I’m off to Phoenix, so posting will be scarce for the next few days. I’ll make it up to you when I get back. Got any specific NL-only targets you recommend I should go after? Let me know and wish me luck!
LABR
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31 responses to “LABR”
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Off to Phoenix, huh? I was just there earlier this week Big-D for from sales meetings. I saw the Giants and the D-Backs. Velez made a diving catch to win the game with a runner on second. Gillispie struck out swinging was the only other note worthy happening. I didn’t get to the game until the bottom of the fifth though.
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I’m definitely more of a stathead than a scout, but one bit of scouting wisdom about young hitters always sticks out in my mind. Pay attention to who are the good hitters first; good hitters can develop more power; power hitters with holes in their swings seldom develop into good hitters. With that in mind two names I’ll give you are Conor Jackson and Casey Kotchman. Both should help in BA, and both are clearly capable of 20 HR seasons. I stubbornly think Jackson could have a .310, 25 HR, 100 R, 100 RBI season. I guess you could say he’s one of my man crushes.
What I really wanted to talk to you about was how I think our buddy Roger Ebert may finally be losing his judgment in his old age. I went to see “Watchmen” with a friend last night. I remember walking into a full theater, which I hadn’t done in a long time. The full house increased my expectations to the point I was expecting a great movie. Right from the opening scene, which I remember telling my friend that I hated right after it finally ended, I very much disliked this movie. I thought it was absolutely awful to the point I almost walked out of the movie after an hour. I will say the movie got a little better after the first hour in the sense that it was bearable to watch, but that isn’t really saying much. Jackie Earl Haley does have one line at the end of a scene in a prison cafeteria line which is almost worth the price of admission, but most of the movie was painful to watch. I was genuinely angry that I wasted nearly three hours of my life to watch it.
I went to Ebert’s website expecting a scathing review, but instead to my absolute shock saw that he gave it 4 stars–his highest rating. I can’t believe he’s talking about the same movie. If and when you get around to seeing this movie I’d love to hear your take on it. Have fun in Phoenix.
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I already know Casey Kotchman hits many more ground balls than fly balls, so you can spare me that bit of info.
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DDD,
Keep an eye on Gaby Sanchez of the Marlins. He could be a cheap source of James Loney-like numbers.
I love your homeboy Jonathan Sanchez this year.
Joel Hanrahan is seriously undervalued heading into 2009. He was second to Carlos Marmol in RP K’s last year.
You could probably do a lot worse at 3B in an NL-only than Andy LaRoche.
Jason Motte could provide some cheap saves in St. Louis.
JR Towles has become a forgotten man. I remember him, though.
Good luck and keep us posted on the results.
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Watchmen was severely overrated as a graphic novel (it’s merely decent rather than earth-shattering), and Snyder is a pretty shaky director, I didn’t have high hopes for that thing. You should have checked in on Metacritic, a 56% approval rating is a dead-giveaway that there are severe problems, Ebert’s 100% rating, e.g., being a marked departure from the Tribune’s 38%, NPR’s 40%, WSJ’s 20%, etc., etc. It had as many bad reviews as good ones, with several horrible ones sprinkled in for good measure. In order to get a sub-50% rating, a film basically has to be direct-to-video-quality shovelware. Ebert is just a guy, and film, constituting a form of artistic expression, is a matter of subjective taste. There is no way he will click with you all of the time, nor should you even really want that as an individual. Overall he’s definitely one of the best critics, but he’s given some of my favorite movies tepid reviews (e.g., Siskel said ‘The Thin Red Line’ was the best contemporary war film ever made, and Scorsese said it was the second-best film of the 1990s, and I completely agree, it’s a masterpiece work, but Ebert said it was merely ok and made a point of ranking it behind typical Hollywood tripe like ‘Saving Private Ryan’), and like praised ones that I loathed (his glowing review of the horrible ‘Gangs of New York’ being an excellent case in point), so the occasional blunder (subjectively speaking, of course) is to be expected.
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Poincare – Good stuff. I really, really like Conor Jackson and Kotchman – didn’t end up with either tho unfortunately (Kotchman went for more than I expected). My CI is pretty weak. Those were good recs you had.
As for Watchmen – I never read the comics, so I wasn’t too pumped about it. Frankly, I figured it would suck. Sorry to hear Ebert is off his rocker in this case.
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Brett – All those guys were on my radar. I ALMOST got Gaby Sanchez. I missed out on Andy LaRoche and Motte but wanted both also. Of course I did grab my boy Sanchez. I’m on limited Internet time, but I’ll give all my results when I get back.
Good stuff guys. Thanks for the recommendations.
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Dreamweapon – Well put, regarding Ebert. And Gangs of NY was atrocious.
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i think iam also getting afraid of joba chamberlain for my keeper league, am i nuts, and a pitcher that i think iam starting to get a good feeling on is bonderman, would i be nuts to do this deal——–please give advice
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On Bonderman: I have been there, done that. And then been there again, done that again. I would not recommend it.
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I also thought Gangs of New York was a really bad movie. I was genuinely shocked by all the positive fanfare it generated years ago. It was worth watching once just to see Daniel Day Lewis’s masterful performance as the gang leader of the natives; it was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen. The rest of the movie, however, was awful.
Believe me, I don’t always agree with Ebert either–but over the years I have agreed with him more than any other critic. I think he earned my respect when he was the only major critic to pan Dead Poet’s Society, which I thought was one of the most overrated movies of our generation. That said, I still remember him giving a thumbs up to Dragnet, which was one of the worst movies I ever saw, and a thumbs down to Somewhere in Time, which I still think is a wonderful movie. So I definitely hear you there Dreamweapon.
My concern is that he gave his HIGHEST rating to a movie which was not even mediocre. I still cannot for the life of me see what he, or anybody else for that matter, sees in this movie.
DDD, you are a smarter man than I will ever be if you figured the movie would suck before it hit the theaters. In my defense, the only real reason I went to see it is because my friend had his heart set on seeing it based on his cousin’s recommendation. As I previously stated though, walking into a packed theater definitely got my hopes up–before they came crashing down almost immediately with a cacophonous thud.
Oh well, enough of such trifling matters. Let me know who you got in your draft DDD–as long as you don’t have a problem with sharing such info with a guy who competes with you in another league. I just saw Korea defeat Japan, so I’m in a good mood at the moment. Bring on baseball season. God, am I ever ready.
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Randy – Yes, you would be nuts to deal Joba for Bonderman. I can understand having a bad feeling about Joba, but definitely aim much higher if trying to deal him.
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Poincare – Admittedly, I’m not a big comic movie guy, so I may have been biased to begin with. I also read a couple bad reviews.
I’ll definitely post all of my LABR results when I get back – I’m leaving Phoenix today.
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please give me some ideas for chamberlain——–iam brain dead
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Look, Bonderman’s best year–his very best–still saw him sport an ERA north of 4.00. He has two pitches (at best) and a structurally shaky arm, and pitches for an organization that specializes in ruining young pitchers. He isn’t quite dogfood, but he’s a long, long way from even being decent ground beef, if you get my drift. Chamberlain comes with plenty of risk, but you have to trade on his reputation. If you must cash him in for another pitcher, aim for someone in the realm of a Billingsley, Felix, Gallardo. Even Greinke would be light years better than Bonderman (although still a defeat in terms of maximizing value). Hell, guys like Cain or Scherzer would be a far sight better than Bonderman, although I wouldn’t do that personally. If you want to go younger he may well fetch a Keshaw or Price type, basically any prospect arm you want. I’d personally aim for the sky and go and dig out some gloom-and-doom pieces about F-Bomb Liriano via google and start wearing down his owner with tales of lost velocity and vanished control, although that task will grow harder with each mini no-no he hurls.
Whatever you do, don’t go shooting yourself in the foot by projecting your negative feelings about the guy in your trade discussions, any halfway decent haggler will use the knowledge to rob you blind.
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Wow. Watchmen was fantastic. As a graphic nocvel that is now 25 years old and that influenced countless movies, tv shows and comics since it’s debut two-and-a-half decades ago & as a film that finally reached the bigscreen.
I think we are two different people that saw two different movies. Sure we share a bond of fantasy baseball, but, dude, you are blind when it comes to moves and graphic novels/comics.
My opinion.
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what do you think of sean gallagher and matt gamel for chamberlain, i have already tried for all of the people dream weapon said with no luck or do i just sit on chamberlain——-thanks
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TylerDurden,
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. By the way, I’m sure you meant to say “movies”, not moves, because there is no way that you would know anything about my “moves”. Disagree with me if you want, but don’t you dare call me blind about anything. You don’t know me, and I don’t appreciate the insult. My opinion.
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Well, as a Brewers fan I’ve been following Gamel for a couple of years now. He’s a solid hitter, he’ll probably be a .300 guy in the bigs, but might not have a ton of oomph, I guess I would say 25-30 HRs, even factoring in Miller Park, would likely be his ceiling. One big problem with him is that he’s a complete butcher in the field (I’m talking worse than Ryan Braun bad, he chalks up errors at a rate of about one per three games, which is miserable no matter how you stack it). I’d be surprised if he stuck at 3b, he’s too stiff and can’t make that throw across the diamond in a reliable fashion. I guess I would also be surprised if he could play right with that kind of limitation, so that basically leaves 1b and LF, which are obviously locked up on that team for some years to come. Maybe Fielder will be traded, but not for a while. Neither Hart nor Braun can play CF, so a realignment there really isn’t feasible unless they moved Hart and played Weeks in center or something. It’s all conjecture. Suffice it to say, it’s a mess right now and no one knows where this kid will play, and I doubt it’ll be ironed out soon. Plus, the thing is, he’s seen as a solid prospect, maybe even very good, but not a special one, like Chamberlain is viewed. That should demand a premium of some sort. Gallagher is a scrub as far as I’m concerned for FBL purposes–maybe he’ll be solid in real life, but he’s not going to dominate in the boxscore, ever, and thus is pretty unlikely to ever be a meaningful asset in the fantasy game (since obviously this is a mixed league), I wouldn’t attach any real value to him at all in a deal involving an asset on the order of Chamberlain. Basically, it’s definitely better than Bonderman, but I still would pass without a second thought.
Probably going about this the wrong way. Have any other owners expressed interest? If so, what do their rosters/assets look like? Easier to approach theoretical trades with a clearer idea of the possibilities. If nothing else works, hell, just hold, unless you’re absolutely convinced his arm is going to fall off. If he has any kind of hot streak at all, ESPN will be hailing him as a cross between Whitey Ford and Jesus, and plumper offers are sure to follow at that juncture.
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Joel Hanrahan is seriously undervalued heading into 2009. He was second to Carlos Marmol in RP K’s last year.
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I’d like to hear more about this guy. He’s got great Ks, but looking through the numbers, he’s got poor control (42 BB in 84 inns), and isn’t really that young (27), but its only going to be his 3rd year in the majors.
So is he a good value or not? -
LOL, well, since you’ve made a point of writing “and all” in a thread where only three people discussed that film/comic, and since I’ve taken issue with your tone before, I’ll go ahead and take your bait this once. Calling someone “blind” for expressing an opinion on a pulp movie can easily be taken as an insult, since, quite obviously, it’s inherently denigrating and dismissive. While it could likewise be reasonably seen as a bit of friendly (if possibly overly familiar) verbal jousting, responding to someone who took offense at the remark by bravely questioning their manhood from behind a remote computer screen does nothing but reinforce the signal that the remark was in fact meant as an insult by effectively doubling down on the same.
As to the subject matter, every time someone tells me ‘Watchmen’ is some great work of art or literature, my estimation of the comic recedes even further, though not so far as my estimation of their tastes. It is no such thing, and can only suffer for the comparison. Forget giants like Dostoevsky, Melville, Hesse or Huxley, ‘Watchmen’ doesn’t begin to stand up as “literature” even to the overrated likes of Roth or Updike or, hell, King. As a story it is incoherent, wildly digressive, self-absorbed and pretentious. It basically reads like a preschooler’s Pynchon, and I suspect the greater part of its fanbase consists of overgrown men of limited intellectual means for whom penetrating beyond the first dozen pages or so of ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ or ‘V’ simply represented a bridge too far. Dressing up a pulp story with a couple of quotes from Blake or Juvenal doesn’t begin to make it literature, it just makes it absurd, like Paulie Walnuts trying to add philosophical heft to a statement by citing “Sun Tuh-Zoo” fresh off of having listened to ‘The Art of War’ on cassette tape. Taken strictly as a comic book and a pulp work, it’s ok. And that’s fine, pulp has its place–many of the greatest authors have written some pulp pieces (Kipling, Sinclair, Twain, etc….even the mighty Conrad, whom I revere as a demigod, wrote for a pulp mag). However, in striving to exceed the limitations of the medium by needlessly adorning it with preposterous flourishes while ignoring the fundamentals like plot consistency, character development and pacing, Moore succeeded chiefly in making the comic supremely dilettantish and, at a fundamental level, boring. To me, it represents a classic case of an author’s reach exceeding his grasp. I would recommend the likes of ‘Sandman’, ‘Preacher’ or ‘Transmetropolitan’ (for starters) as quality examples of the genre ahead of ‘Watchmen’ any day of the week. If that makes me “blind” too, well, I guess I’d rather be in the company of Homer, Bach and Stevie Wonder than the kind of ignorant simpleton who venerates a bloated and overreaching comic book as some sort of cultural landmark.
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Bonderman is done until proven otherwise, and remind me not to enter a debate with Dreamweapon unless I can learn to channel it from beyond like Will Ferrell did in Old School.
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I’m finally back in town. Will give a comprehensive update Wednesday. I promise. Stay tuned!
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Welcome back D3 – looking forward to hearing how things went
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Geez, oh man. Get over it. You’re wrong. You know it, I know it and you know it.
Sworry I hurted your fweewings.
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Actually, I don’t know it. Kindly articulate how I am wrong if you are able. Based on your responses you don’t seem to know much of anything except . If you would actually post an intelligent logical response I would acknowledge it. All you’ve really done is state “I’m right about everything…the way it is.” Very impressive.
Quoting Dreamweapon:
It basically reads like a preschooler’s Pynchon, and I suspect the greater part of its fanbase consists of overgrown men of limited intellectual means for whom penetrating beyond the first dozen pages or so of ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ or ‘V’ simply represented a bridge too far.
All you’ve really done with your posts is confirm that you very much qualify as one of these people. Also, it is redundant to state “you know it twice in the same sentence. Judging by your responses, however, it’s pretty obvious you missed English class in school far too many times.
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Randy – Aim higher than Gallagher/Gamel. I can totally understand you worrying about Joba right now – but you should be able to do better. Keep coming back with more options. What about a package involving Jordan Zimmermann or Tommy Hanson? Hell, what about Ricky Nolasco? Or Greinke?
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JG – Hanrahan isn’t a bad late gamble. You hit the nail on the head – great K rate, poor command. That’s a combo I’d much prefer than the opposite. His control improved over the second half of the season as well. I don’t see any great alternatives in that pen either. Good value.
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Guys, as for the Watchmen debate – I’m all for differing opinions (in sports, in life, whatever), but there really isn’t a need to take it to a personal level.
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