Today's Fantasy Rx

We arrived in Phoenix around noon last Thursday (on October 31st) after a relatively uneventful Southwest flight and immediately headed off to Enterprise to pick up our rental. Our agent, an eager young fellow who we might have introduced himself as Denny, plopped our bags into the trunk of a beige Chevy Cavalier. After beginning the paperwork, he noticed that the car was backed up into the bushes, so he kindly moved the car forward a few inches away from the curb with the intention of easily closing the trunk, although he left the driver-side door open as he drove forward.

He somehow failed to notice his fellow agent renting the car immediately to the right of the Cavalier to another couple. This second agent also had the door open while talking to the other couple.

So the Cavalier rolled about one foot before everyone heard the crack as the side mirror on the right door abruptly transformed into modern art in a rather neat display of practical physics.

Our agent calmly parked the Cavalier, turned off the engine, retrieved the keys to the silver Pontiac Grand Prix on our immediate left, and switched over our bags into the Grand Prix's trunk while only commenting something like "That's going to come out of my paycheck."

Then he attempted to convince us to buy insurance for our five-day trip, repeating the same sales pitch we heard last year: "Arizona is a no-fault state, so everyone pays for their own damages, etc." Notwithstanding his valiant effort to prove the high frequency of accidents in Phoenix, we graciously declined and departed the agency.

Check-in at the Doubletree wasn't until 3 p.m., and we also didn't quite have time to catch an afternoon game (although we later learned we missed an impressive power display by Hee Seop Choi). So we drove up to Scottsdale to secure our promotional items for this year.

We've now attended the Symposium for the last three years, and last year we handed out Rotohelp.com pens to promote the November 15th launch. This year we upgraded to inflatable baseballs, essentially beach balls that look like baseballs imprinted with "Rotohelp" and "www.rotohelp.com", handing them out to our fellow attendees.

We chose an outfit in Scottsdale, Born Enterprises, so we could pick up the balls in Arizona and not have to carry them with us on the plane, and we were extremely pleased with the final product. While picking up the balls, we also found out that Rick Born used to live in Buffalo Grove, IL, only a few suburbs over from our home, so we're pleased we wound up using a transplanted Cubs' fan.

(Although we haven't decided how to distribute our excess inventory at this time, please let us know if you'd be interested in an official Rotohelp inflatable baseball.)

The Symposium opened with a fairly informal reception in the courtyard of the Doubletree at dusk. We spent most of the time chatting with John Sickels and a few fellow owners from a couple of our leagues and also briefly spoke with most of the guys we know from BaseballHQ and Mastersball.

We headed down Van Buren to Phoenix Municipal Stadium for the evening game between Scottsdale and Phoenix. The Symposium's held at the Doubletree Suites on 44th Street, and the games at Phoenix are all of a five-minute drive from the hotel.

For those that haven't enjoyed an AFL game in the past, you basically only need to know that the stadiums can seat a few thousand fans, but we've never seen more than a couple hundred people at any game. All AFL afternoon games start at 1:05, and evening games begin at 7:05. We nearly always sit somewhere down front, and the only reason not to sit directly behind home plate all the time is to avoid irritating the brigade of scouts at every game by interfering with their radar gun readings.

Unfortunately Phoenix wasn't quite as warm as usual this year, and Jess wound up stealing my jacket in addition to her own midway through the game. While the day games were nicely comfortable, evening averages dipped well below the 60+ degree temps we've enjoyed in past years.

However that was about the only downside to the games, as while teams send less pitching prospects every year due to increasing workload concerns, we see a very intriguing batch of hitters each fall.

We arrived a few minutes before game time and headed down to the fence behind home plate. Steve Moyer, who's spoken at past Symposiums, written for Rotowire, and now heads up Baseball Info Solutions, informed us two years ago that he sits just behind the screen in the first row on the first base side whenever possible. He's discovered that these are about the best seats that also guarantee you won't get conked in the head with a foul ball if you're not paying perfect attention to the action on the field. As we didn't see him at the reception, we correctly anticipated that he'd left for the game early, and joined him down front.

The first surprise of the game was that Anaheim's Chone Figgins led off the game as Scottsdale's second baseman. Normally you don't see "prospects" in the AFL with a recently acquired World Series ring, but we understood why the Angels might want Figgins to work on his baserunning. He immediately lined a single and found himself picked off second base before the end of the 1st.

Other notable prospects in Scottsdale's lineup included Cincy's Gookie Dawkins, back for his second AFL campaign, at SS, Boston's Kevin Youkilis at third base, and Cincy's Luke Hudson as the starting pitcher. We've hyped Hudson for most of the year as an excellent fantasy target, and we saw nothing to dissuade us from that opinion. He seems more likely to open next year in the bullpen, but he should earn a nice profit regardless of 2003 role.

While Scottsdale fielded a respectable roster, Phoenix was full of guys that most of you know. Their lineup included some of the best prospects in the game, including Brandon Phillips(CLE 2B), Adam Morrissey(OAK 3B), Mike Restovich(MIN LF), Justin Morneau(MIN DH), Jhonny Peralta(CLE SS), Justin Huber(NYM C), and Jeremy Griffiths(NYM SP). Right fielder J.J. Davis of Pittsburgh does not qualify as even a decent prospect, and he quickly cemented our previously unfavorable opinion of his skills.

We noticed two interesting little tidbits in the bottom of the first inning. First, John Russell, who the Pirates announced earlier that day as their 2003 third base coach, was managing and coaching third for Phoenix. Second, Boston's Andy Dominique, listed as a catcher but playing first base, is nowhere near his listed weight of 224. Youkilis, who isn't a small guy, batted behind Dominique, and he barely occupied half of Dominique's shadow.

In the top of the second, J.J. Davis charged a sinking liner in right field, enthusiastically proclaiming "Got it! Got it!" before the baseball fell in and out of his glove. Davis then unsurprisingly struck out in the bottom of the frame.

Youkilis drew a five-pitch walk in the top of the third prior to getting thrown out at second by Justin Huber, but Youkilis' extremely short and compact swing definitely appeared to support his strong minor league numbers. His unusual stance also shed light on his very solid minor league plate discipline. Youkilis bends in towards the plate in a crouch somewhat reminiscence of vintage Rickey, and then he returns to an upright stance as the pitcher releases the ball. I don't expect he'll develop much power in the near future based on this action, although there's little reason he can't maintain his solid BA and OBP.

Brandon Phillips found himself picked off first base by a fan in the top of the sixth. One guy down the right field line kept shouting variations of "He's going", and the pitcher finally listened before throwing over and nailing Phillips. Phillips displayed both his incredible talent and youthful exuberance throughout the Symposium, and I'll return to him a couple times over the next few days as we talked about him more than any other AFL prospect.

Youkilis again ran the count to 3-0 in the top of the seventh, taking a strike before popping up to Craig Brazell of the Mets at first base. We can't expect Youkilis to exceed $15 in the near future, he probably needs at least one more full season in the minors, and he seems likely to move to first base. However he's still a solid hitting prospect, and between observing his tools and analyzing his stats, I can envision him enjoying a similar career to Mike Sweeney.

We didn't even record the final score of the game as AFL contests rarely offer memorable outcomes, although confirming our pre-existing opinions on Davis and Youkilis certainly made our somewhat early arrival worthwhile.

I'll continue tomorrow with a recap of the first day's Symposium sessions, including the first information on an intriguing opportunity next March and another round of prospect information.

Today's Fantasy Rx: Push Kevin Youkilis down your draft lists if you need help in 2003, but increase his placement if you're looking for trade bait or solid players after 2003. If you own J.J. Davis anywhere, attempt to move him ASAP based on his September call-up and the Pirates' lack of outfielders; he seems nowhere close to even compiling acceptable stats in AAA.