Fantasy Baseball Advice

In 2000, a gritty bunch of veterans, role players, and youngsters almost did the impossible – beat the New York Yankees in a World Series.  Led by the mad genius of Bobby Valentine, the silver foxiness of Steve Phillips, and the support of a well-capitalized owner who gladly stayed out of the public eye (Fred Wilpon), the 2000 New York Mets were almost at the top of baseball’s pyramid.

But what happens when a financial industry wizard and a certifiable baseball GM scheme together to implement the same strategies that fueled the recent Wall Street collapse?  In the case of the New York Mets franchise, disaster happens – the culmination of one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history.

In The Skim Is In – How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team From First to Worst, financially-successful journalist and sportswriter Mike Lupica chronicles the remarkable story of one team’s Dante-like journey from World Series team to a paragon of all that’s wrong in America.  By misquantifying the game’s tangibles, Bernie Madoff and ‘boy (was he not a) genius’ Omar Minaya were able to skim out that extra 2% that separates a losing organization from a winning organization–they were able to deliver to New York something that the Royals had never brought to Kansas City: a pyramid of incompetence that entombed a whole franchise.

Following are some excerpts from the book:

Tricking Yourself Into Thinking You’re Smarter Than the Competition:

….Minaya, along with passionate sidekick Tony Bernazard, developed metrics that let them take advantage of aspects of the game that they felt were undervalued such as FIS (fluency in Spanish) and LoCoZo (short for ‘loco como un zorro’ which translates to crazy like a fox).  As Minaya saw it, “People would see a 40 year old Moises Alou as injury-prone and unlikely to repeat his past successes but we knew he still spoke fluent Spanish and anyone who pees on their hands has LoCoZo to spare.  For $15 million, we got two years of .340+ AVG with power from Moises.”  To the rest of baseball, they saw that Moises only managed 377 ABs in those two years and this money could have been invested in a billion better ways.  But it was strategies like this that helped Minaya feel he outsmarted baseball by tying up unwanted players like Oliver Perez and Luis Castillo to multi-year contracts, ‘outfoxing’ the Yankees and Mets to sign Johan Santana and Carlos Beltran to $100 million dollar contracts, and cutting losses with uni-lingual, even-tempered prospects Heath Bell, Matt Lindstrom, and Brian Bannister.

Whiffing On Andrew McCutchen:

….Mets scout Rodrigo Ciudad was accustomed to life as a Mets scout.  Responsible for scouting all of the United States, Rodrigo’s region was nowhere near the Mets’ preferred baseball hotbeds of the Caribbean, Latin America, and Venezuela.  With most teams employing multiple scouts in his region, Ciudad tended to focus in warm weather climates that were more conducive to baseball talent and his love of fresh mango dusted in sugar and chili powder.  It was on one of these mango-missions that he heard about a Florida high schooler named Andrew McCutchen.  Ciudad liked what he saw in the young outfielder and was even more encouraged when the Mets didn’t sign a top free agent and would keep their 1st round pick.  Unfortunately, Minaya lost a bet with Jeff Wilpon over who would get to make the first pick in the 2005 amateur draft.  Wilpon, the owner’s son, ignored Ciudad’s pleas, saying “We’ve already got a better version of McCutchen in Lastings Milledge.” and spent the 9th pick of the 2005 draft on Mike Pelfrey.  To add insult to injury, the hapless Pirates drafted McCutchen and the Reds followed that pick with Texan High Schooler Jay Bruce.

Turning A Lucrative Franchise Into an Over-Leveraged Shell

….Fred Wilpon was always wary of ‘get rich quick’ schemes.  He made his money through shrewd real estate investments.  If George Steinbrenner was an IPO that struck it rich, Wilpon was a trustworthy mutual fund – steadily accruing value over time.  Bernie Madoff was the same way.  He wasn’t in business for the quick buck.  He was in it for the slow billion or so bucks.  They quickly became friends and, for 10 years, didn’t overlap business with friendship.  Wilpon started by investing $10 and, upon getting $11.50 back the next year, slowly invested more and more funds from his company (Sterling Equities).  The consistency was welcome to the Wilpon as inconsistency might’ve required him to do research into how the money was being made.  Smart enough not to meddle in the day-to-day dealings at the Met offices, Wilpon focused on building up the right-side of the Sterling Equities balance sheet (to the tune of $500+ million in debt), building a new stadium, and starting a new TV network.  His financial prudence led him to avoid selling branding rights to the new stadium to a ‘fly-by-night’ company like Enron, striking a deal with the responsible CitiGroup.  You can imagine the disappointment when his trust in Wall Street and consistent profits proved to be his very downfall….

Now’s the time when we put all of our 2011 baseball predictions in one place.  Then in October we can look back at this and laugh.  Oh, and we will laugh.  Big, bellowing, seat of your pants laughs.  Hindsight is indeed 20/20.  But where’s the harm in setting ourselves to look like jackasses?  We run a fantasy baseball blog, after all.  Grey’s picks in RED.  Rudy’s picks in BLUE.  Anyway, here’s our predictions for baseball’s post-season awards and whatnot:

AL Pennant Winner – Detroit Tigers – The Yankees would’ve been the easy choice here, but I’m a small market kind of guy. Some would call me a hero.  Who?  I’m not sure, friend.

AL Pennant Winner – Boston Red Sox - If they can win 90+ games with last year’s injuries + Beckett/Lackey sucking, I think they can win the pennant with a little more luck + A-Gonz + Crawford.

NL Pennant Winner – Milwaukee Brewers – Just think how exciting a Milwaukee-Detroit series will be.  The Cheese vs. The G’s.

NL Pennant Winner – Cincinnati Reds - Spring training wasn’t kind to the Reds pitching staff (Arroyo – who you been kissin?) but this team has solid depth (including a stocked farm system).

World Series Champion – Brewers – It’s game seven and the Tigers are up by 6 runs in the bottom of the 9th.  But when they take the field, Miggy is nowhere to be found.  Speculation says he’s in the locker room already spraying himself with champagne.  Then the Brewers mount a huge comeback and Prince Fielder accidentally crushes Bud Selig in a pile on.  We can dream, can’t we?

World Series Champion – Red Sox - I hope Grey is right.

AL ROY – Jeremy Hellickson – I almost put Micheal Pineda, but I figured it was more practical to put Hellickson then talk about how I almost put Pineda.

AL ROY – Mike Moustakas - It may be late May before he comes up but he’ll put up enough stats to both warrant the Rookie of the Year as well as be overrated in fantasy baseball (pro-rated 23 HRs with .270 AVG).

NL ROY – Freddie Freeman – It’s going to be one of those years where someone wins it then everyone forgets about him the next day.  Angel Berroa sends his condolences.

NL ROY – Brandon Belt - A belt is the perfect sadomasochistic complement to the SF Gimp.  If only he was a pitcher so we can talk about his WHIP.

AL Cy Young – Jon Lester – Know who I picked last year?  F-Her.  *smugly rubbing knuckles on shirt*

AL Cy Young – Justin Verlander - I seem to pick him every year.  Why change now?

NL Cy Young – Clayton Kershaw – His team can get him Wins, he can get Ks and his home park doesn’t hurt.  Plus, he pitches against the Padres and Giants every third game.  Yes, I went with him last year.  Yes, I’m going with him again.

NL Cy Young – Yovani Gallardo - No one wants to vote for a Phillie pitcher.  I like Kershaw but, for some reason, I think Gallardo finally puts it together.  Maybe it’s just wishful thinking because we have him in NL LABR (and got out-bid for Kershaw).

AL MVP – Miguel Cabrera – From drunkard threatening death on shot girls at local bars to hero, Swiggy carries home the trophy and the championship.

AL MVP – Evan Longoria - If only because writers will be scared of angering an AK-47 owner.

NL MVP – Ryan Braun – Prince Fielder threatened to split the votes, but when it was explained a vote split is nothing like a banana split, he passed.

NL MVP – Albert Pujols - They gave it to Votto last year just because it gets monotonous to give it to Albert every year.  I think this year is his last one though.

Now put your picks in the comments and we’ll look back on this in October and mock each other.

(The following is an abridged Introduction to my (e)book, Who Is Grey Albright? To purchase, click here.  It’s $15.  I will be donating a portion to my growing drinking problem.  After you buy it, I’ll email you the (e)book.)

Introduction

An (e)book sounds like something that should be trying to sell you something.  That’s not my goal.  Well, I mean, it’s not my goal to sell you anything beyond this (e)book.  Though I do know about this great deal on Nigerian lottery tickets.  Not only will I not be selling something, but I imagine if you read this (e)book from pages 1-102, you’ll actually be less inclined to buy something from me.  You might not be interested in anything I say ever again.  Now if you read pages 1-102, but skip pages 19-20, 32-34, 41-43, 54-58, 61-63, 67-73, 88-89 and 93 (depending about how you feel about cocaine and prostitutes) then you might still find me somewhat likable.

I decided if I were going to write this (e)book, I’d leave it all out there like a flasher.  A flasher of regrets and embarrassments.  Psst, kid, wanna see the time I was brought up on sexual harassment charges? What would be the point of writing about myself then holding back on the juicy stuff?  Unfortunately, as I wrote the ‘juicy stuff,’ I realized I was an unlikable character.  To use the parlance from my chosen profession, where’s the save the cat moment?  Shouldn’t I learn something, have some spiritual awakening at the end and work for the Peace Corps?  From where I sit, there’s no tidy arc.  I hope this doesn’t spoil your enjoyment of this (e)book, but I don’t run into a burning building and save a group of Taiwanese orphans that I then coach all the way to the Little League World Series, only to lose in the last round, while learning more from our defeat than we’d ever learn from victory.  In high school, there were no slow claps.  In college, there was no exposing of a larger conspiracy with the help of an inexplicably handsome Paul Walker.  There’s some dream chasing, some failure, some bright spots, some love, some lost, some anger, some regret, some hope, some rambling (like right here).  There’s no feel good closure.

I’m still in the middle of this (e)book.  Will there be a follow up in five years where I get married, have kids and live happily ever after?  Maybe that there could be a happily ever after is the happily ever after.  Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that I’m not married and don’t have kids, did that ruin the (e)book for some people?  Mea culpa, my Latin friends.

Most of the opening chapters are of the lie-on-the-couch-of-a-psychologist-and-stop-telling-me-about-your-problems-I-have-my-own variety.  I suggest you skip those chapters if they’re not your cup of tea.  Though you had to expect some of that sort of thing if you’re reading an (e)book titled, “Who is Grey Albright?”  I don’t want you to feel like I’m putting my own issues above yours, but you are reading my (e)book, I’m not reading yours.

As I wrote this (e)book, a word I kept coming back to me:  narcissist.  What kind of narcissist writes an autobiography?  Do I really think people are that interested in me?  Not really.  What started as a few short stories turned into a cathartic exploration of my past.  Was like writing a journal for past events that I now had the hindsight to either appreciate or regret.  Okay, and maybe I’m a narcissist.  Worst comes to worst, if a girl at a bar asks me about myself, I can just hand them a printed-out copy.

As with most things, the more you’re doing it for yourself, the better off you are.  That is the last bit of actual advice you are going to read from me.  Unless you’re reading the following (e)book from the perspective of a cautionary tale of ‘things not to do.’  Then, I guess, it could be considered helpful.

Finally, when I got sick of writing about myself, I’d write a short piece of fictionalized nonsense.  These are interspersed throughout the (e)book.  They should be pretty obvious.  For instance, if you’re reading an interview I did with a leprechaun and thinking to yourself, he didn’t really interview a leprechaun, go with your gut.

Finally II:  The Return of Finally, “Who is Grey Albright?” is a bit of a misnomer since there is no Grey Albright.  It’s a pseudonym, an alias, a make-believe name of WASPy nomenclature.

Hello, I am Grey Albright, and I approve of those plaid pants.

I never meant to deceive people into thinking my name was Grey Albright.  When I started Razzball, it was something to pass the time until the WGA strike lifted.  I had no intention of taking it much further than that.  By the time the strike lifted, Razzball was bigger than I ever intended and I enjoyed writing it, so I stuck to it.  That Grey Albright has stick-to-it-ive-ness!  The strangest part about having a pen name is how annoying it is when people spell it wrong.  You’d think I wouldn’t care since it’s not my real name.  Now I know how Mark Twain felt when he received fan mail addressed to Marc Twain.

I originally used an alias rather than my real name because I didn’t want potential employers to Google my name and find I was writing about fantasy baseball.  The funny thing, depending on your sense of humor, is my screenwriting name is an alias too.  If I had to do Razzball again, I would’ve just used my real name and told future employers to, borrowing heavily from Courtney Love, fuck off.  Before you judge too harshly, think about how many of you would comment on the site with your first and last name.

So now… Now I kinda like the mystery of my alias.  “Who is Grey Albright?” “Who is Grey Albright?”  Does it matter which word you emphasize?  The essence is me.  I is he.  Even if officially it’s not my name, after writing every day for the last 4 years under the name Grey Albright, you can’t hide yourself.  The words are mine; the name just isn’t.  So if you think “Who is Grey Albright?” is just about me stating my real name, you’re going to be disappointed.  That’ll have to wait for “Who is Grey Albright?  Really?” the sequel.  (Or you can just piece together clues from this (e)book and try Google.)  Enjoy!

–To purchase, click here.

USA Today may no longer appreciate the insights shared by Larry King in his long-running column but we at Razzball were thrilled when he accepted our invitation to share his thoughts on Fantasy Baseball….

It’s 2011 and I haven’t been more excited to start a fantasy baseball season since Babe Ruth gained OF eligibility….I’d like to pass Miguel Cabrera some advice I once got from Ann Margaret at Art Garfunkel’s ‘Carnal Knowledge‘-themed New Year’s party – “Easy there, Tiger”…My friend Tony Gugliotta from Brooklyn is drafting J.P. Arencibia because he reminds him of his favorite pasta sauce. Guess he’s saying ciao to Francisco Cervelli…..The Angels sure like fishing for talent…first Tim Salmon, now Mike Trout….if I was playing in front of an Angels scout, I’d change my name to Larry Gefilte….My good friend Fred Wilpon is no sucker, but if he was, he’d be a Charms….Since when did the Braves start playing in Atlanta?….Whenever I hear the song ‘Deep in the Heart of Texas’, I think of Michael Young….Whenever I see LOL I think of Mickey Lolich’s boisterous laugh…My wife and I play this game where we use a rhyming baseball player’s name for a word like ‘Not Robb Nen’ for ‘Not again’ or ‘Joel Skinner time’ for ‘Dinner time’…..Boy does she hate it when I say ‘Something smells funny in my Duane Kuiper’….Dontrelle Willis might not be a major-league caliber pitcher anymore but he’s an all-star gentleman in my book….The guy who invented WHIP must have been as smart as one….I’m afraid to leave my door open this Passover seder in fear that Elijah Dukes will come and eat all the horseradish….Why do you wear a tie to eat French food but you don’t wear a beret to eat Thai food?….I would consider trading in my suspenders for San Francisco 1B prospect Brandon Belt….I feel for Yankee fans as I know how it feels to put your faith in a damaged Colon….I think Eat Pray Love was just one shower scene away from an Oscar nomination….How would we know if a switch-hitter was actually identical twins?…You can’t spell Will Venable without winable….I had dinner last night with Oriole/Angel great Doug DeCinces – he’s such a stand-up guy that all the letters in his last name should be capitalized….I already miss Bobby Cox and Joe Torre.  I pitched MLB.com a talk show with the two of them called Cox-Torre and they were a-giggle at the possibilities…How come Subway doesn’t carry pumpernickel bread?…If you combined Don Sutton’s perm with new HOFer Bert Blyleven’s beard, you’d have one sexy man….The Padres may have Cantu but, with Chone Figgins and Brendan Ryan, the Mariners have “can do”….Did you hear about this high school pitcher with two artificial legs….if heart were legs, he’d be a caterpillar….You have to figure that either Roy Halladay or Roy Oswalt is named after Brooklyn Dodger great Roy Campanella, right?…Who’d have thought there’d be three catchers named Molina before the next Yogi?…I won’t wear fur but I’d make an exception for Minka Kelly…I think Matt Stairs is a professional human being…If you don’t think Angel owner Cesar Romero made a wise move by trading for the incomparable Vernon Wells then the joke is on you….I wish I could change wives as quickly as Javier Vazquez changes teams….Great joke I heard from my pal Morty – what does the Reds first baseman and Angie Dickinson have in common…they both make you say Votto-voom!

If you search for fantasy baseball, the first result is Yahoo Fantasy Baseball.  (We’re first for fantasy baseball blog.  Natch!  Or natchurally, if you’re long-winded.)  But this isn’t about Yahoo fantasy baseball.  (Is Yahoo always with an exclamation mark?  Yahoo has a volume problem, huh?)  When people find us, they are not searching for Yahoo fantasy baseball, but what are they searching for when they find us?  Since it’s a holiday, I decided to break away from the normal schedule of 2011 fantasy baseball rookies and look at exactly what people do search for when they find us.  Last year, we had our biggest year.  Over 5 million people found us.  (I think about 4.9 million found us with the search query “What is SAGNOF?”  Neverthehoo…)  That’s a big Thanksgiving to you from all of us here at Razzball.  Now here are 20 actual searches for people who found Razzball and my answers to their searches:

1. Pro baseball’s biggest bust? — Billy Butler at a double D.
2. Troy Tulowitzki Polish? — If a name ends in a vowel, it’s Italian unless it ends in a zki.  Or ski.  Or Lee.
3. Advanced Quantum Fantasy Baseball Theory? — A complicated way to play fantasy baseball and get even fewer girls.
4. I need a funny fantasy baseball team name — Try our fantasy baseball team name generator or just go with an obscure, overweight player “Ate My Baby.”  For instance, Rich Garces Ate My Baby.
5. Fantasy Baseball on Twitter? — I answer questions in the comments here and don’t do much on our Twitter feed other than link to the site, but you can try Eric Karabell’s Twitter feed.
6. Ron Howard looks like a baseball — I can’t argue that.
7. You got Rick Schroder rolled! — You just did again.
8. Jose Bautista leads the league in what? –  Homers and under the lip Hitler staches.
9. Mackey Sasser works as a Benihana chef? — Yes, and he missed his hat three times in a row with a shrimp tail.
10. Joaquin Benoit girlfriend — Lisa Loeb
11. Halladay Cole Oswalt — Not the kid from The Sixth Sense, but does see dead hitters.
12. Into the two hole vs. Fister — Um… Well…  Moving on…
13. Was Priscilla Barmes in Short Circuit? — Nope.
14. Eric Stultz for my fantasy team — Who searched for this, Jennifer Jason Leigh?
15. Anime is understood by? — The stoned or schizophrenic.
16. Who’s Matthew I’m-Kinda-Gay? — Matthew McConaughey.
17. What major operation did Trevor Hoffman have when he was six weeks old? — He had a Siamese twin brother removed who is now the saves leader in  — where else? — Siam.
18. How do you pronounce Pedroia? — I’ll let Poppa Pedroia answer.  Poppa Pedroia, “My boy’s-a-four-feet-three.  I just want to raise him to run pizzeria, but he gets wild ideas!  And why am I talking like I’m Italian?  We’re Portuguese!”  Well, that wasn’t that helpful.  Sorry.
19. If you can’t lie to yourself, who can you lie to? — Your probation officer.
20. How does Grey keep his mustache so full? — That I can’t share with you.  Now go spend time with your family!  Happy Thanksgiving!