Today's Fantasy Rx

MLB released their "Official Guide to the 2002 Season", so I thought I'd spend an article reviewing the 240-page monstrosity.

We continue our Spring Magazine reviews with:

If you're interested in the summary article covering the previous ten reviews, please click here. Click here to take another look at our criteria.

Major League Baseball 2002

6/10 points for Presentation.
Every page is color glossy and I'm certain they have some quality content in here somewhere, but its hard to find as almost 100 out of 240 pages are advertisements, including 10 of the first 14.

So since MLB seems determined to feature this number of ads to reap extra revenue, I'll take a moment to review the most interesting ads.

Honorable Mention: National Education Association on page 38; exactly why would the NEA think advertising in a baseball preview is a good idea? Exactly why is wasting money by advertising a teacher's union a good idea?

Honorable Mention: www.adidas-eyewear.com on page 129; "The official sunglass supplier to Major League Umpires." Discarded slogan: "If you're looking for someone to blame after the ump blows a call, blame the official sunglass supplier to Major League Umpires."

5th(A): Paintball Inc. on page 237; the ad shows a paintball participant from the waste up in full paintball gear with one swell weapon, which doesn't impress me nearly as much as

5th place: Xtreme Paintball Online on page 167, with an ad that pictures six different paintball guns. The top one, EXT PRO, is the same one shown in the Paintball Inc. ad, but the sheer variety of weapons available makes the game appear far more interesting than simply showing one armed weekend warrior.

4th place: FTD on page 31; FTD's Mercury Man is equipped with a bat instead of flowers. He's pictured above the tagline "Put yourself in scoring position.

3rd place: NordicTrack on page 53; "The average stadium seat is 18" wide. The average fan is 20" wide. Enjoy the next 3 hours. Let NordicTrack.com help you fit in at the game."

2nd place: West Point on the back page; "Much of the history we teach was made by people we taught." They picture Ike, MacArthur, Grant, and…Robert E. Lee?!? Now while I don't want to offend any closet Confederates in the audience, Lee, despite his status as perhaps the most famous graduate of West Point, was a traitor to the United States by any definition of the word. While his loyalty to Virginia and skills as a military strategist were beyond reproach, I'm offended that my tax dollars contributed in part to this advertisement. Jefferson Davis also graduated West Point, as did Stonewall Jackson; we might as well just recruit with a picture of Stone Mountain. I would have much preferred they picture another notable West Point graduate like Patton, a modern graduate like Schwarzkopf, or even Sherman, rather than the man directly responsible for the death of more U.S. soldiers than anyone else in history.

1st place: National Security Agency on page 134;

"And while we can't say exactly what you'll do when you join us, we can say that you will be with the organization that carries out a number of the country's most important intelligence activities - monitoring, gathering and decoding foreign communications (signals) from around the world…information Assurance - protecting our country's own security and communications from exploitation…and transforming data into key intelligence for use by the highest levels of U.S. government decision-makers."

Every other intelligence agency in the world should be unmercifully mocking the need of No Such Agency to advertise in the MLB preview. What happened to the good old days of clandestine recruiting on college campuses? The laughable "For Your Eyes Only" tag, under the rectangular photo of someone's eyes, is just another indication that NSA appears to be attempting to reach a target audience that I don't believe exists: Math geniuses, both willing and desiring to work for US intelligence agencies, who have seen too many Bond movies and love baseball.

3/10 points for Table of Contents and included content.
The official MLB Preview has a full page of bios on the top 6 Major League Baseball Executives and two pages for autographs, but yet lacks any explicit fantasy section whatsoever. MLB continues to show a remarkable disregard for knowing on which side their bread is buttered.

However they do manage to include a couple dozen mildly interesting articles, even if much of the substance of these articles makes little sense. In "Off the Books", Eric Enders' looks at how "It seems easier than ever to knock legendary names out of the record books". Stephen Jay Gould has listed DiMaggio's Hitting Streak as the single most statistically unlikely and therefore unbreakable record in all of sports, and yet Enders only ranks it a "6" out of 10(hardest to break), while listing Ichiro, Helton, Jeter, Moises Alou(!), and Juan Pierre as having at least "an outside shot". The only other listed 6 is Bonds' .863 SLG in 2001.

I'll give them one point for their three-page, very descriptive, albeit with too many photos) table of contents, and two more for their admirable attempt at assembling articles.

0/10 points for describing the league for their main rankings.
No rankings and no descriptions means no points.

6/50 points for specific player analysis, 5 points for each player as follows.

2/25 points for Position Players:

1. Jeremy Giambi, Outfielder, Oakland Athletics:
  1. Only now entering his peak years.
  2. Most of his averages have been trending upwards for the past few seasons.
  3. He's better at his age than his brother Jason.
  4. Injury questions: He's never had more than 2001's 371 AB in a season.
  5. Playing time question: The Athletics have several other quality 1B/LF/DH.

0/5 points for Giambi. Jason, Jason, Jason, and no Jeremy in sight.

2. Shawn Green, Outfielder, Los Angeles:
  1. He should stay above the 40/110 level regardless of a Sheffield trade.
  2. He's capable of a 45/35 season if given the opportunity.
  3. He just entered his peak power years.
  4. He almost never misses a game, so you can count on high counting number totals across the board.
  5. Los Angeles expects him to anchor their offense despite a career .353 OBP.

2/5 points for Green. They implied both #1 and #5.

3. Todd Hundley, Catcher, Chicago Cubs:
  1. Expect 30+ HR if he can find 400+ AB.
  2. Don't expect him to find 400+ AB unless he starts off strong.
  3. He should reach at least 80 RBI hitting behind Sosa, McGriff, and Alou.
  4. Don't expect him to exceed a .260 BA.
  5. He's young enough to rebound into a typical catcher's late-career power spike.

0/5 points for Hundley. No specific Hundley comments.

4. Doug Mientkiewicz, First Baseman, Minnesota Twins:
  1. He's 27 and entering his third full season; expect a more impressive breakout than 2001.
  2. His RBIs will increase as Rivas and Guzman's OBPs increase.
  3. His runs will increase with probable improvements by Ortiz, Jones, and whomever earns the RF job.
  4. He'll be lucky to hit .300, but .290 is quite reasonable.
  5. With Tom Kelly gone, he's the unquestioned starter for the next couple of years.

0/5 points for Mientkiewicz. They don't even approach any of these despite three sentences of 2001 performance.

5. Jose Ortiz, Second Baseman, Colorado Rockies:
  1. He's receiving his first uncontested full-time job going into Spring Training.
  2. His 2000 MLEs were outstanding, even for the Pacific Coast League.
  3. He's only turning 25 this year, so he's likely to post great 5x5 numbers in the future.
  4. Colorado wants to bat him 2nd, decreasing his RBI opportunities, but potentially increasing his runs scored ahead of Helton and Larry Walker.
  5. If he struggles, they might give Brent Butler a shot at the job.

0/5 points for Ortiz. No specific discussion of Ortiz.

4/25 points for Pitchers:

1. Paul Abbott, Starting Pitcher, Seattle Mariners:
  1. He had 17 wins because he received the most run support in the majors in 2001.
  2. He's allowed over 20 HR in each of the last two seasons in under 180 IP both years.
  3. Since he's already 34, he's now on the downside of his career.
  4. His K:BB has been quite bad at a combined 218:167 over the last two years.
  5. Seattle has a cadre of young pitching soon to replace him.

0/5 points for Abbott. Abbott isn't mentioned.

2. Matt Anderson, Closer, Detroit Tigers:
  1. Aside from one bad April outing, his ERA would have been well below 4.00.
  2. He pitched quite well as a full-time closer last year.
  3. There's little competition in the Tigers' bullpen.
  4. He doesn't appear to be an injury risk.
  5. The Tigers have a weak offense and weak starting pitching, decreasing his potential save opportunities.

2/5 points for Anderson. They cover #2 and #3 to my satisfaction.

3. Curt Schilling, Starting Pitcher, Arizona Diamondbacks:
  1. He's unlikely to reach 20 wins again in 2002 because of a probable downturn in Arizona's offense.
  2. He led the league in HR, so his ERA could rise if his OOBP ever slips.
  3. He's 35, but appears to be aging nicely like his fellow ace and World Series MVP.
  4. While he's only broken 190 strikeouts three times in his career, he struck out over 290 batters in those other three years. Expect another season of close to 300.
  5. While he appears recovered from past injuries, he could hit the DL quickly, so monitor his pitch counts for overuse.

1/5 points for Schilling. #3; they don't even mention the offense(#1) while focusing on Schilling as a necessity for the Snakes to repeat.

4. Jason Schmidt, Starting Pitcher, San Francisco Giants:
  1. He has $20+ potential when healthy.
  2. He appears to be both healthy and secure after signing a long-term deal with the Giants.
  3. He struck out almost a batter per inning last season.
  4. He's never finished the year with an ERA under 4.07, which he's reached twice.
  5. The Giants have a deep and talented bullpen, so he won't need to pitch deep into games.

1/5 points for Schmidt. They tried to allude to #1.

5. Ugueth Urbina, Closer, Boston Red Sox:
  1. He appears fully recovered from his arm troubles.
  2. Posted a 2.25 ERA and a 32:3 K:BB after his trade to Boston.
  3. The Red Sox want Lowe to start, eliminating his primary competition.
  4. He'll be a free agent after this season, so the Red Sox are open to trading him under the right circumstances.
  5. He can dominate when healthy, and the Red Sox have a good team surrounding him.

0/5 points for Urbina. No specific UUU coverage.

2/5 points for editing.
They've done a decent job with a significant amount of material, but on page 30 alone they print "Miguel Oliva", "Chin Feng-Chen", and "Ramon Vasquez".

5/10 points for the accompanying website.
I suspect most of my readers are familiar with most of the offerings on mlb.com. My main complaint is that you often need to wade through several articles to find one nugget of useful information. 10 points for quantity content; -5 for quality.

0/5 points for creativity and innovation.
They certainly attempt to discuss newfangled concepts like this "internet" fad, but we all know that this publication isn't issued from an organization known for forward-thinking.

Overall ranking: 19/100 points.

The 2002 Spring Baseball Magazine used to end with:
10. F on 41% (29/70) for Street & Smith's Baseball

Now I need to add:
11. F on 27% (19/70) for Major League Baseball 2002

As a baseball preview, it makes a lovely paperweight. For this type of magazine, instead spend your money on Athlon, TSN, or Spring Training; all three of them have better content, which is also more accessible due to far less advertisements.

Tomorrow I'll begin two days of an in-depth look at LPR ratings.

Today's Fantasy Rx: Have I missed any yearly magazines? I've reviewed 11 separate publications this year, and while the only one I'm still hoping or expecting to find is the Bill Mazeroski annual, please let me know if you've seen something else on the newsstand.

Also, today is the 2002 Illinois primary election. We strongly encourage everyone reading this in Illinois to go out and vote if you haven't done so already.