The week six results for the UmpBump fantasy league are in. Time for quick look at who’s performing and who isn’t!

Sarah: This was a terrible week for the Somerville Green Sox. What sort of terrible? Well, my one save was taken away after the official scorer realized he’d made a mistake, making me the only one in the UmpBump league to finish the week without a single save. And then Vernon Wells, he of the 5 homers and 24 RBI, broke his wrist. That’s the sort of week it was. That said, my team did not play badly (except for a truly abysmal Saturday when they racked up the o-fers like they were on clearance). And in fact, of the 11 other teams in our league, there are only three who would have beaten me this week and only one that would have really kicked my ass. Unfortunately, that’s the team I was playing. After a week of intense back and forth, my men ultimately fell like fall leaves before the one-man onslaught that is Lance Berkman. (Seriously, a .741 OBP for the week? 25 bases? Two homers and two steals? Who can compete with that??) I fell from No. 3 in our league back to the five-slot. I finally admitted that Yovani Gallardo was not coming back this season, that I could never truly trust Kyle Lohse, and that Mark Mulder (still on the DL) was not going to solve my problems. I dropped all of them and picked up Dana Eveland, Hong-Chih Kuo, and Homer Bailey (call him up already!). Hot: Ryan Braun, Ian Kinsler, Andy Pettitte (for now, anyway) Not: Eric Gagne (I’m, like, soooo surprised), Johnny Cueto (tons of K’s, sky-high ERA—why?! WHY?!).

Alejandro: I cannot be stopped. I’m on a roll. Watch out. Actually, I’m not tearing it up exactly, but I did have a convincing 8-3 win over Pirates in ‘08!. I won 5 offensive categories and tied in the sixth, and I have to thank my superb GM skills for picking up Dan Uggla on waivers. I could use better pitching, as I only collected 2 wins (though I did rack up 4 saves), so I’m taking a gamble on Vicente Padilla, who’s 5-2 with a 3.02 ERA. I also rid myself of the disaster that is Kevin Millwood. I am now 1 game under .500. Next stop, league leader. Hot: Dan Uggla, Alex Gordon, Carlos Lee, Emil Brown (is he for real?), Josh Beckett, Tim Lincecum (man crush!). Not: Dustin Pedroia (trade anyone?), Fred Lewis (what was I thinking?), Gavin Floyd (but I can’t give up on him yet!), Kevin Milwood (DROPPED).

Paul: So ElDuquesInjuryReport keeps on truckin’. But I can’t seem to shake off Scott’s Utley’s Firm Quads, who’s only two games behind me in the standings. While it’s way too early in the season to be worried about much of anything (except for a Jorge Sosa appearance in a close and late game), I’m already wondering if this is going to be a tight race all year. As far as my roster is concerned, I had two tough decisions to make. With the respective returns of Shane Victorino and Scott Kazmir from the DL, I had to drop a pitcher and a position player. The decision on the pitching front wasn’t so difficult, since it’s becoming more and more apparent that there’s something wrong with Jeremy Bonderman. His strikeouts have plummeted and his walks have skyrocketed. So he’s out. But I spent a good three days mulling over whether or not I should keep Victorino or Ryan Church. Is Church for real? Or is this just a case of a guy who’s playing way over his head? Ultimately, I decided to just let the historical numbers tell me what to do, and let Church go. He then proceeds to crank out three dingers. And is now on Scott’s team. Awesome. Hot: The Greek God of Walks (5 HRs! 10 RBIs! 30TBs!), Ted Lilly, C.C. Sabathia, Cliff Lee. Not: Jhonny Peralta, Brian Roberts, Andy Sonnanstine.

Coley: Another week, another loss. At least this one was close. One more run and one more HR and we would have tied. Oh well. The good news is I was able to snag Milton Bradley as a free agent. Anytime you can add a guy with a .424 OBP for free, that’s a good day. I also picked up Guillermo Mota, in the hope that he becomes Milwaukee’s regular closer. After yesterday’s Soloman Torres implosion, I feel good about Mota’s chances. Hot: Josh Hamilton, Scott Rolen, Milton Bradley, Dice-K. Not: Jered Weaver, Brett Myers, Melky Cabrera.

According to this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel blog, the Milwaukee Brewers have designated OFer Kevin Mench for assignment to make room for Salomon Torres. As a result, the Brewers now have ten days to either trade him or release him outright.

No matter which way the Brew Crew goes, I can’t imagine that Mench will be without a team for very long. He’s the perfect platoon guy who crushes left-handed pitching. Since 2005, Mench has an OPS of .919 against southpaws over 400 ABs, while slugging .558. Needless to say, those are some very useful numbers, and the Mets recently traded for a guy who’s the exact opposite.

Newly acquired Ryan Church has performed very well over his career against righties, posting an OPS of .856 against them (but only a .742 against lefties). If you combine two outfielders - one who is above average against lefties and another who is above average against righties - what do you get, kids? Why, a position covered by an above-average hitter, of course!

But as with everything else, it’s simply not that easy. If the Mets feel that Mench (as the righty in a platoon) is worth what he made in arbitration last year ($3.4 million), then they may as well offer up a player to be named later to acquire him. If they take a wait-and-see approach and hope he hits the open market, it’s unlikely that Mench would sign with a team that can’t guarantee him 400 ABs, so a trade seems to be the only way to go.

If the Mets decide to go this route and are successful, they could possibly end up with a combo capable of OPSing around .850, which is roughly what you can expect out of far more recognizable names such as Nick Swisher, Bobby Abreu, and Alex Rios. Not bad, right?

I did not see this one coming. Not by a long shot.

It’s currently being reported that the New York Mets have dealt OF prospect and legendary rapper Lastings Milledge to the Washington Nationals in exchange for catcher Brian Schneider and outfielder Ryan Church.

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that Milledge has been dealt. His name had been bandied about in many trade rumors, often involving the Oakland A’s (either for Joe Blanton or as part of a package for Danny Haren). Now I have no inside knowledge of the Mets brass’ collective thought process, but to me this signals that Billy Beane had either soured on Milledge or was never as interested as reporters thought. If the Mets had a shot to upgrade their starting pitching via Oakland by trading Milledge, one would have to assume that Omar Minaya would have saved this bullet for the right time. Instead, Milledge is going to Washington where he should see a lot of playing time. Most scouts seem to still view him as an above-average outfielder in the future, if not future All-Star.

So why did the Mets do it?

First off, there’s something else here. In the last week or so, the Mets acquired three catchers - they resigned Ramon Castro to a two-year deal, traded for Johnny Estrada, and have now also acquired Schneider. Unless they’re planning on employing the first ever catching (righty-switch-lefty) trio, they most likely will be looking to deal one of the three.

But the bigger piece here is Ryan Church. I’ve mentioned in a previous post that I actually like Church. Despite playing in a massive pitcher’s park, he still managed to attain a .813 OPS in 2007. In fact, he slugged over .500 away from RFK. I don’t expect his numbers to get that much better since Shea is just as much a pitcher’s park. But what he does offer the Mets lineup is the lefty hitter they’ve been lacking since letting Shawn Green hit the market. Church should slot in as the #2, 7 or 8 hitter in the Mets lineup (I’m not much of a fan of the idea of Luis Castillo in the second spot). While he had a .349 OBP in 2007, he performed better in that department in ‘05 and ‘06, so I expect him to bounce back into the .360 OBP level, which should be good enough to hit near the top of the order. Plus, he has much more pop than Castillo (who doesn’t?). Church should improve the Mets offense in the short term. Defensively, he’s nothing special, but he isn’t bad either. While he played mostly in left in Washington, he’ll most likely be a RFer for the Mets.

Overall, I think it’s pretty ballsy of Omar Minaya to trade Milledge to a team within his own division. Mets fans will get to see L-Millz 18 times in the 2008 regular season wearing that Nationals uniform and they’ll judge for themselves if he ever was going to be a star. I’m pretty confident that this (assuming that trading Milledge for good pitching was simply not an available option) improves the Mets chances in 2008. But we’ll all have to wait and see to know if this trade is a big mistake.

P.S: I expect the fans of Flushing to immediately want to burn Minaya for this deal. The press and blogs have talked SO MANY times about dealing Milledge for pitching that I think lots of people will look at this trade and think that Minaya took Church/Schneider over someone like Haren or Johan Santana. Me? I’m pretty sure that had such a possibility existed, Omar would have never looked in Washington’s direction.

UPDATE: Well, not really an “update”, but a clarification - I was just re-reading this and I think it comes off sounding a bit too positive from the Mets’ perspective. So instead of writing this over again, I’m just going to add that I’m not exactly thrilled with this trade. It’s not as bad as it seems on the surface, but it’s definitely not good. Just wanted to point this out.

Via Mudville.

Colorado’s Rookie League team in Casper, Wyoming, has changed its name.

The Casper Rockies are now the Casper Ghosts.

If you’re worried that Casper, who is a friendly ghost, isn’t tough enough to instill fear in opponents, don’t. The team has placed menacing looking ghosts on its caps. And better yet, the ghost emblems glow in the dark. Truly awesome.

I’m not sure how I feel about the Casper name change. But I suppose there are some towns that just demand certain names (see: Macon Whoopee). The ghosts were, I suspect, inevitable. Are the Butte (Idaho) Pirates next?