Well, everyone appears to be in a tizzy over Michael Moore. If you didn't see it coming, well, I can't do anything for you. Whether you believe that Hollywood self-censored themselves last night, or merely showed restraint, if you had to pick one nominee who might go off, you'd pick him. My appreciation of this has to be that Michael Moore might have saved us from Jack Valenti immediately following up by telling us that "when you're file-swapping, you're file-swapping with Osama." Having seen how well something like that went off at the Grammys, and knowing how tight Jack is with that viewpoint, I was pleasantly surprised.

Meanwhile, we wrapped up the suck league draft tonight. 16 rounds Thursday night followed by 9 rounds tonight. A quick summary of all my team. Please remember the basic rules of suck league, the worse you do, the more valuable you are. Thus the best player last year was Mike Hampton (1400+ points) while the worst player was Barry Bonds (-2700 points)

Your 2003 Tampa Bay Yachtsmen!
Manager: Derek Bell

Philosophy: Having won this league last year, I understand the fundamental trick. Get at bats, and get innings pitched. If you get mediocre players, you will win, because unlike totally sucking players, they won't be replaced. Therefore, scour for middling pitchers on bad teams, position players selected for defense, and players who can't be replaced by AAA talent, avoid closers and power hitters unless you're fairly certain they're toast, and don't touch injured players, unless they're trying to fight through it. With that in mind:

Round 1: Todd Ritchie SP, MIL
All three of the qualifications I look for in a starter, lots of losses the previous year on a good team, moving to a bad team, with injuries to other pitchers so he's likely to stay in the rotation even if he dies on the mound. (He was one of my top 3 targets, the other 2 being Steve Sparks, and Tanyon Sturtze. Steve Sparks is a living god in this league.)

Round 2: Corey Patterson, OF, CHC
Last year he was the best outfielder to own. Little hit, lots of K's, and it's not like there's a AAA outfielder challenging him.

Round 3: Shawn Chacon SP, COL
He was my second best pitcher last year, and with him still in Coors it's like buying bonds (savings, not Barry) (Goal number 1 of my team: assemble a rotation's worth of starters early. Starting pitching ruled last year, and though the stats were put more in balance, I'm not about to lose that way.)

Round 4: Mo Vaughn, 1B, NYM
Yeah, I've heard how he's dropped weight, unless he's replaced fat with youth, he's dang near toast. Fact remains, with Kevin Young down to a platoon, Vaughn is the best 1B guy in suck league. This was goal number 2 of my team in action: Lock down top players in the positions of 1B, OF, and to a lesser degree 2B. All of these last year were easily handled by simply picking someone off of the waiver wire, as we only had 6 teams, with 11 this year, they become premiums. While the rest of the league was grabbing SS early (as those were the really bad numbers) I went after the hard positions first.

Round 5: Jeff Liefer, 1B/OF, MTL
Here's the pick that will either guarantee me a win, or blow me out of the water. He's positionally flexible, and in danger of losing his position at 1B to Wil Cordero. This screams suck. If he holds on to the 1B position, I'm perfectly set to deal Mo, or if Mo blows, put Liefer in the OF, and really rack up the points.

Round 6: Damion Easley, 2B, DET
There was a run on 2B at this point, and I needed to nail down one. (We'll see where I recover from this later, knowing that today Easley was put on the Tigers' bench.)

Round 7: Fernando Tatis, 3B, MTL
Not exactly the 3B I wanted, but I had run out of guys that I looked at and went "Yes, this 3B stinks!" Tatis was the last one on my list. I didn't want to be pressured to take one this early, but I needed to.

Round 8: Ramon Hernandez, C, OAK
Another former member of the Monongahela Trawlers (my team last year) Does everything I want him to do. Low batting average, little power. Solid suck. And he starts slow, so I'm likely to reap his benefits fast.

Round 9: Glendon Rusch, P, MIL
I needed another pitcher, Rusch fits the bill. (There seems to be a run on picking Brewers pitching, this shouldn't be surprising, Neugebauer is supposedly out for most of the year, and the rest of the rotation was down to using Dave Mlicki, until they cut him.)

Round 10: Rey Sanchez, SS, NYM
Immediately before picking him, I confirmed Jose Reyes had been sent to AAA. I probably have the worst(that is best) starting shortstop of any team in the league. However, where the average of other positions scored around 100 points last year, the average SS scored around 500 points in the league. I remain comfortable in my strategy. Victoria termed this a filthy pickup. I hope she meant filthy good, because having Rey is that sort of thing.

Round 11: Ben Grieve, OF, TB
Round 12: Rondell White, OF, SD
I tried picking up Rocco Baldelli with the 11 pick, but he's not listed in Yahoo yet, so like several other possible picks, he's going to be involved in the great waiver derby. Ron-DL White was just needing to pick the best OF available (and since I missed out in Round 10 on the guy I really wanted, Doug Glanville, I was getting twitchy)

Round 13: Brett Tomko, P, wherever
Round 14: Gary Glover, RP, CWS
Round 15: Scott Schoeneweis, P, ANA
Round 16: Pedro Astacio, P, NYM
Tomko is just one of those guys who screams 'unspectacular', thus he's perfect for this league. He could put it all together, but if he doesn't, I'll reap the benefits. Glover was bad last year, and I needed relievers, (the layout is 3SP, 3RP, 2P) Schoeneweis was a Trawler last year, and he has two perfect skills for the league: He scores as both RP and SP, and he is "jacktastic". Last year, every homerun given up by a pitcher netted 25 for the home run, and additional points for the hit, the total basses and the earned run. (again this is why Steve Sparks is a living god.) Astacio is a gut play by me. He seems to have all the components to fall apart this year, and with him already injured, I like his odds of blowin' up.

That concluded Thursday. By the time today came around, Easley had lost his job, so I thought I was stuck trying to find a 2B. Then I noticed that Sanchez scored as a 2B in Yahoo. Life is good.

Round 17: Orlando Cabrera, SS, MON
Round 18: Omar Infante, SS, DET
Lacking a SS now, I needed to fill the position, so I put Easley's replacement in, and picked up another former Trawler in Cabrera, who backed up Jack Wilson last year, before becoming my util player.

Round 19: John Halama, P, OAK
If he blows up, Halama will be sent to the bullpen, or when Aaron Harang gets brought back up, Halama will kicked out of the rotation. Both work in my favor.

Round 20: Josh Bard, C, CLE
I don't get it. I haven't found a single article to indicate that Bard won't be the catcher for Cleveland, and I haven't seen a single reference to Bard being anything more than the next generation of Keith Osik. Combine this with his backup being A. J. Hinch, and I think I pulled a late round steal. Worst case, I need to find a new backup catcher.

Round 21: Michael Tejera, RP/SP, FLA
Round 22: Casey Fossum, SP, BOS
Tejera was a safety pick. He was worth 246 last year. Fossum has jacktastic possibilities. The Sox are committed to his success, meaning he could blow up really big early. This is the same principle that caused me to pick up Bobby Smith of the Devil Rays as an early waiver move last year. Smith managed something like 40K's in 20 games before being cut by the Rays. He was worth something like 5-700 points to me, or most of my advantage. I may have to run with Fossum early to see if something similar happens.

Round 23: D'Angelo Jimenez, 2B/3B, CWS
Pure position play. I need a back up at those positions, and he scores there. Also worth 400+ points last year, so hey, why not. Also, this is the point where you realize that people are taking players that you would take in a normal fantasy draft. A similar moment came last year when I took Vinny Castilla in the 6th round. Byko freaked, he had taken him early in his normal draft. I won that argument. I have a feeling someone out there had a similar feeling about Tatis, when I took him.

Round 24: Francisco Cordova, P, SD
They're using him as a reliever, and he's a spent ex-Pirate. It's pure Kidder-bait, but I'll bite.

Round 25: Kenny Lofton, OF, PIT
I didn't have a Pirate on my team yet, and with J. Wilson, Reese, K. Young, Mackowiak, Suppan, C. Wilson, Benson, and Fogg taken, Lofton looked like the most likely to fail, and I needed an outfielder. It's a hedge. Last year I had Jack Wilson, Young, Mike Benjamin, and IIRC Abraham Nunez.

So my lineup (with backups):
C: Hernandez (Bard)
1B: Vaughn (Liefer)
2B: Sanchez (Jiminez, Easley)
SS: Infante (Cabrera)
3B: Tatis (Jiminez)
OF: Patterson, Grieve, Liefer, White, (Lofton)
MI: Cabrera
Util: Bard
SP: Ritchie, Chacon, Rusch
RP: Glover, Tejera, Schoeneweis
P: Tomko, Fossum, (Halama, Astacio, Cordova)

I'm slightly worried about my outfield, but I know that no one's really got a more solid 1-4 there, especially with Rondell White now likely a starter in SD, but I'd love to secure a fifth outfielder as bad as the rest.
I think it's a good team, for bad. Last year, I won this league with a little under 9000 points. I think this squad could do similar,