Fantasy Baseball, 50 Games Down

Oh how the mighty have fallen, but for real this time. The past ten games have been a real roller coaster of emotions for Andrew. Andrew's once dominant pitching staff has turned into a liability (even though I would love to swap staffs) as his workhorses are breaking down. Andrew fell from the heights to settle at third, behind me, and is now 6.5 back from glory. I think at this rate, if Dan Haren gives up one more HR, he may jump out a window.

Dan Haren takes the mound for Arizona.

Andrew's biggest complaint is his bizarre RBI:HR ratio, he is leading the league in HR but suffers from solo jacks. I put on my thinking cap and delved into some league stats to see if his argument was valid, and sure enough it is! I looked at the MLB team average HR and RBI numbers, then compared Andrew's, mine, and the best team in the league in terms of RBI:HR to see where he stands.

MLB Team Average - 4.59
Trader Dave - 5.27
Bert - 4.00
Andrew - 3.52

So one of two things can happen for Andrew as the season goes on. Either 1) The Law Of Averages is on his side, and over the course of the season he will approach or exceed the MLB Team average, or 2) he will have a comically low RBI:HR ratio. I am rooting for the latter, purely for the comedy.

The biggest news for me has been the awakening of my Man Crushes, Troy Tulowitzki and Jon Lester. After both stunk up the first month (mostly Tulo, Lester has been great since starting 0-2 with a 6.23 ERA in four starts) they have found their stride and started carrying my team. Lester has won 5 of his last 6 starts, and Tulo hit 5HR and 8RBI in the last 8 games after hitting 1HR and 16RBI all season.

Oh man, this is the sweetest bathwater ever...

I am currently sitting in second, and couldn't be happier to be in the running. My pitching staff is improving and it looks like I have a chance to win the league by hammering the ball. I assumed I would have to send one of my best players (Tulowitzki, Holliday, or Choo) to someone with pitching (Andrew) sooner or later, but I'm 9 points ahead of the second best offense and my staff is getting better with every non-Harden start. Even with his inning limits Phil Hughes (ugh, I can't believe I'm relying on a Yankee) is giving me a big boost, and the return of Cliff Lee has done wonders for my ERA and WHIP.

Andrew checks in: I've had the misfortune of watching all of my misfortune unfold before my eyes this year, as I re-upped my MLB Extra Innings package with Comcast this year.  As an aside, my summer is slipping away from me as I spend my nights in front of the TV swearing loudly, instead of outside enjoying the long days, but then again, this is NorCal, where summer doesn't really start until August.  Anyway, my team has been maddening.  There were some genuinely boneheaded moves made at the draft that are bending me over right now (Nolasco instead of Cain? Check.  Drafting somebody outside of your strategy just because he was cheap [Vlad], then panicking and using a supplemental move to drop him before the season even starts, then watching Vlad tear the cover off the ball for two straight months?  Check.  Wasting another supp move on dropping Jason Frasor?  Check.
But, my point about MLB Extra Innings is this: sometimes, the numbers do lie, and I have seen just about every little thing go against me this year.  Errors on infielders being ruled as hits, strikeouts being ruled as checked swings (leading to blown saves), grounders bouncing over first basemen's heads, bloops falling for doubles, etc, etc.  Then there was Ethier and his freak finger injury, Votto sitting for a solid week with a sore neck without going on the DL, Napoli starting the first three weeks of the season on the bench, and the complete disappearance of Jake Peavy.  Let's not even talk about Dan Haren.  On top of all this, my bread and butter strategy of accumulating things that cannot be taken away from you and are, for the most part, within the batter's control (BBs) has let me down.  One of my favorite fantasy guys that seems to land in my lap for $1 every year, Nick Swisher, insists on getting base hits instead of walking.  WTF?!  If I had wanted hits I would've drafted Ichiro or Prado, but I didn't.  Where is this .250 average and 90 BBs I keep hearing so much about? 


Current Status
Bert - "Obviously you're not a golfer."
Andrew - "This is a very complicated case, Maude. You know, a lotta ins, lotta outs, lotta what-have-yous. And, uh, lotta strands to keep in my head, man. Lotta strands in old Duder's head. Luckily I'm adhering to a pretty strict, uh, drug regimen to keep my mind limber."

Greatest Goal Never Scored?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4pP9rd_pOA

Goal of the Day (Nicht Aktuell)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zda2ZbJjzPo&feature=related

Fantasy Baseball, 40 Games Down

The past 10 games have been extremely traumatic for baseball fans and fantasy owners. In the real world the Red Sox have been beaten mercilessly, and in the world of fantasy Andrew's season is over. In a matter of hours Andrew dropped from 1st to dead last, or so he would have you believe. Andre Ethier, his offensive workhorse, has fallen victim to a broken finger. He still sits in first, but with a week of dead roster space (Ethier was DL'd after our Monday roster deadline) Andrew may have to suffer the humiliation of dropping out of first for a few days. The horror.

Behold, the face of the apocalypse.

On the other end of the league, well more like the frustratingly mediocre middle, sits my team of limp armed BP machines. I was able to ride two wonderful starts by Phil Hughes to a "dominating" 5th place, but his performance the other night (5ER in 5IP, 6H and a BB) and a few more steaming piles of shite have sent me back down to 6th. I finally got my first saves from Frank Francisco's replacement (Neftali Feliz), but Billy Wagner exists in some kind of saves Twilight Zone. The Braves either lose 10-0 or win 10-0, so save chances are few and far between. Awesome.

Sticking it to my ERA, Ks, Saves, WHIP, and sanity since Opening Day

The league is starting to form three tiers and even out. The top team (Andrew's) has 59.50 points with only 3 points between him and 3rd. The bottom 5 teams are separated by only 4.5 points, not a good place to be.

Current Status
Bert - "Lord. You can imagine where it goes from here."
Andrew - "Nothing is fucked?! The God damn plane has crashed into the mountain!"

World Cup 30 Man Squads, Oh The Comedy

The Sports Optimator has been dragging its collective feet lately and we missed a big day; the preliminary 30 man squads were announced .We have a World Cup preview in the works, and I have no doubt it will be as accurate as our MLB Preview and Fantasy Draft wrap-up. Frankly, Andrew and I may take to drawing names from a hat, we might be better off.

We won't know the final 23 man squads until June 1st, but that doesn't mean we can't laugh and/or scratch our heads as some of the rosters. The most exciting thing about this year is that a few teams that look loaded on paper, or could have been, are being run by clowns. I'm not going to go over every team here, I need to leave something for our preview/picks post, but I've got some key stories I can't ignore.

Key Match Up : Argentina Vs. France. For the title? No, no no no. These two are going at it for the right to call their manager the Clown Of The Tournament. France's well known buffoon Eugene Levy, er, I mean Raymond Domenech has a very talented squad that he will no doubt manage into the ground. His biggest roster head scratcher is the omission of Real Madrid's bench warming striker Karim Benzema, who appears to have been left off due to his unpleasant personality. Actually, I shouldn't say "appears" because Domench came out and said as much. Laurent Blanc can't take over fast enough. On the other side of this battle is Diego Maradona, noted coke fiend and cheater, who would like his doubters to "suck it" and so on. Yes, this man is representing Argentina and has control over the team. Stay classy Diego. I think Maradona may have sewn up the title here, and we haven't even gotten to his roster! Javier Mascherano , Juan Veron, and Fabricio Coloccini; in. Javier Zanetti and Esteban Cambiasso; out. Really? Two stars of Inter Milan, the team that took out Barcelona (the greatest team in history), who will be playing in the Champions League final are left off while a part of the ill fated Liverpool squad, a guy well past his prime, and a guy in England's Championship (Why is the Championship the 2nd best league, and Premier is the best? Weird) are included? Well, I'd like to vote for Maradona here, but we will see who steers their team to an early exit first.

The unintentional comedy should be through the roof.

Most Frightening Squad : Spain, hands down. This is the only team I can list a starting 11 for off the top of my head, and barring a serious injury to Fernando Torres I can't imagine them imploding. I'd like to call Spain chokesters, but their Euro win seems to have given them new life. They have talent up and down the field with most of their players coming from Real Madrid and Barcelona. I don't know if they will win it all, but failing to reach the final would be a huge disappointment.

Champs or chokesters?

Most Underrated Squad : Ivory Coast. I'll admit that I'm not horribly high on the African teams, but the Ivory Coast has some seriously talented players all over the field. I wouldn't be shocked, mainly because I'm predicting it, if Ivory Coast took out Brazil or Portugal in their group. I expect them to advance and do some damage in the elimination rounds.

Most Titillating Squad : I'm only setting myself up for more Euro 08 level disappointment, but the Dutch look exciting! I might need to breath into a paper bag if the Dutch run roughshod over their group. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but Wesley Sneijder, Arjen Robben, and Robin van Persie are absolutely on fire. Everyone was harping about how horrible the World Cup would be if Argentina didn't qualify and the best player in the world (Lionel Messi) were left sitting at home, well in the past month or so Arjen Robben made a serious case for his own reign as best player in the game. I'm not saying Robben is better than Messi, but he has produced a number of amazing goals and basically put Bayern Munich on his back, leading them to the Champions League final and their 1200th Bundesliga title.

This never ends well for me.

Fantasy Baseball, 30 Games Down

Things are slow at the Sports Optimator, hopefully these updates will fend off the crickets and cobwebs. I'm happy to report I am no longer the worst in my league, all thanks to Jon Lester (the tub is filling, and I can't wait to drink his bathwater) and a few half decent games by Rich Harden and Cliff Lee. I current sit at a not-so-annoying 6th, or as I like to call it "third from dead last", all after only a few days. This past week saw a supplemental move fly out the window (f*ck you Rick Porcello, no really, f*ck you) and a promising young arm hit the DL (Brett Anderson, I'd like to introduce you to Dr. James Andrews) and fears of TJ's and/or a repeat of being ravaged by injuries return. The biggest surprise is that Rod Barajas, Rod Barajas, is absolutely crushing balls out of the park. This is the same guy that had "Sup Move" written all over him, his 9HRs lead my team, but sadly his .244BA isn't the worst.

Andrew continues to ride the most improbable and confusing hot streaks I can imagine. He has mostly held on to 1st, but has been dropping in and out over the past few days. Kelly Johnson has to be juicing, he is blasting opposing pitching with 10HR and a .291BA (This is a guy that hit 8, 12, and 16HR all season in 2007-2009) in what could be an insane career year. Andrew's bread and butter continues to be his arms with Wainwright, Liriano, Verlander, and Haren all keeping his team afloat.

Current Status
Bert : "No Donny, these men are nihilists, there's nothing to be afraid of."
Andrew : "You guys are dead in the water!"