Betrayal in Cairo/Fantasy baseball closer preview

Well I just got back from Egypt, and, as the Americans say, "When it rains it pours." We had moved Rodrigo to Egypt in hopes of fleeing the Nepalese officials. Unfortunately our contact in Egypt sold our operation out. Egyptian military police surrounded our base-camp and I was lucky to shoot my way out. Several of my team-mates were not as fortunate; Rodrigo was killed by a grenade, and Doohan was found a day later floating face-down in the Suez Canal. Needless to say the entire operation has left me quite agitated with the current state of free-lance global military operations.


But onto fantasy sports. As promised in my newsletter, I will start my fantasy baseball preview on this blog. The first matter regards "closers." This is always an intriguing category; fantasy owners need saves to win the save category, yet they should be wary of closers with high ERAs and WHIPs. As Sun Tzu so frequently noted, one should not sacrifice two categories for the sake of one category.
McStallen's top 5 bargain-value closer options:
1) Armando Benitez, San Fransisco- all he does is save games. The change of scenery to America's bay area may scare some fantasy owners away, but it shouldn't
2) Danny Kolb, Atlanta- this man was very good in Milwaukee, and both Milwaukee and it's baseball team are horrible entities
3) BJ Ryan, Baltimore - the Orioles are finally sitting Julio Jorge or Jorge Julio or Jorge Orta or whatever his name was, and are giving the hard-throwing Ryan a much-deservered chance to close
4) Guillermo Mota, Florida- Captain Jack McKeon's crew will not miss Armando Benitez now that they grabbed the virtually unhittable Mota
5) Ryan Dempster, Chicago- the Cubs may never win a World Series, but Dempster will save alot of games this year

Others to watch:
1) Mike Adams, Milwaukee- someone had to replace Kolb. Adams could be a good bargain, but beware his WHIP and ERA
2) Mike Gonzalez, Pittsburgh- Jose Mesa is fat and old, and it is only a matter of time before the Bucs go with Gonzo
3) Jeremy Affeldt, Kansas City- word out of Kansas City is that Affeldt corrected a few mechanical flaws and should be this year's Danny Kolb- lights out on a poor team

Beware:
1) Nationals Closers- Frank Robinson has hinted Chad Cordero and several others will share closer duties
2) Trevor Hoffman- I think Rob Nen was more durable
3) Shingo Takatsu-- "Mister Zero" has trouble hitting 80 MPH with his fastball; after some adjustments, American League hitters should have little trouble hitting his fastball