Topic: The big trade finally? 03-22-03 01:10 PM R˙che Rumors out of Salem and Akron are that there could be a big announcement coming today. Stay tuned for details! 03-22-03 05:05 PM Ridgebacks Stein, you'd better jump in and block this deal!!! Wait a minute, am I proposing a bidding war for a Cowtipper? Never mind, Stein. 03-22-03 05:41 PM R˙che The rumors are true, the deal is official. Akron sends Timo Perez, Rich Harden, Cliff Lee, Brad Lidge, and Ben Broussard to Salem for Bernie Williams, Woody Williams, Tony Graffanino, and Justin Pope. 03-22-03 06:20 PM LawDogs Nice trade DJ...bout time someone pulled one on the commish. Too many reaches with those prospects and now it gives Allentown some competition. I was hoping to see you grab Bagwell though. 03-22-03 06:31 PM BDBLcommish Well...so much for my big press release, complete with a picture of me waving a white flag. "Nice trade DJ...bout time someone pulled one on the commish." 'Bout time?? Chris, didn't you trade me a dead guy for DEREK LOWE last year?? 03-22-03 06:49 PM LawDogs When Darryl was traded to the Cowtippers last year he was in perfect health. I guess the 'Tippers need to make sure their players keep the drugs out of the clubhouse. Darryl must of gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd, which is easy to do in Salem. 03-22-03 07:28 PM Mike S./Rocks The more Cowtippers on the Ryche, the better. I will whup them there, too. 03-22-03 07:33 PM Undertakers I'd still like to see the press photo of you waving the white flag Mike! 03-22-03 07:56 PM BDBLcommish Your wish has been granted, Jeff. See the front page. 03-22-03 08:09 PM Undertakers I'm disappointed. You look like you are smiling. I was hoping to see more despair on your face. 03-23-03 10:36 AM FireAnt Not that we had much of a chance this year anyway but Akron acquiring those guys just sealed the deal. Good trade DJ - go Hrbek Division!!!! 03-23-03 01:22 PM fmimes That picture is rich!!! I've always wondered what kind of person roots for Salem. 03-23-03 01:42 PM Shark This from Gammons: "Brad Lidge is finally getting past the recovery from off-season knee surgery, throwing in the 90's with a nasty slider. He look sas if he can give the Astros another legitimate power arm in front of Octavio Dotel and Billy Wagner." 03-23-03 09:09 PM BDBLcommish Update: the Cowtippers have just been swept by the Gillette Swamp Rats. You guys still think I quit too early? 03-23-03 09:18 PM Mike S./Rocks Bring on Litchfield! 03-23-03 11:00 PM BDBLcommish Update: I lost three of four to Gillette. The Cowtippers are now 17-25 overall, 7 games behind Marlboro. 03-24-03 08:18 AM Ridgebacks I think this is called "rationalization". The reigning Ozzie league champ packed it in in chapter 2. End of discussion. 03-24-03 09:29 AM BDBLcommish Thank you, Captain Obvious. 03-24-03 09:34 AM Ridgebacks Hey, you've got to expect some level of grief for this. Last year we all got on Kansas. This year it's Salem. There has to be SOME price to giving up when you have a chance for a decent season. Besides the poor tie breaker in next years auction. 03-24-03 09:43 AM BDBLcommish There has to be SOME price to giving up when you have a chance for a decent season. I love how all you guys seem to think the Cowtippers can still have a "decent season" this year. You all have MUCH more confidence in my team than I do. I don't know why you all feel that way, but I admire your optimism. The 'Tippers are 17-25 WITH Bernie and Woody. How much worse could they possibly be with Timo and Rolando? Applying the same logic I've heard throughout the past two weeks while discussing trades with various teams, this trade won't really hurt my team at all. 03-24-03 09:51 AM Ridgebacks "Applying the same logic I've heard throughout the past two weeks while discussing trades with various teams, this trade won't really hurt my team at all." I hope to God you're not talking about our conversation. Because if you want to compare/debate Timo Perez versus Brad Wilkerson, you're in for a whoopin'. In another thread, you wrote: "Keep Bernie and Woody, finish 80-82..." 80 or so wins is pretty good. But you decided to bail and let your team suck this year. Ok, that's your call. But then we get to mock you for it. That's our prerogative. 03-24-03 10:03 AM BDBLcommish It wasn't just you, Tom. I heard similar comments from others. But now that you mention it, Timo is closer to Wilkerson than Wilkerson is to Bernie: -- Difference between Timo and Wilkerson: 22.1 runs (using BBP's EQR formula) -- Difference between Wilkerson and Bernie: 39.2 runs Applying the same logic I've heard over the past week or two, if I mix-and-match Timo with David Dellucci and Tyoshi Shinjo, I shouldn't hardly miss Bernie at all. If I don't make another trade this year, 80 wins might be possible with the roster I have left. Bagwell, Ventura, Kearns, Berkman and Durham make a pretty good lineup. And Clemens, El Duque, Leiter, Tomko and Arrojo aren't a bad rotation. Of course, that assumes that El Duque pitches like El Duque, Ventura hits like Ventura, etc.. To date, that hasn't happened. And there's no reason to expect that all of these players will do 180-degree turnarounds over the next four chapters. But you never know. I'll take a BDBL championship next year (or two years from now) over 80 wins this year. So if I have to make that sacrifice, I won't lose any sleep over it. And neither will you, I'm sure. 03-24-03 03:13 PM Undertakers I totally understand where Mike is coming from. The year I was forced to giving up, some people thought I was crazy for packing it in early. But I just knew... from the games I had played that my team just wasn't going to compete. You get a feeling pretty early on about your team and the way they were blowing it and not playing the way I expected them to...I could tell after a month and a half that it just wasn't going to happen. I assume Mike had the same feeling. There isn't much you can do... 03-24-03 03:49 PM BDBLcommish Thank you, Jeff, for being the lone voice of support for my decision. To back up what you said, here's a side-by-side comparison for you: Player A: .175/.278/.228 Player B: .250/.299/.370 Player C: .212/.224/.258 Player D: .250/.282/.324 Player E: .276/.333/.310 Player F: .241/.254/.293 Player G: .272/.287/.413 Care to guess which two lines above represent Robin Ventura and Austin Kearns, and which five lines represent the combined performances of the pitching staffs of Oakland, Bear Country, Manchester, Litchfield and Wapakoneta? That's right: at the plate, you can't tell the difference between Austin Kearns, Robin Ventura and a group of pitchers! That (and my team's mind-boggling inability to hit with runners on base) pretty much explains why I've had such a problem scoring runs this year. As if my offensive woes weren't enough, here's one more comparison for you: Pitcher A: 5.66 ERA, 9.8 H/9, 3.9 BB/9, 6.8 K/9, 1.4 HR/9 Pitcher B: 5.18 ERA, 9.7 H/9, 3.3 BB/9, 7.5 K/9, 1.1 HR/9 Pitcher A is the combined stats of my starting rotation (Roger Clemens, Orlando Hernandez, Brett Tomko and Al Leiter.) Pitcher B is the combined stats of the Chicago Black Sox, who spent a total of $8.2 million on their pitching staff this year. I've had players underperform before, but I've never seen a collective underperformance like this. I don't even know how it's mathematically possible. I keep thinking that eventually, the numbers will even out, but I just don't see it happening at this point. Last year, I was fortunate to get a team-wide overperformance in Chapter One, where I won 22 games and knocked the Hammerheads right out of the race before it ever began. This year, it's just the opposite. Maybe this is payback from the baseball gods. Though it seems to me, they still owe me for four seasons of post- season failure. 03-24-03 09:06 PM Ridgebacks Maybe it's just me but I'd like to see greater incentive for teams to try to stay competitive. As the league stands now, too many teams just pack it in and accept the fact that they're going to be awful in order to get much better FAST. The Salem-Marlboro-Manchester race could have been interesting. But now Salem has already given up and as a result, he's thrown the Akron-Chicago-Cleveland race into a tailspin which I'm sure will have other consequences. Oh well. 03-24-03 10:50 PM BDBLcommish Tossing aside the notion that my team could have been competitive this year, what do you suggest, Tom? (Keeping in mind that we want to keep the rules simple and as realistic as possible.) 03-25-03 05:49 AM Ridgebacks I go back to a suggestion I made a few years ago. Have $$$ bonuses dependent on number of wins the previous season. Something that impacts their salary cap. Something like: 100+ wins = + $6 million 92 to 99 wins = + $5 million ... ... 0 to 55 wins = - $3 million Enough to impact the teams but not enough to cripple them. I like incentives that make people try to win games. Then we could actually have a middle class in the BDBL. 03-25-03 08:32 AM STMZoots Tom, just for the sake of interest, are we going to retroactively fine you for the year YOU tanked in order to have the first pick that wound up being Randy Johnson upon who you have built your current empire? Its kind of weird being in the position of defending one of Mike's decision (kind of brings me back to our inaugural season), but enough is enough on this point. Major league teams tank (Colon for Phillips/Sizemore/Lee) all the time. Our new auction draft system makes it more difficult to buy one-year rentals AND rewards teams for having better records through tiebreakers. Now we want to start having financial incentives to win as well. Even though I might personally benefit as I have never tanked a season, enough is enough. Mike did what he thought was right for his team. It is not his personal responsibility to insure good races in the Ozzie OR the Eck league. Can we move on please? 03-25-03 08:54 AM Mike S./Rocks Dump trades are a fact of life in any keeper fantasy league. That's the way it is, that's the way it will always be, there's nothing you can do about it, get over it. Dump trades have been a part of any keeper league I've ever been in. Any rules ever put in place to try to prevent dump trades had one common side effect -- teams dumped earlier. I dumped myself two years ago in my long-running fantasy league. I've finished third and second since. Dumping works! 03-25-03 09:00 AM Ridgebacks Holy smokes. Mike just asked what I suggested. I don't think I ranted about it. With the way things are today, it's almost as if teams line up for "their turn" to dominate. It's cyclical. If you don't think you have the guns to win the whole thing, you LOAD UP by trading all-stars for prospects. Just doesn't seem realistic. In the major leagues, it doesn't happen NEARLY to the extent it happens in fantasy leagues simply because if a team was THAT miserable, revenues would suffer and jobs would be lost. That's the incentive for at least trying to put out a decent, competitive team. Relax guys.