@Steve: Ha!

Batters must have been working on something

He’s 9-for-14 with three homers and four doubles so far this spring. That’s good for a 1.571 slugging percentage.

@cruisinkc: Go for it.

BJ Upton for Jon Lester?

I would get Lester in the deal and my other keepers are Braun, Teix, JRoll, and Cano.

When you get Repoz to link to fantasy baseball, you know you’ve hit the big time.

Hunter Pence or Carlos Quentin?

Your side:
M-Teix – 0.90
Napoli – -0.69
B. Wilson – -0.22

Sum: Almost exactly 0.00 Point Shares (or that you got the equivalent of three average players – that’s not bad)

Dunn – 0.14
McCann – 0.70
Marmol – 0.38
Scherzer – -1.31

Sum: -0.09 but all negative driven by Scherzer.

Assuming your replacement for Scherzer is below 10-team league average (~ James Shields), I’ve got you coming in slightly behind on it….

Just my POV (w/ data). Others may feel that M-Teix over Dunn is worth paying a premium of McCann over Napoli + Marmol & Scherzer over B-Wilson.

I already miss out on the top 10 or 15 starters because I like to go with hitters in rounds 1 to 8. I avoid pitchers with bad control, I try to avoid guys in the AL East, I’m not crazy about guys who have efficiency issues (Harden, Scherzer, Kershaw), I avoid ALL pitchers with K/9s under 6.0. I try to avoid guys on the Pirates, Nationals and other poor teams. I’m not crazy about drafting pitchers who pitch a lot of games against my favorite real life team. If I start avoiding guys because they threw a lot of sliders or had a huge inning spike, then I’m basically left with what….8 guys in all of MLB, LOL. Wainwright, Carpenter, Nolasco and JJ are 4 of the top 10 pitchers in the NL!

I’m not gonna get on him for the evaluating prospects aspect of what he does, because that’s so hit/miss anyway, and frankly, I have no idea how often he gets a call on a prospect right. But, I just don’t think he knows anything about the major league game.

Where I really started to dislike Law was after the Cardinals/Tigers World Series, which, he pretty much chalked up to a complete fluke and the Tigers were way better. The Tigers are the 2nd team I root for, I live in Michigan, I lived in Michigan for that World Series, and really dislike the Cardinals. And yeah, the Tigers played pretty bad, but, the lengths he went to in order to disparage the Cardinals were silly.

He made points that could be boiled down to something like, “yes, the Cardinals did things that put pressure on the Tigers to make plays, but had they not done that, the Tigers win this series easily.”

Get: Teixeira, Napoli, Brian Wilson

Give: Dunn, McCann, Marmol, Scherzer

Are you as high on this trade as I am?

@Bill Lumbergh:

For what it’s worth, first start last spring, 2 IP, 2 ER, 4 hits, 1 walk, no Ks. The next start I could find was like, 2 weeks away and was solid. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/teams/schedule?team=hou&season=2009&seasonType=1 if you want to find more Wandy starts.

I like the dude for this year and would lean towards not being worried about it. He’s like 31 and coming off his best year, without seeing him pitch or reading about him, I’d think that would make for a solid candidate for a guy who would tinker in Spring Training.

p.s. My team is very competitive and is almost assuredly a top three squad with either guy if that makes a difference.

I looked at ADP vs. Point Shares in 12-team league. My Point Shares has Gallardo 39 picks (41 vs. 80) while ADP has Josh Johnson ahead 68 to 85. The big reason why Gallardo is higher is projected K rate (IP, ERA, and WHIP are really close). CHONE has Gallardo at 1.1 K/IP with Johnson at 0.9 K/IP. ZiPS has Gallardo at 1.06 K/IP and Johnson at 0.88. That 0.2 per IP over 180 innings is 36 Ks which is worth about 1 point in the standings.

When you factor in that Gallardo can be had for cheaper than Josh Johnson, there’s no doubt which one will be more likely drafted by moi.

@Lava: Unless they are on this list, I’m generally ranking them where the Point Shares comes out. A few typical injury concerns are factored in (Harden ALWAYS has to be discounted) I’ve got Oswalt vs. $9 in 12-team MLB and Price worth -$2. Yes, negative $2. Projected stats of 155/9/4.62 ERA/1.43/123. His upside makes him definitely draftable but he’s not my top 50 SPs. Oswalt comes in around #40.

Last point on Point Shares, I freely admit there are some odd things in here – e.g., Haren is #3. Vazquez above F-Her. I’ll be honest – the differences are so small around the top 20 or so that I’m really looking for the best bargain. I’ll be posting Point Shares minus ADP in the next day or two to highlight the bargains. The biggest bargain right now is the aforementioned Harden whose ADP is 210 but I have at #70. Getting him at #140 is a steal and worth the risk assuming you didn’t go with Wainwright/Josh Johnson as your top 2 (and, even then, you can roll the dice…)