Ask Rotoman

The Official Site of Major League Baseball

In these days of java beans and active server pages and whatever other server supplied madness you are delivered (and I know that almost all of these godforesaken innovations actually benefit the reader), I don’t know if this link will tell you that Cliff Floyd is now a Boston Red Sox.

But apparently he is, though the news right now is only posted at mlb.com and not at ESPN.com or Sporsline.

I will only say that the excitement with which I viewed the Expos trying to win the pennant is now dashed by their abandonment of the cause. Not because they have any realistic chance of competing, but because there is no longer any reason for them to protect any player they have.

Colon is as good as gone, but why not Vlad, Vidro and Cabrera, too. Heck, even Brad Wilkerson has to be coveted these days, as do Javier Vazquez, Tomo Ohka, Scott Stewart and TJ Tucker.

Now that the cat’s out of the bag, and I don’t mean Galarraga, why should this sad little franchise maintain any notion of self respect. In fact, management (AKA MLB) should auction off all valuable players now, when they are most valuable, in the midst of a pennant race.

Cynics may note that a potential strike undermines the value of these “free” agents, but don’t let those naysayers question the enthusiasm of the owners, who seem to mean it when they say that a solution is within site.

Not.

As Montreal sells off it’s future the game of baseball, MLB style, dies.

Amen.

Dear Rotoman–

I understand your dilema over a pay/free site and readers questions. Since you want to spend more time with your family (understandable), how about if your wife, daughter and you answer each question. Then it will be “quality family time” along with fantasy baseball. At the end of the season, we will see which one of you dispensed the best advice. We may all be surprised to see who is the real “fantasy” expert in your house. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the excellent suggestion. I know for a fact that my three-year-old daughter was not as high as I was on Todd Ritchie and Mark Little in the preseason, but my lovely wife was convinced Aramis Ramirez was ready to take another big step forward.

ESPN.com: MLB – Summer of love: expect labor peace

I agree with Caple’s analysis of why there won’t be a strike. The owners aren’t trying to win the whole thing this time, which is why for the first time it’s possible to criticize the players’ position.

That doesn’t make the owners more right. This is still primarily an argument between owners, with the owners (richer and poorer) hoping that the players will subsidize them. They won’t.

Which is why Caple may well be wrong. There doesn’t need to be animosity now. There only needs to be enough of a conflict to provoke one or the other sides to not sign the (inevitable) deal. That’s what happened last time, after the strike and NLRB decision.

This time the NLRB may not favor the players. That doesn’t make them wrong. The fact is that because of the structure of this thing the players cam be stupid, greedy, selfish, unappealing and short sighted, and their argument will still be more appealing than that of the owners.

At least until the owners actually release actual books that show their actual financial state.

hey,
before i ask u questions , just wanna know if this is free and is there a limit on how many questtions i can ask u
-thank you, jason

I’ve been meaning to address the issue of the increasingly irregular Rotoman. Here’s the thing:

In the past the site had a members section,. People paid $25 and got most of their questions answered. But the fact was that those membership fees didn’t add up to a month’s worth of compensation, much less for the full season. So, this year, to avoid disappointing people who paid, I got rid of the memberships. I thought I’d sell ads and ask for donations. I answer a lot of reader questions every week and if everyone who got a question answered chipped in a buck once in a while I could probably justify taking time away from my family to do this.

But, the advertising market went south and the tip jar concept didn’t work. The questions kept coming, but with a few rare and appreciated exceptions, the tips did not.

So, I’m stuck.Your questions help me fuel my mlb.com column. But when all is said and done I’d rather play with my daughter than answer fantasy questions. I’d rather eat dinner with my wife than answer fantasy questions. It turns out there are a lot of things I’d rather do than answer fantasy questions, for free at least.

So, postings here will grow increasingly irregular. Please feel free to ask questions. I do answer most of them. In the meantime this site will be evolving into something a little different for next year.

If there is a next year.

Cheers,
Peter

“I just don’t see a future here for me,” Magee said. “I’ve been here three years now and it seems like it’s always something that they have this idea that I’m the fourth outfielder. If that’s the way they feel about me, cool, but I’d like to go somewhere else. I should be given that opportunity to play every day. It’s not like we’re in a race or anything.”

Wendell Magee said that. I cut the quote out of a Rotowire comment. I think it means that Magee thinks he should play because the Tigers aren’t very good. Magee isn’t all that good, but this attitude is a problem. I don’t think Shane Halter, when he was sulking, was saying he should play because the team sucked. I think he said the team sucked because he wasn’t playing. He was wrong, but it doesn’t seem that should matter much.

ESPN.com – MLB – Box Score

The new column at mlb.com should be posted now. It was a day late because I was moving and ended up spending a lot of time driving in the car and then taking care of my daughter, and she fell asleep in the car and so she didn’t sleep when we got to the new house. Which meant I spent my column writing time playing a variety of games and reading a variety of story books.

It was great. Sorry.

In the column I wrote a little about how Jimy Williams feels about Richard Hidalgo. Then tonight I found this quote from Williams at rotowire.com (which, by the way, I think has grown into a very useful service if you have the scratch to pay for it):

Rotowire says: Manager Jimy Williams sort of went off the deep end when asked about the move (benching Hidalgo tonight and starting Orlando Merced). “Yeah. So what?” he said. “What are you getting at? I’m just playing all these players. If you want to make out different lineups, that’s entirely up to you. That’s your opinion. In my opinion, I’m going to put Merced in there, so it’s a manager’s decision.”

Apparently the only thing the media likes about Williams’ style is the single M in his first name. I don’t have a problem with managers explaining their decisions by saying it is their perogative. It is, isn’t it?

But when your team is under .500 the smart thing would be to at least appear to be systematic. Hidalgo is struggling, but the last time Willliams benched him (in mid June) he responded with his best week of the season. I’m sure I’m not the only Hidalgo owner (Jimy Williams included) hoping that history repeats.

ESPN.com: MLB – From terrible Fenway to beautiful Fenway

While I’m ranting, ESPN.com’s new approach to publishing Rob Neyer is an aggravating travesty. They keep changing the date published tag, so things look new. The problem is that if you already read them you’ve clicked to get to something old. (And yes, I usually remember what I’ve read, but that doesn’t always help in this milieu of headline and date shifting.)

Jayson Stark’s stuff suffers from the same duplicity.

I don’t care if there isn’t always new stuff posted. I like to know when there is new stuff posted. But when the story I’ve read on Friday is datelined Monday, I start to feel taken.

Fortunately those Delta Airline pop up ads haven’t infiltrated editorial. Yet.

Delta Airlines Sucks

I can’t promise that I’ll never fly Delta again, but I can promise I will never forget how thoroughly aggravating these pop up ads they’re running over the ESPN box scores are. So, if I have a choice, I’m not flying Delta.

And maybe I’ll endure the less friendly mlb.com interface, since their boxes are better anyway.

Jeff Kent

Whoops. He did it again.

ESPN.com – MLB – Box Score

I’m not convinced we can know everything about a pitcher’s future health from pitch counts, but I do know that taking a fragile guy and having him throw more can’t be helpful.

If you’ve been following the Braves pitch count totals lately, nobody is getting more than 80 per start, as the team is relying on their motley group of ace relievers to carry the starters to the finish line. You can’t argue with the results.

Having Pedro throw 117 pitches at this point is stupid.