Giants banking on rotation plus Hudson

Short update today, at least for now. Lots to do.
In the days leading up to the winter meetings, major league teams seem content with signing deals and making moves to add or retain pieces of their rotation.
The Giants, who won two World Series in the last 4 years, seem confident that with the added infusion of RHP Tim Hudson they again have enough starting pitching to get into the postseason and be a threat to win it all.
They announced that they will resign RHP Ryan Vogelsong, as long as he passes his physical. His contract reportedly would be for about $5 million for 2014, with incentives.
Speculation is that RHP Yusmeiro Petit could compete with Vogelsong for the fifth starter's job behind Hudson, RHPs Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum and LHP Madison Bumgarner.
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Hockey. My team made another jump in the standings, gaining 5 points and moving within 4 points of second place. The increase was mostly because the goalies in my lineup, Steve Mason and Jean-Sebastien Giguere, each won and allowed only goal. There's still room for growth in PPP (power play points), wins and save percentage.
For Saturday, all of the spots in my starting lineup are taken. However, it's possible that none of my goalies would return to play back-to-back games. I moved Toronto G James Reimer ahead of Avalance backup Giguere.
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Basketball. This team is trailing this week's competition 5-3, with the most likely place to gain a game in field goal percentage. The basketball schedule isn't as busy, so just 6 of the 10 spots in my starting lineup are filled.

Minor moves, but at least it's moving

As baseball leads up to the winter meetings Dec. 9-12 in Orlando, teams have begun to make some trades and other moves.
The latest free-agent signings were RHP Dan Haren to a 1-year contract with the Dodgers and the Cardinals' confirmation that their signing of SS Jhonny Peralta is official.
The Padres made two trades that might not amount to more than rearranging the furniture.
They sent RHP Brad Brach from the middle of their bullpen to the Orioles for RHP Devin Jones, who was 5-7 with a 5.64 ERA mostly in Double-A this year. Brach has appeared in 109 major league games over the last three seasons.
San Diego also traded OF Jaff Decker and RHP Miles Mikolas to the Pirates for Double-A OF Alex Dickerson. I've seen Decker and Mikolas play in Double-A. A former first-round draft pick, Decker has totaled just 71 home runs and a .268 average in the minors. Mikolas, who appears to throw fairly hard, spent some time in the majors in 2012 and recorded 26 saves for Triple-A Tucson this season. Dickerson was the Double-A Eastern League's rookie of the year with a .288 average, 17 homers and 68 RBI at Altoona.
As part of adding two players to its 40-man roster, Pittsburgh designated 1B/OF Garrett Jones for assignment. Another player battling Decker for playing time will be OF Andrew Lambo, who slammed 32 homers between Double-A and Triple-A and also will be tried at first base in 2014.
The Nationals traded LHP Fernando Abad to the Athletics for OF John Wooten. Abad has a 1-14 major league career record, with a 4.56 ERA. Wooten batted .257 with 20 homers at low Class A Beloit.

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Both of my fantasy football teams won by more than doubling my opponents' score. In the scoring plus yardage league, I'm just 5-7 and in a three-way tie for sixth lace two games out of fourth. That league's regular season ends after next week, so I can only move down. In the scoring-only league, I'm 7-5 and tied for third, two games out of first with five to play. Our playoffs coincide with the final three weeks of NFL playoffs.
In the Pittsburgh office pool, I was 7-8, still 16 games off the lead and seven games out of the money. I might need two unbelievable weeks to qualify for one of the top three spots in a year when my performance has been very believable.

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My fantasy hockey team gave up most of the goaltending points I'd picked up over the weekend. I had two goalies playing Monday, but not especially well. Neither James Reimer nor Steve Mason won. My skaters came out plus-1 but didn't do much except for playing enough to build up my ATOI to take over second place in the category. I'm still about 10 points out of second in the 10-team league.
Oh, I also turned down a trade that would have sent Corey Perry from my team to the one in second place for an inferior forward and a goalie not as good as the ones on my current roster.

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In basketball, I did sweep all eight categories last week, which ended Sunday, to move up to eighth in another 10-team league. If I win this week by at least a 5-3 margin, I would improve to seventh. That's where I stand after the first day. Carmelo Anthony had a big scoring day, and George Hill was good in just about everything. One of my centers, Dallas' Samuel Dalembert, is nursing bruised ribs. He didn't start, played just 18 minutes and manged 2 points, 3 rebounds and 2 blocks. I had to watch him and the Mavericks lose to Denver.

Berry buries Mesa rally in AFL championship game

Here's the longer-form version of the post that Firefox ate (see post, "The dog ate it.") Apparently, it also autosaved most of what I'd written. The Surprise Saguaros won the Arizona Fall League championship Saturday with a 2-0 victory over the Mesa Solar Sox. The game turned in the sixth inning. Trailing 1-0, Mesa had the bases loaded with one out. Orioles prospect Tim Berry, a left-hander, retired AFL most valuable player Kris Bryant (Cubs) on a foul pop and then struck out league batting champ C.J. Cron (Angels) to end the inning. Surprise scored its first run with two out in the second. Henry Urrutia -- not a typical AFL prospect; he played in the majors for Baltimore this year -- doubled and scored on a single by Jorge Alfaro (Rangers). Urrutia went 2-for-3 in the game. In keeping with one of the least appealing aspects of 21st century baseball, the Saguaros used six pitchers in the shutout. * * * Update on my fantasy hockey league: my goaltending situation grew brighter. My lineup-setting wasn't very good. I picked up half a point because Maple Leafs goalie James Reimer earned a win, and another half-point because I moved into a tie in ATOI. On the downside, five of the six skaters who played for me Saturday were minus-1. And the only skater I didn't play because he was minus-5 for the season, Thomas Huberdeau, was plus-1. I led the fourth-best team in plus-minus by 1 point through Friday, but now I'm in fourth place and 7 points out of third. I guess the lesson is this: Play all of the available players on your roster. If you don't trust a guy enough to use him, he probably doesn't belong on your team. I'll give Huberdeau another chance or two. I also put in a waiver claim for a goalie. I'll let you know how it comes out.

Fantasy hockey

This season I decided, pretty much last minute, to get into a fantasy hockey league for the first time. That's because I'm covering a lot more hockey this year after covering virtually none during the truncated 2013 (there was no 2012- in front of it) season. In the wee hours of Oct. 1, I went to espn.com and found a league that was drafting early that morning, maybe 5 a.m., and had 9 of 10 spots taken. I clicked the appropriate links to allow me to join, looked around for how I could customize the draft list, had trouble finding what I wanted, decided I was too tired to make credible moves anyway and went to bed. When I woke up, fairly early but not at 5 a.m., I saw my new team's roster. Lots of guys I'd never heard of. And that wasn't a bad thing because I'm trying to familiarize myself with the players around the league. I didn't even know a whole lot about the Stars. Their roster has changed a lot in the last two seasons. Anyway, my autopicked team quickly plunged to the bottom of the league. I found that out the next time I checked, a few days later. With a lot of moves, a couple of trades that didn't go through but pointed me in the right direction and more attention paid to the league, I've moved up to third place. But it isn't a good place. I'm closer to seventh or eighth place than I am to the two teams ahead of me. Here are some tips I've learned for myself that I can pass on to you. 1. Avoid signing up at the last minute, not customizing the website's draft list and above all else, having your team autopicked. I'm pretty sure I missed a run of goalies somewhere that would have led me to draft at least one higher than their autopick value indicated. 2. Learn what the categories mean. I saw PIM, but wasn't sure whether having a lot of penalty minutes was good or bad. (It's good.) But what the heck is ATOI? Nothing like Bill James' Favorite Toy, but instead Average Time on Ice. It's an equalizer to help give defensemen more value. There's also a category called PPP. I figured it had something to do with power plays, but I wasn't sure what. Power Play Points. Again, it can be an equalizer for defensemen. They're not going to score many goals, even on the power play, but if they spend a lot of time on the ice at the point on the power play, they're going to get assists when a teammate tips in or gets in the way of a slap shot. 3. Follow the action daily, and make sure you check in early enough to make moves. Unlike the fantasy football and even baseball leagues I'm in where the lineup changes are weekly, you can have a new lineup every day. It doesn't do you any good to have all of your fantasy bench on teams that are playing that night, while your marginally better or even stud players' teams are taking the night off. Conversely, if you don't switch back the next night, you might miss out on some good performances from players you sat the night before. 4. Don't overreact to short-term problems. This is one I should have remembered from any other fantasy sport. I spent the first couple of weeks picking up goalies who had played one good game to replace established players who might have given up 4 or 5 goals the night before. As a result of No. 4, I still have just 4 points in 3 categories from my goalies. I'm trying to rotate them in and out, in accordance with point No. 3 above. If all three happen to be playing, which sometimes happens on Tuesdays or other busy nights, I try to pick the two hot hands or the two with the easiest opponents. That's still a bit of a guessing game. But my GAA and save percentage are dropping slowly, to the point where I might even pick up 1 or 2 points in the next week or so. Hockey is not the marathon that the baseball season, but at least this season it's a half-marathon. * * * Thursdays are a busy fantasy day this year. They start with a reminder from an office football pool I'm in from my daughter Diana's former employer. I make those picks, with the spreads. I'm pretty much in the middle of the pack, one game under .500 for the season. I need to make up seven games in seven weeks to get into the money. If I could do that, it would also be more likely that I'd win a weekly prize of almost twice my investment for the season. After that, I check out any waiver claims I made after the weekend's games, plus injury reports on my players and bye-week information to see if I have to make any changes in either of my fantasy football lineups. This week, the Rams are off so I replaced Greg Zuerlein with Matt Bryant and Rob Bironas. I also picked up Andre Brown on waivers in one league. He replaced a wide receiver as my flex player, with two other pretty good RBs in that league. In the other league, I culled through the scrapheap of RBs to find a replacement for Arian Foster and came up with Bernard Pearce. He's just a backup. I elevated D'Angelo Williams to the starting lineup in that league, which counts only scoring and not yardage. As with the office pool, I'm mediocre in both fantasy football leagues. 5-5 in one, 4-6 in the other, but still with playoff chances if I manage my lineups correctly or get lucky. Peyton Manning's gimpy ankle has been carrying me in one league; Matt Stafford is my man in the scoring-only league. This season, I'm now also somewhat micromanaging my fantasy hockey team. On waivers, I picked up Anaheim defenseman Francois Beauchemin to put me on a good road, as well as Ottawa forward Clarke MacArhur, whom I hope has Kent or even Douglas as his middle name. Today's lineup changes put Beauchemin in for Pittsburgh's Matt Niskanen, Boston defenseman Torey Krug as my utility player in place of Ottawa forward Milan Michalak and Islanders goalie for Toronto's James Reimer. Time to eat. More, including baseball, to come soon.