Fantasy M.A.S.H. Alert: Milton Bradley

I am not always injured. Sometimes I hurt myself on purpose!

Yesterday I alerted you to Garrett Anderson as a M.A.S.H. player to watch for. Today, we might have the king of the M.A.S.H. alert: Milton Bradley.

Bradley broke into the bigs in 2000 with the former Montreal Expos, now known affectionately as the “Nats” (Washington). Naturally, he was called up in mid-season, so he never had the opportunity to get a full compliment of at-bats. If you throw out that half season, Mad Milton has played eight full seasons in the majors. 5 of those 8 seasons he’s played less than 100 games, due to injury. Most amazingly, 5 of those 8 seasons were spent in AL uniforms, where he had the option of DH’ing so he didn’t have to risk injury by playing in the field. Yet he still couldn’t make the 100-game mark.

Then came the crowning achievement. Mad Milton blew out his knee in 2007, while with San Diego, after being thrown to the ground by his manager during an argument over a call at first base. Truly, the baseball equivalent of Bill Grammatica blowing out his knee after celebrating an meaningless kick in the first half of a game in 2001.

If that hasn’t convinced you enough to stay away from Bradley yet, try these two facts on for size:

1. He has moved from the AL back to the NL (Cubs), where he has to play every day in the outfield.
2. He has already come down with a strained quad, and the flu. Training camp has barely lasted a week, people!

Trust me, fantasy baseball owners, you are going to be the one who’s mad if you draft Mad Milton in 2009.

Fantasy M.A.S.H Alert: Garrett Anderson

Play every day? What hospital room should I book?

So I was listening two days ago to ESPN’s Fantasy Focus podcast, as I often do. It’s a highly entertaining, and sometimes informative, podcast. I highly recommend it.

But on this particular day, co-host Matthew Berry was waxing poetic about Garrett Anderson. Alright, “waxing poetic” is probably a bit overboard. TMR, as Berry is known, has been accused of many things, by many people, but I don’t think “poetic” would be one of them. You get the picture though. Berry was throwing much fantasy love in Anderson’s direction. (Full disclosure: Berry is a rabid Angels fan, the team Anderson played for his entire career until this season; therefore, there might have been a bit of bias at work here. Just saying.)

Berry, and co-host Nate Ravitz, were discussing Anderson’s recent signing with the Braves. TMR was of the opinion that, because the Braves outfield was crap (can’t argue with him there), Anderson would not end up platooning with Matt Diaz–as has been reported–or any other Brave for that matter. He would claim an everyday outfield slot to himself.

I have to respectfully disagree with Berry. However, he did inspire me to break out what I hope will be a staple here on Biting Rump: The Fantasy M.A.S.H. Alert. Guys, who from a fantasy perspective, will underacheive because you can’t count on them ever staying healthy.

Garrett Anderson, welcome to the unit!

Anderson hasn’t received a full 600 at-bats since 2003. That’s a full six years ago for you non-M.I.T. graduates like myself. As noted before, he has spent his entire career in the AL, where he increasingly was used more as a DH. In fact, last year he only played 82, out of a 162-game schedule, in the outfield, while DH’ing almost as much (60 games). Even then, he still didn’t get 600 at-bats! He had serious injuries in 2004 and 2007, which kept him from getting even 450 AB’s. Now you’re going to ask this 36-year-old outfielder to play in the field every day?

Sorry, Berry. But if they do that, they might as well book Anderson’s hospital stay now.

If Atlanta decides to platoon him, he might stay healthy enough to get to 12-14 homers and 80 RBI, which is the range most experts expect of him. If they play him every day? Call Hawkeye with the stretcher.

What is with the Guns?

What? I didn't make the All Mari-joo-wana Team? Where's my nine?

So maybe I’m crazy here, but I thought the whole point of using your freakishly good athletic talent was to get out of the ghetto. Apparently, it’s merely to carry the ghetto with you on a more public level.

That can be the only explanation for the rash of professional athletes, especially football players, that have been charged with gun issues recently. Did these poor souls learn nothing from terrible tragedies of Sean Taylor and Darrent Williams?

We all now know that attempted thigh-icide that Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress attempted last November. Now comes the case of Marshawn Lynch.

Lynch was arrested in Cali last week on three misdemeanor gun charges, narrowly avoiding felony charges. Here’s the kicker (God, even I can’t get away from kickers this week) though, the police found the guns only after they approached Lynch and two of his boyz sitting in a running car on the side of the road, smoking the ganja. If only he’d pulled this stunt a little sooner, I could have placed him on the All Mari-joo-wana Team. I suppose I’m going to have to update that soon as well.

If there is anything dumber than playing around with loaded weapons, it has to be playing around with loaded weapons while you’re high.

Just imagine what would have happened if one of them had started hallucinating? The blunts wouldn’t have been the only thing smoking.

Bengals Franchise Pop Tarts

Alright, obviously a professional football organization wouldn’t franchise actual Pop Tarts. Although if any NFL organization was going to be that stupid, it would be the Bengals. But I digress…

No, the Bengals did the equivalent of franchising Pop Tarts, they franchised kicker Shayne Graham. A kicker! What is with the weird kicker stories this week? First Jeff Reed going Lawrence Taylor on a paper towel dispenser; now this.

I don’ begin to understand all the complexities of the NFL franchise tag, believe me. But what I do know is that it’s most effective when you use it in one of two ways: 1) To give your team more time to negotiate a long-term contract with a stud player that would otherwise hit free agency and grab gobs of money elsewhere, or 2) a cost-effective measure to get under the cap space until you can clear room the following season.

Granted, the Graham move is cost-effective, as it will only cost the Bengals about $2 million under the cap. But you can’t tell me that Graham is considered the Bengals “stud” player that would be gobbled up elsewhere if he went free agency. Hell, you can’t tell me that even if he left, you couldn’t go find another kicker that would just as good. The Patriots let the best kicker in modern history, Adam Vinatieri, walk and drafted Stephen Gostowski; they never missed a beat.

Look, bottom line is that franchising a kicker, any kicker, is like franchising Pop Tarts: They are both cheap, neither are flashy, you’re not going to build your team around a kicker, just as you don’t/shouldn’t build your breakfast around Pop-Tarts and both have eternal shelf lives and are only used in certain circumstances.

Unfortunately, Graham doesn’t have a fruity center, frosted outside and you can’t toast him. On second thought, scratch that last one. You can toast Graham crackers!

Putting the Bad-Ass Back in Kicking

My Hair Is On Fi-re!

The reputation for kickers in the NFL has never been a good one. Who among us can forget Peyton Manning famously going balistic at the Pro Bowl and referring to then Colts kicker, Mike Vanderjagt, as a “liquored up idiot kicker”.

Kickers are often considered by many players on their own teams not to be “real” players. They are the smallest guys on the field, do the least amount of work and are the least in shape (see: Sebastian Janokowski). The only time that anyone truly pays attention to the kicker is when he’s either making or missing a game-winning/game-tying field goal. That’s it.

Then there’s Steelers’ kicker Jeff Reed. A one-man crusade to change the image of NFL kicker forever! A man who is hell bent on turning the image of the kicker into one of a bad-ass. How is he doing this you might ask?

He’s going Lawrence Taylor on paper towel dispensers, that’s how.

According to police reports, Reed was arrested early Valentine’s Day morning (3am) at a gas station when he went to receive a little V-day love from said dispenser, so that he could wipe his hands, only to receive a blocked kick (if you will) from the dispenser. Empty.

That’s when Reed turned into The Undertaker-turned-American Badass and began putting the beat down on the dispenser. My guess is that used that golden foot of his to inflict the damage. The only question is did he put the dispenser through the uprights of the stall door? One may never know.

Quite frankly, who could blame Reed? He was a station named Sheetz. Any kind of self-respecting station that names itself Sheetz, then doesn’t have any “sheets” in the paper towel dispenser is just begging to have their dispenser destroyed by an irate, Super bowl winning place kicker. Am I right?

So foot up to Jeff Reed. A one-man wrecking crew on paper towel dispensers, in the name of changing the image of the kicker forever!