Baseball Tonight: A Valentine Treat

The Bream Team:  Another year  and another strong and steady season followed by a disappointing postseason.  To give you an idea just how disappointing, sit right down and digest this fact. The Breamers entered the 2012 playoffs as a #3 seed.  Their lowest seed since 2009 (and that's as far back as I went).  You read that right.  2009 & 2010 they went to the dance as a #1.  2011 saw No-Knees Bream slip all the way to the #2 spot, then in this past season they "eeked" into the playoffs as a #3.  Thats 4 years of rock solid engagements only to be left at the altar.  It's that kind of heartbreak that would eat away at a lesser man.  You would expect a normal person to get discouraged and stray way from the winning formula that drives him to the promised land.  The thing is, Skipper Sid is no normal man.  Armed with a tour de force of keeper options, look for the Sid Squad to come out swingin this year.  When asked for a quote on his team's state of mind with Draft Day 2013 on the horizon, the manager never even broke stride as he rattled off this gem summing it all up.  "It's dark as fuck on the streets and my hands is all bloody from punchin concrete".  Ho-lee shit.  For you vanilla honkies out there, let me see if I can make my latest Rosetta Stone purchase pay off and translate this stuff for you.  Basically, times around Bream Camp are strained at best, but that doesn't deter this man, no sir.  Even though he can't even see what he's throwing at, he's still punching.  Punching to the point that lacerations appear on his hands.  Right now he's only hitting concrete, be it walls or streets, but by God, he's still hitting.  Will this be the year he finally connects with a dude's face.  I like his chances.  Standing in his corner is a who's who of MLB superstars.  Perennial Sid ally is Troy Tulowitzki and don't expect this year to be any different as Tulo is really the only shortstop that provides much in the power offensive categories.  A fact that makes keeping Tulo that much more appealing is that in doing so you drop the ADP of fellow keeper candidates Albert Pujols and Prince Fielder.  Sacrificing rounds 1,2, and 3 to get those 3 faces on your mast head would make just about anyone feel warm and fuzzy.  Knowing that he is heading into the season with 3 of the best offensive players in the league only makes Sid feel like he should swing harder.                                 __________________________________________________________
Lord of Nations: Ooooof. Man would I love to have some of Gob Bluth's forget me now pills right about, well, now.  After 2 years with solid and promising seasons, 2013 turned out to be a dumpster fire.  Where did it all go wrong?  Hmmmm, I don't know.  Was it keeping human turd Desmond Jennings?  Was it drafting Tim Lincecum over CC Sabathia because Sabathia and his ho-hum 8-inning 2 run starts bored me after having him in 2010 and 2011?  Was it forgetting to wear my American flag headband?  It is likely a myriad of reasons, but the most likely being the third option I listed.  Fortunately though, not all was lost. Being able to turn my back on the 2012 season so early on will hopefully prove to be a blessing now 9 months later.  In making my bid for GM of the year I turned to trading anyone with a heartbeat for 2013 picks.  And like rats on a sinking ship, the talent went flying out the door.  Four rats I refused to move were Triple Crown Winner Miguel Cabrera (who legally changed his name to this in the offseason), Jared Weaver (who made the transition from losing love interest Clayton Kershaw pretty seamless), David Wright (who came along with Weaver via trade) and Edwin Encarnacion (probably the best GM move made by the LoN all year).   The only decision left to make is who will be the odd man out when the LoN make history and get their name engraved on the Puckett Bucket.  Triple Crown Winner Miguel Cabrera, you are my Dwayne Johnson, glad to have you aboard.  Edwin Encarnacion with an ADP of 20 doesn't have much pressure to meet expectations heading into the 2013 season (Desmond Jennings, you keep your goddamn mouth shut!!). The 2 on the bubble are former HornsofCons feature David Wright and the Golden Locks that are Jared Weaver.  With the number of pitchers' names that have already been written about currently has me leaning towards those Golden Locks.  Now if only I can remember my headband and parlay that collection of acquired draft picks into a playoff contender come March 31st.
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Twinks & Bears: 2012 Champions. Nuff said. Everything seems to be all roses up in the world of Twinks & Bears, but his adoring public is getting restless. Taking a page out of chess master Garry Kasparov's playbook, the T&B have followed up 2 titles in 4 years by maintaining his status quo and choosing to remain a recluse. Ever so intimidated by the bright lights of the big city that we call the draft, T&B would rather hole up and look at grainy images of balls and beer drinking through the safe little world of G-chat while the real men are out on the front  lines battling it out in the trenches facing the enemy toe to toe and insert war euphemism here.  Life sure must be good back in the ivory tower while we blue collared workers slug through a tumultuous draft day by pulling up our boot straps and rolling up our sleeves to assemble our teams.  Winning a title, great, but I hope it feels cheap.  Mailing in his likely keepers from deep in his northeast bunker, we learned that the revered wizard behind the curtain is most likely keeping Reds first baseman Joe Votto and local minions Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper.  Votto is the only one that may be in question out of that trio.  Strasburg is a hometown hero and thanks to the Nats front office being total pussies and saving sweet little Stevie's arm, he should be fresh coming into a new year.  Also, when reviewed against the other pitchers who won't be available on the 9th day of March, that ADP of 6 is an absolute steal.  Bryce Harper has to be kept thanks to the hefty price tag that he came along with.  As I'm sure all of you remember, and if you don't I'm sure you can hear about it as T&B still screams about it in night terrors, he traded Mr. Everythng Mike Trout to acquire the mohawked madman.  Bailing on him at this point would be a slap in the face to T&B fans everywhere.  Honestly, I don't think the keeper situation is that much of a question.  The real question is, will we finally get to see the man behind the curtain?  We'll see (we won"t). _______________________________________________________   The Seal Clubbers: Once again heading into a season The Seal Clubbers have no choice but to feel optimistic, simply because it would be hard to do much worse. After what seemed like the bubonic plague rolling through The Clubber locker room, the team was hit with the losses of one key player after another. 2012 keeper and team cornerstone, Jacoby Ellsbury, only managed to accrue 303 at bats leaving his team flapping in the breeze for much of the year. I blame the bad karma that probably cropped up when the mad scramble started o even locate the head Walrus Whacker on Draft Day 2012 The Happening. The newly found Seal Sergeant turned in a valiant effort and tried drafting over the phone amidst friends, family, party, and parades, his fate was already sealed. Actually, kudos to you sir. Although you couldn't make the draft personally, you put in a solid effort replicating the atmosphere although you were nearly 300 miles away. Since I'm a little tardy putting out this edition of the Trash Can Fire Report, I have the power of knowledge. The Clubbin Seals have decided to follow the league trend, or set it, and keep multiple power pitchers. Taking Yu Darvish and David Price out of the already shallow pitching pool and sacrificing relatively late rounds while doing so, definitely puts the squad in the catbird seat when it comes to addressing the SP slots. Hot newcomer Todd Frazier, who spells his name with in my opinion one D too many, rounds out the 2012 holdovers and counts as a value pick after he maxed out his ADP for 2013 by coming out of nowhere in 2012. New Orleans has won the bid to host the 2013 Draft which puts it in the Clubbers backyard, not literally unless he's subletting from the Re-Tods. _________________________________________________ Business & Leather: Making his way east, surely while sitting on one of those b-hole donuts, I can only imagine that Business & Leather is wondering what it takes to see this thing through. Johnny Spreadsheet has managed to assemble some of America's finest talent under the age of 20 year after year and its this youth and exuberance that finds him as a perennial fixture in the postseason. It may also be this youth and lack of experience that sees his team fizzle every year come the dog days of September. Things may be a little different this year as it appears the free-lovin San Franny hippie may have found a nice blend of youth and experience as he has chosen to keep proven commodity but still young Adam Jones, the aptly named Chase the Magnificent, and who I would consider the elder statesman of the trio, Carlos Gonzalez. Those 3 guys come out to an average age of 27.6 years. This year it looks like almost all of Business & Leather will be able to rent cars for now. These strict new guidelines may be what caused Giancarlo Stanton to receive his walking papers this offseason. Don't think that a reunion isn't in the works though, as the B&L keeper game plan has left him open to draft in round 1 and one can only assume the right fielder formerly known as Mike is sitting squarely in the cross hairs. Something else that may be fun to keep an eye on early in the draft is the demeanor of the now west coast manager. Assuming we start the draft sometime around lunch the Leathery Businessman's mind will still think it's sometime around 5 a.m. I just hope he brings plenty of rice-a-roni to push us through what I'm sure will be another blur.....Ok, San Francisco checklist: Gay reference (got it, sort of), time zone reference (got it), rice-a-roni (got it). What does that leave?...Ummm, I hope you take a street car to the draft (Fewf, touched em all)......................... I apologize for the uber weak closing but at this point I'm a little burnt out studying everyone else's 2012 and 2013 season. It's time to put down the word processor and pick up the ol' notepad and abacus. See you gents March 9th!

Offseason Dude Swap

2013 Teaser

Trash Can Fire Report 2013 - Part 1

Shitface Dickfarts: 2012 held a magical regular season in store for the foul mouthed moniker, but based on the past postseason hardware earned by the SFDF's, no bucket equals no happiness. Sadly, like a money shot onto Jimminy Glick, SFDF's title defense came up Short. The big question heading into 2013's return to the top campaign is who will have the highly coveted "K" next to their name come draft day? After a 2011 year in which the manager held onto 3 top tier starting pitchers and saw it pay high dividends throughout the entire season, the SFDF general decided to stray away from that winning recipe in 2012 and slap a "K" in front of everyone's favorite Italian, Mike Napoli. Even with an extremely low ADP heading into 2012 for the catcher slugger, I think it's safe to say that the manager would call that decision short bus worthy at best. With a 2012 midseason acquisition of Matthew Stafford's high school team mate, look for SFDF to return to his old tricks and add Clayton Kershaw to pair up nicely with perennial SFDF Justin Verlander. The 3rd slot however is anyone's guess. With the likes of fan killer Josh Hamilton and Evan Longoria as options, the opportunity to lock up 3 superstars pre-draft is definitely there, but the owner has a history of keeping his early rounds as flexible and opting to keep a late round value keeper. If this happens, look for white boy round runner-up Adam Dunn to fill the void. ________________________________________________________

Handyman Slykes: After a year full of what many viewed as dummy trades, the Handyman Slyke manager proved all of the nay sayers wrong when it appeared all of his newly acquired players first passed through the hands of King Midas before making their stop in San Antonio, Kentucky, Tennessee, wherever the hell he calls home. The go for broke mentality got the Handymen into the playoffs as a #5 seed, but he was ousted in the second round. The win now (then) strategy took its toll on his 2013 draft stock, but it wasn't without some reward. The High Handyman did manage to broker a deal that would ensure we will all get the privilege of seeing the Pucketteer manager in a New York Yankees uniform complete with boudin-skin-tight pants. Now if the Handymen are looking to the 2012 roster for a another glorious image heading into the draft, he is likely to see something resembling a Georges Seurat painting. For those of you that view me as a simple guy that merely enjoys the simpler things in life like getting hammered and keeping my lower half well moisturized, you may want to get some 409 and a sponge out. Someone will have some brain to clean off of your nearest wall......Ahem..... Georges Seurat was a French painter famous for his painting method known as pointillism. Pointillism is a painting technique that is exactly as it sounds. Using pointillism, an artist arranges numerous dots to form a larger picture to an observer when viewing the painting from a distance. Now if your skull is still intact and your mind has not been completely blown, allow me to retort. Looking at the HMS 2012 roster you'll see the likes of Felix Hernandez, Gio Gonzalez, Derek Jeter, and CC Sabathia among others. A rather pretty picture. But look a little closer, no closer, closer still, there it is! Just a bunch of dots and smudges. Felix has a high ADP and his will to continue competing on such a crappy team has to be questioned. Gio is in the midst of a PED scandal and who knows how that will end. Jeter is old and coming off of ankle surgery (and gay). CC is a total workhouse that has logged a ton of innings over the last few years and pairing that with a somewhat high ADP has to be worrisome. Looking at things this closely only shows how unclear the Handymen masterpiece is as Draft Day looms on the horizon. __________________________________________________________


The Re-Tods: 10, 7, 9. For those of you that recognized those numbers as the police code for "notify a coroner", then fyi, I'm a little scared of you. If those are your team finishes dating back to 2010, then fyi, I'm not scared of you and maybe you should change something. That something could be Jose Bautista. 3 years in a row on the Re-Tods means Joey Bats has been spending more time in the cellar than a well aged port. Boom, first a French art history lesson now a wine simile. This joint is getting classy. Shit, anyway, where the fuck was I? Oh yeah, Bautista. If kept, Bautista will now reach franchise status. This would mean the ultimate Re-Tod will find himself with a host of options to help round out the Re-Tod keeper triangle. And we all know he'll need plenty of help rounding out that triangle since true Re-Tods should only play with round triangles for safety sake. Matt Cain is another likely vertex on that triangle and could provide a solid known at the Starting Pitcher position heading into the new season. After that, Adam LaRoche could be the third vertex considering his low risk round 20 ADP, although if you count his caterpillar eyebrows as keepers that would put the Re-Tods over the keeper limit. Another likely option fitting the low risk category could be either Aaron Hill and his talents at a shallow position or hot newcomer Chris Sale, who, if paired with Cain gives the Re-Tods no worries about drafting pitching until about the time The Bream Team has tried drafting his 7th player already picked. ______________________________________________


The Pucketteers: The reigning Ultimate Mover from the 2011 season certainly lived up to his reputation in 2012. I think it would be safe to say that the Pucketteers' season had more moves than Michael J. Fox after a Red Bull binge. Some moves good, some moves bad, no, not MJF, all of his moves are extraordinary, I'm referring to the Z-town letdown. One second the Pucketteer's manager is dropping NL Cy Young Winner Robert Allen Dickey, then the next he's acquiring Michael Nelson Trout. Yes, his actual middle name is Nelson. Thus, making him the world's first successful Nelson, and yes I'm totally discounting Nelson Mandela. I'm pretty sure South Africa basically runs itself. Anyway, back to the goods. After a measly 80 moves the Pucketteers found a 6 next to their name and squeeked their way into the postseason, but like a person with an incurable case of the midget, they eventually ended up falling short. Even though the season was a little disappointing, the 2012 trades will really allow the club to reap their rewards heading into keeper declaration day as the manager will be able to claim what may be the biggest no brainer keeper decision of all time by keeping Mike Trout with a round 20 ADP. With that decision leaving available rounds to sacrifice at the front end of the draft, look for the dead-blind-diabetic-ateers to keep Matt Kemp to provide yet another 5 tool threat. But just when I thought I had finally come across a team who's 3 keepers were pretty much a given, Pucketteer love interest Ryan Braun once again decided to spend the offseason cheating and allowed himself to be linked to PEDs. Now, if Bud Selig can pull a Gooddell and ruin a player's season based solely on weak allegations and minimal evidence, we might get the league's first ever keeper declaration through tears of sadness as Braun finds himself swimming in the draft pool come March 9th..............And just in case any of you feel as if my jab at Michael J. Fox was a bit out of touch, don't fret. Thanks to Larry David I now feel like The Fox is fair game. _______________________________________________________


The Grease Missiles: In true ballistic fashion, the Missiles shot of to a red hot start at the onset of the 2012 season only to come crashing back to Earth. The progression from 2011 to 2012 saw the Greasiest Missile advance from gas station receipts and highlighters to a full blown electrical device with keys and everything. He may not be attending the draft in person this year and he claims it has something to do with having a newborn at home, but rumor has it he's built a command center somewhere with a mainframe called the Kurkjian 4000 that isn't exactly portable. Last year, leaving the friendly confines of Big Lake, LA, way back in that alcohol/crawfish induced haze we refer to as "The Happening 2012", The Grease Missiles found themselves looking at a pretty damn good roster and added to it a few great pick-ups along the way (including the aforementioned Robert Allen). In my expert opinion the wheels started to fall off when the manager proved to be a little too loyal by holding onto certain players that had a few hot weeks then turned sub-arctic cold. See Dexter Fowler, Cody Ross. I propose a name change to the Grease Satellites or the Whiskey Dicks. Really anything else that provides his players with a little more sense of prolonged performance. Well, the more I think about it, the Whiskey Dicks may provide a sense of prolonged desire, but lack of performance. I think the solution here is to borrow a page from that genius kid from the AT&T commercial that suggests taping a rocket to his grandmother's back (someone with cable please explain this to the Re-Tods) and changing the team name to the Rocket Whiskey Dicks. With that you have it all. The most likely future Rocket Whiskey Dick is R.A. Dickey, the similarities there are just too much to ignore. Even with the daunting task of facing the American League East this year, Dickey brings the perfect combo of low risk/high reward with his max/min ADP of 20 to the table. From there, the Rocket Whiskey Dicks , Grease Missiles, Greasey Whiskey Rocket Dicks could go any number of different directions. He has a solid SP with a decent ADP in CJ Wilson. He has two proven vets in Matt Holliday and Adrian Gonzalez who always seem to put up solid numbers but really lack the "sexy" keeper factor and come with the baggage of a relatively early ADP. Honestly, I like the idea of keeping Robinson Cano, a premier player at a talent scarce position, now that is one sexy beast. _________________________________________________________ Click Here For Part 2

All You Need To Know

Important Dates:

Deadline To Declare Keepers: 2/9/13

Draft Order Delclaration: 10th place finisher has 24 hours starting 2/10/13,

Draft Day: 3/9/13

Top Players Still Without a Home

Michael Bourn

Adam LaRoche

Kyle Lohse

Same Faces, New Hats

Josh Hamilton - Angels

BJ Upton - Braves

Nick Swisher - Indians

Mike Napoli - Red Sox (although he may have failed physical)

Shane Victorino - Red Sox

Melkey Cabrera - Blue Jays

Jose Reyes - Blue Jays

Josh Johnson - Blue Jays

Mark Buehrle - Blue Jays

Torii Hunter - Tigers

I Need My Fix

As I was listening to my traditional Friday morning pump up song, "Bawitdaba", by Robert "Kid Rock" Ritchie, I realized he was speaking to me. Not just the philosophical me, but the actual me.

....All the crackheads, the critics, the cynics, and all my heroes at the Methodone clinic....

Here I am driving to work for the day, and Kid is calling me a hero, lil' ol me. After spending all of this year from April to October addicted to the crack that is fantasy baseball, I begrudgingly switched to the Methodone that is fantasy football. (For those of you that live your super soft white lives sheltered in Suburbia, USA and don't know what Methodone is, its a drug that is given to people who are addicted to more hard core drugs to help ween them off, although it is also addictive, its a little less destructive). As much as I said I hated fantasy football, and I still swear I do hate it (even though I whomped all y'alls asses and won the whole freakin thing), at least it filled the abyss of darkness that crack fantasy baseball left when it slipped away for the winter.

I went from scoring a fix at Yahoo! Fantasy Sports 15 times a week during baseball season to a measly 3 times a week once I was given Methodone. One little toke Sunday morning, a one-hitter Sunday night, and a quick drag Tuesday morning and the edge was taken off for the whole week (I realize Methodone is not smoked, but I also grew up in Suburbia, USA and don't know much slang for taking pills. Pinching the powder? Tossing tabs? Crushing capsules?)(Sorry for the giant parenthetical phrase)(Now you have to follow your Suburbia math rules and multiply these three phrases)....Now back to the story.

I was off of the hard stuff and knew I hated it's replacement, but there was something I didn't know about the pharmaceutical Meth that was now a part of my life. As much as I longed for the sweet sensation that radiated from the tips of my toes to the ends of my incisors, fantasy football was somewhat occupying my addiction. Now after 4 months on the step down crank, I'm out cold turkey and really finding myself in dark places. Just the other night I woke up in a cold sweat all the while I felt like I was burning up. I needed a score and I needed it quick. I fought my urges for as long as I could, but eventually stumbled my way down to the corner to see if Mr. Yahoo! Fantasy had any goods to peddle. Through hazy eyes I looked down as he opened up the left side of his trench coat to see his stock of merchandise. Out of his toothless grin came his raspy pitch, "I can get you into an already in progress fantasy basketball league for a non-dominant handed HJ". As my brain began to race and process what kind of freak it takes to prefer a non-rhythmic HJ to the silky pleasures of a machine like paced HJ, I suddenly had a moment of clarity and realized I had fallen too deep. Way to deep. I immediately hit the little red circle to close out the page and the cold sweats reemerged.

A couple days have passed and for the moment, I'm clean, for the moment. Don't think for a second I don't often catch my mind wandering and imagining myself dancing through a field of bluebonnets hand in hand with a human sized draft guide. Just the other day, out of nowhere, I started imagining how awesome Howie Kendrick will be this year with the likes of fellow druggie Josh Hamilton in his lineup. Should I take Kendrick in the 5th round, maybe the 4th? Better make it the 2nd just to be safe. No Chris, snap out of it, stay strong. Keep your self clean and clear.

There is no doubt in my mind that when crack is back in season, I will be jumping on it like a starving man on a Christmas ham, but until then, yes Mr. Kid Rock, I will be your Enrique Iglesias.