Monday, the 13th

Good morning, everyone. I will take this time to thank you all again for the support on this thing. Your comments and the fact that many of you get value out of it is why I will continue to provide it on a daily basis into the second half. The latter end of this week will be a bit tough, as I will be out of town for a wedding, but I should be able to keep it running at the standard that has been set thus far. Just bear with me.

ALL STAR TUESDAY

Please don't forget to check back in tomorrow, as I have recieved a number of articles from a number of the "BBC Greats" regarding their thoughts, feelings and ramblings about this game. More are expected to come in as the day goes by as well. I will post all of these tomorrow morning and, from what I have read so far, there will be some really good advice that you may find helpful as we go into the second half of the season and welcome the fresh start. Thanks again to all of you that are helpin g me with this. Your work and time are greatly appreciated.

YESTERDAY

It turned out to be a pretty decent double header, expecially if you had Ludwick. I did, and he led my bats with 19 points. My non-DH bats blew chunks as Wells, Utley and Mauer combined for only 5. The Cubbies outscored the Cards from a pitching standpoint and had it not been for the Beckett, would have been the top staff of the day. My final score for the day of 80 bumped me up to 15th overall in the final standings. While I really had hoped for a top 10 finish after being there for the majority of the half, I can't and won't complain about my first LB finish in 7 years. Now I have the daunting task of trying to repeat the effort.

HOW TO PLAY A DOUBLE-HEADER

This topic comes up every year, in fact every time there is a DH it is one of the most discussed arguments. Do you take a bat, or multiple bats, against your starter? To put it simply, Yes, I do. Personally, I don't know why it is even argued. The bottom line is this. Whatever you feel will get you the most points at a given position is the way to go. Who they play for is irrelevant. Here is why I feel the way I do.

For starters, there have been 8 double dips so far this season. I have taken a DH staff in 6 of these, have averaged 86 ppg on DH days, and have taken 10 bats against my starter in these games. Let's use yesterdays action as a template for the conversation.

I went into yesterday believing that the Cubs staff of Z and Wells was better than what the Cards were putting up. The Cubbies were also at home, so if I was going to take a DH staff, the Cubs were going to be the one. Both Z and Wells have had pretty good seasons and are more likely to give me 20 points than they are to give me zero. I asked myself if they could get a minimum of 15 each and the answer was yes. Being that there was also a chance, albeit a slight one, that they could get me 50-60 points, I elected to take them over Verlander and Beckett.

Now that the staff is set, I go position by position, looking only at DH participants in order to find my lineup. I settled on ARam, Theriot and Soriano as my Cubs (passing on Lee due to him leaving Saturday's game with a neck issue). I also had Ludwick, Rasmus and Pujols for the Cards. This gave me six DH bats, three on each side. You see that I did take 3 bats against my staff in this case. If I had needed to go with 4, and truly believed that they were my best option for points, I would have had to rethink my PS selection. I use three opposing bats as my personal maximum in order to determine if I have the correct staff. Now, I will give you a list of two lineups - mine and an imaginary one of someone who did not want to have a bat opposing his starter. My team will be the first one:

C: Mauer
1B: Pujols
2B: Utley
3B: ARam
SS: Theriot
LF: Fonzie
CF: Wells
RF: Ludwick
DH: Rasmus
PS: Cubs

C: Mauer
1B: Lee
2B: Utley
3B: ARam
SS: Theriot
LF: Fonzie
CF: Wells
RF: Fukudome
DH: Stewart (randomly selected and was the next most popular)
PS: Cubs

Now, The differences in these teams are at first, right, and DH. At first, Pujols outscored Lee 5-2. In right, Ludwick outscored Fukudome 19-1. At DH, Rasmus outscored Stewart 7-3. With my team, you improved your score yesterday by 25 points by not being affraid to take bats against your starter.

Keep in mind that I only do this in DH situations. I think people get confused between "it affects my outcome" and "it makes it harder to watch the game". When Luddy went deep twice last night, I came out 2 points ahead. He got 7 for each HR and Rasmus, who scored on both of them got 1 point. My staff lost 7 points. 16-14=2. If you did not take Luddy only because you had the Cubs staff, you lost significant points. Do you see my point?

When choosing DH players, take the ones that make sense. ARod, Pujols, Braun, Prince, Ryho are just a few examples of when to go against what you do on a daily basis in this case.

I hope this helps, and thanks for reading.