Salient is an excellent design with a fresh approach for the ever-changing Web. Integrated with Gantry 5, it is infinitely customizable, incredibly powerful, and remarkably simple.
DownloadNot a father. Madi is the three-year-old daughter of Ladd Davies, a staff writer at The Late Round QB.
But Madi has type 1 diabetes, maybe better known to you as juvenile diabetes, an autoimmune disease where the body attacks the pancreas. Historically, the only way to deal with this is vigilant – hourly even – testing of blood sugar levels. You can barely imagine the problem this is for parents or families of these children, taking shifts throughout the day and night (even more problematic at night) to make sure they administer synthetic insulin when needed.
Enter the D.A.D – a highly trained service dog who can detect the scent on a diabetic person’s breath that can tell if they are going too high or too low on the blood sugar levels. The dog’s sense of smell is so sensitive that it can detect a high or low BEFORE it even happens. The dog will wake up out of a sound sleep if they smell their person having a dramatic rise or fall and alert them (or in this case alert Madi’s parents).
Of course, these highly trained service dogs are expensive – currently $17,000. But what peace of mind they could give Ladd and his wife, and of course Madi.
So in the community of fantasy writers, there are a number of people who have already come forth to help the Davies and I will list some of them here and give you links to get more information because ANYTHING you can do, subscribing as a twitter follower or playing in a FF league that supports this cause or even Paypalling a dollar or two, will help us get a D.A.D for Madi.
Here are some of the efforts to help Ladd and his daughter:
Jim Day (@Fantasy Taz) has been setting up FF leagues at MyFantasyLeague.com that have a $50 buy in where half the money will go towards getting a D.A.D and the other half will be paid out to the league winners. You can contact Jim or go to MFL and look for the FFHelpMadi Leagues.
Twitter Donations:
You can learn more about Madi’s story and donate HERE or if you wish you can send money to PO Box 555 Gonzalez, FL 32560 making checks payable to “D.A.D for Madi.”
I know you were looking for some baseball information here but sometimes we have to deal with real issues and I appreciate any of you who can help make the situation better for Madi and her parents. {jcomments on}
This trade review was posted at the TOUT Wars website on Monday.
The Deal
05.13 |
Gene McCaffrey |
GBalfour |
Oak |
Trade |
05.08 @ 15:44 |
05.13 |
Gene McCaffrey |
RDetwiler |
Was |
Acquire |
05.08 @ 15:44 |
05.13 |
Perry Van Hook |
GBalfour |
Oak |
Acquire |
05.08 @ 15:44 |
05.13 |
Perry Van Hook |
RDetwiler |
Was |
Trade |
05.08 @ 15:44 |
Why?
Gene sent out this note: “I have one closer (Balfour), and I am entertaining the notion of dumping Saves. Any one of you can help me with this decision by offering a hitter or starting pitcher of comparable value. I know that nobody wants to witness the spectacle of my indecision; you are sensitive souls. Thank you for your consideration.”
Perry responded with the best player.
Gene has one point in Saves with one closer. He could have added another, but that would have cost him a decent player and likely points in other categories.
Perry has gotten 43 innings of excellent ERA out of Detwiler, who has allowed a fair number of base runners and shouldn’t be expected to continue with a >3.00 ERA, so dealing him has an element of sell high about it.
Reality
Gene was able to deal his near-worthless (to him) reliever for one of the more beloved young pitchers this year. As a starter, Detwiler helps in strikeouts only a little since he isn’t a K/9 guy, but Gene is in good position to gain with any increase in Ks. Detwiler should also help in Wins, even if he is not a plus in ERA and WHIP. Meanwhile, Perry, who is in the middle of the pack in Saves, has a chance to gain 5.5 easy points by adding a third closer (joining Holland and League). Perry’s risk is in strikeouts, where he could quickly lose four or five points. Gene stands to gain a few more points than Perry in the deal, but any points the frontrunner (Van Hook) would get could prove decisive.
Final Note
Phil Hertz had a piece in USA Today this week about how you can throw draft day prices out the window once the season starts, that once the season starts values change because draft prices sometimes reflect draft conditions rather than player value, and a player’s value on his fantasy team changes in context depending on how the categories in his league shake out. While Phil is certainly right that it isn’t fair to judge his recent NL Tout trade of Ike Davis ($25) for Jeff Samardzija ($14) based on the prices, figuring out what is going on in the league and how teams did, in this case on draft day, makes those prices pertinent. So how much did Balfour and Detwiler cost? Gene took Balfour in the 13th round while Detwiler lasted until the 19th. In the Tout Mixed Auction, Balfour was $11 while Detwiler was a reserve pick. I guess Gene would agree with Phil.
And as I noted in my comment on that site, there were additional benefits to this trade for my team. My closers out of the draft were Greg Holland and Brandon League. While League still has the job, it may be a tenuous hold, so adding Balfour makes sure I have two closers and hopefully a third to mix in based on schedules/matchups.
While my starting pitchers – Justin Verlander, Clay Buchholz, Hishashi Iwakuma, Wade Davis, Travis Wood, Bartolo Colon and Detwiler, have been the best in the league to date, most of that has come without my #2 SP, Jered Weaver of the Angels. So while I can mix and match the sixth starting spot to go with the three closers now, Detwiler will be more than made up for when Weaver returns from the DL. {jcomments on}
Hopefully, you read the reviews of the weekly free agent bidding in the different Tout Wars leagues. Even if your league uses a different format for bidding, I think there is a lot to be gained – if nothing else which hitters and pitchers the very experienced players in AL, NL or Mixed leagues thought warranted rostering and how much value they think they have.
This week’s bidding in the mixed draft league that I am in was very interesting as both a good young power hitting outfielder in Marcell Ozuna of Miami and a speedy, young middle infielder in the Dodgers’ Dee Gordon were available. So which one did I go after and why?
Good question – glad you asked. While I am currently seventh in steals with 23, 4th thus two more points in the category is only six steals away and there are six teams behind me only 1-3 steals back. My best contributors in that category are Jean Segura, Jose Altuve, Bryce Harper and Austin Jackson. But I should also get double-digit swipes from Paul Goldschmidt, Todd Frazier and Kyle Seager, so I think I am in decent shape. Meanwhile, my middle infield slots are filled with Segura, Altuve and J.J. Hardy, all good contributors in several categories, and to play a MI in my UT slot would diminish my ability to get power from the extra hitter. Still, it was a consideration.
But Ozuna, assuming he stays in the Marlins' lineup (I think that is pretty likely given the good start he has had), would help in HR where I am currently tied for 4th/5th with 54, only two round trippers out of 3rd and five behind 2nd place; Runs where I am in the middle of the pack but can gain a quick point(s) with just one or two more; and RBI where I am third but could eventually get to 2nd place. At the same time, he would help with my on-base percentage where I definitely need to make a move.
The bottom line for my decision was that my only “weak” slot is my fifth outfielder, which is currently manned by either Fernando Martinez (a failed try last week) or John Mayberry Jr., who is playing more now but not really cementing his spot in the Phillies' lineup. My UT slot is filled by the emerging Mitch Moreland, who doesn’t look like he will gain the outfield eligibility I had hoped for on draft day. But with my corner infielders hopefully staying healthy, I have no other place to play Moreland.
So I decided to go hard after Ozuna and back the bid up with a shot at the Padres' Chris Denorfia, who is doing quite well as a full-time fly chaser for the Padres with Cameron Maybin injured. I looked at the last two weeks of bidding for likely ranges (the first two weeks have people plugging holes from draft day and more players available so the bids were higher. Last week, the highest bid for an outfielder was $13 for Oswaldo Arcia and $5 for Jordan Schafer. The previous week saw a $19 bid for Travis Snider (reasonable if you remember the BA tear he was on then) while Diamondbacks' shortstop Didi Gregorius, new to the pool, had $18 thrown at him and Yuniesky Betancourt fetched an $11 bid.
Remembering that Tout uses the Vickrey system (where the winning bid is adjusted downward to one dollar more than the runner-up bid), I felt I needed to at least be in the twenties to have a chance to get Ozuna but being in the thirties would greatly increase my chances. As one of the five teams in the 15-team league with $90+ remaining, I also felt I could stand to bid a third of what I had left to upgrade that OF spot. There were no teams with less than $50 left, one in the fifties and three in the sixties for what that is worth.
So what would you bid with $91 available?
It might help you to know that there was only one pitcher I was interested in bidding on, in part because my starters – Justin Verlander, Clay Buchholz, Hishashi Iwakuma, Ross Detwiler, Bartolo Colon, Wade Davis and Travis Wood have been terrific so far. Yes, in their last starts Detwiler and Colon haven’t maintained but as a group they have me with 18 wins, tied for 4th/5th; sixth in strikeouts with 241; first in ERA at 2.623 and second in WHIP at 1.1383. So it’s hard to replace one. The only one I am going to bid on is Brewers' rookie Hiram Burgos. I would have also bid on Jerome Williams if the new Angels' starter had not looked so poor in his last start since I had him active in LABR’s AL league.
Okay, back to decision time on Ozuna.
I bid $37 and Ozuna is now in my lineup. Surprisingly, there were only two bids for him, and Tom Kessenich's (NFBC/STATS) $27 bid meant I paid $28 for the young Marlins' outfielder.
I got even luckier with Burgos as I had the only bid, so I only had to pay $1 for him. As all free agents added each week have to be active for their first week, I will hope that Burgos has a good outing next weekend in Great American Smallpark, but if not I have some buffer in my league leading ERA and WHIP.
If you didn’t read the Tout recap on Monday, there were eight bids on Dee Gordon and the $50 bid by Ray Guilfoyle was reduced to the $39 winning bid. While I think the Vickrey system takes some strategy elements out of free agent bidding, it does work nice when there is a player you really want/need and can figure out the price you would be willing to pay if you had to but often get a break if there aren’t others that are as enamored. Great to have Ozuna and Burgos this week for a total of $29 – less than a third of my remaining FAAB budget. {jcomments on}
Saturday afternoon I wished I had a way to blog this in real time – but on the other hand there are some in my AL keeper league based in LALA-land who might happen upon it.
So the best I can do is set up the FAAB question for you and then give a recap of what happened.
The GAR is an eleven team league that plays deeper because each team has three reserve spots in addition to DL slots, and the league has very deep Farm Team rosters for minor league prospects.
You already know the subject of the question, Papa Grande the nickname for Jose Valverde the past and present closer of the Detroit Tigers. Valverde who signed a minor league contract with the Tigers after the season started was just called up this week and already has two saves. So while we say there are always closers that come available during the season, here is an extreme case – an experienced closer for a contending team that was not available in the auction (or minor league draft).
And because of that limbo status on draft day, in this league he is treated as a normal free agent - bid and salary wise – he will count $5 against the cap. But he can’t be retained next year and he can’t be traded within the league this year.
So how much of your $100 FAAB budget would you bid for Valverde?
My team is currently in 6th place having moved up seventeen points this week with a good not great week but categories starting to settle at least a little. In fact the Live Scoring would show me gaining three points and temporarily at least in 4th place (of course that could change in an hour). I have $92 left and have Fernando Rodney and Ernesto Frieri whose eight combined saves have me in 5th place in the category, one save behind fourth place and six off the lead. So Valverde if he remains the Tigers closer for the balance of the year would put me very close to all eleven points or certainly competing for ten or eleven.
But the rule regarding his status will effectively eliminate most of the teams behind me in the standings – although there is one team with a good roster off to bad start who might well think he could win or at least place if things broke right for him. But he has only Seattle closer Tom Wilhelmsen on his roster. The two teams who started Saturday just ahead of me also need saves to contend and while they can certainly obtain them via the trade route as teams rebuild (we have no trades in the first month of the season so next week will be the first chance to test those waters) this is a rare chance to buy them. One of those teams has a couple dollars less than I do and the other has several dollars more. The three teams atop the standings all have $92-97 left to bid with.
There is one other factor before you guess how much to bid – the league does allow zero dollar bids but only after you have used all your $100 (or any salary of a player bought in the auction reclaimed if they were to be traded to the NL IF you wanted to drop them).
So how much would you bid in my shoes?
Not an easy question but a very interesting one.
I finally decided to bid $80 of my $92. Part of that is the one team lower in the standings who thinks he can compete has $79, and would win on a tie at that number if he went all in. So he is the one possible bidder I can eliminate by going with eighty. I can also win a tie at that number with the top three teams in the league. But really I have no idea if any of the other five teams will go that deep. For one thing a couple of them like to have control when there are NL players traded over later in the year. For another I don’t know how they feel about their real ability to compete this year.
Trades will go a long way to determine if they can truly put their team in the hunt at the early August (first weekend) trade deadline. And one or more of them may already be working on a trade with the one team that was known to be taking a two year plan at the draft. But that team is not likely trading their $7 Addison Reed who they can keep for next year or long term contract for another year.
So it will be very interesting to see the actual free agent bids tomorrow (Sunday) morning.
And I will reopen this file and write the postscript then.
Sunday morning – the bids are in and of course are very interesting. Two of the teams in the top three bid for Valverde with bids in the $40 and $30 range – one in third place in saves but only two back, the other on save below me. The third team that did not bid on Valverde leads the league in saves with two good closers, Jim Johnson and Casey Janssen.
Only one of the next group that I am in although both needed saves. That bid was in the $60’s.
Two of the teams below sixth who still think they have a shot to finish in the money and needed saves bid – one in the $40s and the other $71.
So my $80 bid held and I just have to hope that both Valverde can stay healthy and closing all year in Detroit and closer to home that I can manage the rest of my team to continue to move forward navigating the inevitable trade wars and finish in the money.{jcomments on}I am sure you have seen several jokes about the cold weather from Colorado all the way to the East Coast.
Major League Baseball, however, isn’t laughing. The half dozen games already cancelled or postponed affect a lot more than just our fantasy hitters and pitchers missing a chance to contribute to our teams. With the American and National leagues realigned, several of the series being affected by Mother Nature’s spring tantrum will cause havoc with the MLB schedule later this summer.
Consider the Atlanta Braves visiting the Colorado Rockies for the only time this year. First, Monday’s game was cancelled, so the two teams were supposed to play a day/night doubleheader on Tuesday. As of this writing on Tuesday afternoon, they did get the first game in and now wait for evening and yes, colder temperatures. The problem is that the Braves are not scheduled to return to Denver for the rest of the season.
While they do travel to the West Coast in May to play the Giants and Diamondbacks, they can’t use their one off-day before returning to Atlanta because it would take away their only day off in the month of May. It would also exceed the number of straight days a team can play under the current bargaining agreement. The same is true when they play the Padres and Dodgers in June.
And they won’t be alone if the Marlins and Twins have trouble with their second game on Tuesday or their scheduled game on Wednesday.
It seems logical that MLB will have to alter its scheduling procedures when NL and AL teams are going to play only one series in the opposing park if either team is in an unprotected environment for games in March, April and May when there is any possibility of weather wiping a game off the schedule.
Let’s just hope that none of the affected teams need that game to qualify for postseason play this year. Then we will really have a scheduling nightmare. {jcomments on}