according to jeff

This past Saturday, the draft for the 11th season of the Iowa Farm League was held. This is our fifth season in the twelve team league, and we’ve posted finishes of first, third, sixth, and third.

The draft is the most important day of the season. Each team starts with $260 play dollars to spend, and bids against the other teams to acquire the players that they’d like to have. My strategy going into the draft included these goals:

1. The winning team almost always has one or two superstars. So, one goal was to draft one of the top hitters and one of the top pitchers.
2. The winning team often has one or two sleepers: players who were drafted for low cost but performed better than anticipated. So, one goal was to draft some rookies that had potential to make an impact.
3. The winning team has a minimal number of duds. Duds are batters that rarely play, and thus do not contribute to stats, or pitchers who inflate ERA and WHIP without any offsetting value. One goal was to avoid pitching duds completely, and accept batting duds only at Catcher and Middle Infield.
4. There are few good offensive catchers in the National League. As a result, the value of catcher is often inflated. One goal was to spend $1 (the minimum amount) on a catcher.
5. Outfielders are expected to contribute positively to four of the five offensive categories. One goal was to draft 4 of the top 35 outfielders.
6. A related goal was to draft an outfielder for our Utility position. Some teams get stuck with a catcher or light-hitting infielder in this position. I’d rather take some money from my middle infield and spend it to acquire a fifth outfielder. So, one goal was to try to find bargains at middle infield and spend the savings elsewhere, such as at the Utility position.

Of course, the draft is fluid, with the decisions of other managers affecting our own decisions. Our strategy, however, was solid and resulted in the following team.

Pos	Name	Salary	Team
C	Miguel Olivo	$1	Fla
1B	Albert Pujols	$46	StL
2B	Dan Uggla	$5	Fla
SS	Hanley Ramirez	$10	Fla
3B	Scott Rolen	$25	StL
MI	Anderson Hernandez	$1 (FA)	NYM
CI	John Mabry	$1	ChC
OF	Ken Griffey Jr.	22	Cin
OF	Juan Encarnacion	$14	StL
OF	J.D. Drew	$16	LA
OF	Cliff Floyd	$15	NYM
U	Chris Duffy	$9	Pit
BN	Larry Bigbie	$1	StL
P	Chris Carpenter	$26	StL
P	Greg Maddux	$15	ChC
P	Aaron Harang	$10	Cin
P	Matt Cain	$8	SF
P	Odalis Perez	$7	LA
P	Sidney Ponson	$2	StL
P	Oscar Villarreal	$2	Atl
P	Joey Devine	$1	Atl
P	Ryan Wagner	$1	Cin
P	Jason Isringhausen	$22	StL

How did we do at meeting our goals?

1. Superstars: Pujuls and Carpenter are among the top players.
2. Rookies: Ramirez and Uggla were purchased for $15. Both have the potential to make a positive impact.
3. Duds: late in the draft, we still needed our middle and corner infield players, and could only spend $1 on each. We acquired John Mabry and S. Drew, but dropped Drew to acquire Anderson Hernandez, who may be the starting 2B for the Mets. That worked out well.
4. Catcher: we spent only $1 as planned. It isn’t clear yet if we got a dud.
5. Outfielders: All four outfielders are ranked in the top 35.
6. Utility: We were able to draft a quality fifth outfielder for the Utility position. Additionally, Duffy gives us some rookie “lightning in a bottle” potential.

Some other observations:

• Drew, Griffey and Floyd are all an injury risk, but should each put up great numbers if healthy. A winning team usually has some good luck, and our luck will need to be our outfielders staying healthy.
• Bigbie is starting the season injured. This must have scared the other owners away, even though he could return soon. As a result, we were able to pick him up for $1 late in the draft. He’s a bargain bench player at $1 and provides some insurance for our other injury-prone outfielders.
• We wanted Devine, a middle reliever from Atlanta, and were able to get him for $1. If Reitsma falters as the closer at Atlanta, Devine could get some save opportunities. Unexpectedly, we were also able to draft Villarreal, another middle reliever for Atlanta, who could also get some save opportunities.

Opening day is April 2. Play ball!

For the umpteenth consecutive year, Otto has won our friendly March Madness competition. Even though Otto was unable to predict even one of the Final Four teams, my predictions were even worse.

For those of you keeping score:

Congratulations to Otto for keeping his winning streak alive and winning free lunch!

After two rounds, my bracket is suffering and my nemesis, Otto, has, not surprisingly, taken the lead.

I only have 8 of the actual Sweet 16 teams, but still have 3 Final Four picks and both championship game teams still in. Otto, on the other hand, has 10 of the Sweet 16 teams still alive. If we both win out to the final game, the game will start with Otto having a 4 point advantage. However, since the final game is worth 6 points, I still have a chance to defeat him.

Want to play along? Here is how to score your bracket:

• Winners of round 1 games are worth 1 point; winners of round 2 games worth 2 points, etc. Correctly picking the winner of the final game is worth 6 points. For example, picking Wichita State to win their first game was worth 1 point, and correctly picking them to win their second game was worth 2 points.
• Give yourself an underdog bonus point when you correctly predicted a lower seed team beating a higher seed team. For example, picking Northwestern State to beat Iowa in round 1 would have earned you an underdog bonus point.

After 2 rounds, Otto leads 46 to 42.

Excluding the weird play-in game, the men’s NCAA basketball tournament begins today.

For the past several years, my friend Otto and and I have had a friendly competition based on our predictions. Using a variety of arcane scoring systems, Otto has soundly defeated me each year. To the winners goes the spoils, which in our case, was a free lunch at the Flying Weenie.

I’m not sure if this says more about Otto’s great predictions and basketball knowledge, or more about my not-so-great predictions and basketball knowledge. Never-the-less, Otto rules in our competition.

Since the first games start today, it’s time for me to fill out my bracket and offer meager challenge to Otto once again. We’re trying a new scoring system this year: one point for selecting the advancing team in round 1, 2 points for round 2, etc. Successfully picking the higher seed to beat the lower seed results in one bonus point. This gives extra incentive to pick teams that will make it deep into the tourney, but also rewards picking a higher seed. Perhaps this new format will help me unseat Otto (but I doubt it).

I went out last night for a second-hand smoke.

That wasn’t my original intent. Instead, I’d planned on attending a church fellowship at a local bowling alley. I hadn’t bowled seriously since my college days, and it’s arguable that I didn’t even bowl seriously then. I bowled in a noon-league while working at Rockwell during the late 80′s, and again at my son’s fifth birthday (or so). I don’t recall bowling since then, and my score reflected it. However, I generally find bowling an enjoyable pass-time.

I say “generally” because there is one huge drawback… I don’t smoke. I don’t like smoke. It irritates my eyes. It stinks. It clings to my clothes and hair (yes, even as short as it is) and thus irritates me all day long. In short, it bugs me. A lot.

And for some inexplicable reason, bowling and smoking are linked together like mom and apple pie, Laurel and Hardy, e-mail and SPAM. I came away from two hours at the alley feeling like I’d smoked a pack of Camels in a phone booth.

So why, I wonder, aren’t there smoke-free bowling allies here in Cedar Rapids? Here’s a few possibilities:

1. There’s no incentive: last night, there were ample customers. All 48 lanes were full and folks were waiting. There may be people like me that don’t go bowling because of the inevitable smoke. However, when you already have more customers than you can already serve, it’s hard to be concerned about not attracting more.
2. There’s risk: the number of potential non-smoking customers is smaller (or at least thought to be smaller) than the number of smoking patrons. When a new bowling alley opens, the owner decides to allow smoking, so there must be a perception that it is more profitable.
3. There’s related income: smokers tend to buy more high-cost food and beverages than non-smokers. For instance, do smokers tend to buy more hot wings, onion rings and pitchers of beer than non-smokers?
4. It’s against the culture: people that like to bowl also like to smoke. I like to bowl, but I don’t smoke. Am I the exception?

Even though the new electronic scoreboards are cool, it might be another 15 years before I bowl again, unless a local smoke-free alley opens up.