The Greatest Christmas Present Ever!

There was some discussion that by writing the following Monroe Doctrine it could absolutely prove the Geek Factor in us. But in all honesty, that ship has already sailed. Many of you reading this have met my cousin Matt and me, our pictures have been on the CFCL Front Office website for years and if any of you have walked away from an interaction with either one of us without screaming “GEEK!” in your head, well you’re just not a good judge of character.

So with that being said, let me introduce you to, perhaps, the greatest game of all time. Allow me to rephrase, I mean – THE GREATEST GAME OF ALL TIME!! It is based tightly on Rotisserie Baseball, with a twist. In Rotisserie, or fantasy baseball, you select 23 players from the National or American League and count their stats from the current baseball year and compare those stats to the other fantasy teams. In an effort to get through the doldrums of the off-season, Matt and I usually come up with some form of entertainment. Sometimes we’ll have trivia contests. Other times we’ve each come up with our Chicago Sports Mount Rushmore and then compared our lists. This year Matt came up with, simply - brilliance.

We have just concluded a Chicago Cubs Fantasy Baseball Draft. Before I explain the rules, let me stress the importance of playing this game with someone you can trust implicitly. If there is no trust, this game does not work. Here’s how we played. We agreed on a set timeframe (1975-present) of Cub teams to select from. We chose 1975 as the starting point because that’s as far back as both of us could easily recall watching the Cubs play. Matt could have gone back as far as 1967 because, well, he’s old.

You would think drafting from 37 seasons would leave A TON of potential draft candidates. That’s sort of true, but the reality is twofold. First, drafting a guy like Sandberg, Grace or Dawson eliminates about six to ten seasons of drafting a secondbaseman, firstbaseman or one of the outfield slots because those guys were there year after year. Secondly, during the late ‘70s, early ‘80s and parts of the ‘90s the Cubs basically sucked and didn’t have many guys worth drafting. You only have to read the names Chuck Rainey and Dickie Noles once to realize that era wasn’t blossoming with talent.

We then constructed our teams that comprised the following positions: 2 catchers, 1 firstbaseman, 1 thirdbaseman, 1 first or thirdbaseman, 1 shortstop, 1 secondbaseman, 1 shortstop or secondbaseman, five outfielders, 1 utility spot (could be a position player or pitcher) and nine pitchers.

We graded our teams on Total Bases, Runs, RBIs, Stolen Bases, OBP, Wins, Saves, ERA, WHiP and K/BB.

In our preliminary discussions we had talked about putting together our “favorite” players on a CFCL team. The competition bug in each of us quickly kicked in as we picked players primarily for their production and secondarily for the “love” factor.

Here’s where it gets fun. We selected a player alternate draft style (first Matt, then me, then Matt, then me). Once the player was selected he was off the board. Below are the complete rosters we drafted. The numbers following the player’s name represents the round in which they were drafted and the season of stats that were used. During the draft we were not allowed to look up any stats. We had to completely rely on our memories. THIS IS WHERE THE IMPLICIT TRUST COMES IN. We could look up the Cubs roster for a given year and we could look up a player’s position eligibility (in order for the player to qualify at a position he had to play at least 20 games during the selected season).

Example: Matt selected Ryne Sandberg with his first pick. Sandberg is off the board. Matt could put him at thirdbase and use Sandberg’s stats from 1982 or put him at secondbase and use stats from any year Sandberg played for the Cubs. Matt did not declare which year he was using of Sandberg’s until the draft was completed. So in competing against Matt, I had to consider if he was going to use Sandberg’s 1984 MVP stats, the stats from 1990 when Sandberg hit 40 homeruns or the stats from the years when Sandberg was stealing in excess of 40 bases. During the draft Matt could not look up Sandberg’s stats, even though he had Sandberg because that would obviously influence his subsequent picks.

One other rule in drafting a player, you could only use the stats from a year in which the player played for the Cubs. Matt also selected Greg Maddux. Matt could not use Maddux’s stats from any Atlanta years; only when Maddux played in Chicago. If there was a year where the player split time with teams (Rick Sutcliffe in 1984) I could only select the stats from the time Sutcliffe pitched for the Cubs that year, not combine the stats from Cleveland and the Cubs.

• Side note for you loopholers: Fergie Jenkins could have been selected since he pitched for the Cubs in 1980 and 1981. But his stats could not be used from the late ‘60s/early 70’s since that was before our parameters. I know some of you would figure that out and say his 20+ wins from the seasons in the ‘60s should count.

For added pleasure (or torture) we decided that since we’re trying to waste as much of winter as possible, one person would draft one player per day. Example: Matt would draft on Monday (deadline midnight Monday night). I would draft a player on Tuesday. Matt would draft on Wednesday and so on. Twenty-three players per team equals 46 days. We started this the day after the World Series ended and completed our draft fourteen days before Christmas. You talk about agony and anticipation.

Then to further our fun, Matt came up with the idea that since the draft ended on Monday, December 12th, we would take until Thursday night, December 15th to submit our pitching years for scoring. We would score that, see who’s leading at the “halfway mark” and then submit our offense years by Thursday, December 22nd and reveal the scoring on Friday the 23rd or Saturday the 24th. Our very own Baseball Christmas Gift to each other. Turns out we didn’t wait until the end of the week. What we noticed is that most of the players had a “Signature Season”, so while they may have put up good numbers over several years, there was that one season that stood above all others. There were only about six or so total players that we really had to deliberate on. Because of that, the business of the week before Christmas and, dammit we wanted to know who won, we submitted our offensive year selections to each other last Sunday night (December 18th).

The draft started pretty much as expected with Sandberg and Dawson going first. Then in the next few rounds we had a run on 20 game winners. Matt built a phenomenal infield while I jumped around filling an infield spot, catcher, outfield and pitchers.

After every pick there would be the typical “Hey nice grab!” comments until the 20th round. That will be forever known as The Bill Madlock Debacle in winter drafting circles. The DoorMatts had completely filled their infield, needing only a Catcher, 2 Pitchers and the all important Utility spot. I was certain Matt would focus on pitching, relief pitching specifically. But Matt would have none of it. He looked over available players and said “Why is Bill Madlock still available? He’d be a great fit at Utility.” I, at the time, needed 3B, OF and 2 Pitchers. Why hadn’t I taken Madlock sooner? “BECAUSE MATT DIDN’T NEED A DAMN THIRDBASEMAN!!!” I was heard to yell into a voicemail. Trying to play it fast and loose, I left my CI and 3B slot open for the majority of the draft because Matt filled his corner slots early (4th, 5th and 13th rounds). “No need to fill those spots on my team if Matt already has those positions filled”, I rationalized. But the dreaded Utility spot came up and bit me in the netherworld.

Here is a complete roster for each.

MATT
Geovany Soto (16) – 2008
Michael Barrett (22) – 2004
Derrek Lee (4) – 2005
Mark Grace (13) – 1998
Aramis Ramirez (5) – 2004
Ryne Sandberg (1) – 1990
Mark Bellhorn (19) – 2002
Alex Gonzalez (15) – 2002
Bill Madlock (20) – 1976
Keith Moreland (8) – 1985
Henry Rodriguez (9) – 1999
Jerome Walton (10) – 1989
Juan Pierre (12) – 2006
Gary Matthews (17) – 1984
Greg Maddux (2) – 1992
Mark Prior (3) – 2003
Mike Bielecki (7) – 1989
Ted Lilly (11) – 2008
Ryan Dempster (18) – 2005
Carlos Zambrano (23) – 2004
Carlos Marmol (21) – 2010
Mitch Williams (14) – 1989
Rod Beck (6) – 1998

RICH
Jody Davis (4) - 1984
Rick Wilkins (16) - 1993
Carlos Pena (15) - 2011
Bill Buckner (19) - 1982
Ron Cey (22) - 1983
Mark DeRosa (14) - 2008
Ivan DeJesus (11) - 1978
Starlin Castro (3) - 2011
Leon Durham (18) - 1982
Andre Dawson (1) - 1987
Moises Alou (6) - 2004
Rick Monday (9) - 1976
Alfonso Soriano (12) - 2007
Bob Dernier (20) - 1984
Rick Reuschel (2) - 1977
Jon Lieber (5) - 2001
Rick Sutcliffe (10) - 1984
Kerry Wood (17) - 2008
Ray Burris (21) - 1976
Joe Borowski (23) - 2003
Bruce Sutter (13) - 1977
Lee Smith (8) - 1983
Randy Myers (7) - 1993


The final standings played out thusly:

MATT
TOTAL BASES 3673
RUNS 1158
RBIs 1112
STOLEN BASES 185
OBP .37062
WINS 103
SAVES 158
ERA 2.8749
WHiP 1.2047
K:BB 2.5780

RICH
TOTAL BASES 3766
RUNS 1247
RBIs 1142
STOLEN BASES 204
OBP .35115
WINS 91
SAVES 181
ERA 2.8433
WHiP 1.1464
K:BB 2.9544

**Disclaimer – While it doesn’t look like much of a horse race (8 categories to 2), it was MUCH closer than it appears. Had I selected different pitching years and Matt done the same it would have been a 3-2 or 2-3 split. Had Matt sacrificed a little OBP and tried to garner some extra RBIs, this could easily have ended 5-5 or 6-4 in his favor. We both have agreed that while having bragging rights over each other is nice, the journey was so much more valuable than the destination.

The drawback to this game, the only drawback (aside from watching your cousin, who is more like a brother to you, steal Bill Madlock?) is that there’s only two weeks to go until Winter Waivers. Not much time to prepare.

Unfortunately it’s too close to Christmas (seven days) to be able to box this up and have it delivered in time to put under your tree. So, forgoing what is surely millions in sales and copyright renewals, we are saying in this Season of Giving – take and enjoy. You will never have this much fun again.

Angels We Have Heard On High

The California Angels of Anaheim Orange County have reportedly signed Alfonso Soriano – check that, Albert Pujols – to a ten year $250 million contract. All I can say is did Arte Moreno ever hear the phrase “Those that don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it”?

Pujols is 32 (at least that’s as many years as he’s willing to admit to). Last season he had his “worst” production of his career. Thirty-two homeruns, 99 RBIs and a .299 batting average. Certainly awesome numbers for 99.6% of all baseball players, but not what you expect out of Pujols. So the Angels had to evaluate:

• Whether last year was an aberration or the beginning of the end for Pujols’ stellar production;
• Whether Pujols is 32 or 33 or 37;
• Whether Pujols could maintain his production until age 42 (or 43 or 47)

Apparently they decided on the more positive side of all those points.

While I am a Cubs fan, I am not the brain-dead Cubs fan that says “The Cardinals organization and all its players all suck because . . . they’re Cardinals.” I respect the success that both the Cardinals and Pujols have achieved. Having said that, I am THRILLED that if Pujols didn’t go back to the Cards he went somewhere other than Clark and Addison. Not that I don’t think Pujols is a good player. He is. I just don’t think he’ll be a good player (worth $25million) in 10 years. We’ve seen Soriano not be able to last eight years successfully.

Moments after Pujols was signed, the Angels dropped another $77.5 million over five years for overrated and post-season bust CJ Wilson. Again let me say, as a Cubs fan, thank you for our Christmas present.

In the Age of Theo we don’t know what to expect as he hasn’t made a “splash” getting players yet. He has said he won’t pay for players on the downside of their careers or go extremely long-term either. So far he’s held firm in the approach. I guess I’m still having my Hendry feelings come up where I could be sufficiently concerned that Pujols would have come here with a 12 year NO TRADE deal.

This off-season, with Pujols, Wilson and catcher Chris Iannetta, the Angels have screamed from the mountaintops that they will NOT be ignored. On paper they have improved. On the field, they most likely have improved for the next year or two. It will be the 3-7 years after that that will be interesting.