When Alston arrived in the big leagues, leveraging was a well-established practice, and he initially went along with it. To acclimate his young starters, he had them routinely face lousier opponents and avoid the most dangerous lineups. For example, in Koufax’s first three seasons he only had one start against the Braves, who were the best rival team. Meanwhile, he faced the doormat Cubs in nearly 30% of his starts.
Leveraging starters helped Alston win the 1959 pennant. Don Drysdale, though not yet in his prime ... was already the team’s best pitcher, as he led the league in strikeouts. Alston had Drysdale face the defending pennant winning Braves whenever possible. In eight starts and a six-inning relief outing, Drysdale personally accounted for 5% of all innings thrown against them that year, with 69.3. No pitcher since then has thrown that many innings against one rival. The Dodgers and Braves ended the season tied, with Los Angeles winning the best-of-three playoff. With other pitchers on the mound, Alston’s squads likely would have lost at least one more regular season game to the Braves and not forced the playoff.... - latimes
Top fantasy shortstops -
1. Hanley Ramirez (.318/.399/.548 PECOTA) .342/.410/.543: Ramirez showed a little less power than forecasted, as he didn't cross the 30 homer mark again, but he drove in over 100 runs for the first time, scored 101 times, and stole 27 bases. It was kind of greedy of Ramirez to take all of the shortstop production for himself, but whoever drafted him was thankful for it.
2. Jose Reyes (.309/.374/.478 PECOTA) .279/.355/.395: Reyes appeared in just 36 games due to injury, which ruined plenty of owner's seasons given how high he was drafted. He had surgery to clean scar tissue out from behind his knee in October and should be ready for spring training.
3. Jimmy Rollins (.293/.360/.458 PECOTA) .250/.295/.423: Want to know the worst part about Jimmy Rollins' disappointing season? He was still an average shortstop offensively. His .252 EqA is the exact average EqA for the position, despite an on-base percentage under .300 and a significant dip in batting average. Rollins did pick things up in the second half (.272/.306/.495) to save his season, but that's little consolation to those in head-to-head leagues who suffered through a .229/.287/.355 start to the year. The one positive is that he still managed to score 100 runs and drive in 77 while stealing 31 bases, so things ended up looking good for him at least in the superficial fantasy sense. - baseballprospectus.
yes, it would be crazy creative, border-line stupid, yet potentially brilliant, if a team could send, say, Luis Castillo and Oliver Perez, who will cost $18 million each of the next two seasons, to the Reds for arroyo, phillips and cordero, saving the Reds $12 million this season, and $5 million next season, while replacing them with legitimate major-league talent… yes, this is far-fetched, and total mock-GM’ing, and i can’t recall the last time i saw a deal like that happen, but, the point is, the Mets and Reds fit one another’s needs, in some way, shape or form, and i would hope they discuss a way to help eachother out, because it looks like they can… - baseballmusings
With Halladay to the Phillies and Lackey to the Sox, the Mets need to get creative to improve their rotation. I’m not saying either of these Aces wanted to pitch for the Mets, but now that it’s a sure thing they won’t, the Mets need to react. Ben Sheets/Erik Bedard are great when healthy, but that may not be often enough for the Mets to compete, and I don’t think Piniero/Doug Davis is the answer either. I think they have to look the trade route. So to get creative, what about a deal with the Reds? They have two starters over the 10mm mark and could potentially look to unload that payroll (Harang & Arroyo). I know Votto is a fantastic, young 1b, and makes league minimum but would the following work: Joey Votto/1b, Brandon Phillips/2b, Aaron Harang/sp, Bronson Arroyo/sp for Fernando Martinez/of, Ruben Tejada or Reese Havens/mi, Luis Castillo/2b, Daniel Murphy/1b, Jefry Marte/3b, Mike Pelfrey/sp, and Moviel/Familia/Urbina -2nd tier SP prospect. Fair? - majorleagueblogging
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