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| Steinbrenner and his Yankees: you either love them or you hate them. The same goes for Rich Bishop and his IBC Yankees. He's a dominant figure on the message boards, always there to fight with his longtime rival Ropers, pimp some of the young talent on his roster, or let all of us know just how tough the AL East is. He always makes his opinions known, and below are his opinions on the IBC, the 2003 season, and his good old buddy, Ropers. Who is the team to beat in 2003? I think the AL is loaded with a number of teams that can win it all. I think Seattle, Boston, and Toronto are the front runners and right now I would give the edge to Seattle, as much as that pains me to say. His bullpen is brutal, his lineup is an on base machine and his top 3 starters are very good. #2 right now would be Toronto, only because of potential health issues in the rotation due to age. Boston #3, because I am not sold on that lineup over the long haul. My upset special would be Colorado. I love that young power rotation. His lineup is a bit left-handed heavy at the top and in a 7 games series having to face Hampton and Leiter potentially 5 times would be a problem. Gotta give Nick props for last year, this year I don't like that rotation as much and the bullpen seems a bit suspect. What division is the toughest in the league? There is no question from top to bottom the AL East, with the AL West running second. Boston and Toronto are title contenders and any of the other 3 could finish over .500. Tampa has made huge upgrades in his rotation and that bullpen is still disgusting, not to mention a lineup that kills just about any pitcher on a given day. Baltimore is solid, and is probably just an impact player away from being over .500. The Yanks have filled just about every hole, adding a full repertoire of 4 starters and a solid pen and with some health will be over .500. What division is the weakest? The NL East. With Nash bolting to the AL Central, to dominate there, Philly is the only real playoff contender. The new Mets guy is doing a good job but just marginally over .500 at best. Atlanta really downgraded in my opinion with their deal of Sweeney, Kegan is working hard in Florida but is still a ways off. Montreal is certainly rebuilding, hopefully he can get some good players for Vaughn now that he is available. Who are the playoff teams this season? AL East - Toronto - rotation still too strong AL Central - Cleveland - Nash has a good formula AL West - Anaheim - Nick until someone proves him wrong. AL Wildcard - Seattle - If his playoff berth is in trouble he'll come up with a "creative" deal. NL East - Philadelphia - almost overtook NYM last year, no worries this year NL Central - Cardinals - Nate misses the playoffs suprisingly NL West - San Francisco - defense, defense NL Wildcard - Colorado Prediction? Seattle vs. Colorado in an all wildcard series...........Seattle in 6. Who are the cellar teams this season? AL East - Baltimore - All injuries aside, I think he has the least "impact" players. AL Central - Detroit - when Wells goes down, this team stinks. AL West - Oakland - the only bad team in a solid division NL East - Montreal - barring a miracle NL Central - Pittsburgh - still a lot of work to do to avoid the largest drop in wins from the season before NL West - San Diego - gotta love that he likes Padres, but they are not very good. What do you think of your playoff chances? With the addition of Foulke to my rotation, I have 4 solid starters (Brown, Rogers, Foulke, Estes) and hopefully a 5th by the end of Spring Training. My bullpen is lights out with Vizcaino, Veres, Nunez and King. My lineup has some questions at the top with Biggio's age and Endy simming like his AAA numbers would indicate, if the WL is any indication, Endy will be excellent. The middle is decent with Byrnes, Thomas, Alou and Gibbons, but the bottom of Matt Williams, Guzman and Molina is quite poor. My defense is good in certain positions (Molina, Guzman, Biggio, Alou) but very poor in others (Byrnes, Matt Williams). My minor leagues has some real impact players for 2003, if they SIM well, and Hawpe may be a huge variable if he happens to make the database. (I don't see why not, when he has more professional at-bats than Teixeira and better numbers, and most think Tex will make it) All that being said, if my rotation holds up and my lineup produces like it should, I should be a solid 3rd in division. Playoffs? No. But I should be able to make some noise and continue the dominance I had over Boston last season, winning the season series outright. 2003 Goal: Kick the living hell out of Tampa Bay all 19 times I face that sorry team and its sorry owner. Tropicana is a hole, Daal hucks puss, Berkman is the goofiest looking triple crown threat in the league and Palmeiro can't get it up. Are there any IBC Rules/Policies you would like to see changed? Do you have the time? J First let me say overall, the league is great and if it came down to no changes versus no league I wouldn't change a thing. Even though I voted for the carry-over in the vote, after much consideration, I think it is a bad idea. Why would we want to perpetuate a poor projection from the programmers? The reality for the most part is that the best teams had the best carry-overs and the "gap" between the good and the bad is not closing, nor will it any time soon. The trade review process, while better, is still poor in my opinion. The point is that all GM's by this time should have an idea of what their players are worth and if they don't get fair market value its their own fault, a statement I have no problem with. The problem as I see it is my concern over the longevity of the league. As the "gap" widens from the best teams to the worst teams, interest will inevitably wane, and I think we see that from several owners. Trades need to be reviewed not only from a "value for value" standpoint but also from an overall league standpoint. Is this deal good for the league? Now, how to implement such a plan is strictly out of my realm. What's the best deal you've made since joining the IBC? It's a tough call. My deal acquiring Kevin Brown the second time could be a steal if he returns to health in 2003, but that is a big if. I would have to say trading Jose Contreras and Kyle Farnsworth to Toronto for Keith Foulke, Moises Alou and Dave Veres. With a tip from the commish, I have decided to start Foulke and so far in the WL it appears he may beat Contreras' numbers all by himself. Alou gives me a little more clout in my lineup and I am hoping to get 130+ games out of him. Veres, despite his age, gives me the flexibility to make Foulke a starter and possibly give Nunez a shot to start. All in all, trading a draft pick and a middle reliever for 3 impact players was a huge deal for me. Of course, if Contreras goes out and wins 17 games I might say otherwise later. Has your WL success raised your hopes for the 2003 season? Definitely. When I took over this team it had a horrible rotation and I have been fighting and clawing to put together a respectable rotation from top to bottom without sacrificing all of my offense. Now I firmly believe I have finally found a combination that will allow me to compete on a daily basis. Foulke and Nunez as starters has been a huge find and I hope it carries over into the regular season. If one my youngsters shows promise simming as a starter in Spring Training I can move Nunez back to the pen and be that much stronger. My lineup, while not murder's row by any stretch has 4 legit 30 homer threats (Byrnes, Thomas, Alou, Gibbons). If you could contract one team, for any reason, who would it be? Contraction will not solve the ills of the IBC. The competitive imbalance is here to stay. There are the haves and the have nots, contracting one or a few have nots will not change anything. What's the biggest weakness on the Yankees right now? Up until a week ago I would have said my bench, but with the addition of Fullmer I think I have a decent one. Knobby, while thoroughly done as a hitter and defender, can still pinch run for me. Burnitz can give me the occasional bomb, between strikeouts and Bard is a solid defensive backup catcher that won't hurt me. At this point my biggest weakness is the lack of a real dominate player that can just go out and win a ball game for me on his own. I don't have a guy that's going to explode for a 6 RBI day or go a week's worth of starts without allowing a run, the types of things it will take to really compete in the AL East. Everyone knows about your rivalry with Seattle, but for those of us who don't know, tell us how it started. Well, for me it started before anything even appeared on the messageboard. You may not believe this but there was a time early on when Seattle and I talked on IM and even considered a couple deals. At the time, I had not traded Bonds yet (my worst deal) and I was floating around 1st place in the Central. I traded Bonds and lost something like the first 7 times I faced Pittsburgh(Seattle). There was some ribbing, blah blah blah, but I get the feeling, as many other GM's do that Seattle thinks awfully high of himself and frankly is the poorest winner in the IBC. The rivalry intensified when Seattle, then Pittsburgh made some of the worst deals in the history of the IBC. (No need to rehash those here). The rivalry has escalated, not because of my complete distain for Seattle or even those horrendous deals that he got through, but the fact that he will argue the merits of those deals and attempt in some way to make them appear fair. There is not an owner in the league that would consider those deals fair. And the simple point is this, Nate has made possibly even worse deals, but he admits it, says so and everyone knows when you go into negotiations with him beware. I am fine with that, good for Nate, but don't try to convince me that a .220 hitting AA player and a AAA pitcher with a 5 ERA is worth a perennial 20-20 player. Are all of your fights about real disagreements? Because sometimes I get the feeling you guys just do it for fun. Lol. At this point the rivalry has taken on a life of its own. Seattle thoroughly enjoys jumping into conversations that have nothing to do with him whatsoever (although this practice is not exclusive to me, he does it with everyone). I enjoy taking whatever criticism he has of others and redirecting it onto his team.......we spend 5 pages listening to him defend his team cuz his feelings got hurt and its over, for a few days anyway. Sometimes the disagreements are in jest, probably more times then not, they are real. Your dislike for him is pretty obvious, yet earlier in the interview you called Seattle the team to beat in 2003, and predicted that he would win this year's World Series...What's up with that? Can I change my pick? Lol. Look I respect Seattle's understanding of the SIM program and for the most part his talent evaluation. I only question his trading practices and hard-headedness. Its ok to be good and even to let us know about it but it's the way Seattle goes about it that rubs me the wrong way. Seriously, as far as I can tell, every prospect in this league was "discovered" by Seattle. This could all be settled easily if you give him a bat and give me 4 pitches (3 before surgery) and I would take care of his sorry ass. He can know all he wants about this SIM but the fact of the matter would be that if we were on the field I would dominate him.....period. (Now that is smack!). Your good friend Ropers is one half of the team that makes our leagues beloved Power Rankings. What do you think of them? Are they accurate? Are they biased? Power Rankings? I didn't know we had any, I don't read them. Haha. But if I did I would say they are poor and thrown together too quickly. I am not talking about the one-line blurps in the poll. I have heard the rankings last year relied heavily on record, which is pretty irresponsible for a first year league with so much moving and shaking. It was pretty obvious early last year that some teams were flukes (Detroit) and others were much better than their record would indicate. I don't know about the rest of the owners, but if you want to rank teams by their record, I think I can look at the standings and tell you who the most "powerful" team is. Evaluate teams, tell us why their record is or is not indicative of their "power". Take a look at their schedule, have they been beating up on the likes of Tampa Bay and sorry Boston and will their schedule catch up to them? Until then I will continue to not read them. J I do appreciate that they are done, don't get me wrong and the controversy is great for the league. (This is gonna get me sweet ranking for this year) Interviewer's Note: ---(I try to cover as much as I can about the league in my interviews, and more often than not, it leaves me feeling like I'm writing a gossip column, because the questions and answers aren't about the game or our love for it, but about our peers and their teams and what we think of them. So, now I'd like to broaden the horizons of the IBC Interviews, and talk about us, the baseball fans, as opposed to us, IBC GMs. So here are some new questions, never before covered in my interviews.) --- Who was your favorite player growing up? 1984 National League MVP - Ryne Sandberg Who's your favorite team? Chicago Cubs Steinbrenner - Genius or Villian? If you owned a team and had the means, i.e. money was no object, would you not do everything in your power to win every year and stick it in the face of your hated rival? Not a genius, a competitor, plain and simple. Very few owners can you say that about. Imagine your playing in Game 7 of the World Series. Who would you rather be? - A pitcher who pitches a shutout to win the Series for his team, or a batter who hits a Grand Slam in the bottom of the ninth to win the Series for his team? Pitcher, they are the only real athletes in baseball, the rest could play fat (John Kruk), drunk (Richie Allen) and stupid (Canseco). Selig- Good or bad for baseball? I really don't know enough about what Bud does on a day to day basis to say. The all-star game is blamed on him but I don't think it was his fault, the game was put in that situation by the managers and Bud made the only logical decision. 2003 MLB World Series Champs? Arizona Diamondbacks......all it takes is for RJ and Schill to get hot in the playoffs again and they win. Bonds - Will he have a successful season or will he crash and burn? .320, 45 homers, 100 RBI, 130 walks......120 games, injuries will be a factor again. Millar - Worth the trouble? You must be kidding, right? Contreras - Player or Pretender? I honestly think he is the real deal. I have spent probably too much time looking into this guy and there is not one bad thing you can say about him. Stuff, makeup, age verification............the only way I see him not succeeding is if the Yanks mess him up, and it appears they are on their way to doing that. What's the best baseball moment you watched live? (on TV or at the game) Warren Morris' College World Series winning 2-run homer with 2 outs in the bottom of the ninth for LSU in 1996. I absolutely jumped out of my seat when he hit it, and I don't even like LSU. Any final comments? The IBC is a good league, with good people running it. I look forward to winning the whole damn thing......and then retiring. |
| NEW YORK YANKEES |