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7/31 - Well, it appears that El Duque's blowup only cost me about 100 ranking spots. He was probably owned widely enough to significantly dampen the impact. And it looks like many of you decided to stick with him, given his relatively mild price drop.

Speaking of which, the Assimilator has now been updated with new prices. The sortable stats tables should be posted sometime mid-evening (hopefully by 9pm or so).

7/30 - No sooner do I manage to creep back into the top 500 in rankings again (both teams) when, lo and behold, I get blindsided by "El Puque", who offers up the seventh worst SWP outing of the entire season. . . . (Well, OK, it was only tied for 7th worst.) I know, I know, a lot of you have him too. Well, if it makes you feel better, I had him on both teams, so he didn't cost you any ground vs. me.

Yesterday's points and the Assimilator have been posted. That's all I'm doin' today.

Ciao!

7/29 - First of all, thanks to Gen for today's quote.

A brief word about the new poll. Remember that, to be considered as a comeback player, you must have first been a good player, and then had at least one off year. Players like Bartolo Colon and Rolando Arrojo are certainly having banner years, but they just aren't appropriate candidates for a comeback award this season. I may have overlooked an obvious choice, but I scanned through all of the pitchers, and these seemed the most logical American Leaguers. And again, remember that it's my poll, so I can frame it as I please.

On the road, again. . . . .

7/28 - I see that both of my teams have cracked the top 500 again. Every time this has happened before, I've had trouble maintaining that position. Hopefully this time I'll have better staying power.

I had a number of managers email me yesterday to ask if I knew when the SW site would be back up. Guess what - it was operating fine all day! Now, guess what the common thread was among all those who wrote about this. Yep - they were all from AOL email addresses. For some reason, from time to time, AOL just seems to be unable to connect through to some sites. I can't explain it. The good news is that within a day it usually fixes itself. The bad news, of course, is that if this happens when you need to make a trade, you're hosed! So AOL users, my advice to you is "Assume nothing!" (Actually, even better advice is to drop AOL and get a more reliable ISP.)

I've also gotten a lot of email in the last few days asking for my advice on possible trades. Sorry, but I just don't have the time to do that for everyone. My goal is to provide you with enough strategy ideas and statistical data so that you can each make your own decisions. So if you asked me for my opinion, don't hold your breath waiting for a response.

The next two days will be travel days for me again, as I trek westward toward Buckeye country. I'll try to get the Yesterday page and the Assimilator updated in the morning before I leave, but that will probably be all I get posted tomorrow. On Thursday, I won't have anything posted until sometime in the mid-to-late afternoon, in all likelihood. Friday's postings may be a little delayed as well. So be prepared for some delays over the next few days.

7/27 - I was sick as a dog for awhile yesterday - high fever and such - so I was a bit slow on getting the site updated yesterday. I seem to be pretty well on the mend today. Must have been one of those 24 hour bugs. I hope so.

Not many games scheduled today. Bummer.

I've gotten a few messages from managers lately asking for advice on using their last trade or two. Invariably, my response is that if you only have 1 or 2 trades left, save it to take care of injuries. There's still two full months of the season left!

7/25 - Chuck Finley has got to win some type of award this season for "taking one for the team." He was hit by his third line drive of the season (twice while on the mound, once while on the bench - and not all in one game - that would be a record!), and he also tore up his knee after covering first base last week. Maybe it has something to do with that blond hair?

Yesterday marked the first time that all three categories in the best games listing - best hitting, best pitching, and worst pitching - were added to. John Smoltz, Jeff Kent, and Scott Winchester each contributed. Vladimir Guerrero posted his 99 SWP over two games, so his day, while certainly useful if you have him on your roster, didn't qualify for my listing of best single games.

Price changes yesterday were about as expected. Frankly, I wasn't sure what to expect for Albert Belle, since most of his buying activity occurred the prior week. I thought he might be subject to some profit taking, although his latest week was still pretty strong. But he held his ground. The strength of Greg Vaughn's increase was a bit surprising. And Al Leiter has now reached a price that exceeds his pre-injury price. If he can keep pitching well, he's worth it. But with a lot of recent buying, his price will be vulnerable to a bad outing.

I got a complaint last night that my new poll was "unfair" because I left the Brewers off the list. Unfortunately, the poll software that I use only allows me five selections, and the Brewers weren't in the top five contenders based on their current record. Besides, who said anything about it having to be "fair"?

7/24 - Yesterday's stats and the Assimilator have been updated, including this afternoon's new prices. Summary stat tables and individual player pages will be posted by the early evening. MLM tables should be updated by mid-evening. And somewhere along the line, I'll update the RotoGuru poll, too. I just let the quote ride for an extra day. And if any of you have sent me email in the last day or so, just hang in there. It will be another day or two before I get caught up. Thanks for your patience!

7/23 - I see the poll count is really growing this week. Must be some new traffic coming over from the Smallworld site. Nice of them to let me plug the Assimilator in this weeks column.

I updated summary stats through Tuesday, and what you see is all you'll get prior to trading tomorrow. The Assimilator is still fully up to date. Tomorrow (Friday) is a travel day for me, so I will probably not update anything until late afternoon or early evening, when I'll be able to update everything, including new prices. I'll probably even reset the poll!

Special thanks to Al Rodriguez (another A-Rod!) for providing today's quote. He sent in several, which will probably be appearing for the next several days.

Off to the beach!

7/22 - Juan Gonzalez made up for some lost time yesterday with 2 homers and 5 ribbies in a 15-5 shellacking of the Royals. In spite of that slugfest, though, there were five pitching performances which exceeded 160 SWP: Reed, Cone, Wood, Portugal, and Erickson. Each of those guys probably appear on a good number of rosters (on 2nd thought, judging from his price, maybe not Portugal, although he's been pretty decent of late), so it will be a tough day to keep pace if you don't have any of them.

7/21 - Thanks to Ken Veit for submitting today's quote.

I updated the summary stats and individual player stats pages late last night. MLM tables were just updated this morning. And I added a short sequel to the efficiency article I wrote 10 days ago. Sorry for leaving the current RotoGuru poll up so long, but I just haven't gotten around to changing it. Consider the poll as being on vacation as well.

Brian Hunter, over both games of the Yankees-Tigers doubleheader last night (and early this morning), went 0-13. Ouch! Talk about a long night. And Mark Wohlers continued his assault on everyone's sensibilities last night, throwing 19 balls out of 24 pitches, walking 4 of the 7 batters he faced, but somehow miraculously getting two Cubs out. Wonder what's up with him?

7/20 - Updating went more smoothly today, thank goodness. There may be some minor SWP glitches yesterday, as is customary when I shift back and forth from day-to-day between alternative stat sources. If you note something peculiar, just let me know, and I'll try to get it corrected.

Almost as if on cue, in response to a recent feedback letter extolling the benefits of closers and their lack of bad point days, Troy Percival threw a -72 SWP bomb yesterday. Robb Nen also had a -32 SWP outing, and Tom Gordon put up a -82 SWP game. So closers can be bad, too. Even good closers.

7/19 (evening) - Finally got 'em. Yesterday's stats and the Assimilator have been updated through Saturday's games. Nothing else will be posted tonight.

7/19 - My first day of vacation and I've already got complications. CBS Sportsline stats are not updated today, and I seem to have forgotten to transfer my USA Today backup spreadsheet to my laptop. So, I'll have to recreate the conversion routine from scratch. Argh! I'll have Saturday's stats posted sometime, but it may not be until tomorrow morning. Deal with it! Let's just say "I lost 'em in the sun."

Take the rest of the day off. You've deserved it.

7/18 - Vacation schedule starts today! The Assimilator and yesterday's stats have already been posted. Other than that, nothing else may get updated today. If you want to "drill down" to look at a player, use the Assimilator. I know it's not as convenient as the individual stats pages, but you'll have to rough it for a few weeks - just like the pioneers!

A quick word on yesterday's repricing. Albert Belle was clearly the best pick going into this repricing, and he didn't disappoint. If he has a decent week, he my continue upward next Friday. One surprise, however, was Antonio Osuna, who went up slightly. I figured that with the acquisition of Jeff Shaw, Osuna was toast. It was also interesting to see the "bottom fishing" for Al Leiter in advance of his first start, but no action whatsoever for Bernie Williams in advance of his.

7/17 - As I was contemplating today's trading opportunities, I was struck that so many of the recent hot hitters are third baseman - Chipper Jones, Ken Caminiti, Edgar Martinez, and Vinny Castilla have all been averaging better than 20 SWP/G over the last 15 days. When a position is loaded with strong performers, price changes tend to be pretty well dispersed, although Caminiti's 3 homer game this week might have attracted more notice than the others. We'll see soon enough. Of course, Belle and Griffey have been the big dogs. So the hot corner might not be so hot from a trading perspective anyway.

Speaking of dogs, my internet connectivity has been slower than usual this week. I wonder if the heat has anything to do with it, either directly or indirectly? We're entering the "dog days" of the baseball season - do internet service providers have the same seasonal phenomenon?

7/16 - Quite a pitcher's showdown in Fenway Park last night on the ESPN national game. Pedro Martinez outdueled Bartolo Colon, 1-0. Tough luck for Colon owners, who get only 79 SWP, instead of the 139 he would have gotten had he won this one.

Meanwhile, Andres Galarraga had a monster day with 97 SWP, not only knocking in 5 runs with 2 round-trippers, but also stealing a base, and collecting his all-too-customary HBP. Albert Belle's 101 SWP day was bigger, but Albert used both ends of a double-header to rack up his total, so he doesn't get on the best games list for his day, as Galarraga did for his.

Chuck Finley gets the tough luck award for the day, as he skinned his knee after a clumsy attempt to cover first base during the 5th inning. He was working on a shutout, but had to leave the game, and thus didn't complete the 5 innings needed for the win. Shouldn't be any lasting impact from this injury, at least.

7/15 - Albert Belle has certainly busted out the whuppin' stick after the All-Star break. Among all hitters, only Griffey has produced more SWP since the first of July. Belle has always been a very streaky hitter, in both directions (when he's hot, he's burning hot, and when he's cold, he's ice cold). But his 8 homers in July are already more than he's hit in any single month since joining the ChiSox. It's reminiscent of 1995, when he hit 31 during the final two months of the season en route to his 50 HR year.

Regarding Senate Bill 474, on internet gambling (see the recent feedback letter if you aren't familiar with the issue) - there is evidently an article by John Hunt in the May 13th issue of Baseball Weekly titled "Roto owners have little to fear from bill". I don't have quick access to the publication, but I like the sound of the title. Any BW subscribers out there who can give us the scoop?

Let me give you all some advance warning. Beginning this Saturday, I'll be vacationing for the better part of the next four weeks. The good news is that I'll have my laptop computer along, and I will be maintaining the site during this time. However, I will probably not update all of the stats tables every day. My plan is to continue to update the "Yesterday's SWP" and the Assimilator each morning, as always. However, I will probably only update the summary SWP stats, the individual player tables, and the MLM pages a couple of times per week, most likely on Wednesday nights (to assist your trading decisions), and again sometime on the weekend. I'll use my blurb-space to keep you apprised of my updates. I think this schedule will provide you with sufficient information to keep your teams afloat, while reducing my daily update and upload burden to a manageable level.

7/14 - To those of you who are bemoaning your pitchers' latest starts, you should at least be consoled by the fact that you have plenty of company. Here's the SWP production for the most recent start of many of the leading pitchers:

    Greg Maddux        54
    Curt Schilling     62
    Pedro Martinez     49
    Orlando Hernandez  -6
    Todd Stottlemyre   46
    Kerry Wood         47
    Bartolo Colon       3
    Chuck Finley       40
    Tom Glavine       -26
    Rolando Arrojo     34

So, there's a lot of mediocrity going around. Of course, if any of you had Nerio Rodriguez, then you're quite happy with his 147 SWP outing. But I'll bet you don't have him!

Mark McGwire seemed to be running away with the last poll, and Greg Vaughn had finally gotten a few votes, as did "someone else", so it was time to move on to a new poll. How about this trade possibility: Randy Johnson to Cleveland for Nagy and Mesa? (I can dream, can't I?) Seems like Mesa would fit the Seattle bullpen profile like a hand in a glove.

7/13 - The big game of the day belonged to Ken Caminiti, whose 3 HRs and 5 RBIs produced 99 SWP, the fourth best hitting game of the season.

It's been interesting to watch the current poll results develop. When I first posted it on Saturday, Griffey had just caught McGwire, who hadn't homered in over a week, and Griffey took a commanding lead in the early poll results. But ever since Mark started jacking the ball out of the park again, he's been making a poll comeback. I think there is a strong tendency to over-emphasize the most recent information, in spite of the fact that it's a 162 game season. The poll development certainly provides evidence of this. If I'd have done the same poll in late June, Sosa probably would have fared much better.

If you were looking for a good opportunity to cycle through the Braves pitching rotation, the weekend series with the Marlins would have looked like a good opportunity. And it would have worked abominably, as Neagle, Maddux and Glavine all fell in succession. Smoltz was the only winner in the four-game set. Go figure!

7/12 - Randy Johnson finally pitched like Randy Johnson, with a 5 hit, 15 K shutout, good enough for 219 SWP, tied for the 4th best pitching game of the season. OK, Seattle, better trade him quickly now, before he backslides again.

Meanwhile, Greg Maddux got beat by the lowly Marlins, and even committed two fielding errors. Go figure! And Todd Hundley made his 1998 debut with a 1-for-4 night, good only for 2 SWP. I imagine he's got some upside from that starting point.

I posted a new essay yesterday afternoon, titled Efficiency, which evaluates the maximum SWP/G averages you can attain as a function of franchise value. This will be the article which appears on the Smallworld site next week. I think you'll find it interesting to compare your team's total SWP/G with the best that money can buy.

7/11 - If you scrambled to sell Antonio Osuna yesterday before his price dropped, you got burned. Not only did SW skip repricing yesterday, but Osuna picked up a win in relief last night. And if you picked up Danny Graves on the flip side of the trade, hoping he'd emerge as the Reds new closer, you got doubly burned, as Graves came in last night with a 5-0 lead and gave up four runs, for a -65 SWP output.

Meanwhile, Junior Griffey tied McGwire in dingers last night with his 37th of the season. Albert Belle had the big game of the night, though, with 2 homers and 6 RBIs generating 89 SWP, good enough to tie for 12th on the list of top hitting games this season.

7/10 - Back in business! I enjoy the All-Star game, but the three day break really (pardon my French) sucks!

Did you notice that Todd Stottlemyre batted 8th in the St. Louis starting lineup last night? He was 1-for-2 with run scored, but still lost the game. Reportedly, the move was to get a faster hitter (Placido Polanco) in the ninth spot, to keep the bases unclogged ahead of McGwire. I'm not sure that makes any sense, since it seems that McGwire either walks or homers, neither of which requires speed on the basepaths. According to the game recap on ESPN's site, the last time a pitcher started the game in other than the ninth slot was Steve Carlton, in 1979 - almost 20 years ago.

Unless something dawns on me at the last minute, I won't be making any trades this week. I just couldn't find anything compelling to do. I've still got 28 trades left (same for both teams), which is a comfortable arsenal at this point in the season. It works out to about an allocation of 2 trades per week. I figure that should easily take care of injuries and "streak management". Any spare trades in September can be used to pick up a few extra starts.

7/8 - I actually managed to stay up (but notice I didn't say "awake") until the end of the All-Star game. For an All-Star game, I'd rather see a high scoring affair, and this one certainly filled that bill. The lack of long balls was a little surprising, but we saw enough of those on Monday night, I guess. I'm not sure why Hargrove left Roberto Alomar in for so long, unless he wanted to get one more good look at him prior to making a trade offer. The Indians are reportedly interested in Roberto, he's interested in the Tribe, and Baltimore is reportedly interesting in shedding some payroll. We'll see.

With an abbreviated schedule this week, there isn't much new information on which to base trade decisions, other than the Konerko/Shaw trade, with its attendant implications for Osuna.

So let's get this show back on the road!

7/6 - All-Star break. Although I enjoy the selection of - and ensuing discussion about - the players on the two teams, the game is often anticlimactic, and the three day "rest period" is notoriously dull. And I don't live close enough to Cedar Point to take Manny's place for his traditional day trip, although I will be out in that neck of the woods in early August. Juan Gonzalez closed out the week with a nice rebound, after putting up close to nothing for most of the week. If you look at his game-by-game history, he seems to swing back and forth from week to week, with a fair number of roughly week-long periods of nada, followed by a week of going nuts. I guess the moral here is, if you've got him, learn to deal with it.

And Randy Johnson continued to flounder. Just when you think maybe he's getting it back together, he tosses a negative outing. Ah well, from the looks of his price pattern, I'd say most managers are watching him from the sidelines. The price is too lofty to justify the risk. Last season he produced an average of more than 24 SWP per eligible game, and if he could return to that form, he'd be a bargain. But this year, he's averaged less than half of that amount. He's making it tough for the Mariners to attract "full value" trade offers for him.

7/4 - At first, I was surprised at the size of yesterday's price increase for Todd Stottlemyre, until I noticed the size of the decline for Al Leiter. Todd was obviously the prime beneficiary of the Leiter dumping, being the best pitcher available at a comparable price. Stottlemyre rewarded that confidence with a stinker against the Reds last night. I doubt that most people were quick enough on the trigger to have picked up Stottlemyre before his previous (172 SWP) start, too, since it was the next day after Leiter's last outing, and the extent of Al's injury was not yet fully known.

Actually, the bigger surprise was not Stottlemyre's rise, but the magnitude of Leiter's fall. His price dropped to a level below his draft price. All other things being equal (which, of course, they aren't), that implies a surprising degree of alertness for this point of the season. Usually, by this time, I would expect a good number of teams to be comatose. In any event, Leiter looks like a good bargain waiting for his return, which is still at least 2-3 weeks away, according to Al himself, as reported by RotoNews.

The other surprises (for me, at least) were Galarraga, who I thought would be snapped up by some bargain hunters after last weeks dismal showing, especially since he hit two dingers in his first game back this week. I suppose that the intense competition at first base sent many managers searching elsewhere for safer alternatives. And I also thought that Antonio Osuna would get a bigger boost, with a few recent saves, a dirt cheap price, and the benefit of Southern California recognition. But, maybe he was to far off the radar screen for many managers to notice. I'll admit that I didn't even pick him up this past week, as I had no pitchers that I wanted to sell. Turned out to be a fortunate decision. For those who like to keep tabs, my two teams each went up a bit over $2 million yesterday, and my two franchise values are $125 million (CNN) and $118 million, while my team rankings are now up to 604 (CNN) and 570 (SW). I seem to have fully recovered from my big slump of a couple weeks back.

I watched some of the Cards-Reds game last night (the backup game on ESPN, as the Yankees-O's were on local TV). McGwire was walked twice (once intentionally) and hit by a pitch once, and each time, the Cincinnati fans booed the home team. Remarkable. Everyone wants to see Mark go deep. . . or at least no one wants to see the pitchers take the bat out of his hand - especially 3 times in one game.

7/3 (poll alert!) - When I reset the poll this morning, I inadvertantly left Bagwell off the list. So, I erased the results and started over. If you already voted, you'll have to vote again.

7/3 - First base is getting to be a tough position to choose among, especially lately. So many guys are hot right now: Bagwell, . . . Palmiero, . . . Brogna, . . . Delgado, . . . Snow, . . . Martinez, . . . Thome, . . . Floyd, . . . Clark, . . . Karros, . . . . . . . and then, of course, there's always McGwire. Over the past 2 weeks, McGwire has been only the 7th most productive first baseman (in term of SWP), even though he's been pretty close to his full year average.

Wouldn't it be something if Griffey leads McGwire in HR's by the All-Star break? It could happen!

Maddux and Martinez made the most of their final auditions for All-Star starting pitcher yesterday. Pedro could easily have racked up another 30 SWP, but with a 2-touchdown lead, he left the game after only six innings. Still, the most remarkable pitching performance yesterday was Darryl Kile's, who couldn't even blame his 2-inning, 10-run debacle on the rarified air of Coor's Field - since he "pitched" this one in the Kingdome. The outing was good for -183 SWP, third worst of the season. This knocks his season SWP total back to less than 300, while his price remains stuck at $8.3 million. This is a classic example of someone who was overpriced to begin the year and thus not bought - and so, since no one has him to sell, his price can't drop. So, the good news is that I'm sure none of you are reeling from last night's beauty. (And if you do own him, put on the dunce cap and go sit in the corner!)

Happy trading!

7/2 - Yesterday's All-Star article has generated more feedback than anything I've ever written. What surprises me the most is that almost all of it is favorable! I am especially surprised at the number of "good job!" and "you da man!" responses. I really expected more gripes about players excluded, as well as the usual number of "get a life!" responses that I learned to accept long ago. A few noted that I had listed Chipper Jones as being on Cincinnati (uh, that was a test. . . . yeah, a test, that's it!). Several wrote to point out that the rosters were expanded to 30 this year, so I still get two more picks. For the NL, I'd probably add back Piazza, and add Kerry Wood. For the AL, I think I'd add Garciaparra, and David Wells. I think 11 pitchers is a bit excessive for an All-Star team, but Wells has had a remarkable season in several respects, as I'll mention in a moment.

I imagine more people liked this article because it was generally fun, but not particularly cerebral. For some reason, everyone likes to pick baseball All-Star teams, much more so than any other sport, I think.

Now that the official teams have been announced, here's a summary of the differences from my picks: (I'll use my expanded rosters as noted above)

     On my team               On the real team
NL   Bagwell                  Gwynn (fan vote)
     DeShields                Walker (fan)
     Rolen                    Weiss (fan)
     Larkin                   Vina
     Burnitz                  Bichette
     Stottlemyre              Glavine
     Wood                     Shaw

AL   Palmiero                 Alomar (fan)
     Delgado                  Ripken (fan)
     Knoblauch                Lofton (fan)
     Higginson                Vaughn
     Rivera                   Vizquel
     Mussina                  Clemens
     Finley                   Sele
     Garciaparra

7/1 - Houston has really been tearing the cover off the ball lately! 38 runs scored in their last three games. The White Sox needed a "mercy rule" last night in their 17-2 shellacking. Sounds like a score for a beer league game - I wonder if they had kegs hidden somewhere?

If you ask me, blond hair doesn't become Jaret Wright, nor does it evidently help his pitching. Maybe you need to pitch for a California team to make it work - à la Chuck Finley.

I assembled All-Star rosters using average SWP/G as the principal selection criterion. Check out the results in my latest article, Smallworld All Stars, which also appeared as this week's article on the Smallworld and CNN/SI sites. It will be interesting to see how the players chosen by Hargrove and Leyland differ from these picks. Actually, I had it easier than they do, since I didn't have to fit in Cal Ripken, or Roberto Alomar, or Larry Walker, or Walt Weiss.

I took advantage of the off-day to reorganize the older blurbs and feedback pages a bit better. Now, I have a separate page archived for each previous month. If you want to go back to read some history, use the links at the bottom of the current Daily Blurbs and Feedback pages.

Click here for prior daily blurbs, by month:

June . . . . . May . . . . . April . . . . . March

RotoGuru is produced by Dave Hall (a.k.a. the Guru), an avid fantasy sports player. He is neither employed by nor compensated by any of the fantasy sports games discussed within this site, and all opinions expressed are solely his own. Questions or comments are welcome, and should be emailed to Guru<davehall@home.com>.