Who's Shitty

Hello ladies and gentlemen welcome to your final pre-draft installment of the "Who's Shitty" fantasy report, your premier source for fantasy baseball knowledge. Tony Pellegrino, webmaster and fantasy expert will check the mailbag and answer all your fantasy questions. We have picked five more questions, so hopefully yours will get answered. If you're lucky, Tony might call your favorite fantasy player "Shitty," which will automatically make your team even better (see: Pellegrino Curse in the bertflex glossary).

To show you how much of a badass Tony is, here is a badass picture of him right after the Fightin' Illini hockey team steamrolled everyone in their conference tournament. Some would say this is the face of death. Others would say this is the face of a champion. I say this is the face of...perfection.

The correct term is, ahem...
The Face of Champion Death Perfection.
How effing awesome is that? Very awesome. You're lucky your monitor didn't just explode due to the sheer awesomeness, or maybe it did.

Let's get to the questions!

1. Eric (St. Louis Unions Outfield) - Most Distinguished Archduke of Pellegrino - aside from Albert Pujols, name the one Cardinal you would really want to draft for production in '08.

I think that Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin can both be productive players for the Cardinals in '08. I've heard good things about the Lopez Twins from the Stanford Cardinal. Oh, you meant the St. Louis Cardinals... sorry, can't help you there. Try back in '09.

2. Big Sandwich (Potbelly's) - I've been scoping out mock drafts online to get an idea where guys are going, I saw one yesterday where Miguel Cabrera went #1 overall. I laughed, then I thought maybe this guy knows something I don't. Does he?

I'd actually say the he knows the exact same thing that you know: how to blow a #1 overall pick, Mr. I-Took-Mark-Prior -#1-Overall. In all seriousness, Miggy seems to be the trendy pick for AL MVP this season. Don't believe the hype. He's going to the hard league, and will be hitting fifth. Granted, D-12's lineup is monsterous this season, but 5th place hitters don't win MVP's; 3rd place hitters do. He'll have a good year, perhaps a career year, but he's sure not a lock to be the best player in the game.

3. Thomas (Mason, OH) - Can Mike Lowell repeat last year's season?

Ninja, please. They're called "career years" for a reason. If Lowell drives in 90 this season, take it and run. He's already 34, hadn't sniffed 100 RsBI in 4 years, and had never hit .300 before. Expect something like his 2004/2006 seasons (.290/22/85).

4. B-Rob (Asskickville, USA) - Hey D-Bag, of these hotshot '07 rookies, who's bound for a fall? Braun, Tulowitzki, Pence, Pedroia, D. Young, Dice-K. Go.

Braun and Pence are the real deal and both will actually play a full year this season, so expect their counting stats to increase. Daisuke might be slightly better than he was last year, but I think a 15/200/4.20/1.30 line will be about right. Delmon "Baby Meat" Young seems poised to take the next step this season, as he was slightly disappointing last season. I think 20/20 is almost certain.

Tulo and Pedroia could both be bound for the floor (Local H reference). No one expected Tulo to do what he did with the bat last season since he basically duplicated his AA numbers with the Rockies. Regression to the mean, and all that scientific stuff. Pedroia will take a step back because I own him in a fantasy league. Sorry Dustin, it's all my fault.

5. T. Kirkjian (Bristol, CT) - Hay Tony!!! Predict the major-league leaders in the following categories: HR, steals, batting average, strikeouts (P), ERA. Thankx a bunches!! :-P

TIMMY!!! Here's my leaders for ya:
HR - Prince
SB - Reyes
BA - Ichiro
K - Johan
ERA- Johan

As an added bonus for our loyal subscribers, Johan will win the MLB Pitching Quadruple Crown this year, leading the universe in everything.

6. Howie (NYC) - Tony, the 26 lovely models and I have made our Final Four selections: NC, Georgetown, Memphis, and Xavier. There is a lot riding on this Tony...this is your shot at doing something no one else in the history of Who's Shitty has ever done. This is you shot at making all your dreams come true. Tony Pellegrino...my question for you is this...Shitty, or Not Shitty? We'll hear your answer...when we come back (finger point).

Well, I guess I cheated Howie here a little bit by not posting this before the tournament started but I was already going to declare this Final Four SHITTY. As everyone has seen, Georgetown has already proven me correct and I have great faith that Xavier will soon follow suit. Memphis has been shakey as well. My Final Fore is NC, KU, TX and UCLA. I'm already better than you. We'll see how much better I am than you this weekend.

It sounds like reader Tim C's got the ass about something, let's see what he's got for me this week:

Hey TonyP, long time reader, first time writer! First of all, I gotta say, I love the blog. Great stuff in there, I never miss it. But I've got a beef with your recent mailbag. You want to use new-fangled fancy-pants statistics like the BAIBP? Then you can’t leave out the SPF. For those of you unfamiliar the Scrappy Player Factor, created by the Secondfloor Sunderland Thinktank, is used to quantify a player's hustle, tenacity, grittiness, heart, team spirit, shortness, and whiteness—in other words, all the little things that a player does that don't show up in a box score but help your team win. For example, last year Aaron Miles was SPF 45 while Ray King was SPF 3. The highest SPF ever recorded (twice) was SPF 90, by David Eckstein (2001) and Mark Lemke (1992). (Note: The SPF wasn’t captured during his era, but it is hypothesized that Phil Rizzuto would have had a lifetime SPF of at least 125.) Several players have recorded an SPF of 0, including Roberto Kelly (1989), Ray Lankford (1999), and most recently, Juan Encarnacion (2001-2007).

The inverse of the SPF, known as the Unenergetic Vector (UV for short), is a way to quantify the destructive nature of a player's personality. It measures the amount of clubhouse cancer-causing "free radicals" a player puts off in the form of not running out ground balls, breaking up double plays, or returning high fives with the appropriate vigor. Teams frequently protect their teams from UV by liberally applying high SPF players to the roster.

Yours Truly,
Middle-Aged Cardinals Fans Throughout The Midwest

Jesus, Todd, PLEASE leave the made-up statistics to the professionals from now on, ok? You're trying to make up stats for intangibles when everyone knows that intangibles don't exist. Only sportswriters and fat white women still believe in them. It's kind of like "clutch," only worse. I'm sure you know that the words "the little things that a player does that don't show up in a box score but help your team win" cause nausea and vomitting among sophisticated fans like myself. The big thing scrappy guys could do to help your team win is to NOT show up in the box score at all!

If you make intangibles tangible then they can't win you any ballgames because then computers can take them into account. And Joe Morgan says that the computer that wrote Moneyball is dumb. He played baseball and knows more about everything than you do, so shut your yap, yapper. Here's to you, Mister Making-Intangibles-Tangible-Guy.

If you would like to ask Tony "Who's Shitty?" please send your questions to shaunfanclub@hotmail.com. Tony Pellegrino's advice should be taken with caution, but he has finished in 2nd place in numerous fantasy leagues over the years (none recently) and gets paid to analyze baseball players, so he's kind of an expert, using that term loosely.