Wednesday February 28, 2007

Great night in college basketball. Texas beat Texas A&M in double overtime despite two insanely clutch threes by Acie Law. Maryland beat Duke again and is on a tear, winning six straight. Tomorrow night will be even better as Wazzu welcomes Afflalo and Co. come to the Palouse.

The Bears finally re-signed Lovie Smith. Great, hopefully I don’t have to hear about Da Bears again until… ever.

The Ravens released former-2000 yard rusher Jamal Lewis. The man was the first pick in the franchise’s history and holds the record for rushing yards in a game with 295 but he is still vulnerable to Baltimore’s need to save a dollar.

More steroid news in the sports world today as an online pharmacy was apparently selling illegal drugs to many athletes, including Gary Matthews Jr. This is great timing as I was just planning on talking about one of my favorite overpaid outfielders.

Matthews is an enigma to me because looking at his career homerun rates, last season wasn’t so much of a breakout, it was just the first time he has had over 475 at-bats in a season. Before last year, he averaged 36.7 at-bats per homerun, last year the rate was 32.6 which is obviously an improvement, but its nothing extraordinary.

However, the .313 avg. was a little strange for the .263 career hitter. It is hard to imagine a drastic turnaround for a 32-year-old that has been bounced around to six different teams during his eight years in baseball.

Yesterday I would have called last season a fluke for him. Maybe the hits simply found holes as he got a full season of playing time. But after the news today, linking him to steroids, it is possible that there were outside causes for his offensive spurt.

On a more positive note, there are four young second basemen this season that are very similar and all look good for this season in fantasy baseball. But, that’s a blog for another day.

-Adam

Tuesday February 27, 2007

So Heroes last night was pretty damn good, I mean it is always good but last night was one of the best. It was the first time the shows stayed on one story line the whole show instead of jumping around. The episode answered a lot of questions but also presented a lot of new ones. It will be interesting to see how the season ends. For all you that don’t know NBC signed on for another year so it will not end this year.

College Rankings came out yesterday, I think where we (Washington State University) got ranked is fair, we lost a game and dropped to 13 in both polls. They still project us a #3 seed in Sacramento, who wants to make a road trip?

In NFL combine news Calvin Johnson (Georgia Tech) ran a 4.35 40-yard dash time in someone else’s shoes. Imagine what he could do it he had his own shoes; I predict the first 4.0 second forty-yard dash. O and remember he is 6’5” and 239 pounds, have fun covering him. ESPN calls him a “super freak” and I think they it an accurate name. Besides Mr. Johnson, Jason Hill (Washington State University) ran a 4.32 second 40-yard dash, the second fastest of the wide receiver group; he is 6’1” 204 pounds. I’ve been watching this kid for the last couple years here at Wazzu, I knew he was good but didn’t know he was that fast. Good job Jason. So it is obvious that you should think about Calvin Johnson when it comes to next years fantasy drat but don’t forget about Jason Hill, I think we will do great things so don’t sleep on him.

In regards to the Browns pick, I really hope they do not pick Adrian Peterson. Why? Because their current backup is the one and only Jerome Harrison a.k.a ‘The Ghost”. Harrison would have been the leader rusher in NCAA 2 years ago at Washington State but lost the lead because D’Angelo Williams got to play in a bowl game. I don’t think he was given a fair enough shot this year to prove himself. He did great in the preseason, in one game he had about 60 yards rushing and 60 catching. I know it was against the second team but still some good numbers for playing about half the game. So please Cleveland don’t pick Peterson, give Harrison a try or at least you a 2 back system, that could be nasty with those two.

In MLB news the first games of spring training start tomorrow (there are 4) then continue for the next month. This is a good time to start looking at how people are playing, what position they are playing, etc. I know it is only spring training but you can still get a feel of how people might perform this year. So keep you eye on the boxes for those games; we here at Inside The Park will give our advice on what goes down this year in the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues.

Well I better get to my Pushover Analysis so my advisor doesn’t murder me.

-Erik

Monday February 26, 2007

It is official! The idea Adam & I (Erik) have envisioned for probably a year has finally gotten off the ground. Why it took this long? No idea. Basically the idea is this: since Adam & I love fantasy sports (mainly baseball & football) we wanted to share our “expert” analysis of players, teams, etc. You may disagree with the “expert” part but we have to start somewhere and no better time then the present. So far we hope that the website will have:

¨ Daily blog (this is the first one)

¨ Rankings of players (overall & by position)

¨ Drafting Strategies

¨ Sleepers & Keepers

¨ Player news (updated frequently)

You get the idea basically the stuff the other websites have but our opinion on it. We will have stuff that no other websites have but those are still in the makings, so stay tuned. Feel free to contact us anytime at our e-mail InsideTheParkFantasy@gmail.com. We are more than happy to answer any questions you have.

I want to mention real quickly the idea behind the name which is “Inside The Park: Fantasy Sports Know-How”. It took a small brainstorming session between Adam, my roommate and I to come up with it. I didn’t want really want fantasy in the title because I thought people would think the website is about something else. We also had to have a name that wasn’t taken. I tried to think of a rare play in sports to signify that are website isn’t the same as everything else. You know singles happen all the time put how often do inside the park homers happen? That kind of makes it specific to baseball which are site isn’t, so don’t get that idea even the baseball is a key component. Inside the park is the notion that you are getting information from inside the park, i.e. locker room talk, batting practice, etc. It was all of that and it just sounded good.

SO HERE WE GO…