52 Weeks, 52 Books
Fantasy Baseball Top 100: Version 3.0
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Plenty of movement in the third version of my Top 100, but it is the same 100 from early February. At the top is the expected bump that Albert Pujols takes because of the increased injury worries. I’m absolutely a huge fan of his, but I can’t say the elbow isn’t troubling enough to take a 5-spot tumble. The four others behind him obviously get the one spot move and I also flip-flopped Carl Crawford and Grady Sizemore. Sizemore is more complete with the proven three-year base of power, while Crawford’s power remains filed under that fanciful “p” word. Granted, Crawford does offer more speed, but speed is more readily available than power on the landscape at large, so Sizemore gets the nod. Those were the only moves within the Top 20.
There was a bit of shifting amongst the bottom five of the next 20 with Carlos Guillen and Manny Ramirez being the beneficiaries with two and three spot jumps, respectively. Nothing too groundbreaking, but just some run of the mill shuffling that will continue to occur as I read more and Spring Training kicks into full force. In the 41-60 block, there was a lot of minor shuffling as a result of big moves down for Hunter Pence (7 spots) and Shane Victorino (11 spots). As I mentioned earlier, speed is more plentiful than originally thought making a jack-rabbit like Victorino a bit less appealing when viewed against the likes of mashers like Garrett Atkins, Brad Hawpe and Hideki Matsui. Pence’s drop was a combination of his journey through a plate glass window and the fact that I may have rated him a bit too highly out of the gate given the lack of sample size to judge him.
A group of middle infielders in the 61-80 group took a tumble with Michael Young taking the brunt of it (12 spot drop). Aaron Hill and Edgar Renteria joined him with four spot slides. Having been through more drafts since the last update, I’m seeing scarcity in the outfield if you don’t act early and often, so Vernon Wells and Jason Bay are beneficiaries. The same outfield scarcity issue took control of the 81-100 block as all but five players moved spots. Delmon Young, Matt Kemp, Jeff Francoeur and Andruw Jones all enjoyed strong gains in the latest Top 100.
Juan Pierre was the only outfielder in this group that took a hit and again, it is because his key asset (immense speed) is no longer as rare on the fantasy landscape. Rickie Weeks and Alex Gordon both saw upticks as they leapt over a group primarily contained of pitchers. Felix Hernandez took his second straight dip in the Top 100, but it’s not because I dislike him in the least. I actually like him a good bit in 2008 and no starting pitchers passed him this time around, instead it was the aforementioned hitters.
And now, for version 3.0:
Being Sick is Stupid!
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I hate being sick. I’m sure everyone does, so it seems to go without saying, but I said it anyway. I started feeling a bit out of sorts on Wednesday and then when I woke up on Thursday morning, I was a wreck. I made it alive (as evidenced by this post) and went back to work on Friday. I was about 75% over the weekend and I’d put myself around 80% today. I could tell I was sick because I sat through an entire awards show! I watched the 2008 Oscars last night and they were OK. Through the magic of DVR, I was able to skip through the musical numbers, which I couldn’t have cared less about.
The show itself was nothing extravagant, but moderately entertaining. I was pleased with a large portion of the 2007 crop of movies, which is probably why I stayed tuned. Jon Stewart as host didn’t do much for me as his jokes are pretty predictable and kinda “blah” in substance. No Country for Old Men was the big winner of the night with several awards for the Coen brothers and a Best Picture nod as well. I’ve yet to see There Will Be Blood, which was thought by many to be the favorite for Best Picture, but I have Oil! by Upton Sinclair queued up to read.
While I loved Juno, I was surprised that anyone thought it had a legitimate shot at being the Best Picture. I did think that Ellen Page had a decent shot at Best Actress for her role in the film, but I would have been blown away had it won as the year’s top film. Page and others lost out to Marion Cotillard for her work in La Vie En Rose, which was a surprise to me. I haven’t seen that movie nor do I have any desire to.
The Bourne Ultimatum, one of my favorites of the year, won several technical awards. It’s not the kind of movie that finds its way into the nomination lists for the acting awards, but it was a great movie and deserved to be recognized. I am a huge fan of the series having seen all three movies and having read two of the books. I know there are more Bourne books out there, but I’m not sure if the series will continue in theaters.
Having watched an entire awards show for the first time in as long as I can remember, my thoughts on them remains unchanged: they are pretty boring. Last night wasn’t unbearable by any stretch, but I could have easily done something else (had I not felt like crap) and then just viewed the winners online throughout the evening.
Plugging Away
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I haven’t been posting all of the reviews, but I am actually reading! I’m off the pace a bit, but I am not worried about it. I’ve been investing a lot of time into my fantasy baseball research, which I think is a fair alternative to reading non-stop. I’m currently doing the Total Money Makeover and I’m really excited about the prospects of managing my money much better than I have in the past.
I’m not averse to the whole reading two books at one time thing, so I’m also reading The New Kings of Non-Fiction. Both books are conducive to my busy schedule that has had less time for large blocks of reading time. I actually found this book by accident. I was walking around Barnes and Noble and it was on an endcap. The cover caught my eye and then when I looked and saw that it included stories from Malcolm Gladwell, Chuck Klosterman, Michael Lewis and James McManus, it was an instant buy for me. These four have authored several of my favorite books. With 15 stories averaging about 25 pages apiece, it is easy for me to make time during lunch, on a break or grab an hour after work and knock a few out. As for TMM, I’ve been reading it usually in the mornings before work and when I’m conducting my business… ummm… elsewhere. I’ll leave it at that!
I finished version 3.0 of the Top 100, but it’s at home, so I’ll have to post it tonight when I get off of work. I don’t think there are many sweeping changes and I don’t believe anyone was added/dropped out from the last list. I hammered out a few more of the Top 100 pitchers and I’d love to have that started by this weekend and then all 100 unveiled a week from day. The last of the big magazines has been released with Rotoworld’s magazine hitting newsstands. I picked up a copy and went ahead and got one for my dad as well since there is little available in Harlingen. I’ll send that to him now so he can get going on his prep and then send him Baseball Weekly’s big fantasy pull out in March when it comes available. He’s been using it for years and he’s not about to change.
I found out yesterday that Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco are actually making a stop in Austin on April 30th. My brother, sister and I were already making plans to go to either Dallas or Houston to see them, but this is even better since now we don’t have to travel. The new CDs from both artists are excellent. As I’m writing this, I’m listening to West’s Graduation, but Lupe’s The Cool is getting run on my iPod about three or four times a day.
Uncle Sam, Hook Me Up!
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I’m eagerly awaiting my 2007 tax refund, which is scheduled to direct deposit tomorrow! Being in a commission-based sales job, I get taxed like crazy throughout the year, so it’s nice to get it back after the New Year. One of my resolutions, in addition to the reading, is to balance my budget and keep the finances in line much better than I have in the past. This refund is going to help me get out from under some of my debt and get into a nice rhythm. In order to get myself on track, I’ve purchased Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover. I’ve been watching his show on Fox New Business for about two weeks now, though I was familiar with him prior to seeing the show. I agree with a lot of what he says and I think if I commit to the TMM, it’ll be extremely helpful towards getting my money under control. And by reading his book, I’ll be taking care of two New Year’s Resolutions at once!
Meanwhile, in terms of what’s going on here, I’m still writing the Top 100 fantasy baseball pitchers. I actually started at 1 with the write ups as opposed to going from 100 to 1 like I did with the Top 100 players. What that means is I’ll have to finish the entire list before posting any portion of it because I want to countdown again. It is just better from a suspense aspect! 
Some of you have emailed me asking when v3.0 of the Top 100 will be released. There are a few changes and it has been two weeks, so I will likely get the latest version up during this weekend.
On Sunday, my girlfriend and I are going to Dallas to see my Detroit Red Wings play the Dallas Stars, but I should have some free time on Saturday. It has been quite a while since I have seen a Red Wings game live. Hopefully my Detroit teams can make it 2-0 when I’m in attendance. For Christmas, she got me tickets to the Detroit Pistons-San Antonio Spurs game in January. Despite getting destroyed the night before in Dallas by the Mavericks, the Pistons stepped up and handled the Spurs soundly.
By the way, is there anything less interesting than this Roger Clemens-Brian McNamee fiasco? What an absolute joke. Everyone involved is coming out looking like a complete loser. Not a winner to be found. Not Clemens in his insistence that he didn’t use (you’re fooling NOBODY, Rocket!). Not McNamee with his inability to keep a story straight. And finally, not Congress for wasting taxpayers’ money and wasting their time on this debacle. What can come from this? What exactly are they aiming to achieve? And they wonder why many in the general public considers the government a joke.
And finally, I was dead wrong on my Super Bowl prediction. I have no problem admitting it. I was completely surprised and never envisioned that scenario playing out. Kudos to the Giants even though I actually wanted the Patriots to win the game.
Super Prediction
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We’re about 30 minutes or so from Super Bowl XLII with the New England Patriots chasing perfection and the New York Giants with their second chance at stopping them. Everyone seems to have a prediction for the game as it’s easily the single biggest sporting event in the world every year, and I’m not different. Frankly, there aren’t many surprises when it comes to my thoughts on how the game will play out. The Patriots struggled in four games, one was against an undefeated superpower similar to themselves (the Indianapolis Colts) while the other three were in cold weather (against Philly, Baltimore and the first meeting against New York). Today’s game in Arizona will be a climate controlled closed stadium meaning there won’t be any adverse weather to interfere with the Pats’ passing attack. That is bad news for the Giants.
I have thought a lot about the game and come up with a few scenarios in which the Giants could pull off the huge upset. Generally, these involve injuries and multiple turnovers for the Patriots, in other words, extremely special circumstances. Meanwhile, all things being equal, it is easy to envision a Patriots victory over and over again. The Giants have made it this far despite being predicted to lose in every game of the playoffs despite being given less of a chance with each passing game. Plaxico Burress pointed out how they lost to the Cowboys (twice) and the Packers in the regular season before beating them in the playoffs, so perhaps they can complete the trio with a win in the Super Bowl after the Week 17 loss to the Patriots.
I just can’t see it. In fact, I like the Patriots in a walk. I’m hoping for a great game that comes down to the wire as well as a great batch of commercials as the past few years have collectively been pretty awful, but I’m only holding my breath for the latter. Speaking of the commercials, the company I work for, Dell, is airing their first ever Super Bowl commercial scheduled to run right after the end of the first quarter. It’s based on our Red Campaign in support of the fight against AIDS. I look forward to it and hope to see some creative and humorous ones as well. But I digress… as for the game, my prediction of the Patriots to win big has me landing on the final score at:
Patriots: 45
Giants: 21
52in52 Gets a Nod
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I was searching through some stuff on Google about baseball, specifically the book The Baseball Economist, which I read last year. I was very pleased to find out that my review got clipped and placed on J.C. Bradbury’s site among the featured reviews. Now I know it’s not some huge deal and it was placed up there some time ago since I reviewed the book months ago, but it was definitely cool to come across while surfing through Google. I can’t wait for Bradbury’s offering, assuming he has something else in the works.
Fantasy Baseball Top 100: Version 2.0
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I did some significant re-working to the initial Top 100, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise given how early the first version was released. My most egregious omission is doubly painful since I’m such a huge proponent of this guy, but fear not, Ian Kinsler debuts in v2.0 with a very solid ranking. Given how much I love speed-combo guys and how many times during the capsules I mentioned that 2B wasn’t the barren wasteland it once was, I chalk it up to little more than a ball-drop on my part.
Only one other debut as Cole Hamels cracked the Top 100 with a vengeance checking in at #85. The two that paid for Hamels’ and Kinsler’s entries were Mike Lowell and Jim Thome. I have got nothing against either player and they both offer a pretty solid set of numbers, but one of the key factors with a list like this is with a lot of these guys, you are looking for them to improve upon a foundation that they have previously laid out. Now that isn’t the case with every guy because I still left plenty of oldies on the list, but just think about the four guys in question, are you taking Hamels and Kinsler or Lowell and Thome?
Some big tumblers within this first update were Miguel Tejada as the steroids issue looks like it could be clamping down on him, also I bumped Daisuke Matsuzaka quite a bit not because I’ve soured on his ability and projections for 2008, but more so because I like others ahead of him after further review into the starting pitching landscape. Aaron Hill is a favorite of mine coming into the season, but I feel I was a little overzealous with his initial ranking, so I tempered things and bumped him down to #73.
Anyway enough chatter, here is version 2.0 of my Top 100 Fantasy Baseball Rankings:
