Utility infielders? Time to get those pitchers and catchers reporting

Some very exciting stuff on the lukewarm hot stove Monday -- especially if you're a fan of utility infielders.
Three or four of them signed minor league contracts. The Indians agreed to terms with Elliot Johnson, whose base stealing actually can give him some fantasy value; the going-several-directions-at-once Brewers welcomed Pete Orr, and Chris Nelson signed with the Reds, one of the few teams he didn't play for in 2013. I still haven't seen a confirmation that the Rockies and Paul Janish made a deal. If you're looking at Janish for your fantasy team, you're in a for a long season. He can help a team's defense for a few late innings a week.
And there's speculation that LHP David Huff, newly acquired from the Yankees, could fill a role as the Giants' fifth starter. If Huff's a viable major league starter at this point, why wouldn't New York keep him? Is his salary too small?
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Basketball. I'm off to a 7-1 start this week, but I don't put much stock in that. I had four players active Monday to my opponent's one. He's leading in free throw percentage because his player, Trey Burke, made his only attempt. So my .875 is second to Burke's 1.000.
My division and league leads are 8 1/2 games with six weeks remaining. I don't plan to let up. My belief is that fantasy owners, winning or losing, owe it to the rest of the league to play from the first week to the last. On my part, there won't be any of the thinking that some NBA fans try to mind-meld on to their favorite team: "If we could finish seventh instead of sixth, we wouldn't have to face the (current hot team in third place in the conference)." I wouldn't look at overall lineups and say during the last week, "If I lay down against this fifth-place team, it could move into fourth and I'd have an easy road in the semifinals."
But you know what? I still have to win the league to get the first seed.
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Hockey. All four of my bench players were from the Avalanche. Two factors went into that decision. 1) I have to limit the games played, as I outlined in the previous post, so that I'm not sitting on the fantasy sidelines for the last week or two, and 2) The Stars have been hot lately, so the matchups might not be good.
That strategy didn't look good as I watched at the American Airlines Center when "my" Nathan MacKinnon scored in the first minute or when Paul Stastny scored on a power play or later when it appeared that Stastny might have deflected what became the game-winning goal.
But in the end, the four Colorado players were a combined minus-4.
Here's an edited version of what I wrote about the game itself.
My acquisition of Kevin Bieksa looked good. He provided an assist and two penalty minutes to help me within within one PIM of the team directly ahead of me. A question I've often asked: Why the "I" in PIM?
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The line for the big game 48 in my "Bet a Thousand" pool was set today at Denver minus-2. My own research had come up with this: Denver minus-2.
What to do? At the time I made the line, I established this line of thinking. If the weather is reasonable (which it is expected to be Sunday), that could be to Denver's advantage. Also, it's Peyton Manning against Russell Wilson. Of course, it's really Manning against the Seahawks' scary defense, but still he's Peyton Manning. Also -- and this is a line of thinking that could get you killed if you always used it -- a rule of thumb is to ask yourself whether a team is likely to win by a field goal or win by a touchdown. If Sunday's game comes down to the last minute tied and the Broncos have the ball, could they be likely to get a field goal?
An even more dangerous way to approach the decision is to look at history. We've had 47 years of big games. In that time, there has been only one game decided by 1 point: the Bills' wide-right loss to the Giants in big game 25. Six games were decided by 3 points, with five of those during the past 12 years. What I think we can take away from this is that it's likely whatever team wins will do it by 3 or more points.
So the question is "Are the Broncos likely to win?" I think so, even as much as I respect Seattle's defense.
I expect the people in my pool to be about evenly split. That would mean of the five people ahead of me in the pool, two or three of those ahead of me would be likely to take Seattle. So if Denver covers, I'd move up from sixth to third or fourth. If the Broncos win by 2, I'd remain sixth, the last place in the money. If Seattle wins, I'd lose anyway -- which I would also do if Denver somehow won by 1.
I think the Broncos will win, quite likely by a narrow margin such as 3 points. If I made a token "wager" such as $100, it's likely that at least one person would pass me and I'd be out of the money no matter who wins the game or covers.
On the other hand, if those at the top take Seattle, and one or more of the others take the safety-first approach, I could move up even higher than third or fourth.
The most I could finish with in my hypothetical bank would be $5,800, which would keep me in the money somewhere. Obviously, I would lose with $0, but I might also lose with $3,000.
It doesn't hurt that I have some other irons in the fire. In the Pittsburgh playoff pick-'em pool, I think I would finish first if Seattle wins. Also, I have a puncher's chance to win at least my original entry fee in a traditional 100-square Super Bowl pool with winners each quarter and prize money for diagonally touching squares.