Trade

The Buckeyes trade pick #156 (Buckeye 10th rounder) to the Killer Bees for Geoff Geary.

The Warpigs trade pick #171 (Warpig 11th rounder) to the Inmates for Ambiorex Burgos.

The Buckeyes trade pick #140 (Buckeye 9th rounder) to the Warpigs for future considerations.

The FFTs trade pick #135 (Rhino 9th rounder) to the Killer Bees for Bob Wickman.

Trade

The Mavs trade Jon Garland to the FFTs for Justin Duchscherer and a 2009 8th round pick. (Yes, that's 2009.)

SomWorld Strat Forum

I hate to give any mention to this website at all, but I'm doing so just I can point out what a prick Steve Barkan is. He's the liason for Strat-O-Matic, but if anyone questions SOM on anything, he jumps in to point what an idiot everyone is. And then Prick #2, Dan Patterson, threatens to kick out those "idiots" for having the audacity to question the greatest game ever invented.

I mean, I love SOM, but it isn't perfect - especially in the area of their computer game.

The forum is set up so that you cannot join if you use a "free" email address (Yahoo, Gmail, etc.), so I can only read the posts - not make any. Occasionally I find helpful stuff on there, but I am always amused at the haughty attitude of SOM. They refuse to acknowledge errors in their computer game and some of their other questionable practices (range factor decisions, clutch hitting numbers, etc.), and refuse to even discuss them.

Trade

The Warpigs trade Dan Wheeler and Mike Matheny to the Killer Bees for Luis Vizcaino.

Taxi Spots for the 2007 Draft

Here is the current status for each team regarding Taxi spots. This is the number of players you can keep over and above your 30-man roster. Players kept on the Taxi can be carded or uncarded, but are to be inactive during the season.

0 spots - Warpigs, Buckeyes, DVs
1 spot - no one
2 spots - Oilers, Fungoes, Drillers, Mavs, Inmates, Nads, Killer Bees
3 spots - Wahoos, Rhinos, Sidewinders, Tweeners, Zaps
4 spots - FFTs

Trade

The FFTs trade Pedro Martinez and John Patterson to the DVs for Julio Lugo, the DV 2nd round pick in 2008, the DV 3rd round pick in 2008, a taxi spot in 2007, and a taxi spot in 2008.

Trade

The Zaps trade Brian Schneider and a 2008 8th round pick to the Warpigs for a 2008 7th round pick.

Everything I Know About Baseball

Here is a very nice article about growing up with Strat.

Trade

The DVs trade Adam Miller, pick #67 (Wahoo 5th), a Taxi spot this year, and a 2008 1st round pick to the Zaps for Derek Lowe.

Trade

The Warpigs trade a 2008 2nd round pick, a 2008 3rd round pick, taxi spots in both 2007 and 2008, and Justin Duchscherer to the FFTs for Francisco Rodriguez.

Trade

The Wahoos trade Jhonny Peralta and a 2008 7th round pick to the FFTs for a 2008 3rd round pick.

Trade

The Fungoes trade pick #16 (Fungo 1st), pick #48 (Fungo 3rd), and their 3rd round pick in 2008 to the Rhinos for pick #7 (Rhino 1st).

Trade

The Wahoos trade Justin Speier and pick #77 in the 2007 Draft (Warpig 5th) to the Buckeyes for the Buckeye 2008 2nd rounder.

Update

It's February and the cards are here. I made a copy of the league (for use with the new V12 computer game) with our current rosters. If you would like it, e-mail me and I'll send it to you. This is NOT the league to use once the season starts. It's just one you can use to play practice games or see what's available... that sort of thing.

I also have an Excel spreadsheet of updated rosters and another for the Draft grid. Plus, there's a Word document listing every trade made since last year's Draft. E-mail me for any or all of these.

Speaking of trades... If I counted correctly, there were 28 trades made during January. Those trades involved the movement of 63 players, 23 picks/taxi spots from the 2007 Draft, and 7 picks/taxi spots from the 2008 Draft.

A couple of observations about the cards... There haven't been too many surprises. As always, some looked a little worse than I thought; some better. Mike Mussina got a really good card. The Sidewinders will win 120 games and earn the #1 seed again this year before underachieving in the playoffs, losing a 2nd round series with the [fill in team here]. For the Warpigs, Garrett Atkins' card is almost as good as the Snakes' Miguel Cabrera, and should provide a good complement to Hafner/Pujols/Ramirez; but the Pig pitchers are middle of the road. The Oilers' Freddy Sanchez has a complete column of singles - not even a ballpark single to mess it up. That's pretty impressive. He has another column filled with extra base hit chances. And there was STILL room on that side of the card to gain 12 more points of clutch singles. Yikes!

I can't remember this many top of the line relievers. Papelbon (Fungoes), Nathan (Drillers), Ryan (Sidewinders), Rivera and Rodriguez (FFTs)... I wish I had one.

Starting pitching will be a hot commodity in the Draft, as there just aren't that many good ones. There are, however, a lot of good relief cards available.

So, who will go first in the Draft? Will it be a starting pitcher? Anibal Sanchez? Cole Hamels? Scott Olsen? Josh Johnson? Nate Robertson? With the Nads having a good rotation already, maybe the first pick is a reliever. Takashi Saito? Joel Zumaya? J.J. Putz? Or maybe a hitter. Dan Uggla? Luke Scott? Josh Willingham? Or hell, maybe it'll be an uncarded player. The computer game suggests Eric Brynes as the best player available for the Nads.

There has been some talk lately about possible changes for NASOMA. Among the things to consider are:

• How many players to keep prior to the Draft. The only thing I would consider other than keeping it the way it is, is to just not make any cuts before the draft and make as many draft selections as we own. THEN, cut back to 30(+2). For one icy day, this was discussed in depth; but i think it makes more sense to stay with the current system.
  
• What to do about the uncarded players. Keep it the same? Get rid of them altogether? I think I would prefer we keep being able to draft them, but limit the number you can own at any time to the number of taxi spots you own. In other words, making it illegal to have an uncarded player on your 30-man roster. So if you already have uncarded players equal to the number of taxi spots, you cannot draft any more of them.
  
• Division alignments. Keep them the same? Change them? Do away with them? I like the idea of changing our divisions along roommate lines:
  

1. Warpigs, FFTs, Wahoos, DVs
   
2. Fungoes, Rhinos, Inmates, Nads
   
3. Buckeyes, Mavs, Tweeners, Oilers
   
4. Zaps, Drillers, Sidewinders, Killer Bees

• Number of teams in the post-season. Keep it at 6? Expand it to 8? At 6, the top two seeds get a huge advantage with the byes (all evidence to the contrary last year), but 8 teams would cost more for travel purposes.

Are there other issues to discuss?

Tomorrow is Super Bowl. Gee, I sure hope they do another story on how these are the first two black head coaches to make it to the Super Bowl. I don't know about you, but I can't get enough of that.