Today's Fantasy Rx

Selecting our starting pitching first as always, our main tool of analysis is the number of dominant starts for a pitcher. We generally want to see a relatively solid offense, and we want pitchers with barely any disasters this year.

In the NL, Schilling has 18 DOM starts, Randy 17, Odalis Perez 14, and A.J. Burnett 13; we'll take all four, and if Burnett, breaks down, we'll simply use one of our 8 buys to replace him. Roy Oswalt, Kevin Millwood, and Brian Lawrence each have 12 DOM starts, but we don't quite trust Millwood or Lawrence for wins due to their teams' generally questionable offenses. As we have a lot of faith in Houston, we'll add Oswalt.

Eric Gagne is the only reliever we're taking of those listed as starters. He's necessary since he's earned the third most points among pitchers after only Schilling and Randy.

In the AL, Roy Halladay surprisingly leads the league with 16 DOM starts, followed by Pedro at 14, Zito at 13, and Freddy Garcia at 12, rounding out our 10-man starting staff.

Since our only focus in this league is on wins, strikeouts, and innings, LPR qualification isn't necessary. However Randy and Pedro both have perfect scores. Halladay, Odalis, and Burnett have a 1 or better LIMA rating. Zito and Schilling have all six PQS points and are only a little homer-happy, and all nine starters obviously own ax raings. Finally, Garcia has the same homer problems as some of the others, and Oswalt's allowed only slightly too many hits, neither of which cause any problem in this points' league.

SP(6)
Randy Johnson: Thu:@LA(Nomo)
Curt Schilling: Fri:@LA(O.Perez)
Pedro Martinez: Sun:@TOR(Loaiza)
Freddy Garcia: Sun:@TB(W.Alvarez)
Barry Zito: Sat:@BAL(Driskill)
Roy Oswalt: Thu:CIN(Dessens)
A.J. Burnett: Fri:@CHC(Wood)
Roy Halladay: Thu:BOS(Burkett)
Eric Gagne: 4 Home games vs. Arizona.
Odalis Perez: Fri:ARI(C.Schilling)

Thanks to the nice home/road split among our starters, we can set our rotation for the week fairly easily. Oswalt, Halladay, Gagne, and Perez are nicely situated, and there's little reason not to use Garcia and Zito against two of the weakest offenses in the game.

For relievers, Smoltz is the top in the game and reasonably priced, and we're comfortable with Kim, Guardado, and Mike Williams, all good bargains who we expect to maintain their current pace.

At catcher, we'll stay with the same group from full-season ball: Lo Duca, who should stay angry over his All-Star snub; Pierzynski, who's a great bargain; and we'll keep Toby Hall here as a backup with potential for a larger role.

For first base, Konerko and Derrek Lee are obvious picks due to their cost-efficiency. We'll also take Steve Cox as one of the best cheap players on offense, and we'll use Helton when he's at home.

Soriano's mandatory at second base, we really like Spivey, and we think Castillo will be more consistent this half than Jose Vidro.

Tony Batista's been a nice bargain, but we don't trust him maintaining his power in the second half. Mike Lowell and Eric Chavez are the top two performers here, and Eric Hinske looks the most likely player of the cheaper options to continue his solid first half.

Nomar's earned more for the money than ARod, but we'll take both of them; Juan Uribe's not even great at home this year, so we'll hope David Eckstein can remain more consistently effective.

For our outfield, the only expensive player we're taking is Barry Bonds, the top position player for points in the game thus far. Most of the truly great bargains are here, and Berkman, Pujols, Ichiro, Floyd, Burrell, Hunter, Dunn, and Jeremy Giambi are players we're quite comfortable deploying in most weeks. We'll also take Larry Walker, who while a nice bargain on the road, has been absolutely dominant at home in 2002.

We considered a few other players at most positions, but either we were concerned about their skill consistency or we had questions about the overall state of their teams' offense.

For this week, we'll bench our four Marlins since they only play three games this week, and our two Rockies on the road. Toby Hall and David Eckstein also sit since we prefer Lo Duca/Pierzynski and ARod/Nomar for now.

Umpire in Brooklyn
Week 15b: July 11-July 14

C	Paul Lo Duca		1640
C	A.J. Pierzynski		1000
1B	Paul Konerko		2410
1B	Steve Cox		1160
2B	Alfonso Soriano		1800
2B	Junior Spivey		1500
3B	Eric Chavez		2270
3B	Eric Hinske		1500
SS	Alex Rodriguez		3430
SS	Nomar Garciaparra		2160
OF	Lance Berkman		2540
OF	Albert Pujols		2500
OF	Ichiro Suzuki		2390
OF	Pat Burrell		2050
OF	Torii Hunter		1710
OF	Adam Dunn		1610
DH	Barry Bonds		3360
DH	Jeremy Giambi		1300

SP	Freddy Garcia		2510
SP	Barry Zito		2380
SP	Roy Oswalt		1750
SP	Roy Halladay		1230
SP	Eric Gagne		1230
SP	Odalis Perez		1070
RP	John Smoltz		2610
RP	Byung-Hyun Kim		2230
RP	Mike Williams		1790
RP	Eddie Guardado		1690

Today's Fantasy Rx: If your other Challenge teams have bombed, you need another challenge, or if you just want to try out a points' game, enter a Mid-Season team.