Here’s an e-mail from a reader who I have never met in person, but have known in the online realm for a few years as an avid fantasy baseball player (who is also off to a great start this season in our CDMsports leagues).

Reminder: Send e-mails to sal.defilippo@gmgvegas.com (the contact e-mail on this site) or vegaswiseguys@aol.com and I’ll do my best to answer them. If your e-mail gets on the site, you win, um, a year’s subscription to ThePicktoClick.com. (Yeah, I know it’s already free, but I’m on a budget here, people). Anyway …

Bob Oberlin wrote:

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Hi Sal, thanks for your good work. I just LOVE reading your comments. I am going
with Sheets this week only because you have to if you own him, but what is the
WiseGuys odds on him scoring 30+ points for the week????

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Well, Bob, I also have Sheets in there, which on its own significantly decreases the chances of him being productive, as you know. But trying to be objective, he has decent matchups (despite the surprisingly good start of Braden Looper). The Pirates can be tough, but Tony Armas Jr. has had a very rough go of things this year. I’ll set the Sheets over/under at 34 points, with a prediction of 12 in his first start, and 22 in his second. Thanks for your continued support and the kind words.

And anyone else out there, post your Sheets prediction for the week (assuming he makes both starts) and we’ll see who’s closest!

OK, continuing our season-long experiment to see whether Jonathan Papelbon, listed as a starter in the CDM-run fantasy baseball games, is worth using in that role even though he is really a reliever.

We’re charting two “teams” of pitchers against Papelbon, since in CDM games you rotate starters in and out whenever they are projected to start twice in a week. And we are adjusting the math to account for only having a four-person bench.

Keep in mind, this is not an exact science, and this experiment was not sanctioned by any governing scientific body or learning institution. Please save all your questions and applause until the end of the program.

In week 4, Papelbon notched saves No. 7 and 8 for a 24-point week. For the season, he has 104.33 points.

In Example A: Roy Halladay’s double-start was wiped out by rain, but he scored 28 points in his one start for a four-week team total of 128 points (he is teaming with Philadelphia’s Cole Hamels, by the way). Adjusting their total using a formula created to account for the fact the fact that you don’t have two pitchers for every one starter’s position, team Halladay-Hamels still leads, but only 106.33-104.33.

Next week, Halladay and Hamels are both scheduled to pitch twice. We’ll stick with Halladay in the example, since he faces Texas twice and one rain out would likely push Hamels’ two-start week back.

In Example B: Daisuke Matsuzaka tallied 23 points in his start, for a team total of 118 (his teammate in this exercise (ironic, since Papelbon is his teammate on the Sox) is Felix Hernandez, who is hurt, so Dice-K is carrying the load right now). In example B, with the adjusted formula, Papelbon leads, 104.33-98.33.

With Felix still out, Matsuzaka is the obvious choice again this week for that example.

Interestingly, even in our fabricated contests, we’ve had to deal with some of the X factors that ultimately will determine whether taking Papelbon as a starter and just leaving him there is more beneficial than shuffling to maximize points. Specifically, Felix’s injury and missed double-starts because of weather, which also affected Halladay last week, and now the issue of having both “team” guys double in the same week, which reduces the advantage.

So where are we after a month? To quote Sgt. Schultz: “I know nothing!”

Day 5 — April 30, 2002: Finally, the Pale Hose generated some offense, scoring a run in the first and two more in the second. The Mariners, Chicago’s opponent at U.S. Cellular Field, also were putting runs on the board, however, and the game was tied at 3 entering the fourth inning.

The White Sox scored twice to lead 5-3, and even though it was fairly early, the game was exactly where I wanted it. I just wanted to fast forward to the ninth inning and get Foulke in there. But with a runner on second, Magglio Ordonez hits a two-run homer to make it a 7-3 game, and I knew I’d need some more offense out of Seattle to get Foulke into a situation to score points for me. And naturally, with the off day I chose to bench Ordonez this week in favor of players with a full schedule for the week, so he homered, just to rub it in. I never liked that guy, anyway.

To make it worse, Ordonez doubled and scored again in the sixth to increase the Southsiders’ lead to 8-3. Now I needed two runs by the Mariners, or a bases-loaded situation before Foulke could register a save.

No such luck. The game stayed 8-3 into the ninth inning when Foulke shook off the dust that accumulated in dugouts for five days and came in to pitch. He was a little rusty, allowing a one-out triple to Carlos Guillen, and then throwing a wild pitch, which sent Guillen home. He did get one strikeout and finished the inning, totaling a whopping two points for me.

On the same day, Cincinnati’s Danny Graves and Minnesota’s Eddie Guardado each recorded their 10th saves of the season, four more than Foulke. “Everyday Eddie” seemed like he really was getting a save every day.

Still, these things are cyclical, so I was sure it would soon be Foulke’s turn to rattle off a few saves and this little five-day stretch would be forgotten.

I’ve seen official scoring changes made during games, and even after games, where the man in the booth who rules over whether a play was a hit or an error will change a ruling, and with it, amend the statistics accordingly. It’s not an everyday occurence, but it’s common enough.

But I can never recall a situation where three innings later, a change was made that affected the score of a game.

For those who missed it, that’s exactly what happened in the Orioles-Indians game on Saturday. The umpires disallowed a run in the third inning when Miguel Tejada was doubled up after a diving catch by Grady Sizemore. Nick Markakis tagged up and scored well in advance of the Indians’ completely the double-play on Tejada, but the umps waved off the run.

The was debate on the field after the play, but the umps stuck by their ruling — until the sixth inning, anyway, when crew chief Ed Montague called the press box and added a run to the Orioles’ total. Naturally, this didn’t sit well with Cleveland skipper Eric Wedge, who immediately protested.

Here’s the story from MLB.com. Bizarre stuff.

I know you’re not supposed to think like this, but since I didn’t play any of my Cards or Cubs this week in my active lineup (all the American league teams had seven-game schedules, and Soriano and Pujols aren’t exactly impersonating A-Rod right now), once I heard that today’s game was postponed in the wake of the death of Josh Hancock, I couldn’t help but think about how I might gain some extra points out of this when they reschedule that game later in the season. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of admitting, but I’m just being honest.

I also couldn’t help but think about how the forums I’ve seen today are mostly a little saddened by this, but not nearly as engulfed by it as they would have been if this were a popular everyday player in fantasy leagues or a top-tier starting pitcher.

Since Hancock was a middle-relief guy, few fantasy baseball owners were affected by his death early this morning in a car accident. Most leagues aren’t deep enough to where a guy like Hancock would be drafted.

His death was eerily similar to that of Darryl Kile in June 2002. Not in the manner in which it happened, but in the surrounding circumstances — each was a Cardinals pitcher in the middle of a series against the Cubs when they died. Kile, however, was a starter, and I had him on a team in an office league. It was largely a pride league with very little money involved, so I kept Kile on my roster for the whole season as a “tribute” — sorta like the way a grandparent showers a small child with love in a last-ditch attempt to get into heaven, I suppose.

Not sure if this makes me a bad person or not, and I imagine if I played Major League Baseball or was part of that community in a more personal way through a relative or something, I’d be feeling different right now. But the truth is, I’ll be the first one to take advantage of that extra game when the makeup date is announced, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

OK, I have Ben Sheets one my team, and he left last Wednesday’s start after three innings with a slight groin pull on a windy, cold, rainy day in Chicago. He was on my bench — so no big deal, so long as he was OK for this coming week’s impending double-start.

A report comes out saying he’ll throw a bullpen session, but if all goes well as expected, he’ll be fine and he was penciled in for Tuesday.

Then, Saturday, along comes this note, courtesy of Rototimes:

Ben Sheets threw a successful bullpen session on Saturday and remains on schedule to start for the Brewers on Wednesday, but the Brewers will continue to be cautious with their ace. We will take zero chance with this,” manager Ned Yost told the AP. “If he feels anything in the next day or two, we’re going to probably skip him. As of right now, he feels fine.”

WEDNESDAY? Now, if I were sure he were scheduled to go Wednesday, I could sit him for another week to be safe. But right now, he could go twice, once, or not at all. Marvelous.

Some Sunday morning reading, fresh from today’s New York Times, showing that the Mets clubhouse assistant who pleaded guilty to supplying performance-enhancing drugs to players, and laundering the proceeds, is merely the beginning of an intense investigation.

It mentions the Jason Grimsley episode as well as Sen. George Mitchell’s inquiry. Here’s the link.