Am I Really Benching Mike Mussina?

Yes, of course I am.

Basically, I have more confidence in the Rangers offense to beat up on Moose than I do in Mussina to shut down the Rangers.

Not only do they have Josh Hamilton, Milton Bradley, Ian Kinsler, Michael Young and now Chris Davis, but they have the #1 OPS in baseball against righties.

This was an easy decision. I hope Mussina does well, but I'm expecting 4.1IP, 6ER, 3BB, 9H, 2K and I don't want anything to do with it.

Am I Really Starting Dave Bush?

When a guy who needs to make up ground in ERA and WHIP goes out of his way to pick up Dave Bush, it seems more than a little odd, but that’s exactly what I’m doing today. His ERA is 4.94, his WHIP is 1.23 and he only has 45 strikeouts this year. Not only that, he’s playing on the road against the first place D-Backs.

So let me explain my reasoning.

First off, in June, Bush is 3-2 with a 3.09 ERA in 32 innings with 18 Ks. This qualifies him as a reasonably hot pitcher.

In his first eight starts, Bush was 1-5 with an ERA of 6.56 and a WHIP of 1.46. Since his May 22nd start against the Pirates (a game that I was at and for which Bush is warming up in the picture) Bush has really turned things around. His ERA is 3.00 and his WHIP is below 1 over the course of his 6 most recent starts.


Bush is on a hot team, too, as his Brewers have gone 9-4 in their last 13 games. On the other hand, the D-Backs have won only 4 of their past 14 games. I’m not going to suggest that this means Bush will pitch well, but it gives me that much more confidence throwing him out there.

The main reason that Arizona is scuffling so badly is because they’re not scoring runs. Over the course of the month of June, they’re only averaging 3.23 runs per game. They’ve scored a mere 84 runs this month. To put that in perspective, the lowly Blue Jays, whose offense was bad enough to get John Gibbons fired, have scored 109 runs in June and the Phillies scored 67 runs the week of May 21 to 27.

It’s pathetic really. The D-Backs have scored 3 or fewer runs in 18 of the 26 games they’ve played this month and they’ve only scored more than five runs three times. This is not an offense that scares you.

In fact, Arizona’s offense has never scared Dave Bush. In his career, he’s 4-0 with a 3.55 ERA against the snakes. Bush has dominated against current members of the D-Backs,. As a group, they’re 17/85 for a line of 200/244/400. Not only is their OPS a meager 644 against Bush, he’s struck out 17 while walking only two.

You might say that Bush’s road numbers seem awful, but his 6.92 road ERA is definitely not a reflection of his peripherals, which are basically the same as they are at Miller Park.

So this is a long way of justifying my choice. The fact that it’s taken this much effort to prove my point shows that this isn’t exactly like starting Johan against the Giants, but I’ve convinced myself that I’ve made the right call.

Trading Pitching for Pitching

By now, nearly every baseball fan admits that wins really are a silly stat, but I have a soft spot for the pitchers who have been putting up their wins on my roster. This means that I’m on the verge of being a little too patient with guys like Mike Mussina and Dice-K.

Dice-K’s put up 9 wins in my lineup, to go along with 60 Ks in 70 innings, and ERA of 3.21 and a WHIP of 1.39 (no thanks to those 40 BB). Musina’s a new addition to my roster, but in 22 innings, he’s won me a game, put up 11 Ks and respectable ratios of 3.68 and 1.14 in limited playing time.

The thing is, there’s no way this is going to continue. I like Mussina, but he turns 40 this year, his strikeout rate is low (5K/9IP) and righties have an OPS of .896 against him. It’s not that I
don’t think Mussina’s good, I just want to do better.

As far as Dice-K goes, he’s clearly pitching over his head. As others have pointed out
in great detail, his homer per fly ball rate is too low and his walk rate is too high. The strikeouts are great, but the blowouts are awful, so I want to trade him while his value is as high as it is.

I’ve offered the two of them straight up for Ervin Santana and Jonathan Sanchez.

Sanchez has good numbers at a glance, and they look better the more you look at them. His ERA’s below 4, but it’s been falling all year long. He’s lowered his ERA in 14 of his 17 starts this year and his only season-long problem is his high walk rate. The one time Sanchez has allowed more than 3 earnies since May 6th was at Coors Field, so I’m not worried. The gaudy strikeout totals lure you in, but there’s more than that to Jonathan Sanchez.

I’ve been saying since April that Ervin Santana’s this year’s version of Fausto Carmona, but maybe I should revise that. Santana’s this year’s version of Fausto Carmona plus about 65 strikeouts. For a pitcher who was wildly inconsistent last year after a promising 16 win 2006 campaign (remember those home-road splits?) Big Erv has made huge strides. His ERA has stayed between 2.02 and 3.40 all year long, and he’s only walked more than three once.

Big Erv has solidified himself as one of the best young pitchers in the game thanks to his hot start to 2008. Seriously, Santana is up there with Lincecum, Volquez and Marcum as young starters who have really put it together this year. I think that getting him as a part of this deal would be amazing and he’s the guy I really want.

Meet My Fantasy Team

Tonight, June 29th 2008, Major League Baseball's season reached its halfway point, with my fantasy baseball team mired in fourth place in my twelve team league. As I make the decisions that shape my season, I'll blog about them here. Don't worry, that doesn't mean you'll read about every single trade I reject and every single Alexis Rios grounder to short. But this is where I'll vent when Willie Taveras puts up 5 steal nights on my bench or whenTodd Jones blows a Justin Verlander gem and it's where I'll explain the reasoning behind the pitchers I pick up for spot starts. More than anything, it will memorialize the second half of my first fantasy baseball season.

Before I go into any more detail, I should explain that, personally, this team is more important to me than the three others I manage, since it’s part of a league that I started this year with 11 of my fantasy baseball-playing friends. I’ve indulged in a lot of trade-talk and trash-talk this year so my reputation as a baseball fan is, to a certain extent, on the line.

The league’s structure is nothing fancy; we’re talking traditional 12 team 5x5 mixed roto league (Average, R, HR, RBI, SB and ERA, WHIP, Ks, W, S).

Here’s where I stand in it so far: I’m in fourth, with 74 points. The three teams ahead of me have 94, 91 and 88 points so I’m pretty far back from the leaders. As tempting as it is to discuss each of the ten categories in excruciating detail, I’ll just give a quick summary of what it’ll take for me to re-join Dan, Nathan and Luke atop the standings.

I need to improve my starting pitching, which is currently maddening, so I don’t have to rely on spot starts from Dave Bush for quality innings. I need Rafael Furcal and JJ Putz to come back from the DL without much delay and start producing. More than anything else, I need my team to stay reasonably healthy for the rest of the year. My team’s not good enough to win this league right now, but I’m a trade or two away from having all the pitching I need to win it all.

Take a look at my current roster. I’m embarrassed by the back of my rotation, but other than that I like this team:


So, halfway through the season, I’m in fourth place with a decent team. I’d be lying if I said I thought my team was the best in the league or if I thought I had the best chance of winning it, but I have everything I need to put together a big run. I’ll blog about my progress- good or bad- until the end of the season as I try to climb from fourth to first.