What’s the relationship between Humbug and BS? Now we know. (This link is rated R for language).

I have a beta version of the 2005 Fantasy Baseball Draft Simulator available now. Requires Flash.

I didn’t fix any of last year’s incomplete features. All I did was update the list of players. In other words, it’s still beta software. But clunky and inelegant as it is, it does seem to work.

I might complete those features someday, but I wouldn’t count on it. I’m a busy guy these days.

Email me (toaster @ humbug.com), though, if you find a showstopping bug. I’ll try to fix those.

I should have the 2005 fantasy draft simulator ready in a couple of days.

In making this simulator, I consolidate a bunch of internet fantasy and statistical projections. I focus primarily on the starting lineups, since starters are mostly all we really care about for fantasy purposes.

To give you a bit of fun until then, here are some consolidated statistical projections for each team’s offensive starting lineup. I’ll just sort here by GPA, which should be a decent enough way to rank the teams. Pitchers not included. This is just a cheap toy. For serious toys, more assembly is required.

Anything surprise you? I was surprised by:

• Positive side: Phillies and A’s. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised by the Phillies being fifth, but I was. The A’s won’t have a lot of power, but having Kendall and Ginter instead of Miller and Scutaro improves the OBP quite a bit.
   
• Negative side: White Sox and Angels. The Lee-for-Podsednik deal doesn’t look too good for the Chisox here. The Angels could defy these rankings; they are projected for the sixth-lowest OBP, but the fourth-highest batting average. Because of that, I’d guess they’ll actually end up closer to the middle in runs scored than the bottom.

You know, I hear other people complaining about their team’s newspaper coverage, but I feel pretty fortunate in that respect.

I get the San Francisco Chronicle on my doorstep every morning, and A’s beat writer Susan Slusser is a damn good reporter. This story about Eric Byrnes in the Dominican Republic is another example of her fine work.

She deserves some props.

By the way, this picture of Byrnes from Slusser’s article is the perfect example of why Billy Beane may swap him for Mike Cameron. How often do you make a catch like that in the outfield if you haven’t misjudged the ball to begin with?

More fun with rumors:

Jayson Stark of ESPN reports that the A’s could be interested in signing Carlos Delgado, if they could clear some salary and/or roster space.

Yeah, right. And I’m the tooth fairy.

Continue…

It appears that Matt Keough, the A’s scout responsible for Asia the last few years, has finally reeled in an Asian player. USS Mariner is reporting that the A’s are closing in on signing Keiichi Yabu, a 36-year-old starting pitcher from the Hanshin Tigers of Japan.

Apparently, it’s a one-year deal with a team option for 2006. He’ll get $750,000, with incentives that could raise it to $1.25 million.

Yabu has a career ERA of 3.57, striking out 5.6 batters/9ip, while walking 2.5. In other words, he’s more the crafty right-hander type than an overpowering pitcher.

It looks like a good move. If he pans out, he could let the A’s keep Dan Meyer and/or Joe Blanton down in Sacramento for a few months to get some more seasoning, and to push back their arbitration eligibility another year.

It adds to the depth of the starting pitcher corps, too. The A’s list of potential starters for 2005 now goes eight deep:

Barry Zito
Rich Harden
Danny Haren
Seth Etherton
Justin Duchscherer
Keiichi Yabu
Joe Blanton
Dan Meyer

with John Rheinecker, Tim Harikkala, and Juan Cruz also as possibilities, I suppose.

Adding Yabu’s $1M salary probably means that someone else’s $1M salary is headed elsewhere. Chad Bradford and Eric Byrnes fit that bill most closely. The acquisition of Cruz, Calero and Thomas make that pair more replaceable.

Carlos Beltran‘s signing with the Mets probably eliminates one rumored suitor for Byrnes, but rumors are hot and heavy out of Arizona that the Diamondbacks are in pursuit.

If the A’s can finagle Carlos Quentin or Conor Jackson out of the D-Backs, that would be ideal. The Arizona Republic is suggesting an infielder, though, either Matt Kata, Alex Cintron, or Scott Hairston. Hairston is the most attractive of that trio, and the only one I’d give up Byrnes for. But after the acquisition of Keith Ginter, I’m not so sure why the A’s would do that.

UPDATE: There are also rumors that the Cubs are chasing Octavio Dotel.

Big Unit to Big Apple
Shoves Vazquez out the door.
Vance Wilson to the Tigers.
The Rockies ask for Mohr.
Desi, too, to Denver.
Ismael nabs the Fish.
The Mets, the Cubs and Astros
Have Beltran as their wish.
Zaun is back at SkyDome.
Put Grudz in Cardinal red.
But Green’s still sporting Dodger blue
His deal is likely dead.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim:
I love that extravagant phrase!
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim:
Unrivaled by M’s or by A’s!
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim:
Sounds juicy and squishy and lush!
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim:
I think I’ve developed a crush!
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim:
I’d love to be cheering behind them.
But Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim?
I’m not quite sure where I would find them.

I share a set of season tickets with a group of others. One of the group members is leaving, so we have an opening. We have five seats in section 115, Row 20. If you’re interested in joining our group for 5-20 games, send me an email at seasontix @ zombia.com, and let me know your level of interest.

Having had time to absorb the shock of the big trades, I’m starting to come around to liking them. I really didn’t like the 2004 Athletics much as a team. It was very frustrating to see guys who had performed well in the past, like Mulder, Zito, Mecir, Rhodes, Redman, Bradford, and Dye all give less-than-peak performances. Except for Zito, those guys are all on the wrong side of 27.

It was time for an overhaul. That generation had run its course. I’m really going to miss Tim Hudson, who was my favorite player. But I think I’ll like the 2005 team more.

For some reason, I think I enjoy baseball more with lowered expectations. Each close failure by the 1999-2004 generation to win a pennant built up my desire and expectations even more. It made each successive failure even more agonizing to watch. In the end, I think I hardly enjoyed it at all.

I need a fresh slate. I’m ready to turn the page. I want to relax, take my time, and get to know these new players. I’m looking forward to the spring. Care to join me?

In Oakland’s first trade to acquire
A player whose name was Dan Meyer,
Rich Bordi, the bait,
Wasn’t so great.
This time the price was much higher.

Boy, after reading all those stories about going to the Winter Meetings, it sure sounded like an exciting thing to do.

But I, Ken Arneson, have come out of my blogging hibernation to give you this very important message: All those stories about the Winter Meetings ARE LIES!

The Winter Meetings are not exciting at all! Hanging around a hotel lobby for hours and hours waiting for some trade or other to happen is just about the most torturously boring thing you can possibly imagine. In fact, it’s so bad, it’s actually hazardous to your health!

I secretly recorded my whole experience on videotape. To prove my point, I put together a small excerpt. Be warned, it’s pretty gruesome. But if you must, watch the film and see for yourself. (Flash required, 1 MB). But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

If you were considering going to Dallas for next year’s Winter Meetings, think again! Stay home! Trust me on this.

Today, let us compare quotes between George Will’s essay on steroids in baseball, and The Klingon Way: A Warrior’s Guide”.

Will: “[Baseball] is the greatest topic of conversation America has produced.”
Klingon: “Great deeds, great songs.”

Will: “A large majority of players are honorable or prudent or both.”
Klingon: “Klingons are a proud race, and we intend to go on being proud.”

Will: “Professional athletes stand at an apex of achievement because they have paid a price in disciplined exertion — a manifestation of good character.”
Klingon: “Admire the person with dirt under his fingernails.”

Will: “They do not use steroids, which are dangerous as well as dishonorable.”
Klingon: “One does not achieve honor while acting dishonorably.”

Will: ” Athletes chemically propelled to victory do not merely overvalue winning, they misunderstand why winning is properly valued.”
Klingon: “We fight to enrich the spirit.”

Will: “And surely all non-cheating players dislike playing under the cloud of suspicion that their achievements are tainted.”
Klingon: “The Klingon who kills without showing his face has no honor.”

Will: “So he faces a choice of jeopardizing either his career or his health.”
Klingon: “To really succeed, you must enjoy eating poison.”

Will: “Now baseball’s third era is ending — the era of disgracefully lively players.”
Klingon: “Destroying an empire to win a war is no victory.”

On the one hand, we have Jason Giambi. I have never in my life seen an athlete and a city so perfectly matched as Jason Giambi and Oakland. The long, scraggly hair and unkempt goatee, the tattoos and T-shirts, the motorcycles and fast food–his blue-collar attitude fit the blue-collar East Bay to a T. He was as much Oakland Raider as Oakland Athletic. Had he remained, I think he may have been the most revered athlete in East Bay history. Perhaps even with the steroids.

Instead, he left the A’s to join the Yankees, where he promptly cut his hair, shaved his beard, covered his tattoos, put on a suit and tie, and started doing deodorant commercials. Who was this guy? To Oakland fans, it seemed like such a betrayal–to Oakland and to Jason Giambi.

When Giambi returned to the East Bay, Oakland fans booed him more than they had ever booed anyone before or since. I think Oakland fans recognized something in him they did not like: the willingness to sell his soul, to give up his true nature for some dubious higher aim.

Now, he has confessed to using steroids. And now, Giambi will be booed and taunted everywhere he goes, not just Oakland. It’s sad, because I think Giambi has a genuine desire to be liked. He wants people to “be excited” for him. Instead, he is now a character in a morality play, personifying the consequences of temptation.

Jason Giambi is a classic tragic figure, a person whose one character flaw leads to his downfall. I am reminded of Icarus, whose father built him wings to escape the Labyrinth. Icarus ignored his father’s warnings, and tried to fly too high, to reach the level of the gods. He flew too close to the sun, the heat melted his wax wings and Icarus crashed into the sea.

Barry Bonds, too, is a classic figure, but he is not a tragic one. Bonds hasn’t sold his soul to the Devil; he is the Devil. He fell a long time ago. He knows there are great forces that oppose him, constantly. He accepts this. He knows who he is. He doesn’t pretend to be anything else.

The media will try to bring down Bonds, to make him pay for his sins. It won’t work. You can’t make the Devil pay for his sins. He’s already in Hell. Hell doesn’t bother him.

The Devil doesn’t answer to mere mortals. There will be no apologies.

Here is a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, called “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”:

Icarus is barely visible, splashing down in the lower right corner. W.H. Auden wrote of it:

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

In the long run, it is Bonds, who holds so many records, who will symbolize this sin. And this is the saddest part of all for Jason Giambi. Baseball will sail calmly on. The flight of Jason Giambi will be forgotten. And his fall will be nothing but a little-noticed splash in a large, busy landscape.

The jinxes of Boston mythology
With hexes, malicious astrology,
And curses of Ruth–
Are bogus. The truth
Is found with a faith in Theology.

There’s a scene in Winnie-the-Pooh where Owl’s tree blows over in a storm. Owl looks around bewilderedly, asking “Who? Who?” Finally, Owl spots Pooh, and asks, “Pooh? Did you do this?”

“I don’t think so,” says Pooh.

There’s a fundamental Owlness to human psychology. As children, when our thought processes are formed, everything in our world seems to be caused by the willpower of our parents. So we naturally look for human agents (or supernatural ones), whose acts of willpower (or lack thereof) cause every event in our lives.

The Boston Red Sox won the World Series last night. Congratulations!

Who did this? Who? Who? Owner John Henry, was that you? General Manager Theo Epstein, did you do this? Manager Terry Francona? Consultant Bill James? The goddess Venus in eclipse?

And why did it take so long? Babe Ruth? Harry Frazee? Tom Yawkey?

The St. Louis Cardinals got swept. Somebody did that! Was it Tony LaRussa? Walt Jocketty?

The Yankees didn’t win another championship. Who did that? George Steinbrenner? Brian Cashman? Joe Torre? Mel Stottlemeyer?

So Happy Owl Day today! And enjoy the next one on November 3. You know what to do.

Meanwhile, players and voters move on, like the wind.

The Periodic Table of Blogs was getting a little stale, so I got out the axe and chopped it up and stirred it around a bit.

Twenty-four blogs got swapped. This time, a lot of business blogs have appeared that seem worth checking out. How many of them will survive the next cut?

Varitek, Walker, Calero.
Anderson, Sanders, Cedeno.
Matheny, Martinez,
Embree, Ramirez,
Roberts, Tavarez, Arroyo.

Wakefield, Morris, Marquis.
Reyes, Rolen, Reese.
Isringhausen, Lowe,
Renteria, Foulke,
Eldred, Suppan, Ortiz.

Schilling, Cabrera, Taguchi.
Luna, Molina, Mabry.
Youkilis, Leskanic,
Myers, Mientkiewicz,
Womack, Millar, Mirabelli.

Haren, Bellhorn, Timlin.
King, Mueller, Williams.
Pujols, LaRussa,
Kapler, Francona,
Nixon, Damon, Edmonds.

I’m busy working on some big projects, so blogging is and will be light here for awhile.

If you need a baseball poetry fix, I suggest heading over to Grapez, as Greg Perry blogs the ALCS in verse.

Attack. Attack now.
The flame devours the candle.
Intense. Relentless.

A pool of spent wax.
A dark room. The scent of smoke.
A cold memory.

An underdog’s dream is expiring
After Nathan’s now-infamous tiring.
Anyone with a brain
Would have used Jesse Crain.
Do the Twins now regret Gardenhiring?