Sometimes there's a team—and I’m talkin’ about the Dodgers here, sometimes there’s a team, well, they’re the team for their time and place. They fit right in there. And that's the Dodgers. In Los Angeles. And even if they’re a great team—and the Dodgers are most certainly that--quite possibly the greatest in Southern California, which would place them high in the runnin’ for greatest worldwide. Sometimes there's a team... Ah, I lost my train of thought here.

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I know we just had a big movie thread, but I thought there might be interest in the Academy Awards tonight. We can dish about the outfits, that dreamy Hugh Jackman, this year's movies and do a little gambling.

I started a pool at www.funofficepools.com. The site is a little clunky, but it's way better than some of the others I came across. After registering an account (free) click join pools

http://www.funofficepools.com/joinpool.php

Choose 'Oscars' from the drop menu. Pool Name Red Reporter Password Taveras. It would be helpful if you make your Selection name the same or similar to your RR screen name. The Deadline is 8pm tonight.

To make things interesting I'll send an envelop to the winner, but I can't legally promise that it will include Academy screener DVD copies of all the best picture nominees (I also can't promise that on request I will swap out The Reader or Benjamin Button for something better like The Wrestler).

At 2 PM today the BBWAA will announce the NL MVP. In years past I've compared the candidates and invited debate on the matter. Increasingly I've come to realize that these exercises inevitably deteriorate into people talking past each other. Everyone has their idea of what the MVP is. So let's look at how this year's candidates match up to the justifications.

For the record here are the voting guidelines:

1. Actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense.
2. Number of games played.
3. General character, disposition, loyalty and effort.
4. Former winners are eligible.
5. Members of the committee may vote for more than one member of a team.

UPDATE: It's Pujols.

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We need to get moving on a RR fantasy football league if we want to be able to do a live draft on Yahoo. The past few years we were forced to draft on Red Reporter which was a pain (although the new system should alleviate that if it comes to it).

The following people expressed interest the last time the waters were tested:

sonant1
MixFMKyle
Charlie Scrabbles
BK
Lakeman
snohio
jacob brumfield
crolfer
obc
Red Menace
Officer Dibble
greg456
chesirecat
chandrathan
Caleb (if needed)

In addition the following were involved last year (sorry if I missed you)

Ash
Brian B
sledridge (where has he been?)

Anyone else is welcome to throw their hat into the ring now. So far it looks like 14 strong committments with a potential for 18, plus whoever jumps in now. I think we should be able to get to 20 so we can have two leagues. That would increase the chances that everyone could make their draft time.

What time works best for drafting? 7-ish on a weeknight? Stay tuned to this thread for league-joining info which will probably be forthcoming.

UPDATE

The league with a live draft will be this Wednesday at 7:45pm Eastern (8 was unavailable and the next time was 10). If enough people really have a problem starting this soon we can move to Thursday, but the times would still be 7:45 or 10.
 
League ID #: 554660 (Yahoo)
Password: cincy

The max teams is 14. You can still edit your rankings and let the computer autodraft for you if you like. However there is also an

Autodraft league
League ID #: 554710
Password: cincy

I will hand over commissionership and drop out once enough people join this one. Once everyone is ready the commish will tell the computer to do the autodraft. There’s more time to get a crew together here and fantasy first timers are welcome to join as it should be a more mellow scene.

Happy Opening Day Eve everybody. Time to show off our powers of prognosticating. First some kudos are in order. Here's how we did last year.

By far the biggest mistake was the Dodgers, who most everybody had winning the NL West, We got totally Pierred. Nobody had the Rockies anywhere close to the playoffs The DBacks and Indians made a lot of people look smart, while the late collapses of the Mets and Brewers hurt a lot.

Two Red Reporters, teb7 and ken,  correctly called 6 of the 8 playoff teams.  teb7 missed on the Brewers and the Padres as a Wild Card. ken missed on the Dodgers and Mets, although he did have the Mets behind the Phillies.

greg456, Alan (young, handsome Alan) and ctnyc all correctly picked the Red Sox to win the World Series. Way to go out on a limb there, fellas. Now on to 2008...

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Congrats to Officer Dibble for winning the Red Reporter Fantasy Football league. Despite finishing the regular season with a .500 record, his Vegas Strippers got hot at the right time. This is the second consecutive RR Fantasy Football crown for OD. Dynasty!

He defeated sonant1 in the finals by 1 point. Reggie Wayne's fumble in the Sunday night game was the difference.

Brian B downed MixFMKyle in the third place game. Kyle is on his way to becoming the Atlanta Braves after dominating the regular season for the second straight year with nothing to show for it.

Tomorrow is the long awaited Mitchell Report Day. Rumors abound that the Senator's findings will name 60-80 current and former Major League players. Here's your chance for wild speculation.

The Rules

List ten players, 1 through 10, that you believe will be "named" (mentioned in any pejorative way in the Mitchell Report). You'll receive 10 points if your #1 name is listed, 9 points for #2 and so on (like an NFL confidence pool). As a bonus any former Reds players will result in double points (so ten points if you had Frank Robinson at #6 on your list and he's named).

Note the list of ineligible players below! Any player who has admitted usage, tested positive, or been implicated through some sort of leak is not acceptable. Be creative and show your biases.

Please use this diary only to post your list of 10. For questions or further steroid talk use this one.

And folks, please just scroll quickly to the bottom and make your list. Don't look at other peoples' picks. That would be cheating on a steroid pool, which is way too meta for me to handle. Also no changing your list with 'Reply to'. The deadline is 2:00 PM on Thursday. Good luck!

===Ineligible Players==

Admitted Users (17)
Ken Caminiti - Steroids
Barry Bonds - Steroids
Bobby Estalella - Steroids and hGH
Jason Giambi - Steroids and hGH
Jeremy Giambi - Steroids
Armando Rios - Steroids and hGH
Benito Santiago - Steroids and hGH
Gary Sheffield - Steroids
Jose Canseco - Steroids and hGH
Tom House - Steroids
Wally Joyner - Steroids
Paxton Crawford - Steroids and hGH
Jason Grimsley - Steroids and hGH
Jim Leyritz - hGH
David Segui - hGH
John Rocker - hGH
Paul Byrd - hGH
Implicated Players (29)
Mark McGwire - Steroids
Manny Alexander - Steroids
Chuck Finley - Steroids
Marvin Bernard - Steroids and hGH
Randy Velarde - Steroids
Wilson Alvarez - Steroids and hGH
Bret Boone - Steroids
Ozzie Canseco - Steroids
Juan Gonzalez - Steroids and hGH
Dave Martinez - Steroids
Ivan Rodriguez - Steroids and hGH
Tony Saunders - Steroids and hGH
Miguel Tejada - Steroids
Lenny Dykstra - Steroids and hGH
Dave Hollins - Steroids
Roger Clemens - "PE Drugs"
Andy Pettitte - "PE Drugs"
Brian Roberts - Steroids
Jay Gibbons - Steroids
Gary Matthews Jr. - hGH
Jerry Hairston Jr. - hGH
David Bell - hCG
Darren Holmes - Steroids and hGH
Rick Ankiel - hGH
Troy Glaus - Steroids
Scott Schoeneweis - Steroids
Matt Williams - Steroids and hGH
Jose Guillen - Steroids and hGH
Ismael Valdez - hGH
MLB Posiive Tests (16)
Alex Sanchez - Unknown
Jorge Piedra - Unknown
Agustin Montero - Unknown
Jamal Strong - Unknown
Juan Rincon - Unknown
Rafael Betancourt - Unknown
Rafael Palmeiro - Stanzolol (Steroid)
Ryan Franklin - Unknown
Mike Morse - Unknown
Carlos Almanzar - Unknown
Felix Heredia - Unknown
Matt Lawton - Boldenone (Steroid)
Yusaku Iriki - Unknown
Guillermo Mota - Unknown
Juan Salas - Unknown
Dan Serafini - Unknown
Non-MLB Positive Tests (2)
Termel Sledge - Precursor (Andro)
Derrick Turnbow - Precursor (Andro)
.end
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For the last of these awards diaries I'm breaking format. There's been a lot of consternation here over Aaron Harang's "poor" showing in last year's Cy Young voting (he didn't appear on a single ballot). For my part I've been dismissive of these concerns. The question now is will he get a vote for 2007? The hardware gets handed out on Thursday.

The important thing to remember is each writer only names three pitchers on his or her ballot. I see two locks and a handful of challengers for the Harangatan. The fancy stats are Defensive-independent ERA and Value Over Replacement Pitcher from Baseball Prospectus, and Pitcher Runs Created and Win Shares from The Hardball Times.

Jake Peavy    ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    19-6     2.54 2.88 159  223.3 1.06 240 68 13 143  77.0  23
Peavy should win in a landslide. I would be shocked if weren't named on every ballot. He was first in ERA (any way you slice it, although adjusting for park or defense does lessen his lead), first in wins, strikeouts and K-rate, first in Win Shares and he leads in WHIP, VORP and PRC by large margins.  

Brandon Webb  ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    18-10    3.01 3.30 156  236.3 1.18 194 72 12 129  66.1  22
The defending champ was second to Peavy in PRC, VORP, WS, Wins and ERA. He led the league in innings, complete games and shutouts. He too should be named on every ballot. He might steal a few first place votes from Peavy because he led his surprise team to the playoffs and because he threw 42 consecutive scoreless innings in a row, challenging Hershiser's record. It should be remembered that despite this amazing feat, his season on the whole still lagged Peavy's by almost any measure. He might get Shannon Stewart love because his team made their move during his streak.

If we assume that these two will be named on every ballot (and I think they should be) that only leaves one spot for Aaron. The contenders:

Brad Penny    ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    16-4     3.03 2.99 151  208.0 1.30 135 73  9 108  61.7  21

I think Penny is Harang's stiffest competition. He's third in ERA+, VORP and Win Shares. He won as many games as Harang and his ERA looks very pretty. Harang's advantage comes in his peripherals. He pitched over 20 more innings, struck out many more and walked fewer, thus putting less responsibility on his defense. PRC aknowledges this. Will the voters?  

John Smoltz   ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    14-8     3.11 3.48 137  205.7 1.18 197 47 18 112  56.7  16
Tim Hudson
    16-10    3.33 3.56 128  224.3 1.22 132 53 10 108  59.7  19

Smoltz and Hudson both tallied slightly more VORP than Harang. Timmy was credited with 2 more Win Shares. Smoltz and Harang tied for the league leade in K/BB ratio, but Harang threw 26 more innings. The big key here is that both of their ERA advantages over Harang disappear when we adjust for defense. Is Andruw still that much of a factor?

Roy Oswalt    ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
     14-7    3.18 3.26 138  212.0 1.32 154 60 14 110  59.8  18

I still maintain that he's slipping, but he did best Harang in VORP, Win Shares and ERA and its derivatives. And now our candidate:

Aaron Harang  ERA DERA ERA+ IP    WHIP  K  BB HR PRC  VORP  WS
    16-6     3.73 3.38 125  231.7 1.14 218 52 28 119  53.8  17

The case for Harang as the (at least) third best pitcher in the league: He's a solid third to Peavy and Webb in PRC. His WHIP was 5th in the league but only Peavy's from this group was better (Young, Hamels and Lilly were the others). He was second to Webb in IP, second to Peavy in strikeouts. His strikeout to walk ratio tied for first in the league with Smoltz's. He threw 2 complete games (Webb led with 4).  

The case against Harang as the third best pitcher in the league: He was 7th in the league in VORP (behind every pitcher here). His ERA is really bad amongst this elite group. Before you say GABP, his ERA+ is still last in this group. A better rallying point is the Reds' defense. Harang's DERA jumps the two Braves', is pretty close to Webb's, but still lags Peavy's and Penny's by a good measure. He's sixth in Win Shares, topping only Smoltz. Harang's major problem was giving up home runs. I thought there might be a park effect at work that ERA+ isn't accounting for, but his HR splits are almost identical (15 in 118.2 IP at home, 13 in 113 IP on the road).

I would cast a third place vote for Harang. I think he'll get some this year, but I wouldn't be entirely surprised if he got shut out again. These were the clear top 7 candidates by my stat-y evaluation, but others could pop up on the ballots. A few votes are usually collected by the top reliever (Saito?) or by a local champion (Hamels, Lilly?)