Expect to find a lot of trade rumor chatter scattered throughout any Baseball chats. With football camps opening, we've got to start paying attention to reports from there. The busiest time of the fantasy year is upon us!

Fantasy Sports:

Fantasy Sports with Chris Harris at 11AM.

USA Today's Devin Clancy at 11AM.

Fantasy Sports with Brendan Roberts at 3PM.

General Baseball:

Baseball Prospectus' Will Carroll at 3PM.

General Football:

NFL with ESPN Bloggers at 12-5PM.

This is just a heads up that by signing up for MyCoke Rewards you can get free StatTracker on yahoo! fantasy football.  Here is the link-

http://www.mycokerewards.com/beginHTMLRegister.do?id=ffst&locale=en_US

Sign up for MyCokeRewards with the same email address used to create your yahoo fantasy football team.  You should get a code within 48 hours.  Apparently you need to sign up for your yahoo fantasy football team first then MyCokeRewards.  If you have a non-yahoo email for MyCokeRewards already you can change it to a yahoo one, then use that email to sign up for fantasy football.

I had the chance to catch a few innings of the Dodgers game last evening and saw Takashi Saito strike out two batters before his elbow tightened up. It's not a good sign when you hear Vin Sculley say that "Saito had trouble brushing his teeth this morning has he experienced pain when doing so".

Then you get these quotes from Torre via TJ's blog over at the LA Daily News:

Saito will have an MRI tomorrow to determine the extent of his injury. ``It's never good when your closer comes out of a game,'' Torre said. ``I think you have to assume the worst ... (but) let's see what happens. I hope he can just rest it for four or five days and (return).'' ...

Jonathon Broxton should become the LA closer should Saito go on the DL, which I think is possible based on Torre's and Sculley's comments today.

Broxton has the tools to be a very good closer, but has blown more saves than he has saved. It will be interesting to see if LA goes after Huston Street as Buster Olney rumored in his blog today.

If Colletti has any power in LA anymore, he may get a deal done, but I think he should make a move for a power bat as some of the power LA counted on this season, read Andruw Jones, Jeff Kent and Matt Kemp have produced a grand total of 22 homers this season.

But I think LA should give Broxton a shot to close. This will allow Hong Chi Kuo to set up Broxton. Kuo has been one of the more dominant relievers in all of baseball this year with 63/13 k/bb ratio in 53 1/2 innings, allowing 38 hits and a 1.69 ERA and 0.96 WHIP.

Then again, maybe Kuo will get a chance to close. His numbers are better than Broxton's this year.

Note the "That's Debatable" link brings you to the MLB page of ESPN because the Disney affiliate does not put it up live until close to 1PM.  I don't like it.

Many struggle to find the links to the ESPN chats.  Making this one harder to find doesn't jibe with customer friendliness.

Fantasy Sports:

Fantasy Sports with Chris Harris at 11AM.

USA Today's Steve Gardner at 11AM.

Fantasy Sports with Brendan Roberts at 3PM.

General Baseball:

That's Debatable with Jayson Starkat 1PM.

About damn time, just one more bad free agent move by Bavasi that ultimately cost him his job....what a shame for the Mariners fans. Wonder how long before they take a bag of balls and a dozen maple bats for Bedard....ugh, 75 words isa aggravating for just wanting to relay news...I hope everyone has a nice day!

 

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/press_releases/press_release.jsp?ymd=20080710&content_id=3106433&vkey=pr_sea&fext=.jsp&c_id=sea&partnerId=rss_sea

from the Beaver County Times, via rotoworld:

The Beaver County Times reports that the Dodgers "have zeroed in on" on Jack Wilson as a replacement for Rafael Furcal.
According to the newspaper, the two teams "are in serious talks about a trade" for Wilson, who grew up and currently lives near Los Angeles. Matt Kemp's name is mentioned in connection with the possible deal, but we can't imagine that even Ned Colletti would deal him for a 30-year-old shortstop with a 690 career OPS.

If Kemp is involved, I can only hope Jason Bay is also part of the deal, otherwise, Ned is REALLY off his rocker.

Where would Pittsburgh put Kemp with that all-star outfield-Nady, Bay and McClouth? What would it mean for Andrew McCutchen? He's supposed to take over CF in 2009, no?

Maybe the writer of this article at the Beaver County Times had a bit too many Iron City's on his lunch break.

I hope I wasn't  too hard on beaver.

Here are the various chat links for ESPN.com, Baseball Prospectus and USA Today. If you know of a recurring chat that is open to unregistered users, then leave a comment and I will work it in. Rotoworld has chats, but they do not appear to be open at any time for the general public.

Monday, July 7, 2008:

Fantasy Sports:

Fantasy Sports with Chris Harris at 11AM.

USA Today's Steve Gardner at 11AM.

Fantasy Sports with Brendan Roberts at 3PM.

General Baseball:

MLB with at noon.

That's Debatable with Jayson Stark at 1PM.

Baseball Prospectus' Kevin Goldstein at 1PM.

General Football:

NFL with Keith Seifert at noon.

Perrotto's "Every Given Sunday" column is usually full of interesting rumors, and this one has a doozy for Dodgers fans:

The Dodgers are also said to be willing to move center fielder Matt Kemp in the right deal.

I have to imagine that he would be available in a deal only if the player they get back has more than 1/2 a year of control left. Any other deal involving Kemp would be <insert any negative adjecttive>.

This sentence came after stating that LA is interested in shortstops Jack Wilson and Juan Uribe.

Speculating on who LA would get in return for a deal involving Kemp only one name comes to mind-Matt Holliday. He has another year left in his current deal, has more power than Kemp, and hits for a better average.

Frankly, based on recent comments by Colletti, I would not be surprised if LA dealt Kemp:

Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti will be looking for a shortstop among other things before the July 31 non-waiver trading deadline, and the team is willing to adjust its philosophy of keeping their young players off-limits.

"We're more open-minded to who we may have to move," Colletti said.

Asked if he were referring to the young players, Colletti said, "They're not really young kids anymore."

Colletti's comments echoed what owner Frank McCourt told me earlier in the week when asked about the possibility of trading some of the kids. He said the ones they will hold onto are "the ones who are prepared to put in the work, listen to coaches and get better every day." The kids who they would be willing to part with are "the ones that can't do those things."

It can be said that Kemp doesn't listen to coaches as he has had some on field and off field issues this year and last. Another thing is Kemp has not displayed the power many projected of him, does not shorten his swing with two out, and has had issues hitting with RISP. But then again, he is only 23 yrs old. I remember Mike Schmidt hitting .199 in his rookie season, and he turned out ok. I am not saying Kemp is the next Schmidt, just saying players can improve.

Perrotto also mentions the usual rumors of CC Sabathia, Randy Wolf, Greg Maddux, Willy Taveras, Brian Fuentes rumors we all have read about this week.

The guy has done nothing but get on base since starting him minor league career.  Yes, a bit young at 21, but has improved his batting average to over .300 with a .415 OBP clip.  Instead of starting the inept HU, Berroa, or Maza, who have no more than 10 RBIs in all the games that they have started for the injured Furcal who's going to out for another two months.  The Dodgers need a shot in the arm to get their offense going so why not start this kid?

 

 

 

I was wondering what the state of fantasy NBA is now.  I played pretty extensively about 8-10 years ago but have not touched the stuff since then.  What are the usual scoring formats?  Back when I played we started 5-7 players and took their total points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks for the week.  That was about it.  I have saw 3 pointers worked in the bunch, especially with rotisserie play.  But that's about it. 

 

Back when I played I wrote articles for Fantasy Sports Magazine and CBS Sportsline but pretty much got burned out on the whole thing.  Actually I invented a color coded chart which broke down season schedules which worked pretty well for leagues that utilized the scoring format like I mentioned above.  I have thought about putting it together again as it would work if the scoring has not moved to "weekly averages" or something like that.  But I would need to figure out html or how to create a drop down menu to compare teams easier.  Maybe something we could put on here if anyone is interested, plus a tutorial.

 

Anyway, if anyone could add some info I would appreciate it.