Pet Peeves and Manny

I have two new pet peeves. The first is when people post a new facebook status that in some way describes how busy they are. If you are so busy, why are you spending time on facebook? It doesn't make any sense! The second is when a team brings in their closer in a non save situation to 'get work' and he gets lit up for 4 runs in an 8 run game. How is it possible that this consistently happens? I read in a yahoosports article that they would like it to be possible to pull closers in non save situations rather than having the stats count. I'm on board. As someone who follows baseball closely, had a pretty good playing career, and is a current high school coach, it's amazing to me that a closers mentality is so different when it comes to these situations. I believe the politically incorrect term is 'mental midget'.

70%. I'm sticking with that number as what I think the percentage of baseball players using steroids at it's peak was. I've heard 50%, and up to 80%, but the one I've heard most is 70. I bring this up because another legend has fallen in the past 10 days. Manny Ramirez is a performance enhancing drug user. He joins ARod, Bonds, McGuire, and Clemens as the face of the steroid era. I have what I consider a unique view on PED's. I don't care. I really don't. What I don't think is discussed enough is how this was part of the culture of baseball. The key word is culture. When you live and work in a certain environment and something like PEDs are so prevalent it takes a strong person to avoid them. In the case of baseball, only about 30% did.

I've heard arguments calling for asterisks, calling players cheaters, people calling for the other 103 names to be released from 2003, and fans calling out teams and organizations for being steroid hot beds and I think it's a joke. When the number is 70%, every organization had someone doing it, and no one would surprise me if they turned out to be a user. When the number is 70%, what kind of closure would come from labeling 103 players from one season as users? When the number is 70%, who gets the asterisk? Do we put it on any and all records in the 'era'? Lastly, when the number is 70% don't be stupid as a fan, and call out others because you never know who was using on your own team. So all you Red Sox fans who called out the Yankees and said the 4 World Series rings were invalidated, your count is now 90. As in 90 years since your last championship.

For the record, I don't think anything should dampen the "steroid era." It was what it was, lets clean it up, and move on. The blame should not rest on the shoulders of a few, but on baseball as a whole.

Three change in my fantasy baseball league. I dropped Daniel Murphy and picked up Willie Taveras. Dropped Carlos Marmol and Yadier Molina with Ervin Santana and John Lackey (those two pitches looked great) coming off the DL. Grab Murphy as a power binge is about to come and Marmol should be the closer within two weeks. I'm now 4-1-1 and almost lost this week due to two closers 'getting work' and giving up more runs than outs they got.

Arod

You put something like that in the title section of a blog and you are bound to draw a crowd. Especially today. Selena Roberts has written and released a book about the life of Alex Rodriguez and already has huge credibility because of her SI background and the fact that he admitted performance enhancing drug use. I had a lot to say to my nemesis today regarding this subject and was going to base my whole post on it, but I had second thoughts. I really don't want to read the book and give Roberts any money because I don't like the idea of the book. But alas, I have to read it. I want to defend Alex because I think he gets a bad wrap on a lot of things. And I also want to read this book so I don't react just to the leaks. What initially bothered me was that with every leak the word 'might' was attached, i.e "Arod might have used steroids in high school." In my opinion, if you're going to write a tell all about someone, it should be facts, not full of grey area. More when I read it, but I'll leave you with one thought on it, have you ever seen Arod give less than 100% effort on the baseball field? Why does Manny Ramirez get a free pass from fans on what he did to the Red Sox last summer and Alex gets crucified for his faults? Is taking steroids worse than quitting on your team? That's a topic for another day.

With regards to Fantasy Baseball and ARod, I am buying. I've stated before that I used my fourth round pick on him. I felt if my team could stay around .500 and get him back, I could be a real force. Right now I am 2-1-1. I have been lacking in some of the offensive categories and hope we see a few A-Bombs as early as this weekend. I think the Yankees and Alex will do the right thing and make sure he is ready to go without restrictions when he returns so it would not surprise me to see that 5/8 time frame pushed back a few days.

One of the things I love about fantasy sports is how I get to learn about players I never would have known about. I've discussed my love for Torry Holt and my hatred for Joseph Addai, two players I never would have thought about without fantasy sports. Two players on my team this year that I'm really starting to like are Zack Greinke and Joey Votto. It's a pretty funny story on how I drafted them. It was my pick and I wanted to take Adam Wainwright and Bobby Jenks. I had them lined up and was ready to pull the trigger, but my draft clock was off by a few seconds and it auto picked for me. I was at the end of the snake draft, so it immediately made the next pick for me. This shows you how much I know about fantasy baseball. I was pretty pissed off when it happened but if the vote was taken today for MVP and Cy Young award, Greinke would be lock and Votto would get strong consideration. You always love the guys who perform beyond expectation, even when it's only a month into the season.

Miceli Release Curse update: Dropped Mike Aviles for Asdrubal Cabrera, Jeremy Hermida for Justin Upton, and traded Fernando Rodney for Edinson Volquez. On a similar note, I had Carl Crawford on my team last year. I started to hate him because it was the first time he'd had an off year. Couldn't keep his legs healthy and destroyed me in steals. He's on pace for over 100 steals this year. It's okay to hate him right? That's the part of the fantasy fun.

Hope to get to Arod next week, but probably wait until the book is on sale though, give Selena less than full price for it. Until then, nice shoes! Oh that's funny...