Prowlers in trouble?

See this post from Perez Hilton's blog about how a certain Prowlers' starter is spending his free time...if we see another 2nd half decline, we may know why

Anyone think that Brad Penny and Greg (our newly married Tubagoo owner - congrats Greg!) resemble each other?

Back to reality

Believe it or not, I hadn't looked at anything baseball related since Thursday evening. I pretty much shut down once I saw Derek Lowe's box score versus the Mets and we were throwing David's birthday party yesterday (on Friday) and we had relatives coming in town Friday night.

So this afternoon, I finally sneaked a peek at the website and saw that the Shorts' slide had continued...now tied for 3rd with the defending champion, Lou Evil Sluggers (Erik, is there something I can link to?) and only half a point ahead of the surging Prowlers.

Then I looked at news for my players and I see that Takashi Saito's shoulder is bothering him again, that Dmitri Young's heel is flaring up and that Dontrelle Willis' pitching coach is looking at old tapes from 2003 to figure out why he's been so bad. I knew this was inevitable; that the Shorts' run had been too hot for too long and now it's time to see how far we fall before bottoming out...

By the way, congrats to Albert's daughter, Amanda, who finished 2nd today in her first competition (figure skating) at a higher level...I don't quite understand figure skating but Albert can tell you more than you (or he) would ever want to know.

Dontrelle Willis, thy name is FAAB-Bait

Tonight's line...

3 IP 11 H 6 ER 2 BB 4 K

For the season...

7-9 record
5.13 ERA
1.65 WHIP

Time to examine the free agent pitchers...Shane Youman? Kyle Kendrick? Any of them have to be better than Dontrelle, right?

18-Player Trade

So the big trade of the year happened last Monday...I haven't had a chance to break it down but my initial reaction was "Wow, big trade...but on the surface, seems like a good trade for both teams." Just as a reminder, here was the trade:

Slackers (10th place at time of trade, 46.5 points) traded:

Greg Maddux, $12/1st year
Tom Glavine, $8/2nd year
Heath Bell, $10/1st year
Aaron Heilman, $5/final year
Scott Rolen, $27/1st year
JJ Hardy, $7/final year
Andruw Jones, $36/first year
Omar Vizquel, $13/first year
Bengie Molina, $10/first year

to the Prowlers (5th place, 76.0 points) for:

Chad Billingsley, $8/1st year
Chuck James, $2/2nd year
Scott Linebrink, $8/1st year
Randy Messenger, $2/1st year
Rod Barajas, $5/1st year
Albert Callaspo, $5/2nd year
Scott Thorman, $5/2nd year
Joe Koshansky, $10/1st year (rookie status)
Andy Laroche, $4/1st year

I thought the Slackers did well on the pitching front, for the future, and even for the rest of this season. Maddux and Glavine are more proven, but Billingsley has the most upside and James is still of value, despite his WHIP. Also, Billingsley and James are much better on the strikeout front. With the Giants bullpen you never know about Messenger as a potential closer and Linebrink could get traded into a closer role sometime.

On the hitting front, it all comes down to Laroche and Koshansky. The Slackers gave up a fair amount of hitting (partially to offset the pitching it gained) and picked up a couple of guys (Barajas, Callaspo) that I wouldn't have valued much. As far as catchers go, I think I'd almost rather have Molina than Barajas for next year. But as I said, if Laroche ends up with the 3b job by next spring and if Koshansky could land into a 1b job, then the overall trade was probably worthwhile for the Slackers despite how uneven it looks now. I was high on Thorman as a keeper when I saw the trade, but didn't realize he's hitting .217 and even sat tonight versus a righty. At least the Slackers have Salty though...