There are so many interesting stories on this team, which is not surprising when a team is the best in baseball with so many question marks working out in their favor. They are easily the best team in the majors by a wide margin. Their Pythagorean record is TEN games better than everyone else. It will be a hot October in Chicago this year and nothing would make me happier than a Cubs-Rays World Series. Well, not nothing. Certainly if Scarlett Johannsen came over wearing nothing but a fur coat and stilettos that would make me happier, but in baseball terms I can't wait to see how things play out.

5. How about that rotation? Led by the comeback of Ricky Nolasco, who has been very solid with a 121/35 K/BB ratio in--9.1 innings and a 3.92 ERA, somehow the Marlins have cobbled together a rotation. This is nothing short of a miracle, as they now are featuring a rotation of Nolasco, Olsen, Volstad, Sanchez and Josh Johnson; it is not a stretch to say that fantasy owners may well have expected zeros from all five in the dollars earned department....

1. The resurgence of Brad Lidge. The Phils are 53-0 when leading after eight innings, in large part due to the success of Brad Lidge. After a disastrous 2006, which was mostly the result of atrocious luck, Lidge got 19 saves in 2007 with his luck factor being neutral. This year the luck pendulum has swung the other way; Lidge has an 84% strand rate and is letting up only 0.4 HR per nine innings......

Drunks vs. Half Efforts-Here we have a comparison of drunk players versus the 30-3 pasting of the Orioles by the Rangers, where Ron Washington told his third base coach not to send anyone home unless they could score easily. Drunken players are far worse IMO. My favorite drunk player story is when Paul Waner rounded second base and ran into the bullpen, sliding into the home plate in the bullpen because he thought it was the actual home plate. That, my friends, is a drunk.

It really comes down to a basic principle from the stock market and that is risk vs. reward. In the stock market, you could purchase a stock, but hedge your position by buying a put option (a contract that allows you to sell the underlying equity at a specific price and by a specified day). That way, you don't lose as much if the stock goes down. However, you also limit your potential reward since the cost of the option must be factored in when calculating your net profit if the stock goes up.

In fantasy football, handcuffing your RB certainly does reduce your risk, but it also limits your reward.....

Previously I wrote about Ellsbury's beginning decline, and stated:

The point here is that we have to keep in mind that we are still in the area where we cannot say with any certainty just what type of player Ellsbury will be nor how good he actually is. He may very well be Johnny Damon, but he may also be Cristian Guzman.

Ellsbury is fairly close to hitting rock bottom and is barely even a credible major leaguer in his current state. From a scouting perspective he is essentially a slap hitter with gap power who can be pitched to inside without fear of reprisal. Pitchers are now taking advantage of this inability to hit the inside pitch with authority,

The title says it all! This is video of Elvis frollicking in the rain during 70s night at Wrigley Field.

I wasn't going to do a post on this topic until I heard someone today say on a podcast that Bay isn't even close to Ramirez, and it appears that many analysts feel the same way. I can't figure out why, so here is my take.

Flabbergasted is not the right word. Well, maybe it is; I was very surprised to hear this sentiment on more than one podcast. I was catching up on my weekly podcasts this morning when more than one opined that Ramirez is preferable to Bay, with one thinking it was not even close. So giving them the benefit of the doubt in as much as possible, here is my take.

My honest opinion is that most analysts write pitch or ditch columns premised on short samples because it a. gives them something to write about and b. it gives them the veneer of accuracy and knowledge.

This can't really be understated. The fantasy "blogger" community grows larger virtually every day and it is difficult to write about aspects of fantasy baseball that haven't already been addressed by a hundred other guys. Doing a pitch or ditch column that uses some statistical backing not only gives bloggers a column every week it also allows then to bandy about various statistics to show you how knowledgeable they really are. This veneer of credibility is key because they can go back after the fact and show you why their prediction was correct.

Let's take a look at two examples of flawed reasoning.....

With "Big Z" Brad Ziegler setting scoreless-innings-pitched records for the A's and "Little z" Jeff Samardzija picking up a save for the Cubs, there has been some swirling speculation about the future relief prospects for these two. What are their likely bullpen roles, and are their skills worth adding to a fantasy team?

The Fantasy Baseball Roundtable, a consortium of experts takes on the following question:

With Jorge Posada looking like he is out for the season (and now out for the season at the time of this posting), and folks like heavily hyped Victor Martinez and J.R. Towles not playing anywhere near expectations, who are the best catcher options likely available in the fantasy free agent market right now?

I read some advice that I disagree with on a website regarding preparation for next year. What is the advice? It advises that we should average three sets of projections.

If you haven't realized it yet, there is a strong relationship between BABIP and HR/F with LOB%. Obviously, if a pitcher has been getting "hit lucky" with his BABIP, that means fewer opportunities for the opposing team to score and more runners stranded. Similarly, a pitcher with a low HR/F will also be stranding more runners as the homers that are guaranteed to score a base runner aren't being hit with as much frequency, increasing a pitcher's LOB%. Anyway, with that bit of wisdom out of the way, here are the lists.

Boy these are very dark days for Astros fans. Just yesterday I was reminiscing with an old friend about the Mets-Astros series in 1986, which is still probably the greatest series I have ever seen, and I say that as a life-long Yankees fan. How far have the Astros fallen since those days? It is sad, and the only explanation I have for Wade's continued employment is that Ed Wade is practicing voodoo on the Astros' front office.

I have a sneaky suspicion that analysts that claim to glean information from scouting are essentially making things up. Yes, I think in most instances they are doing an ex post facto justification of a lucky selection. There are a number of reasons I believe this:

1. Few if any bloggers have any experience in scouting. None that I know of attended the scouting school, and the idea that you can learn scouting from watching baseball without being told what to look for is akin to saying by reading math books I can understand how to calculate some of the equations in Einstein's Theory of Relativity. In both cases a true genius could do it but the rest of us cannot.....