THE SEASONAL RAIN STATE

It was a complete washout over in the Grapefruit League on Friday, which is probably just as well.  It's not like anybody on my team there is on a tear.  A good day of rest is most likely the best possible outcome.  Go, Gunslingers!

In the Cactus League, Carlos Quentin had another 2-hit game, and Andres Torres smacked a pair of doubles.  Other than that, it was zeroes across the board, and none of my pitchers appeared.  I'm dreading Monday's statistical review.

STILL MORE THAN I WOULD PAY

Not even if YOU paid ME, Ann.  Not even then.

TEAM EVALUATIONS: ESOX

Team: Esox

Conference: Patriot

Division: West

2009 Record: 37-125, 5th place

Typical lineup:

1B Chris Davis

2B Martin Prado

SS Luis Valbuena/Alcides Escobar

3B Brandon Inge/Ian Stewart/Mark Teahen

LF Mark Teahen/Carlos Gonzalez

CF David Dejesus

RF Michael Brantley/Fernando Martinez/Mark Teahen

DH Mark Teahen/Ian Stewart/Matt LaPorta/Brandon Inge

C Jarrod Saltalamacchia/John Baker

Yikes.  This lineup is disjointed and brutally awful, but there is a lot to build on here.  Davis should improve given his 2009 second half; LaPorta, Salty, Escobar, Stewart, and possibly Gonzalez are future all-stars; Prado had a terrific year offensively for a 2B; and Dejesus should be steady for several more years. This year, though, it's bad - better than the 37-win team of 2009, but still bad.

Starting Rotation:

Johnny Cueto

Brett Anderson

Scott Kazmir

Dallas Braden

Anibal Sanchez

Brian Tallet/Chris Tillman/Glen Perkins/Todd Wellemeyer

Cueto is a future ace, but not there yet.  The rest are league-average or worse, but at least there are a lot of guys to choose from, and maybe one of those 6th starters will emerge as worthwhile, most likely Tillman.  Kazmir could bounce back to his prospect level, and Braden looks like a very good find.

Bullpen:

Daniel Bard

Tony Pena

Brian Tallet

Todd Wellemeyer

More nightmare fuel here, although Bard has a ton of raw talent and great K/IP numbers.

Closer:

Neftali Feliz

Feliz is a great pitcher who should be terrorizing Major League hitters for the next decade or two.  He's wasted here in 2010 on a team that will have few leads to close.

Minors:

Tim Alderson

Yonder Alonso

Gerrit Cole

Wilmer Flores

Tanner Scheppers

Jose Tabata

Donavan Tate

Brett Wallace

Ryan Westmoreland

The cupboard is bursting here, with Tabata, Wallace, Tate, Westmoreland, and Alonso all poised to be massive OPS monsters, and Alderson and Scheppers as hard-throwing righties at the top of the rotation.  Even Wilmer Flores might help soon if Jose Reyes continues to have health problems and/or the Mets move him to 2B.  I don't know much about Cole, but he looks like a good bet to come out of UCLA as a high first round pick.

The Esox will be much better in 2010 than in 2009, but they will struggle to avoid 100 losses.  I see the blueprint of a hugely successful team in there, especially in the minor league offense, but a couple more years of seasoning are required.

Predicted Record: 62-100

THAT'S MY SECOND ROUND PICK RIGHT THERE!

It was another miserable afternoon in the Grapefruit League for Kevin Millwood yesterday.  The Oriole righthander gave up five earned runs on nine hits in two and two-thirds innings, including a home run to Michael Cuddyer in an 8-3 thrashing by the Twins.  His Spring Training ERA is now a healthy 29.70.  He's working things out, that's it!  Like how to duck line drives at his head.

Elsewhere, the relievers had pretty decent days, aside from Luke Gregerson, who gave up a run in only two-thirds of an inning.  Nick Masset, Alex White and Aaron Crow all had scoreless frames.  Maybe Crow will go north with the Royals as a long man/swing starter.  I haven't heard anything, and given his lack of pro experience, I would doubt it.  He'll probably start in AA with an eye toward getting him with the big club before August.  It's not like the Royals are going anywhere.

Hey, somebody had a multiple-hit day!  Carlos Quentin doubled and singled in a 5-5 tie with Cleveland.  Man, when that's the best offensive news in three days, things are not looking well.

TEAM EVALUATIONS: MILLERS

Team: Millers

Conference: Patriot

Division: Central

2009 Record: 85-77, 4th place (as Stars)

Typical lineup:

1B Kendry Morales

2B Adam Kennedy

SS Orlando Cabrera

3B Mike Lowell

LF Curtis Granderson

CF Torii Hunter

RF Jermaine Dye/Nate McLouth

C Ryan Doumit/Ronny Paulino/Yorvit Torrealba

DH David Ortiz/Jermain Dye

This is a pretty balanced lineup with good depth in the outfield.  The team OPS is amazingly similar to the Derelicts, and even a bit lower.  The defense looks very strong across the board, except maybe behind the plate.  Torrealba is the only good defender of the three, and he won't get the bulk of the playing time.

Starting Rotation:

Roy Halladay

Bronson Arroyo

Carlos Zambrano

Nick Blackburn

Tommie Hanson/Brad Bergesen

A very strong top half, led by perennial All-Star Halladay, and a bottom half that will still get people out.  Hanson may become the #2 guy as soon as next year.

Bullpen:

Tyler Clippard

Todd Coffey

Pedro Feliciano

Frank Francisco

Angel Guzman

Joe Thatcher

Closer:

Rafael Soriano

The pen is an embarrassment of riches.  It will be very difficult to come back against these guys.  Soriano might have some homer issues, but he's generally lights out.

Minors:

Billy Wagner

J.R. Towles

The Millers are built to contend now.

Pitching will be the key to the Millers success this year, and it should be a pretty good year.  Halladay will probably win 20, with Soriano saving at least 30 behind a strong set-up staff.  The offense is not championship caliber, though, and even though the Millers may vie for a playoff spot, I can't see them going far.

Predicted Record: 90-72

CLEAN SANCHEZ

Jonathan Sanchez that is.  He pitched three very tidy innings against the Cubs, striking out five and allowing no earned runs.  Not faring as well was comeback kid Ben Sheets, who was tagged for five earned runs on five hits in two and two-thirds innings versus the White Sox.  Nobody else did much of anything, except for Ramon S. Ramirez, as he is being called because there is a Ramon A. Ramirez also on the Red Sox.  S. struck out two in a scoreless inning of relief in Fort Myers against the Rays.

I'll do another team profile this afternoon.  Man, I hope none of these guys Googles their team name.

TEAM EVALUATIONS: DERELICTS

Team: Derelicts

Conference: Liberty

Division: Northeast

2009 Record: 75-87, 3rd place

Typical lineup:

1B Mark Teixeira

2B Freddy Sanchez

SS J.J. Hardy

3B Evan Longoria

LF Will Venable

CF Grady Sizemore

RF Delmon Young

C Matt Wieters

DH Ryan Braun/Travis Snider/Ronny Cedeno

The offense looks pretty spotty.  They added Mark Teixeira with the first pick in the 2010 draft after the Chuggers overused him last year, which will help tremendously, but overall, they have a lot of missing pieces.  They don't really have a full-time DH, and will have to rotate guys in and out to make it through the season.  This will expose an already porous outfield defense, since Braun and Young are not plus defenders.  The infield defense is very good, though.  Wieters is only starting what should be a great career, but isn't yet.  Sizemore had an off year offensively and should be a big negative over last year. Longoria is a fantastic all-around player.

Starting Rotation:

Matt Cain
Max Scherzer
Scott Feldman
Mike Pelfrey
Homer Bailey

This is a very weak area for the Derelicts.  Only Cain is a true ace, while the others are league-average innings munchers at best.  The bottom two of this rotation could lose 15-20 games each.

Bullpen:

Manny Delcarmen
Francisco Liriano
Chris Perez
Ryan Perry

Also pretty poor.  Any leads the starters give to these guys will be tenuous.

Closer:

Mike Gonzalez

Gonzalez is a strong closer, but he should be vastly underused because of his pyromaniacal setup men.

Minors
Tim Beckham

Jeff Clement
Eric Hosmer
Shaun Marcum

Tyler Matzek

Jennry Mejia

Mike Moustakas

Jarrod Parker

Tony Sanchez

Jacob Turner

This is an excellent area for the Derelicts, and bodes well for their future.  Matzek and Turner look like studs, and Beckham, Hosmer, Mejia, Moustakas, and Sanchez all have good upside.  Marcum is coming off a 2009 lost to Tommy John surgery and will attempt to regain his form.  Only Parker (out for 2010 after Tommy John) and Clement look like they might not reach their potential, but that could be premature.

The Derelicts are pretty much where the Gunslingers currently sit, a weak team with some promise.  The improved offense that Teixeira will bring will be overshadowed by the incendiary pitching staff.  Anything other than a long, unsuccessful season would be a testament to great managing.

2010 Predicted Record: 70-92.

KENSHIN, WATCH ROY, SEE HOW IT'S DONE

Kenshin Kawakami was less than stellar against the Phillies and Roy Halladay, giving up a two-run homer to Jayson Werth and three other hits in three innings.  Halladay, for his part, struck out five in three scoreless innings.  This is pretty much a microcosm of how I expect things to go this year.  We might see this matchup more than once during the season, in fact, with similar results.  I need better pitching, fast.

So, naturally, I'm going to draft a position player with my last pick!  Well, maybe not.  Chris Withrow of the Dodgers is still available.  He had some kind of elbow problem and missed almost all of 2008, then came back had good peripheral numbers in A and AA in 2009.  He's the highest guy left in the Basball Prospectus top 101 prospects.  Ok, I talked myself into it.  Withrow it is.  Another owner immediately e-mailed me that I had taken his pick.

SPRING STATS

As promised, here are the first week of Spring Training stats for the Gunslingers.  I should really be despairing more for my pitching than my hitting.

It was nice to see Grant Green get an AB.  I think they sent him back to minor league camp, though.  Aaron Hill is a walk machine this spring so far - more walks than AB.  The peripheral stats for the pitchers actually look pretty good - almost 3:1 K/BB ratio and well over 1.0 K/IP ratio.  Still, definitely too many HR's allowed; the wind must be blowing pretty good this year.

MASSET TWO SHOTS

No draft picks again today. I make my last pick tomorrow, unless someone convinces me otherwise.

Nick Masset got pounded for three earned runs in one inning against the heretofore powerless Royals, including homers by Kila Ka'aihue and Josh Fields.  I was probably the only one paying attention to that, since this game marked the spring debut of Cuban uber-prospect Aroldis Chapman.  Chapman looked good, anyway.

Strikeouts continue to be rung up by Brian Matusz, who collected six K's in two and two-thirds shaky innings against the Twins.  Jose Mijares had another scoreless inning in that game in Sarasota.

I'm starting to get concerned about the collective lack of hitting by the entire Gunslinger roster this spring.  I'd say each of the last three to seven days, I've seen a ton of goose eggs in the hits column.  Yesterday it was Hunter Pence, Carlos Quentin, David Wright, Miguel Cabrera, and Alexei Ramirez all taking the collar.  I'll have to publish a Spring statistical roundup soon.

Once the draft is complete, I'll start publishing a team-by-team analysis of the competition.  Quick take-away: they are almost all better than me.

IT'S OK, IT'S A WET COLD

Rain and temperatures in the 60's washed out most of the Cactus League games yesterday.  What wussies.  Frankly, I think they were just trying to get home early to set up for their Oscar parties.  I'm sure Ozzie Guillen was dying to Tweet about the red carpet.

Over in the Grapefruit Circuit, Andrew Miller failed his latest audition for the #5 starter spot with the Marlins, yielding three earned runs on three hits and two walks in two innings.  Other than that, nothing much of note.  Hunter Pence hit another triple.  He also got a good write-up as the Astros' budding spiritual leader in this morning's San Antonio Express-News.

I have traded away today's scheduled 8th round pick for a 7th in 2011.  I really should work harder at bundling those extra picks into something more useful next year.  I hate making trades, though, because they always seem to backfire.

YOUNG WHAT'S HIS NAME

In the draft this weekend, the Slingers added Miguel Sano, a 16-year-old shortstop from the Dominican Republic signed by the Minnesota Twins for $3.15 million, and Mike Trout, a 19-year-old CF in the Angels' system.  Sano, as our former commissioner JJ put it, is the ultimate "player to be named later", as he briefly decided to take his mother's maiden name, Jean, before going back to his father's surname, Sano.  Nobody really knows if he is actually 16-years-old, as well.  Eh, whatever.  It's only a 7th round pick.  He's supposed to be the best hitter to come out of the Caribbean in years.  Ought to be a fun ride.

Performance wise, Jose Mijares had a clean inning against the Red Sox, but Kevin Millwood didn't make it out of the first, getting pummeled by the Tigers.  I knew that pick was a mistake.  Aaron Crow fanned three in two scoreless innings, and Ben Sheets staggered through an inning and two-thirds with not too much damage and no reported pain.  Carlos Quentin dragged his aching foot around the bases twice after hitting a pair of homers off Carlos Silva of the (and soon not to be of the) Cubs.  Jonathan Sanchez had a typical line against the D-Backs - 2 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 3 BB, 3 SO.  Keep infuriating and yet tantalizing us, Jonny.

The big injury news is the loss of Russell Martin for 4-6 weeks with a strained groin.  I wonder if I should draft a catcher late just in case.  Chris Snyder is supposed to be healthy, but he'll have to battle Miguel Montero for playing time again.  I hate drafting catchers.  They usually add so little value to the offense that once you get a decent defensive one, you just feel like hanging on to him forever.

WRIGHT IS RIGHT?

I don't have a pick in the draft today (day 12 of 20...even I'm getting sick of it, and the draft is the best part of the league), so we'll look at how the club did in Spring Training yesterday.

Everybody's favorite suddenly powerless poster boy, David Wright, smacked a homer against the Cardinals in a 17-11 Mets win.  He hit it off an NRI named Evan MacLane, though, so I can't get too excited.

Kenshin Kawakami went two scoreless against Pittsburgh.  Again, not a terribly difficult feat, but encouraging.

Love this quote from Hunter Pence, who went double-homer-single in 3 AB:  "I love the game. I had trouble sleeping last night," Pence said, drawing a chuckle from teammate Michael Bourn. "I know everyone will make fun of me, but I was very excited and it feels good to get out and play some baseball and play well."  Maybe that is the Astros' problem.  You claim to love the game and your teammates laugh at you.

Brian Matusz struck out four of the five hitters he faced.  The other one...uh, not so good.  Sean Rodriguez took him deep.  We should see alot of that at Camden Yards this year.

Luke Gregerson had a spotless inning against the Mariners, with one K.

Kosuke Fukudome singled and doubled at HoHoKam Park.  Great name for a ball park.

Why do the Angels have so many guys named F Rodriguez?  They got rid of one, and now they have two more, the other Francisco and Fernando.

I think we may get only our second draft-pick time-out.  The league physician is up, and he may be with a patient.  Come on man, what's more important here?

SLINGER SAGA

In light of moving this entity of suck to Blog*Spot, I have decided to start writing in it again.  In this incarnation, I will chronicle my underachieving Strat-O-Matic team, the San Antonio Gunslingers.  First, a brief history.  The United States Strat Platoon started in the winter of 1993 on the 16-bit graphical interface of Prodigy, an unbeloved and long since vanished "on-line service", as such dinosaurs were called.  Prodigy, Compuserve, MSN, and AOL were islands of content that could be reached only by telephone modem and only by signing up for an exclusive account.  AOL was probably the flashiest, but it also was the biggest resource hog on your computer, and they were constantly sending you CD's in the mail to get you to sign up.  Compuserve was one of the earliest and had a nice, simple clean Windows interface, but the information content and interactivity with other users was pretty sparse.  MSN was Microsoft's fairly late attempt to get into the game, and was not very well executed.  Prodigy was my service of choice, because of the number and the varied interests of users and for all the ways you could interact with them.  It was also colorful, simple, and easy-to-use and navigate, and relatively cheap.

In 1993, about the time I was starting to date my future wife, I joined an interest group on Prodigy for Strat-O-Matic players.  Strat is a Major League Baseball simulation game that began in the 1960's as a card and dice game, and had evolved by the 1990's into a crude computer game.  I won't go into much detail about Strat itself, which is too broad a topic to cover in a blog post; suffice it to say that it was a routine early-year obsession for me from the age of about 9 to obtain the new player cards for the most recent season and start playing a carefully crafted schedule of games between the best teams, dice roll by dice roll, until a champion was crowned sometime in May.  When the computer game came out in the early 90's, I could pick and choose the games I wanted to play "by hand", as it were, while the computer played the rest automatically.  This was a fundamental change that allowed me to play a much bigger schedule of games, but that took some of the fun out of the whole endeavor.  I didn't "own" the whole process any more, and it seemed to get out of my control, and wasn't as enjoyable.  By 1993, I was looking for a new way to play Strat that would allow me to use the best features of the computer game, but still give that sense of excitement that I had in the early days.  The Prodigy interest group presented the perfect answer: join a league with other players and play by e-mail.

I had heard of play-by-mail leagues throughout my adolescence, but that idea seemed hideously cumbersome.  You would play games against the other players using their mailed instructions, and then mail out the results to the league commissioner.  All this paper would be flying back and forth, and some poor sap would have to tabulate all the results by hand.  I never felt like I was obsessed enough or had enough time to go through all that pain and suffering, and I kept my game-playing to myself.  With Prodigy, however, there was a way to e-mail instructions and game results files and tabulate everything electronically.  It seemed like the wave of the future, and I jumped on enthusiastically.  The other guys in the league were all about my age, early-to-mid 20's, some married, some with kids already, some still single and just out of college or med school (yes, we did, and still do, have a league physician).  Most were originally from the Northeast or had some Yankee ties of some sort.  We had a couple of Californians, a fellow Texan, a Floridian, and even an Alaskan.  The first commissioner was a brash kid named Mike who I believe was still in college, or at least of college age.

There were sixteen original members.  We all spent about a month hashing out the format and original constitution of the league, with Mike going off on long rants why things should be this way or that.  As the process dragged on, I began to think Mike was a little unstable, as did many of the other original members.  A few other of the older, more reasonable guys started taking firmer control of things and eventually we got through the birthing process well enough to schedule the initial draft.  The first draft was serpentine, with each team being assigned a number from 1 to 16, and the picks proceeding from 1 to 16 and then 16 to 1 and so on.  I was number 11.  To this day, I think this number explains a lot about my mediocrity in the league.  It wasn't a high number, where I could get Ken Griffey, Jr., or Randy Johnson, and it wasn't a low number, where I could get two really good players early.  It was somewhere in between, where I could get second-tier star early, and a third-tier star in the second round 10 picks later.  The other problem was, I knew nothing whatsoever about properly evaluating player talent (and I still don't pretty much).  

My first selection was Padres 1B Fred McGriff.  This was supposed to be my Bopper, a guy who could deliver those three-run homers so coveted by the likes of Earl Weaver.  In round 2, I took the Reds' hard-throwing righty, Jose Rijo.  He was my Stopper, a starting pitcher who could stop losing streaks.  In round 3, I took Expos CF Marquis Grissom, my Burner, a leadoff man who could get on base, play the outfield, and steal bases.  In the 4th round, I selected my Closer, Doug Jones, the portly junkballer from my home town team, Houston.  I figured with my Bopper, Stopper, Burner, and Closer, I had established the four main roles that any winning team needs, and the rest of the guys were pretty much filler.  Man, what a moron I was.  This strategy in and of itself wasn't so bad, but the guys I selected were terrible for these roles.  McGriff was a one-dimensional slugger who had just played his age 28 season and was headed for decline, and despite his commercials on ESPN for Tom Emanski's defensive drills, a lousy defensive player.  Jose Rijo wasn't a bad selection, but he had had a huge workload since he was 21, and two years later at 30 his career flamed out spectacularly.  Grissom's OBP of .322 was not high enough for a leadoff hitter.  And then there was Doug Jones...ugh.  He had been a journeyman reliever until he changed leagues in 1992, and his assortment of slop was baffling to National League hitters that year.  It should have been apparent to me that once the hitters adjusted, he would go back to being a glorified batting practice pitcher, which is a terrible occurence for a guy in a high leverage position like closer.

Predictably, with that feckless foursome as my "stars", that first year finished with an embarrassing 72-90 record, good for last place in my division.  Mike the commissioner quit after a couple of months, and the older, wiser Adam took over.  Adam remains one of only four owners I have ever met in person.  Adam gave way to JJ and then Drew (both of whom I have also met).  My turn is probably coming, since I am one of the last remaining original members.  In 1995, we expanded to the 20 teams we still have today.  As for my team, things have never much improved.  My highest winning percentage to date is .549, in 2005.  I have never had a 90-win season, and it's not looking good this year, either.  I have made some really ugly, lopsided trades that have set me back years, and I have never been able to select or acquire a decent starting pitching staff.  My first ever trade occurred in mid 1993, I believe.  I traded Fred McGriff, who I had become disillusioned with, and a promising young reliever, Mike Perez, for Shane Mack and Cal Eldred.  The killer of the deal was that I also gave up my 1st round pick in the next draft.  I really liked Eldred, and felt he could be a solid replacement for Rijo, who was in the process of washing out in Cincinnati when the trade was consummated.  If you recall, Eldred himself had all kinds of arm problems and never did amount to anything after a stellar half-season debut.  Mack was a complete waste, and I no longer had that coveted draft pick, which was a pretty high pick, to help recoup my losses.

I've made some other real bonehead draft picks and trades that spring to mind.  I selected Rick Ankiel when he was a pitching prospect in an early round of one draft.  I got one good MLB season out of him before he went all Nuke LaLoosh on the Mets in the 2000 playoffs and couldn't even hit the bull mascot if there was one.  I traded him for that noted wastoid, Travis Lee, and missed out on his good years as a CF with St. Louis.  I drafted Kosuke Fukudome with the 9th pick in the draft as recently as last season when I could have had Yunel Escobar.  That hasn't turned out well.  I'll just never learn.  I traded Jamie Moyer in 2002 for an extra first round pick, who I turned into K-Rod.  That was OK for a while, but then I re-drafted Moyer last year and they both had awful years in 2009 and now they both suck for me.

Well, that's the sort-of brief history.  I am currently picking 8th in this year's draft after another mediocre season.  Here is my team right now:

Hitters

Abreu, Bobby

Cabrera, Miguel 

Fukudome, Kosuke 

Gonzalez, Adrian 

Hill, Aaron 

Martin, Russell 

Pence, Hunter 

Quentin, Carlos 

Ramirez, Alexei 

Snyder, Chris

Torres, Andres - 2010 6th round draft pick

Uribe, Juan 

Wright, David

Pitchers

Buehrle, Mark

Millwood, Kevin - 2010 2nd round draft pick

Sanchez, Jonathan 

Kawakami, Kenshin 

Moyer, Jamie 

Miller, Andrew 

Matusz, Brian 

Oliver, Darren 

Ramirez, Ramon 

Rodriguez, Francisco 

Masset, Nick  - 2010 3rd round draft pick

Gregerson, Luke  - 2010 4th round draft pick

Mijares, Jose - 2010 5th round draft pick

Prospects

Crow, Aaron

Green, Grant 

Sheets, Ben 

Smoak, Justin 

White, Alex 

Perez, Martin  - 2010 1st round draft pick

Christian Colon  - 2010 4th round draft pick

I have some quality hitters there - Wright, Cabrera, Gonzalez, Hill, Abreu, and Pence.  Quentin has plantar fascitis and may never duplicate his earlier successes.  Alexei Ramirez is a decent SS, but not a star, and Russell Martin has suddenly turned into Jason Kendall after a great start.  Uribe and Fukudome are role players that will have more plate appearances for my team than they should.  Torres is a defensive replacement who clobbers lefties, which should be somewhat helpful.  The overall team defense is mediocre, especially at LF, CF, SS and 3B.  I do have three 1's with Gonzalez, Hill, and Martin.

As for the pitchers, it's such a horror show, I can't bear to look at it, but I will try.  Buehrle is serviceable, and Sanchez has some upside, but Kawakami and Millwood are strictly league-average innings munchers, and Moyer is a mess.  Brian Matusz could end up taking Buehrle's role as my "ace", such as it is.  We'll have to see what Ben Sheets can do in Oakland this year.  I've had Sheets for his whole career, and I've just about had enough of his constant injuries.  I think I've improved the bullpen going forward with Gregerson, Masset, and Mijares, but I always say that and it never seems to happen.  K-Rod might be on his last legs, or he might re-emerge as dominant if the Mets stay healthy this year, although with my history, you should bet on the former.

In the minors, I have high expectations for Justin Smoak and Martin Perez, and I think at least one or two of the other guys (Colon, Crow, Green, and White) will emerge as decent players.  I expect to fill the prospect coffers with my final few picks this year.

The draft is going pretty well for me, I think, although I would be one of the last persons you should ask.  I made a solid pick at #8 with Perez, who held his own at AA at the age of 18 and looks like the next Johan Santana.  I got Millwood to fill a gaping hole at Starting Pitcher, and I have improved the bullpen at least for the time being.  I took a flyer on Colon in the late fourth round.  He's been compared to Derek Jeter in terms of leadership, and he has all the numbers you would want from a college player.  Torres will platoon in CF with Fukudome, who is miserable against lefties.  I have pretty much finished building my 2010 team, and will now focus on either acquiring more prospects or trading for 2011 picks.  2010 looks like another down year because of inconsistent starting pitching.  If Sheets, Matusz, Buehrle, Sanchez and maybe even Millwood and Kawakami have good years, perhaps 2011 will look better.

In future posts, I will finish out the draft, follow my guys in Spring Training, and then detail the 2010 Strat and real seasons.  Gives me something to do, anyway.

DON'T READ THIS...AS IF YOU DO ANYWAY

I moved this here blerg to Blog*Spot, I think, and I am testing it out to see if I did in fact move it. So, so very important doings afoot.

ISN'T IT IRONIC

Well, now we know that at least 52% of Massachusetts voters have a pre-existing condition of stupidity. Which means they won't even realize why their health insurance policy was cancelled.

YEAH, STILL HERE

It's barely awake, but, yes, this thing still has life. Maybe in the new year, I will add some entries to it. Or perhaps not. In any case, I will leave you with our first ever embedded video:



If they have a funnier ad during the Super Bowl, I might just self-immolate with laughter.

THESE GIRLS ROCK

Well, it was a pretty degrading way to get a sponsor's exemption in the first place.

AND SOMEHOW, I KNOW THEY WANT TO

I love Facebook. Now the girls I was too shy to ask out in high school can keep tabs on the girls I was too shy to ask out in college.

UBUNTU VS WINDOWS 7 - ULTIMATE SMACKDOWN

Yeah, I know you want my take on this. You who never read this.

First, Ubuntu. I love the idea of Ubuntu, but the execution is lacking. The interface is great, installing is great, and the features that come with it are great (OpenOffice, FireFox, a huge library of open source software). Unfortunately, there are three very important things that it can't do for me. One is to recognize and take full advantage of my Asus motherboard with integrated ATI HDMI graphics and sound. When I hook up the Ubuntu PC to my TV, I get no sound. I tried looking for updated drivers, but there were none. There is no version of the ATI Catalyst Control Center that runs on Ubuntu. I can use the alternate speaker output and hook that up to a receiver, but that's not what I wanted. I bought an HDMI motherboard, and I want HDMI, dammit!

Secondly, I can't run Quicken on it. No chance, forget it, na gon do it. Intuit has not signed on to the open source revolution and never will. They have tethered their rope to Microsoft, and that's the end of that. I tried running an old version on one of the many Windows emulators you can download for Ubuntu, but it kept crashing. I gotta have that fresh new feature-rich version of Quicken. Actually, I'm sure I can find a passable alternative in the Ubuntu library, but I'm so used to Quicken and the way it can connect to my bank and download transactions flawlessly that I doubt that anything open source will work as well or as easily.

Thirdly, I am a Strat-O-Matic gamer, and Hal Richman and the incredibly customer-averse boys and girls in Glen Head can't even spell Ubuntu, let alone design a game for it. Windows or Mac are my only options, and why should I spend out the ass for a Mac? I'm not getting an HDMI Mac for under $1,000, while the PC I just bought was $600.

That leaves Windows 7. Wow. Can I repeat that? And more loudly. WOW. Now this is cool. There were absolutely no problems finding the Asus Motherboard drivers during installation and the HDMI worked perfectly the first time. I loaded the ATI Catalyst Control Center from the CD, and it worked fantastically well. I now have 42" of pure Windows 7 satisfaction, baby! If I wanted to run Quicken or Strat, I'm sure I could, although I haven't tried yet. I have those apps running on another Windows PC in my home office right now, and they will probably stay there.

I loaded iTunes and some, er, uh, other software that I use to get movies, and I downloaded a few. I fired the latter up on the new Windows Media Center. The picture and sound were amazing. This is a really nice movie and TV watching system. There is no Boxee for Windows yet, but the one for Ubuntu isn't exactly there yet either, so I'm not missing much. In fact, Boxee for Ubuntu caused my wireless keyboard and mouse to disappear when I tried it.

Probably the best part was when I got MLB.TV running. Come to Jesus! I can now watch the Mets in what is essentially the SNY or WPIX-11 High Def feed. It's virtually indistinguishable from the real thing, aside from some slight pixilation every so often. It'll only take me about 5 years for the computer to pay for itself when you factor the difference between MLB.TV and MLB Extra Innings on cable. Of course, in 5 years, you'll have the option of having MLB.TV beamed directly into your brain, or at least we can hope.

I've been playing around with the rest of Windows 7, and I really like it a lot. It's still Windows, with all those Gatesian annoying quirks, but man is it pretty and fast. You can load little gadgets that have the weather or sports scores, similar to what Ubuntu offers, and personalization is much easier than previous Windows versions. It's completely integrated into the Internet - almost everything you can click takes you to a web site somewhere for help or to download something. The dockable taskbar is way cooler than XP, and I really like the new file explorer. So far, it has run everything I've thrown at it, except for one thing - antivirus and security software. Norton, which is my provider of choice, only has free trial versions that will work with Windows 7, and they expire every two weeks. I glanced at some other options, but I don't want to have multiple subscriptions. I'll just keep uninstalling and installing the trial version until a real version is available. It's a minor inconvenience that I could do without, but at least it is free. This is probably the biggest disappointment so far, and one which Microsoft better get fixed fast, given their horrendous security track record and how entwined Windows 7 is with the web.

Verdict - if you have an HDTV, get a new computer, and get Windows 7. It works with every imaginable kind of hardware, it's super fast and reliable, and Windows Media Center is great. And grab an old laptop or a netbook and run Ubuntu to do your main surfing and e-mail so the viruses can't get you.