Wednesday, April 04, 2007

 

After watching the NCAA Championship game with Francis, the other night, I read Bill Simmons' take on the game, and felt compelled to respond. He actually answers a lot of reader queries in mailbag columns, so maybe I'll even get a response. :-p

Here's what I wrote him:

Bill, in your April 3 column you noted that Florida had 5 players projected as top-10 (Noah, Brewer, Horford) or second-round (Green, Richard) picks. I know he's one dimensional, but Lee Humphrey absolutely shoots the lights out and clearly already has NBA 3-range, so why isn't he considered potential NBA material, as a Steve Kerr type specialist? While watching that game didn't you find yourself thinking, every time Humphrey drilled a 3, "Oh, man, that was a dagger!" In the first half, Ohio St. went on a 7-1 run to close within 2 with about 5 minutes left in the first half, and then Humphrey hit a stopper three; Ohio St. never closed the lead to less than 5 the rest of the game. With 9 minutes left in the game, Ohio St. went on a 5-0 run to bring a 14-point deficit back under double-digits; bang, Humphrey stops the momentum with a dagger 3. Anyway, maybe it's reading too much from a few clutch performances (6-12, 4-8, 4-8 and 4-7 on threes in the '06 & '07 final four games), but . . . damn, the kid is just Money. If I were an NBA coach I'd sure want him on my bench, ready to come into the game when my team's down by 3 with 4 ticks on the clock, and in that role he'd be a heck of a lot more useful than most of the DNP regulars cluttering NBA rosters.

Also, on a far more important note, the funding finally came through to make my postdoc at RPI official. Woo-hoo!


Switching back to a far less important note, allow me to introduce the 2007 model of the Ragin' Rhinos: (my keeper-league fantasy baseball squad)

Active:

C: Chris Ianetta (COL)
1B: Albert Pujols (STL)
2B: Chase Utley (PHI)
SS: Miguel Tejada (BAL)
3B: Miguel Cabrera (FLA)
OF: Jason Bay (PIT)
OF: Chris Young (ARI)
OF: Scott Podsednik (CHW)
DH: Jim Thome (CHW)
SP: Johan Santana (MIN)
SP: Ben Sheets (MIL)
SP: Greg Maddux (SD)
SP: Doug Davis (ARI)
SP: Adam Eaton (PHI)
SP: Edgar Gonzalez (ARI)
RP: Jorge Julio (FLA)

Bench:

OF: Matt Kemp (LAD)
OF: Josh Hamilton (CIN)
RP: Jonathan Sanchez (SF)
RP: Octavio Dotel (KC)
SP: Roger Clemens (Unsigned)

On the Disabled List:

OF: Carlos Quentin (ARI)
SP: Freddy Garcia (PHI)
SP: Bartolo Colon (CLE)
SP: Pedro Martinez (NYM)
SP: Francisco Liriano (MIN)

In the Minors:

OF: Adam Lind (TOR)
SP: Mike Pelfrey (NYM)
SP: Tim Lincecum (SF)
SP: Micah Owings (ARI)
SP: Scott Elbert (LAD)

Huh . . . only in writing this down did I realize how tilted my team is towards the NL: 22 of 30 players. Anyways, that's the team. With Clemens, Colon, & Martinez stashed away until later, and loads of young new talent with high upside (Ianetta, Young, Quentin, Hamilton, Kemp, Pelfrey, Lincecum) it's a team that I clearly built with the playoffs in mind. I don't expect my team to lead the ZHL (Zen Holist League . . . okay, keep it clean, kids) in regular season total points, as it has the last three years, but I think I should be really strong come September. If everyone's back in action, I'll be able to run out a pitching rotation of Santana, Sheets, Clemens, Martinez, Garcia, Colon, & Maddux, to go with my all-world Pujols-Utley-Tejada-Cabrera infield. Not bad.

Oh, and my crop of rookie "flyers" includes four (Hamilton (2 votes), Lincecum (1), C. Young (5), & Pelfrey(2)) who were picked by 10 different members of ESPN's panel of 17 experts to win the NL rookie-of-the-year.

posted by Miles 10:24 AM