This Year's Model

Barry Bonds has exactly the same birthday as me and my team was known as the Bristol Bondsmen for several years until he was shown the door by the San Francisco Giants at the end of last season...I won't go into too many details, but at one point I was going to call the team the Balco Bondsmen.

So it only seems fitting that my fantasy baseball team is renamed and after...well, minutes of deliberation...I give you The Arlen Spectres.

That's the infield done.

But lo - it's actually a triple entendre! A 6-4-3 if you will. So if Boomhauer, Hank, Dale and Bill are the players, here's the manager...

OK, a quick bit of background: Senator Arlen Spector (R, Pennsylvania) has been the most vocal critic of the Spygate Scandal that ran during the American football season. I'm not going to elaborate on Spygate because I already made my feelings known (scroll down to 'Beating Charstards') and the football gods got their revenge by letting the Giants win the Superbowl.

Of course, every sporting franchise needs some kind of evil GM (an Al Davros/Ge*rge Stoneburner type) and here's the third layer of...irony...nah...errr...'entendre'...oh I don't know...but here he is, the head of SPECTOR, Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

So there we go...my team has cartoon players, a republican senator as manager and a Bond supervillain as GM. I'm very happy with that as I try not to take this stuff seriously but this year I am a defending champion rather than trying not to finish last. Let's take a look at the pitchers who are going to help me defend my title - outfielders to follow.

Pitchers

I didn't plan my draft with as much precision as I did last season, so if anything I'm a little short on pitchers. Three starters, three closers so at least it's symmetrical.

2007 Line:

Collectively they worked under 1400 innings (good) for 61 wins, 115 saves, 800 strikeouts with a combined ERA of 3.45 and a combined WHIP of 1.21. I must admit, that looks a little short on wins right now. As for projected numbers, Baseball Prospectus sees a drop of across the board so I think I probably need another starter at some point. When we get to outfielders you'll be able to see that I've plenty of trade bait.

Starters:

CC Sabathia (Indians) - back for another year of 200+ innings!

Cole Hamels (Phillies)

Danny Haren (Diamondbacks)

Closers:

Francisco Rodriguez (Angels) - did OK with the Angels I had last year (Guerrero, Escobar, Lackey, Kendrick and Cabrera), probably a good idea there isn't a post season in my league.

Mariano Rivera (Yankees, below) - cartoon character players, republican manager, evil GM and a Yankees closer!

Joe Borowski (Indians) - here's the risky one. Loads of saves, but dreadful ERA - he was actually on my Anti Watch list last season. Looking forward to seeing some Tribe games where CC starts and Joe finishes.

More later, thank you for reading...