It’s time for the first installment of the new Rotowhine feature “On the Couch”, where Jeff and Greg, unable to function in the confines of a normal life, turn to each other for psychological fantasy advice. They are both lying prone, and prone to whining, in the Rotowhine virtual shrink’s office. Feel free to join the session in the comments section, as On the Couch will be updated throughout the day.
Jeff Andriesse (10:33 a.m.): The Celtics won the championship last night and my excitement as a C’s fan is eclipsed only by my relief that I don’t have to watch anymore uncomfortable between-quarter sideline interviews. Next year Michelle Tafoya will be interviewing coaches during free throw attempts. Enough. If our podcasting capabilities weren’t on the fritz, the world would know of our disdain for Kobe Bryant and, greater, for his omnipresent supporters comparing him to Michael Jordan. They look like fools today. On the Boston side, my boys shocked me by shattering the glass ceiling of the minimum amount of man-crushes I thought I could possibly have. My biggest on-line valentine goes out to Paul Pierce, who has suffered as a Celtic more than any other and channeled it into desire during his tremendous postseason. I’m dangerously emotional right now. Mostly because the Celtics won, but also because they’ve done such a good job distracting me from my awful fantasy baseball team. More on that later. For you, good doctor:
From the standpoints of both the Celtics and Lakers, what have the Finals taught us about next year from a fantasy perspective?
Greg Fox (11:40 a.m.): The only thing the finals has taught me is that Pierce, Garnett and Allen might be even worse next year from a fantasy perspective and that’s not an easy feat. I had both Garnett and Pierce in the Cha League and they were absolutely brutal… Garnett with his vintage 14 and 6s in a tidy 24 minutes of a Celtic blowout.
Garnett, at best, belongs in the third round, Pierce in the fourth or fifth, and I wouldn’t draft Mr. Shuttlesworth at all. Unlike the playoffs, I think Rondo goes back to playing consistent minutes and he is the Celtic I want.
From a Laker standpoint, I dislike everything about Kobe so much right now that I probably wouldn’t take him until the fifth or sixth pick of the first round. If I hear one more media member call him the greatest player in the world I’m going to bludgeon myself. Are there really people who would rather have him on their favorite team from a historical perspective over guys like Bird, Magic, Jordan and Olajuwon? What happened to the age-old formula of ranking players based on how they make their teammates better?
If he qualifies at center, Gasol will be decent and I think a healthy Andrew Bynum can offer 14, 10 and 2 blocks. Somehow, Lamar Odom will put up better fantasy numbers than ever before.
I didn’t want to have to talk about baseball, but since we’re on the couch, can you please explain to me how it is possible for my team to hit below .200 every single night?
JA (1:10 p.m.): You are talking to the guy who is dead last in batting average in his league at .257. I don’t know how it is possible, only that it is. I know that doesn’t make you feel any better. The offensive numbers of some guys out there are staggering. I can’t even walk around while thinking about them without bumping into walls, stepping on small children, etc. Josh Hamilton, Chase Utley, Lance Berkman, Carlos Quentin, Ryan Ludwick, Dan Uggla… offense seems plentiful elsewhere. On my tombstone please have them write: “Still has not gotten over Lance Berkman’s 2008 first half.” No matter when I die, it will remain true. So Utley is an MVP candidate, and will be a darling because it will be the cute story of three different Phillies in three years. My question to you is this:
At what point will baseball pundits recognize the effect of a ballpark on a player’s statistics, and stop just defecating at the mouth about guys’ numbers?
GF (1:35 p.m.): You’re asking for too much. Don’t you think a guy who hits 45 HR, drives in 120 and bats .300 in Philly is better than the guy who hits .280 with 30 HR and 90 RBI in San Diego?
Stats are so freaking stupid it’s too much to suffer. How many guys this season have been better than Adrian Gonzalez? There is no greater offensive equalizer than Petco Park, yet he continues to knock in big runs for the Pods. Some guys are going to put up big numbers either because of their ballpark or because they bat in the middle of a hot offense. Ryan Howard was mediocre last year and recorded absurd numbers. He’s mediocre at best this year and will finish with equally ridiculous numbers.
The questions nobody asks when judging players are -
1. Who would you want up to lead off the 9th inning down a run?
2. Who would you want up in the 9th with a runner on second, two out, and down a run?
3. Who would you want up in the 9th with the bases loaded, two out, and down three runs?
For me, in today’s game the answer to all three questions is Albert Pujols, who will likely finish in the neighborhood of 35 homers and 100 RBI, pedestrian numbers in this era. When I was a kid, I would have answered question #1 with Rick Henderson, question #2 with George Brett and questions #3 with Reggie Jackson. I just wanted to throw that in.
Another thing that nobody takes into account is injuries. The fact that Pujols will miss a month this year and that Chase Utley missed five weeks during his phenomenal ‘07 are for some reason blemishes on their seasons.
I’ll give you another one. Why aren’t disciplined leadoff hitters developed anymore and why are dime-a-dozen 30-homer guys paid a premium when there are less than a handful of leadoff men with .400 on-base percentages?
JA (2:09 p.m.): How am I supposed to answer that question? I am having enough trouble finding a date. If I had to guess I’d say it is some combination of: A) Young players want to swing the bat and get hits, which turn into dollars and B) Plate discipline is the hardest thing to teach. Didn’t you know, Greg, that the guy with the most stolen bases should lead off? I love the idea of “30-homer guys”. Over 162 games, what is 30 homers? How many of those come in spots that matter? Maybe 15 at most?
My only gripe with your premise is that they are a dime-a-dozen. In theory, I agree. In practice - i.e., on my fantasy team - they are a penny a dozen. (Aside: What is the history of the concept of a “dozen”? Does it have to do with eggs? Why is it used so often? And isn’t it a weird word? None of these musings are my official question to you.)
Anyways, you would think that in this era of “Moneyball” and Bill James, there would be more leadoff guys who can take a walk when the team needs it.
Speaking of eras, What do you think of my just-thought-of revolutionary fantasy football theory that we have entered an era where running backs don’t matter as much any more? I may take receivers and quarterbacks in the first four rounds this year.
GF (2:55 p.m.): Talk about things that don’t matter. You can take Tomlinson, Peterson and Westbrook in the first three rounds of your football draft and you’ll probably have a 50/50 chance of making the playoffs. If it’s even possible, football seems more stupid than ever. And please don’t ask me if I’m going to run Cha Greatest this year. I promise that we’ll figure out a way to get Uncle Vito into the Big Daddy League.
But yes, your theory about drafting receivers and QBs is as good as any. I’m contemplating drafting nothing but kickers and coaches.
Do you know that I was actually afraid of Kevin Garnett doing something drastic after they won last night. He was scaring the bejesus me, although everything he said was completely unintelligible. At one point, I thought his head was going to fly off his neck and shoulders, but even a headless Garnett would still have the wherewithall to pound his chest. Are we sure he’s even human?
You’re worried about finding a date? All you need to do is get married. The formula is simple… married = dates… unmarried = no dates.
As a huge fan of the Get Smart TV series, the movie looks horrific. Is Steve Carell a funny guy or is he drastically overrated?
JA (3:25 p.m.): The movie looks worse than horrific. Carell has made some bad choices. He’s mostly excellent as Michael Scott, and The 40 Year Old Virgin was watchable, but I have yet to see anything in any Get Smart trailer that looks remotely funny and by all accounts Evan Almighty was one of the century’s lamest slabs of celluloid. I think he’s a funny guy who doesn’t have a lot of range and needs to pick better scripts.
By veering from fantasy sports, you’ve inadvertantly helped me psychologically. I was temporarily distracted from the fact that I have two starting pitchers going later tonight in Ben Sheets and Oliver Perez. Preparing for these two pedestrian June starts mentally, I feel like a headless Garnett myself. I bet the stump of his neck could still scream if he wasn’t capitated.
Perez is 3-0 with a 2.48 ERA in the four starts this year where he’s been on my bench. I’ll let you figure out what his numbers are when he’s been in my lineup.
So… What will happen to the Mets the rest of the way now that Willie Randolph has been the recipient of one of Hillary Clinton’s 3 A.M. phone calls?
GF (4:30 p.m.): The Metsies will continue to sputter. At some point, they’ll put together a solid stretch and seemingly get back in the race, but in the end, they’ll fall a little short. This is a team in which only a couple of guys - Wright, Castillo and Church - work the count… and Castillo can’t hit a lick and Church has a cartoon-like bump on his head. It amazes me how Castillo finishes at around .300 every year. By the way, that’s a very important number… the .300 batting average.
You know you mention Ben Sheets and my right hand begins to tremble. I’ve never had higher hopes for a pitcher than I had for Sheets last year, and not only did he spend half the year on the DL, when he was actually healthy and in the rotation he was just ok.
Fortunately, in my league I don’t have the opportunity to bench any of my starters. If I did, my ERA would no doubt be reaching high pressure systems on Mars. As it is, since interleague play started I think my ERA is higher than my batting average.
Dr. Jeff (are you a psychiatrist or psychologist?) can I blame my parents for my poor drafting?
JA (4:43 p.m.): Say what you want about your parents, but it is clear that they’ve raised you really, really terribly. Nobody over the age of 12 should be acting the way you act about fantasy sports, and I’d be doubly outraged if I wasn’t the exact same way. Anyone who would cry as much as you do about a 1996 fantasy football championship game is clearly someone who is avoiding some deep-seeded issues such as, say, Ben Sheets’ 2007 campaign. Most parents in this day and age fail to prepare their children for the rigors of a full fantasy baseball season, never mind football and basketball. Little do our parents know that by telling us not to do drugs and dressing us up to ensure that we would never do girls, we ended up retreating to our room and entertaining ourselves with far more dangerous things such as Sixto Lezcano’s batting average in 1981.
As I close out this week’s session of “On the Couch”, I envision heroin addicts having a much better chance at improving their lot in life than you or me. We’ll never recover from evenings with Sixto.
