Draft Results: No Gimmicks Needed

Two weeks before the season started, TheBaseballStars held its annual draft for the “State” league. It’s a 7×7, 10-team, head-to-head keeper league where owners keep five players and a prospect. All five of ‘Stars are in this league. Below is the analysis and results of team “No Gimmicks Needed.” In case you’re wondering, the team is in fact named after Chris Candido (pictured here) whom I felt had one of the coolest monikers ever.

Top 25 outfielders: 2009

Vladimir Guerrero, Ichiro Suzuki, Manny Ramirez in their prime.
Ryan Braun, Carlos Lee, Ichiro Suzuki right now.
Notice a trend? Those are great outfields. Take a wild guess who has owned those guys? Yes, The Greatness. In yet another installment of TheBaseballStars draft advice, you will be receiving the know-how from the bona fide pro. A lot of fantasy experts will tell you to stay away from outfield and grab the harder to fill infield positions.
Screw them.
Get a good outfield. It is a one-stop shop for every stat you need. It is the only place you can a plethora of .300 hitters with 30 to 40 homers with a 100 runs and RBIs thrown in. Want speed? Then this is the best source to get them. Take a look at those two outfield groups above and respect the balance. Get a troika like that and you are way ahead of the curve for offense.

Top 10 shortstops: 2009

OK, so it easy to rank shortstops. And it is cliché to list the big three and feel all important. We don’t do that here at TheBaseballStars. By now you should get a feel of how we operate. The Jon ranks guys by how he would draft then and shoves it in the face of fantasy writers that live and breathe off of stats and hype. FreeSanJose hates the Yankees and will always lean on the side of the power hitter. Newspaperman, in his quest to be universally loved, is the textbook fantasy baseball ranker. PoiDog? When he does decide to write, he usually has a beer in his hand and the other hand in his pants.
And do you know before Hanley Ramirez became the guy, the most famous Hanley was from the video DWYCK? Man, mid-90s rap gear was tight. Bikinis in the ’90s … umm no.
So heh heh heh heh heh heHanlee, Hanlee Leroy you need to read on and good luck or Godspeed or something.

Top 10 first basemen with DH thrown in: 2009

So here is part two of the only fantasy baseball draft strategy guide you’ll need. Today is first base and DH. Why the combo? Because there are no good DH’s anymore. The days of Edgar Martinez are long gone. Great, adding Edgar Martinez to the post will probably spawn about three hits to this site for the whole year. Speaking of hits … guess who is the top first baseman? Albert Pujols … which of course brings us to his wife Deidre Pujols which will generate more hits than Edgar Martinez. For all of you coveters of another man’s wife here’s some pictures of her above … ummm let’s get started. So read on and good luck or Godspeed or something.

Britney Spears, Grady Sizemore and of course, fantasy baseball magazines

Even though The Jon is a couple of days late due to being consumed by the MLB Network, The Jon did not miss out on the best day of the year. What day is this y’all ask? Thought you’d never ask. The Sporting News came out with its fantasy baseball magazine. Like what type of beer to drink on a 10 degree day, The Jon is a fantasy baseball magazine connoisseur.
And after 10 seasons of poring over them, The Jon has come to the undeniable conclusion of The Sporting News puts the best magazine out there. Sure that’s like saying Britney Spears is a better singer than Jessica Simpson, but since TheBaseballStars are to stupid and lazy to put one out on their own, The Sporting News will have to do.

That’s Benito Teixeira, not Mark

I’m trying to wrap my head around the notion that Mark Teixeira might be a Red Sox soon. It seems almost too good to be true. Initially I thought the BoSox might be fine without him, but when it donned on me that this talented slugger is only 28years old and in the prime of his career, this suddenly became a must-have acquisition.
Teixeira in a Sox uni would make me very happy. While all of Red Sox Nation is forever grateful for Mike Lowell’s contribution to the ’07 title, the addition of Teixeira — which would result in Lowell’s departure via trade — could be a move that really turns the Sox into a force to be reckoned with for the next decade. If the Sox sign Tex, Boston could head into 2009 with Teixeira, Pedroia and probably Youkilis all locked up for the next half-decade.

Screw you, Palin, we gotcha debate right here … ooooh a cliche

All Sarah Palin SNL appearances aside and how it might actually work for the Republicans, TheBaseballStars have decided to follow the GOP presidential formula (which has been amateur at best) and try to produce content, now that our bread and butter, aka. the fantasy baseball season, is over. Every now and then, The Jon and Newspaperman will argue the most important discussions of our era. Such as …

If your life depended on a baseball game,
what pitcher would you throw out on the mound?

Newspaperman, you slobbering BoSox fanboy bum.
If you had to pick one pitcher to win a game for you, if your Grady Sizemore baseball card collection depended on it, who would it be? And don’t steal Christy Mathewson.

Hey Newspaperman …

Now that the season is over, Newspaperman will have to resort to poring over baseball cards and random fangirl magazine interviews of his heartthrob known as Grady Sizemore. So being the good friend The Jon is, The Greatness has decided to share this video of Sizemore stretching.

Newspaperman, windex and vaseline will follow. Try to limit computer use to 30 minutes at a time. Look, The Jon knows you want to be a Grady’s Lady, so The Jon will give you more advice:

Fixing the WordPress glitch part 2

Got an e-mail from the Hip-Hop Hindu today about M.O.P. and it got The Jon thinking. Normally The Jon thinking is not a good thing especially when The Jon is trying to get rid of the WordPress glitch The Jon so eloquently wrote about earlier today. So the thought went something like this: Who is more harder than M.O.P.’s Billy Danzenie? He’s been yelling at people for 12 years now.

Just look at this guy.
Real talk.
So it got The Jon thinking again. Who is the hardest baseball player today? First off, the guy can’t be no scrub hitting .240 or a pitcher sporting a 3.50 ERA. He has to be a top 25 player. He can’t be a heartthrob along the lines of Grady Sizemore and David Wright. The player has to be a guy you are willing to take to street fight like Danzenie over here. And he has to follow the long line of baseball hardcore players of seasons past.

The hardest player of today has to follow along the lines of the enforcers of the past …

Bob Gibson

They changed the rules of the game because this guy was so dominant. His mug was so intimidating Major League Baseball said “Hey, you are scaring all the hitters. We are going to lower the mound so they don’t have to change their pants as much when you look at them.”

Dave Stewart

Hey Dave, The Jon has never said anything about your Mom. Back in the late ’80s – early ’90s I said you were the bomb. Bomb. Not mom.

Dave Parker

Hey Dave. It’s your time to hit.

“I’m the Cobra dammnit. I still got two hits left of this.”

And the winner for 2008 hardest is

Four Bagger: The Stretch Run

There’s nothing like a good ol’ ass-kicking to rekindle one’s passion for fantasy baseball. Fortunately I was on the giving end of this badboy.

Thanks to the efforts of Grady Sizemore and Vernon Wells, I was able to annihilate our very own ‘Oz this week 13-0-1 guaranteeing my spot in the playoffs, and almost solidifying my rank as the No. 2 seed in the TBS league playoffs. We’re still a week away from the post season, but things are looking good, and that first-round bye is looking better than ever.