Didn’t know this last week…

I’m a sucker for ongoing themes, they’re easy and my reader(s) love them. in that vein, I’m going to attempt to lead off every post from here on out with a Jack Cust or Milton Bradley item. As long as they keep playing this way, it will be pretty easy.

1. Bradley is a man on a mission. He’s cooled off a little (and by that I mean he’s merely holding steady, not shooting through the stratosphere), but the man leads the AL in OBP and OPS. If he’s playing against one of his former teams, watch out. Against the A’s and Indians (the two in the AL), he’s posting a roughly 1.300 OPS. I’m not going to claim he’s going to stay healthy all year, but for the first time in his career he has a manager who is resisting the urge to use him in the outfield everyday (when healthy he’s a gold glove contender) and letting him take it easy as the DH. Now, if he can just resist the urge to attack opposing umpires…

More things I wish I knew earlier

Normally, I wouldn’t post right on top of something another Baseball Star wrote, but what they hell did Newspaperman’s oggling over the Red Sox have to do with anything relevant?

1. Why I love Jack Cust and Milton Bradley. At various times this season, I have convinced myself that JMFC was completely finished, and on the verge of a ridiculous breakout. Turns out, he’s just good, not great, but very worth playing when the matchups are right. He homered again Sunday, against a LOOGY, no less, and suddenly has a very respectable season working. Similar things could be said for my favorite Angry Black Man. Bradley continues to prove that whenever he’s healthy, he’s worth playing. Of course, that will only amount to about 100 games if you’re lucky, but the guy will probably go down as history as the best player to never fulfill his promise simply by constantly getting hurt.

In the midst of a magical weekend

It’s a holiday weekend, so it’d be pretty tough to screw this up. But this has been a magical weekend for me, and not just involving baseball. But for the sake of this blog, I’ll keep it to the game as we’ve got many things to cover and a few pictures to show off.

It all started on Friday when I headed to McAfee Coliseum in Oakland to watch the first of a three-game series featuring the Red Sox and A’s. When I bought the tickets in March, I told myself it didn’t matter who was pitching just as long as it wasn’t Tim Wakefield, who I’ve seen on four or five occasions already.

But what do you know. We walk in and see this …

The Tale of Jack Mother F-ing Cust

The one or two of you who were reading our site last year may remember my love affair with one Jack Cust. His out-of-nowhere performance earned him the nickname Jack Mother Fucking Cust. For the purpose of last year, I based that on his sometimes out-of-this-world performances. His 13-game stretch that introduced him to fantasy players everywhere that included eight homers and 20 RBI. His seven RBI outburst against the Tigers. His .912 OPS, 26 homers and 86 RBI in just 395 at-bats.

But, as we all know, it wasn’t all roses for JFMC. He managed to lead the league in strikeouts (164) and had several long bouts of complete ineffectiveness (two RBIs over one 24-game stretch, another eight-game stretch with 0 RBI and two other 6-plus game stretches without an RBI).

Which brings us to today. Cust has 5 RBI, just five hits and one homer so far this year.

Season opening tidbits

In less than a weeks time I’ve gone from feeling on top of the fantasy world (in my little bubble anyway), to pretty much feeling like crap about my team, particularly in the TheBaseballStars League. On draft day I felt like I crafted a gem, a squad that would be a force to be reckoned with. Now I’m just struggling to get a full team on the field.

Daisuke to have 3 starts in opening week?

Ever imagine a starting pitcher having three starts in any given week of fantasy baseball? If this were the 1950s or 1960s, then it’d be common place. But in this day and age of the five-man rotation? Yeah, it’s possible.