target younger players with high ceilings, even if they haven't achieved a ton, yet. Basically, you need to hit a home run or two, and it doesn't really matter that much if you strike out. Guys like Gordon, Crawford, etc. will be available in the draft next year.

I think that overall, the question that anyone has to ask themselves is if their team is building or if their team is contending, because there are two very different strategies for these two scenarios. (Note, there could very well be more than these 2 modes, but let's keep things simple for now). If you're building, your goal is to maximize the number of obvious keepers on your roster. If you're contending, you're shopping for parts. So, if you're a builder, then you need to market your parts faster than the other builders, and you need to look for potential keepers in return.

For example, if you offer the Jabrones, say, Ben Gordon for Gilbert Arenas or Anthony Randolph, he may look you up on that. Your roster is in a much better spot to take on a question mark than his is. He's looking to win a title (however misguided that attempt is), so he may sell a piece of the future for a shot now, if it gives him roster flexibility. Take advantage of that.

Best of luck in your future endeavors.

Warmest regards,
-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)