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.

Will Nolasco help Twins more than they hurt him?

These are not your older brother's Twins.
No more Justin Morneau. A scaled-down Joe Mauer, possibly playing first base.
With Terry Ryan back in charge, Minnesota has an improving farm system that will begin paying dividends in a few years.
For now, the hope is that players such as Aaron Hicks, Chris Parmelee and Brian Dozier can develop into above-average major leaguers. By the end of this season, highly regarded prospect Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano could be playing in the majors. Both have been injured this off-season, but not likely to miss any time in the spring.
In the meantime, this is still not a good team.
Apparently, Ryan and manager Ron Gardenhire persuaded RHP Ricky Nolasco the future is bright enough that he should sign to become the Twins' ace instantly. Yahoo Sports indicated that he and the team have agreed on a 4-year, $49-million contract.
Now I like Nolasco. But the 31-year-old's career totals are just 89-75 with a 4.37 ERA. Not quite ace material, but then he hasn't been with good teams all of his career. He did help the Dodgers down the stretch this year.
Nolasco is not likely to get any better at this stage of his career. He still is an improvement for the rotation that had the majors' worst ERA in 2013. The question is whether he could lift the Twins or they would drag him down. 

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Football. One change in my lineup in the scoring-only league. I did receive Harry Douglas on waivers, so he's in my lineup ahead of WR Pierre Garcon. He is in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I'll watch the Raiders and Cowboys through the horde of people who will be here for turkey and possibly tons of other food. Don't worry. I'm recording it so I can write coherent Fantasy Vision reports for draftsharks.com.

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Hockey. My plus/minus continued to slide, even though my team scored enough goals Wednesday to move into a tie for the league lead. We picked up 3 points to widen the gap over the fourth-place team. I finally rid the roster of Ottawa's Milan Michalek by picking up free agent Dustin Penner.

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Basketball. Wednesday was a bad night. I'm now behind 5-3 for the week after dropping behind in field goal percentage. Nobody on my roster is playing today, so I'm likely to remain behind for another day in what has become a shortened week.

Player movement slows down:

Apparently preparing for turkey overload, baseball front offices have slowed their off-season player movement. Or possibly there aren't enough interesting, desirable players to move around -- at least for garguantan, headline-grabbing contracts.
Consider the most recent move. The going-nowhere Cubs acquired going-nowhere backup catcher George Kottaras from the possibly-going-somewhere-but-we've-heard-that-before Royals for cash. And probably not very much cash. The left-handed-hitting Kottaras batted .180 last season, and that was with 85 per cent of his plate appearances against righties. His biggest contributions were that 5 of his 18 hits were homers and he walked in about 20 per cent of his PA.
There is an interesting column by Phil Rogers at mlb.com about how Jack Morris belongs in the Hall of Fame. I couldn't agree more. Morris passed the eyeball test. I'm guessing he was one of the pitchers batters of his day least wanted to face. He may be the last pitcher ever to pitch 10 innings -- a shutout, no less -- in a World Series game. The knock is his 3.90 career ERA, but that doesn't say what his ERA was with a game on the line. His 254 wins are discounted in a culture that says it's OK for a starter to put in his six innings and then rest for 4 days, and besides all it takes to get a win is to be in the right place at the right time so wins don't really mean anything. Morris was in the right place at the right time because he was out there gutting it out and imposing his will on batters all the way.
As an aside, I'll be OK with pitch counts and innings limits the day they start taking batters out of games because "He's done his job. He's batted four times today."
I also recently read in Jim O'Brien's "Maz and the '60 Bucs" about how Vernon Law pitched an 18-inning complete game, because his team needed him.
Enough soap-boxing. On to the other sports. More baseball to come, I hope, in the next few days.

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Football. I claimed Falcons WR Harry Douglas on waivers in both of my leagues. In the scoring-plus-yardage league, I was awarded Douglas and put him in my lineup ahead of Steve Smith. I know Smith is more of you-know-what-you're-getting player, but Douglas has a higher upside and I'm going to need every point I can get in a tie-breaker to improve my position for the playoffs beginning next week. Haven't yet heard whether I'll get Douglas in my scoring-only league. Probably not; I'm 10th among 12 teams in the waiver order.

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Hockey. I'm still in third place, but leaking points. I expected that Tuesday, when Corey Perry was the only player on my roster who was scheduled to play. On Wednesday, he's the only Texas Puckin Penguin who isn't playing. I moved Nathan MacKinnon into Perry's spot for now and adjusted some defensemen to get guys with bigger minutes and relatively better plus/minus into the lineup. I also made a precautionary move. I put Jean-Sebastien Giguere, who isn't slated to start until Friday ahead of James Reimer. Neither is likely to play in goal tonight, but I won't run the risk of forgetting to move Giguere into my lineup Friday.

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Basketball. With my entire 13-man roster playing tonight, I made one small move. David West, with three double-doubles in a row, goes back into my 10-man lineup rotation that counts ahead of newly acquired Jared Sullinger. I'm currently tied for the week at 5-5, behind by just three 3-pointers and 5 points. However, my opponent is at 90 per cent from the foul line. If I go 5-3 I would move into a tie for seventh with this week's opponent, but my goal is 6-1-1 to reach .500 for the season. That wouldn't be bad, considering that I was 13 games under .500 2 weeks ago.

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.

* * *

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.

Will McCann turn out better than Martin for Yankees?

The big baseball news is the same item, but in two or three different ways. 1) The Yankees signed C Brian McCann to a 5-year, $85-million contract. 2) The news was not broken by one of the horde of writers on the Yankees beat, but by the Dallas Morning News' estimable Evan Grant. No doubt his source was close to the Rangers, who lost out in the bidding. We could have seen that coming, because talk in Texas was about McCann as a DH/backup to C Geovany Soto. 3) The last time the Yankees signed a free-agent catcher, Russell Martin, that didn't work out well for New York. But when Martin then signed with Pittsburgh, he received a lot of credit for his work with a young pitching staff and helping the team to its first playoff berth -- first winning season, even -- in 21 years. That leads to the question of whether Yankees manager Joe Girardi, a former catcher valued for his defense, isn't a good judge of his younger counterparts, or is too demanding of them -- as Angels manager Mike Scioscia might have been with Mike Napoli -- or perhaps there was conflict between Girardi and Martin. (Just googled Girardi Martin; it the only apparent possibility above was the "too demanding" part, but more likely misplaced relative frugality played a bigger role. Still, it's difficult to believe New York couldn't afford $15 million over 2 years for Martin.) Anyway, the Yankees never seem to have a shortage of DHs (unless their third baseman isn't let off the hook), so we can expect McCann to catch a lot.
Received a text from Michael -- a Cardinals fan, but a friend anyway -- about how St. Louis will be even stronger this year. Before he told me about the reported imminent signing of SS Jhonny Peralta, I replied that their infield could be a concern. I was thinking in terms of losing David Freese's bat, and shifting Matt Carpenter's shaky defense to third base. Peralta is by no means a defensive upgrade It's a good thing the Cards won't have a lot of lefties giving up ground-ball singles through the left side of that infield. Peralta does make their lineup even more formidable. But for an example of how important defense is in the postseason, we can look past the Cardinals to the Tigers' recent history.
Another reported signing would have the Angels continuing to retool their bullpen by signing RHP Joe Smith. He's a useful piece and an improvement. But 3 years and $15 million for just another guy named Joe Smith?
The Rangers quietly resigned RHP Colby Lewis to a minor league contract. He hasn't pitched in a year and a half because of a succession of injuries. I saw some of his rehab starts last year and can't report a lot more than he looked quite a bit better than RHP Brandon Webb in his tragically ill-fated comeback attempt. Lewis was a valuable part of the team's rise to contender status, and an easy guy to root for. However, after coming into the off-season talking about LHP David Price, Texas will need more than a successful return by Lewis in the middle or bottom of its rotation.

* * *

Basketball -- My full-court press with 9 of the 10 positions in my lineup filled Saturday worked well. They combined for enough assists, led by Ricky Rubio's 8, to move me from 6 behind to 6 ahead. That meant that I'm now ahead in all eight categories. Just two players from my Saturday lineup are playing again today, but I've moved up all three players from my bench.
Tuned in the Mavericks-Nuggets game on my TV in time to see Dallas complete a comeback from being 12 down at the end of three quarters, then lose that lead and end up with a 102-100 loss as Dirk Nowitzki's 20-footer at the buzzer went off the iron. Samuel Dalembert, one of my fantasy centers, didn't miss a shot from the field in his two weekend games. Unfortunately, he had no official attempts Saturday.

* * *

Hockey Night in My House was a good one. All but one of my 15 spots for skaters was filled, and they reversed the current trend by finishing the night plus-4. They also averaged enough minutes to pull me past the former third-place team in ATOI. Even better, both of the goalies in my lineup won their games, allowing me to pick up another half-point on the team I was pursuing. Even better, James Reimer and Steve Mason gave up a total of three goals. Their efforts added a point in wins, another for GAA and 2 for save percentage. In total, I gained 6 1/2 points and had an 8-point swing to move into third place with a 7 1/2-point cushion. Another night like that could put me close to second place. That's more than I can hope for, but steady progress over the next couple of weeks could get me there. It's still close in a number of categories; I could easily drop back a point or two in some of those.
On Sunday, none of my goalies will be playing. Just five of the skaters on my roster will be in action. I have all of them in my lineup. Even though three of them are from Ottawa and have hefty minus ratings this season, they're going against the struggling Hurricanes. But if some of them come up negative again, I'll be searching the waiver wire. You're on notice, Jason Spezza, Clarke MacArthur and Milan Michalek.
I did make one move this morning. With Francois Beauchemin on IR, I claimed free-agent D Jan Hejda. He's able to help primarily in ATOI (he averages more minutes than Beauchemin) and plus/minus (at plus-14 he would replace Beauchemin as my highest-rated player).
Important key in any daily fantasy league: Keep up with it.

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Football. I resist the urge to look at my lineup multiple times during the week. At most, I'll do that three times: 1) Monday night/Tuesday morning, when all the games are finished and waiver claims might be needed. 2) Thursday morning, to make sure I'm set with anyone who would be playing that night and pretty much to get my lineup in order (make waiver claims, make sure I'm covered for anyone on a bye week). 3) As late as possible Sunday morning, so I can have the latest updates on who's not playing or hurting. It makes no sense for me to look -- say, now at 7:20 a.m. -- when I might have to change things again in a few hours. Besides, I'm not always awake at this time.
Another important key: I have struggled during bye weeks over the last few years. I'm resolving to avoid any player during the week when six teams are on a bye. I'd make an exception for someone like Peyton Manning or Calvin Johnson, but if you have to replace three or four players from your bench or among available free agents, you're almost certain to be in trouble.

Freese for Bourjos looks like a winner

I'll try to keep this short. I'm tired after getting home from Jazz-Mavericks. Well done, Samuel Dalember!
OK, I'll talk basketball first. I'm now ahead 7-1 in this week's competition, which I believe runs through Monday. I trail only in assists, by 6. I have set my Saturday lineup, which will have either 9 or 10 positions manned. I moved Victor Oladipo into the starting lineup to help with the assists. I also picked up Cavaliers C Anderson Varejao, who even has a couple of assists per game, when I waived recent acquisition Gerald Wallace. I'd like at least to maintain this lead, which would jump me up to eighth place and in a position to be in the first division within a couple of weeks.

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Next up, baseball.

3B David Freese should benefit from his trade to the Angels if for no other reason than he'll get to play 19 games against the Rangers. RHP Fernando Salas could fit into Los Angeles' bullpen well. Unlike many of the relievers who performed for the Angels last season, Salas at least has had a measure of success in the majors. Not enough success to make him a viable closer, or even to supplant RHP Ernesto Frieri.
Freese would fill a void at third base for Los Angeles.
Individual winners in this trade are Angels OF Kole Calhoun, who should enter 2014 as their right fielder, and Cardinals 2B Kolten Wong. He can try to make up for being picked off in the World Series by playing well as a regular next season. The plan apparently is to move 2B Matt Carpenter to third. To me, he's still another outfielder trying to play the infield.
A potential loser is St. Louis CF Jon Jay. There will be pressure to have CF Peter Bourjos, the centerpiece moving to the National League, to play in at least a platoon role. Rookie Randal Grichuk also could make his way to the majors during 2014. Another possibility is that Jay could be traded. He could be a consolation prize for a team missing out on free agent CF Jacoby Ellsbury.

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Hockey. As I prepare for bed, my team is half a point out of third place. I'm very close to that third-place team in goalie wins and ATOI (average time on ice), and could make up to a 4-point swing. Of course, my goalies would actually have to play to win. It appears that I'll be able to fill most of my 15 (?) positions for skaters. Look at me, I don't even know how many players to start. Note to self: Find out.
My apologies for being on my last legs and forgetting how to spell Anderson's last name and Grichuk's first name entirely, and for being too tired or lazy even to Google. Note: I have fixed these and caught up on my sleep.

Texas still has to pick up a pitcher

I was at Wednesday's Rockets-Mavericks game when I heard about the Ian Kinsler-for-Prince Fielder and cash trade. I was right in something I wrote a few days ago that it would be better to trade Kinsler than any of the Rangers' other major league or nearly major league-ready middle infielders. I was wrong in thinking that Kinsler would be moved as part of a trade for Rays LHP David Price. And that made me partly wrong that once Texas traded Kinsler or another middle infielder, it would have to trade for a bat.
Instead, the Rangers gave up Kinsler for a bat and some money to pay for that bat. What that means is that now Texas will have to make another trade for Price or some other front-line pitcher.
Since the trade came down, I've seen other opinions about it. Something from mlb.com, by Richard Durrett from espndallas.com and Jamey Newberg's take in The Newberg Report Email. I realized from reading them that naysayers should probably look at this deal from this perspective. Are the Rangers better with an infield of 3B Adrian Beltre, SS Elvis Andrus, 2B Jurickson Profar and 1B Prince Fielder than they would be with an infield of Beltre-Andrus-Profar and 1B Ian Kinsler?
The breakdown from the Tigers' perspective is more complex. Detroit hasn't been an organization that seemed to prize defense. And it's still not clear whether they do. Unless other moves are made, rookie Nick Castellanos is the likely third baseman, with Miguel Cabrera trading whatever he has been waving at ground balls for a first baseman's mitt. Kinsler could fill a hole at second base, but his defense isn't what it used to be. What he does best in the field is going to his right, with an above-average arm for a second baseman that's capable of throwing out runners from behind second base.
It's also true that Kinsler's offense isn't as good as it used to be, but he's an improvement over what Detroit has had at second base. But Kinsler and Castellanos or whoever else plays third base will not equal the production of Fielder and even a cipher at second base.
Where the Tigers benefit is that even with $30 million going to Texas to defray Fielder's salary, they can have some money freed up to extend the contract of RHP Max Scherzer and possibility some other soon-to-be free agents. That money will be even more important in years going forward. Or haven't you seen the state of Detroit's economy?
On another burner of the hot stove, the Royals signed LHP Jason Vargas to a four-year contract.

* * *

That baseball stuff won't have a whole lot of meaning for a few months, when we all start keeping track of the players' fantasy numbers.
But it's Thursday night in late fall, which means there was quite a bit of fantasy sports activity.
Let's start in football.
In my scoring-and-yardage league, I'm projected as a 70-point winner. I currently trial 2-0 because Atlanta WR Roddy White caught 20-some yards' worth of passes for my opponent. He has just four of his nine players remaining, because Saints RB Darren Sproles had 0 yards and three other players in his lineup are on bye weeks. All nine of my players haven't even started pre-game warmups. This situation is one of my pettest of pet peeves: giving up on a season. Hey, my team in this league has sucked too, but I think a big part of being in a LEAGUE is that you owe it to everyone in the league at least to try. In my points-only league, I trail 6-0 (a couple of TD passes by Saints quarterbacks). This opponent has five players remaining to my full roster of eight. He received no points for the aforementioned White's evening and also has a player on a bye. Now I'm on a bit of a roll in this league, but as much as what would appear to be a cheap win for me, is that really fair to the league's other contenders?
Oh, and the dumb-ass Saints didn't cover the spread, so I'm already down a game in the Pittsburgh office pool.
Hockey. I was at the Rangers-Stars game Thursday night. You can read some of my handiwork in The AP's game story. I was there with none of the players on my fantasy roster. And that accumulated Nobody might have been better than the players on my roster whose teams took the ice tonight/last night, depending on your time zone. Ten skaters, 0 goals. Thank God for Henrik Zetterberg and his three assists and plus-2. My team combined for another minus-2, which I think might have cost me a point. No, just checked, and it appears that I didn't lose any points but I lost some of my cushion in some categories. And wouldn't you think that with all three of my goalies' team playing, at least one of them would get into the game? I'm trying to replace Jonathan Huberdeau because I'm tired of having to take him out of my lineup when I see that his NHL team is playing. I did make a waiver claim, but after tonight's game I was hoping (in vain) that Rick Nash would be available.
Basketball. Let's hope this sport went better. Perhaps I got some help from the newest player to don the uniform of Team Fresh Prints in an LA H2H league -- that's the Bulls' Taj Gibson in a Los Angeles head-to-head league, if you don't know the lingo. Well, 9 points and 8 rebounds. I added him to replace the injured Danilo Gallinari because Gibson seemed to be the best option among the players actually playing Thursday night. I'll look to see if there's someone better for Friday. Joakim Noah, Gibson's teammate on both fantasy and real teams, had a good night with 11 points, 12 rebounds and 8 assists. Just set my lineup for Friday so that I have players filling 8 of the 10 active roster spots, including Gibson. I'll keep my eyes open to watch Markieff Morris and maybe John Henson, though I'd be distracted looking for his skunk stripe. After seeing Chandler Parsons Wednesday, I was hoping he might have slipped through my league's draft. No such luck. Hope my lineup scores more than my hockey players have been.

Simple plus/minus system for fantasy basketball

When I was inspired -- pretty much impulsively -- to join a fantasy basketball league, I wondered whether the plus/minus system I use as a rough guideline who's playing well would work to evaluate players for fantasy basketball. The thinking was that we know who are the scorers, but when we're trying to accumulate a mashup of statistics for a Rotisserie (R)-style scoring system, the choices aren't so obvious. By looking at a typical expanded box score for a game -- or a season to date -- we can come up with numerical plus/minus figures for any player. That number shows whether players do more good or bad things for their team. Take the positive -- shots made, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks -- and deduct the negative -- missed shots, turnovers and fouls. For this study, I took the top group of five or six players in the positive stats -- scoring, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. That provides somewhat of a cross section of player types -- shooters, point guards, rebounders, defenders. In all, I compared the totals for 25 of those category leaders, some in more than one category, and one mistake (Mason Plumlee, whose numbers through Nov. 19 I looked up instead of Miles Plumlee's). I think this plus-minus assessment is a reasonable guideline. It includes just 26 of the 450 players on NBA rosters (6%), but if you consider that maybe nine players from each team could even be considered for fantasy purposes, that's more like 10%. The players in the study that we'd expect to be early fantasy draft picks are on top of this list. Keep in mind that these aren't the top 25 or 26 players in the league. Some acknowledged stars, such as Chris Bosh and Dirk Nowitzki, weren's included in the study. Here's the list: Kevin Love, Minnesota 220 Chris Paul, LA Clippers 199 Anthony Davis, New Orleans 181 LeBron James, Miami 164 Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City 162 Dwight Howard, Houston 152 Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, LA Clippers 147 Nikola Vucevic, Orlando 140 Andre Drummond, Detroit 133 Ty Lawson, Denver 125 Ricky Rubio, Minnesota 122 Roy Hibbert, Indiana 114 James Harden, Houston 112 John Wall, Washington 104 Jeff Teague, Atlanta 101 Evan Turner, Philadelphia 95 Stephen Curry, Golden State, and Brook Lopez, Brooklyn 91 Carmelo Anthony, New York 83 Dwyane Wade, Miami, and Miles Plumlee, Phoenix 72 Eric Gordon, New Orleans 59 Trevor Ariza, Washington 41 Deron Williams, Brooklyn 30 Mason Plumlee, Brooklyn 19 A couple of notes here. Unless you have a specific need in a category, it's best to avoid players whose value is mostly in one area, such as assists of blocks. That would be like having Juan Pierre on your fantasy baseball team and expecting him to hit for power. Subtracting missed field goals and missed free throws can point out where a scorer or some other specialist can help you in the shooting percentage categories. Examples: Anthony is -33 and point guards Wall -44 and Rubio -30 on field goals; big man Drummond is -11 at the foul line. Of Durant's +162 total, 98 are from his free throw margin. That also shows that he gets to the line a lot. James is +39 from the field, which tells me that he could be a little less selective and still score more points.

Hate to say it, but it's time for Konerko to go

The White Sox haven't heard from 1B Paul Konerko about whether he'll retire. On the occasions last season when I saw him in person or on TV, Konerko really looked a step slower in the field and a tick slower with the bat. He has had a remarkably consistent career as one of baseball's solid citizens. As we age, most of us have to move away from an occupation or a situation we love. My experience has been that such times are just a transition to something better. Let's hope that Konerko and the Sox appreciate what he has done sufficiently to enable him to retire without tarnishing his hard-earned reputation by hanging on too long. He has not made enemies in the game, so it's quite likely there's a coaching, front-office or broadcasting job that he could excel at and enjoy. Or perhaps his life would become retiring to spend time with children or grandchildren and to play golf or hunt or whatever he enjoys doing. Bottom line: Konerko should retire as a player. The Sox probably gave him a hint by signing Cuban 1B Jose Abreu. * * * Update on my currently playing fantasy teams. Hockey -- My team took a serious dive, falling 4 1/2 points behind the third-place team. Even Tuesday's highlight came with a price. Flyers G Steve Mason won 5-2 over Ottawa. The win left me still a point behind the teams tied for seventh, and though my goalies moved closer to ninth place in GAA and save percentage, I still have only 1 point in those categories. Furthermore, it came at the expense of the three Senators skaters in my lineup, who combined for minus-6 of my team's -8 total. With my 12 skaters putting 32 shots on goal, they scored only one goal, and I lost a point there. And, as Harry Doyle might have said, they had just 2 G.D. penalty minutes. Basketball -- This was better. Led by Chris Bosh's 8-for-9, my five players in action shot .540 from the field. They even made five 3-pointers, and scored 74 points -- 25 by Carmelo Anthony. I'm ahead this week in three categories, trailing in three and tied in two. The ties are in 3-pointers and blocks, and I'm only one steal behind. If I win this week's competition, I'd move up at least to ninth place and possibly to eighth. My plan is to get up Wednesday morning early enough to set my lineups and to look for some free agents. If I see good ones that might be helpful to a lot of people, I'll share those suggestions.

Veteran pitchers in some demand

There is news in the Hot Stove League. Foremost was the Giants' signing of 38-year-old RHP Tim Hudson to a two-year contract for a reported $23 million. He still can pitch, as long as he recovers from this season's ankle injury. Monday's other definite signing was C Carlos Ruiz, who will remain with the Phillies for three years, with an option for 2017. His contract is worth a reported $26 million. Pending physicals, 40-year-old RHP LaTroy Hawkins would join the Rockies on a one-year, $2.25-million deal and OF/2B Skip Schumaker would become a Cincinnati Red for two years at an undisclosed salary. I'll have more coming up on Hawkins, who pitched for Colorado's 2007 National League champions and could compete for next season's job as closer with LHP Rex Brothers. Which makes sense, because Hawkins has hung around as long as almost any journeyman southpaw reliever. Speaking of lefties, the Orioles signed one, 25-year-old LHP Kelvin De La Cruz. He has had some success against left-handed batters in the high minors for the Dodgers' organization. There's no guarantee that that success would carry over into the majors. * * * While I was at tonight's 76ers-Mavericks game, I had some thoughts about fantasy basketball. Namely, that I'd never played it, didn't really know what categories were used and didn't know how valuable my plus/minus system would be in evaluating players for fantasy basketball. I'll give you results of a preliminary plus/minus study soon. No, it's not the same as the plus-minus you might see in NBA box scores When I arrived home, I looked around espn.com, where my football and hockey fantasy teams reside, and noted that a fantasy basketball draft was scheduled to begin that very minute. Just 8 of the 10 positions were filled, 9 once I signed up. So the draft was delayed another 5 minutes. During that time, a 10th team joined. The draft breezed by in about half an hour. I was in the ninth position in a snake draft, but it seemed pretty clear that I didn't make good use of the six sets of two picks close together. Of course, a modicum of preparation might have helped. When the draft ended, I looked at our league page and found out that the categories at ESPN are pretty standard -- points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, 3-point field goals made and the percentage categories of field goal and free throw percentage. I also found out that the league apparently back-dated our league to play three weeks of head-to-head competition, one "game" for each category -- and I was already in last place at 5-18-1 and trailing in this week's competition 3-4-1. The only players on my new team who were in action tonight were big men Joakim Noah, Serge Ibaka and Samuel Dalembert (who played very well for Dallas). So I did well in rebounds and blocks, but didn't have any 3-pointers, so I lost that category. Just set my lineup for Tuesday. I moved Gerald Wallace on to my active roster, replacing Victor Oladipo as one of my utility players. Wallace's team, the Celtics, is playing Tuesday; Oladipo's Orlando Magic isn't. There should be a few 3s Tuesday. Also playing for me will be Ricky Rubio, J.R. Smith, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Bosh. The lessons already learned here are simply 1) Prepare for your draft and 2) Know the rules and all the set up/settings for your league. My fantasy hockey team started slowly too. I'll be out of last place, maybe within a week. Getting to first place could be a tall order. * * * Speaking of hockey, my team suffered Monday from not having any of my goalies playing. Not only did I lose half a point because the team tied with me had a goalie who won a game, but I also dropped 2 additional points behind the third-place team because he overtook me in ATOI. I'm still confident that I can move up in the goalie categories as well as in three skaters' categories in which I'm also fourth in a 10-team league. * * * There was no action on my fantasy football leagues Monday. RB D'Angelo Williams did not score for my scoring-only league team, which already had clinched a 33-28 victory. But Carolina's rally gave me a loss and an 8-8 record for the week in the Pittsburgh office pool that includes me. I remained 14 games out of first place, but inched up to six games out of the money with six weeks to play. I can only hope for a huge week to fuel a rally like the one I had last year.

Dealing from strength

The baseball hot stove is heating up. In recent years, a lot of talk has been bubbling on the stove in Texas.
This winter's big issue is which middle infielder the Rangers will trade. Side issues are what can they get in return, how big the deal will be and how they might replace what they'll be giving up.
For my money, Texas would be giving up less by trading 2B Ian Kinsler than if they were to deal SS Elvis Andrus, swingman Jurickson Profar or Double-A 2B Rougned Odor. I'm leaving Double-A SS Luis Sardinas out of the mix because to me he seems the least advanced/talented of the group. But if a team would prefer him in a trade, I wouldn't hesitate to sell him high.
Kinsler is most expendable because he has virtually no upside, and all of the others have dynamic upsides.
I still think Andrus can hit for at least gap power, and his greatest value lies in his defense.
Profar didn't fare well in his spotty first pretty much whole season in the majors. He's not Mike Trout, but Profar will be an above-average fielder and a useful offensive player.
Odor is an overachieving scrapper. I'd say potentially a higher-end Jose Altuve.
Texas' No. 1 trade target seems to be Rays LHP David Price, the guy who kept the Rangers out of the playoffs in 2013.
The Rangers couldn't just trade Kinsler and call it a day. In order to trade him from an already shrunken offense, they'd have to make another deal to bring in a proven bat. It's quite likely that many of the scenarios Texas' front office has played out included Marlins OF Giancarlo aka Mike Stanton. Miami insists he is not on the market.
 Thus, the Rangers might be more likely to look to free agency for a bat, and they won't find one with Stanton's raw power or upside. They'd probably have to settle for OF Carlos Beltran or 1B Justin Morneau.
Another possibility would be resigning RF Nelson Cruz, but he's also on the downside of his career. Or Texas could try to pry OF Jose Bautista away from the Blue Jays. It's an intricate puzzle. Every move seems to require a counter move.
We could see the Rangers make a honeycomb or matrix of deals. They believe -- as do a number of other organizations -- that they have nearly sure-fire prospects at just about every position.
From what I've seen of their farm system, it's not as dynamically productive as it has been during the past several years. But other organizations are enamored of the prospects from an organization that has brought along way more prospects than their own system has.
Another scenario is that Texas could be shut out in the trade and free agency markets, as it was for the most part a year ago. That didn't work too well last winter, so expect the Rangers to make even somewhat less advantageous deals than they'd like to have at least a chance of moving forward.
* * *
Just started reading a very interesting book that I've had for probably a decade. It's a SABR reprint of a 1925 book called "Batting," by F.C. Lane. I believe this was one of the bonus publications that SABR provides to its members along with its usual publications. As the editor of the old Baseball magazine, Lane interviewed many players during the first quarter of the 20th century. They're quoted with their opinions about batting.
One passage seems really relevant, given today's emphasis on defensive shifts. " ... In short, batting resolves to the brief but pointed epigram of Willie Keeler's when he said, 'Hit 'em where they ain't.' "'Where they ain't,' is something of a study in geography limited by the playing field and its immediate environs. There are certain zones of safety where the ball may be driven and allow the batter time to negotiate first, but these zones of safety can never be chartered, for they vary with the batter, with the opposing pitcher, with the ball field, even with the stage of the game."
That wasn't to say that teams hadn't developed shifts against certain hitters 90 or 100 years ago. Lane pointed out that opponents would overload the right side of their defense when lefty slugger Cy Williams came to bat. But clearly, today's computer capabilities weren't envisioned in 1925.
Even so, the idea of maximizing and customized defensive capabilities has been around for a century and it has taken most of that time to put the idea into effect.
 * * *
 Even before Monday night's game, I have won in one fantasy football league and lost in the other. I'm on a bit of a roll in the former, now 6-5 and I believe tied for fourth. The other league is going south, down to 4-7. Just 14 points from Peyton Manning, which just about equaled the total from the three RBs in my lineup. Bad day for Jordan Reed too.
 * * *
My fantasy hockey team is pretty much static, still fourth by a comfortable margin, half a point out of third and not likely to finish first unless the current leader collapses totally. With plenty of room to grow with my goalies, I have made a trade offer to the owner who leads in GAA and save percentage. We'll see what happens there. By the way, the goalie I already picked up on waivers was Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

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.

The dog ate it

The dog didn't eat my homework Saturday, but Firefox crapped out and took away almost an entire (fairly short) post. I'm too tired to redo it in toto, but here's a synopsis. An Orioles prospect, LHP Tim Berry, pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the sixth inning to help the Surprise Saguaros defeat the Mesa Solar Sox 2-0 for the Arizona Fall League championship. Berry retired AFL most valuable player Kris Bryant (Cubs) and struck out batting champion C.J. Cron (Angels) to end the inning. My fantasy hockey team stayed about where it was Saturday, remaining in fourth place with 61 points in a 10-team league. My goaltending picture brightened but my plus/minus continued to head south. I may or may not give you more details later Sunday. Depends on my mood and electronic cooperation.

Fantasy spectrum

Even when most of the news is from other sports, my posts will be primarily about baseball. I'm kind of easing into that mode; I haven't really allowed myself to follow baseball much since the World Series and my fantasy leagues ended. I still have to send out some hard-copy reports to the computer-challenged and those without sufficient equipment, and some checks to the winners. A couple of interesting player moves. A year ago at this time, OF Marlon Byrd had to go play winter ball in the Mexican Pacific League to prove himself worthy of a major league contract. He was coming off a year that included a drug suspension. He was a valuable addition to the Pirates' lineup down the stretch and in the postseason. Now he's a valuable addition back with his original team, the Phillies, who signed him for 2 years and $16 million. The Blue Jays signed 1B Dan Johnson. He has had some really ugly statistical seasons, but has elevated his game in September/October crunch time for just about every team that has employed him. After some false alarms, is Toronto really ready to make a run for the postseason. I'd like to see that for John Gibbons' sake if nothing else. * * * After this week's first NFL game, I'm leading 15-0 in one league and trailing 15-0 in the other. I seriously doubt that the leader will stay the same in both leagues, and maybe not in either. The league where I'm ahead is points-only. I scored 9 with Rob Bironas and 6 with Delanie Walker. But now I have just six players remaining, and my opponent has all eight of his. In the other league, a points/yardage/bonus setup, my opponent's points came from Adam Vinatieri -- 3 PATs and 3 field goals with some bonus points for distance. She has eight players remaining, but I have all nine of mine. * * * Remember how one of my tips for fantasy hockey was to make sure you make your daily lineup revisions early so you don't forget them? As I was driving to Fort Worth this afternoon, I thought I'd forgotten to make mine. Then as I began writing this, I made some moves late last night, late enough that it was after midnight and the moves would register for Friday. Perhaps I should have made all the moves. I put Torey Krug in the lineup to replace Milan Michalek. Krug was -2 and Michalek +2. My goalie woes continued, but to a lesser degree. I'm still having trouble gaining wins. Steve Mason played very well, stopping 36 of 38 shots, but the Flyers lost to Washington in a shootout. Mason did help considerably with his 1.85 GAA and .947 save percentage. I stayed at 61 points, but dropped into fourth place, half a point out of third. My team's plus/minus, driven by the 4-point swing between Krug and Michalek, now is only one ahead of my league's fifth-best team in plus-minus. My goalies are within 4 percentage points of ninth place, and within 5 points in save percentage but the 3.02 team GAA is 17 percentage points out of ninth place.

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.