Laika

Spanky has a lot of productive but underrated guys like Frazier, Dozier, Gardner, Holland, Duffy, Alvarez, maybe even Kyle Gibson. Deep rotation with probably 8 viable SP: Holland Cobb Moore Archer Alvarez Walker Duffy Masterson Gibson? Despaigne? MAG? (last three might suck though). Really he just needs a SS or CF upgrade and an OF that can slug. That and a good waiver draft, and he's there.

Spanky is actively trying to package his #8 overall pick other pieces for impact MLB upgrades

Tapia reaching his potential 2-3 years from now, or Votto's hamstring issues being chronic, could make me regret the trade, but at least Walker is a nice little hedge bet.

Stroman + Raimel Tapia + Hunter Renfroe + pick #33 (to Sammy) for Votto + Neil Walker + pick #107(to me)

Meh. Betts can play the OF and even in Pedroia's "decline" year he was a ~5 win player. Dude can still hit the ball and pick it... he's just doesn't look like an elite fantasy 2B anymore. They probably move an OF this offseason and give Betts CF.

For 2B, I have Pedroia ranked 2 or 3 slots ahead of Kipnis for 2015. Kipnis isn't in the top 10, surprisingly. That doesn't include age though. It's entirely possible that Kipnis' rate stats in 2013 were largely a mirage. Still, he's a 20/30 candidate up the middle and in his physical prime.

Well, SS >>> 3B=2B >>> 1B. The hardest one to place is C. It might actually be more important defensively than SS.

McCann had arthroscopic surgery a few years ago to fix a partial tear. IIRC he never even missed major time - it just kind of f***ed up his offense for a year or two.

Jesus Flores was diagnosed with a Labrum tear in Sept 2009... glancing at his BR page, you'll notice that he didn't step on the field at all in 2010. s***!

Recovery time is 4+ months for a position player when it's the non throwing arm. If it is the throwing arm (probably is), maybe he can just DH in 2015, resume catching development in 2016... Actually nvm. He might be able to catch for a bit in 2015. It depends.

Hopefully they can at least have him DH in 2015 so it's not an entirely lost developmental year...

I think there are probably a lot of CHL players that "fall through the cracks", that people don't really notice. Guys that play for a few years but don't go anywhere in hockey, and exit the league at 20 or 21 years old with crummy high school grades, a couple of concussions, and very few employable skills because they spent so much time focusing on hockey. Even if paying them minimum wage isn't a viable answer, I do think there are some pretty big issues with junior hockey in Canada and a class action movement like this I think at least has the potential to shed some light on a few of then, if not fix them.

Teams would prefer to pay for housing + meals + equipment and all that, because when they sum it all up it comes out to far, far less than just paying the players an actual hourly wage. Most players stay with volunteer billets anyway - they get a stipend I believe, but nothing close to rent money. The scholarship offer is decent I guess but tuition for most programs in Ontario is only something like $6500 per year, not even that lofty, and someone working full time for the duration of an entire hockey season could likely make about twice that, even at just minimum wage. Furthermore, the majority of players will never take the league up on this offer and the league knows it because, A) they are stupid athletes, and they are playing f***ing junior hockey without any compensation for the first two years of their post-secondary lives (three years if they play as an over-ager!), years when most people who will attend post-secondary school start. Consider that a player needs to play from when they are 16 until they are 20 to earn a four year scholarship (four years in the league, assume they have an early birthday and turn 17 in year #1). This scholarship probably has a value of $28,000, but they have to sacrifice two years after high school to earn that full amount. Somebody else could enter the workforce completely unskilled after high school and make $42K before taxes in two years working for $11 an hour for 48 weeks a year. At the end of the day, it is without question that the CHL has been "unjustly enriched" due to the social status of hockey in Canada which has allowed them to hold community glory and false promises over their players and get them to sign obviously disproportionate contracts. If a few teams are made not financially viable due to being forced to more fairly compensate their players, then the CHL will have to compensate for this by letting tiny market teams flop, raising ticket prices, and/or implementing some sort of revenue sharing program. Teams like the London Knight f***ing rake in money, while paying their principle earners probably about half as much as a 15 year old Boston Pizza waitress makes per hour. Another option for the CHL, if they lose a case like this and are made financially unviable, is to ask the NHL for assistance of some sort. They are basically an independent developmental system for the NHL, after all... just affiliate!

Seems like a pretty strong claim against the league. It's kind of like the NCAA argument in the States, but down there every player is getting a scholarship of some sort. In the CHL I bet the vast majority of players never even cash in their owed scholarship. If you draft some dumb athlete with a 55 average in high school and then offer him a contract where he plays basically for free but you'll pay for his college down the line if he ever goes, then really, what realistic consideration does that player have when signing the contract? The infinitesimal chance to make it to pro hockey? It's not a fair arrangement and it never has been. But, it's not in the best interest of the players to force the league to pay out a large chunk of money either, since this could cripple the leagues. Hopefully the class action claim ends up being a means to put pressure on the CHL into offering something resembling minimum wage contracts...

It bugs me when people still say that 2B is harder than 3B.

W.O.W.

Oh. Not doing that for me right now

What's this BS with their player updates?

So is jaysfan2014 just really dumb, or is he really really dumb? God, this is why I stay in the OT subforum

pffft. How can a roster ever be "set" in a league like this? You could use 2B and 3B upgrades (if they are out there). Also, your rotation is pretty good on e-paper but it inspires so little confidence in me for some reason.

But, I have a mac and the process seems maybe a bit easier than on Windows.

Yup and yup. It can be a bit intimidating at a glance but some of the posters have given detailed step by step instructions so if you're even semi computer literate you can be up and running in like ten or twenty minutes, save yourself $150 or a lot of headaches from fuzzy streams.

Also, there's already a cracked Gamecenter app out there for android. Every feed, free on your phone.

This is amazing: http://www.reddit.com/r/NHLStreams/comments/2izhk1/the_vlc_fix/

Hard to see him being a big MLB contributor in 2015 after missing all of 2013 and only throwing 41 innings this year.