Orioles already out of the playoffs?

[Trav The Ump]

So I'm looking at the standings and the woeful group from Baltimore is already 8 1/2 games back from Tampa in the division lead. In my head I do some quick math and figure 92 wins to probably get the wild card and that may not even be enough but it makes the math simple. This means from this morning the Orioles would have to go 90-58 the rest of the way to "possibly" make the playoffs. At the current level of play this means they are more or less eliminated from serious post season contention at the beginning of week three of the season.

Does this affect how you judge and rate players? IE Millwood, Tejada, Scott? Guys who probably won't be around by the time Baltimore gets good can you risk the chance they are in the NL in an only league? The pitching staff and closers (being talked about in a separate thread currently) are fantasy black holes.

I do realize stats are stats even when they come from a last place team, but the opportunity to attain those meaningful stats is seriously jeopardized playing in a division where the Red Sox might be third place? Thoughts?

[Todd Zola]

This implies you thought Baltimore had a realistic chance to make the playoffs when their record was 0-0.

Answer is no, it means nothing unless you lose stats if the player goes to the NL, and even then, you can't base an entire strategy around that. I just let the chips fall where they may and if I lose a player to the other league, I look to make up that loss by acquiring a player coming into the league around that time.

[lawr]

sometimes i forget that players on crappy teams who are individually pretty good usually fare ok in fantasy. there is little pressure so it is easy to coax quiet under the radar years from these guys. of course sometimes those guys totally hit the skids for the same reasons, and it is often touch to be dominant, a la zack greinke last year (i think i regret taking him the bloomberg league with my third pick, but i got halladay with #2 so it was not a total loss).

that said, i scored the athletics and orioles friday and saturday and they were, in a word, pathetic.

they won saturday on a walk off single by ryan sweeney after johnson loaded the bases and was all over the place. the definitive hitter for them was ty wigginton.

and, i looked at my mates before sweeney got his game winning knock saturday and said, "if he gets a hit here, that will break their backs and their season (i think it knocked them to 1-12).

some hitters and middle guys are ok on that team, and i think jeremy gutherie will be better than last year. but otherwise, ugh.

[Trav The Ump]

Todd I fully agree, I didn't think they had any reasonable expectation to make the post season at all. But I don't think the Jays or the Royals do either yet at this point they are still somewhat respectable. Someone would have to give me pretty serious odds to put any money on either to make the post season dance.

Yet teams like the Jays I would assume would "try" to improve while I think the Orioles may just be a complete write off loss. Oddly I traded for Wigginton now that he has 2B availability as that quite intrigues me as my MI.

Lawr I agree, Greinke is a great example. You can find good stats but I think the thing is you'll never find a 110rbi guy simply because the poor team just doesn't produce enough. That's why they are poor. More just looking for thoughts, I was tempted to post this thread in the general baseball discussion more so than fantasy. But hey, it all relates.

[Todd Zola]

If someone in my league puts out a cattle call saying they are looking to deal Adam Jones, Nick Markakis and Matt Wieters, I'm finding out what they want.