Week Twelve

If literally fucking Travis Hafner would make him hit better I swear to God I would really consider it. Not only is he hurting all 3 of my teams but I'm now hearing shit from friends of mine, or former friends, whom I councilled on their drafts and convinced to pick Hafner. Right now, he's hitting how he looks - like crap. And this is from quite possibly, his biggest fan. I love the guy dearly, but his .437 OPS last week really didn't do much for me.

Not to be outdone, Adam LaRoche chipped in a 2-23 week (both singles) and a whopping .309 OPS. Very hard to do if you actually take a bat and two functioning eyeballs to homeplate. Thankfully, the apathy of my offense was met by my opponent, as I won Home Runs 2-1 for the week. His only home run coming courtesy of shortstop Brendan Harris and he hit on Monday. Kazuo Matsui's first week on my team was met with a low OPS (.667) but 3 steals. Not bad.
Two days into the week, Michael Barrett was traded out of a good hitters park to SD where fly balls (and Vinny Castilla) go to die. His OPS for the week was .471. Most irritatingly, after hitting 7th for two weeks and not doing much, LoDuca is back in the number 2 hole, the only reason he has any fantasy value at all. Now I have to go pick him back up, which is something of a pride swallowing maneuver.

And seriously now, how much fucking longer is Magglio Ordonez going to be good. He's just to greasey to keep this up isn't he??

On a more positive note, Lance Berkman is alive. He seems to be waking up from his season long funk, following in the footsteps of other slow starters I drafted on that same team like Atkins an Konerko. Berkman finished the week with a 1.147 OPS, which would have been really impressive if Kinsler hadn't gone 1.345 with 9 runs.

As I've mentioned in this blog before, the week when I play my wife tends to cause a little inter-apartmental tension. This is of course exacerbated by the lack of sex, which is replaced by hostility and jokes about violence. Last time we dueled, I escaped with a tie. This time, I was not so lucky. In the five years my wife has played fantasy baseball, she's always been good at putting together an offense. Pitching, however, has always eluded her. She had attempted to buck that trend by drafting a pitcher much earlier than usual, and so she selected the second most reliable starter in baseball in our 4th round. Unfortunately, Chris Carpenter proved there's no such thing as a "reliable starter" after making only one start (a bad one) in 3 months. Then she endured the injury to Felix Hernandez. So she's sworn off pitching all together, and currently trots out there guys like Jeff Suppan, Ervin Santana, Jeff Francis and Orlando Hernandez. I tell you this stuff because last week, she beat me in ERA/WHIP and K/BB ratio. And she starts Todd Jones. Not sure how this happened, but fuck if it didn't.

There are some things at which a man just can't take his wife being better than him:

• bowling
• Simpson Quoting
• weight lifting
• throwing a football
• jeopardy
• sports trivia
• hooker raping/beating
• joke telling
• driving

Yet, I find myself almost proud of her. At least, that's the feeling I get as I slowly lower the pillow down to her face...


SIDE NOTE: We are entering what I think of as the duldrums of the fantasy baseball season. The weather is really nice and I actually want to spend more time outside as opposed to inside watching baseball. This year, this feeling is hitting me stronger than usual. What does this mean?

Week Eleven

In one of my leagues this week, I was playing some guy who was obviously on vacation. The strange part about this was that on Sunday, he and I made a trade. I got Hanley Ramirez for Papelbon and JJ Hardy.

During the week, he had David Ortiz on his bench, Aramis Ramirez as his 3B (Ramirez was on the DL all week) didn't come close to reaching his innings minimum. On top of that, Jeff Kent hit .077 with no runs or RBI for the week, Jose Valentin was his Utility player (.214 no runs or RBI) and Trot Nixon was in his outfield (.059 with 1 run and 1 RBI). Our trade went through on Friday, so for the weekend he had no SS and no Utility player (it was a two for one deal that required him to drop a player).

Here's the amazing part: He beat me in runs, steals, avg and OPS. He basically came at me with 4 players:

• Pudge Rodriguez (.286, 1 HR, 4 Runs, 5 RBI)
• LaRoche (.333, 1 HR, 5 Runs, 2 RBI)
• Granderson (.360, 1 HR, 7 Runs, 3 RBI, 2 steals)
• Hideki Matsui (.429, 1 HR, 5 Runs, 8RBI)

That's not all that impressive. What is impressive, though is the complete and total lack of offensive production from my team. I only hit 4 homers and Garrett Atkins, who went crazy this week, had 3 of them. The rest of my team, well, see for yourself:

• Konerko (.125, 1 HR, 1 run, 2 RBI)
• Berkman (.313, 0HR, 3 Runs, 0 RBI)
• Hafner (.250, 0 HR, 2 Run, 2 RBI and a shocking steal)
• Napoli (.000, 0 HR, 1 Run, 1 RBI)
• Drew (.227, 0HR, 5 Runs, 4 RBI)
• Kinsler (.125, 0HR, 0 Runs, 0RBI)

It was truly embarassing. I am officially worried about Hafner, who didn't even play on Sunday, and the game was at home. At what point, can we actually stop thinking of Berkman and Konerko as good hitters. August 1st, maybe? I don't know, but I am close to being there right now.

And don't even get me fucking started on Curtis Granderson, who had the fucking week of his life on two of the teams I was playing this week.

More good news, as it looks like this Teixeira quad injury is more serious than it seemed at first. Which is just great for my keeper team, which currently starts LaRoche at first base. I made some roster moves in the league heading into week 12. Benched Kelly Johnson in favor of the hot hitting Kazuo Matsui. And swapped in Michael Barrett for Paul LoDuca, who has a sore triceps after being HBP. We'll see how those moves pan out. My guess: Not well.

Speaking of my keeper league, the owner of Manny Ramirez was shopping him, looking to get a replacement outfielder back. We spoke at lenght about a deal involving Sheffield, but couldn't agree on anything. The closest we got was I get Manny, Freddie Sanchez and Borowski for Sheff and Furcal. My problem with this is simply the worthlessness of Sanchez in fantasy. No runs, RBI or Steal. Just average/hits. And Furcal's second half OPS last year was over .900. I couldn't do it. I want to have Manny and I'd rather keep him for '08 than Sheffield, but not that much.

Current standings in my three leagues: 1st, 5th, 2nd (in my division - I know, divisions??)

Week Ten

To begin this week, I'd like to take a moment to illustrate how important the job of catcher really in in baseball. Tim Hudson's first start of the week was against Florida and in said start, catcher Brian McCann cost Hudson 4 earned runs. How did he do this? With two runners on and one out, Hudson struck out Dan Uggla on a foul tip. Unfortunately, McCann couldn't hang on, giving Uggla new life. Of course, Uggla promptly singled in a run. That was followed by a sac fly, an intentional walk and then a strikeout of Josh Willingham. Not one of those strikeouts that records an out, though. It was one of those the catcher lets slip by him and the batter reaches first base. Followed immediately by a two-run Aaron Boone single. Unfortunately, fantasy ERA doesn't have an asterisk for catcher fuck ups. Though it should.

Onto another favorite whipping boy of the 2007 season: The Orioles Bullpen - inparticular, Dennys Baez. In one of my leagues, I was starting Jeff Burres. Please don't ask why, but the main reason is that he qualifies as an RP and had a start against the Mariners. He left after 5.2 innings, with a 4-1 lead. A decent, and a surefire win. Enter Mr. Baez, who proceeded to author the following line:

Bottom 7th: Seattle
- J. Guillen singled to right center
- R. Ibanez walked, J. Guillen to second
- K. Johjima walked, J. Guillen to third, R. Ibanez to second

In comes Jamie Walker, who was sure to clean up the mess:

J. Vidro hit sacrifice fly to deep right, J. Guillen scored, R. Ibanez to third
- R. Ibanez scored, K. Johjima to second on wild pitch
- B. Broussard singled to first, K. Johjima to third
- Y. Betancourt singled to left, K. Johjima scored, B. Broussard to second

Not so much. 6 batters into the inning there was one out, two men still on base and my win was gone. Not really a big deal, it's not like I lost wins by ONE OR ANYTHING!

In my oldest league, I think I need to take a moment and recognize the week that Alex Rodriguez had for me: 4 homers, 7 runs, 16 RBI, 1.475 OPS and of course, 1 steal. Abreu was no slouch either, scoring 11 runs.

Sheffield had another monster week for 2 of my teams with an OPS over 1.5. He has completely redeemed himself for his first 4 weeks of the season when he seemed to be heading to the plate with his dick in his hands instead of a bat.

My hot pick-up for the week was catcher Mike Napoli, who hit over .400 and knocked in 7 runs, helping my team overcome another disappointing Travis Hafner week. Look, nobody loves this guy more than me. He's the man, and if he walked into my apartment and told me he wanted to fuck me in the ass, I really don't know if I would say "no." But I can't really pretend not to notice anymore just how unPronk-like his season has been thus far. They guy is hitting closer to .250 than .300. He's still taking walks, but here we are about halfway through June and he's still homerless for the month. The big problem here is that he's the one player I drafted on all 3 of my teams.

And one of those team ended up tied for the week and Pronk was a big reason why. Monday, I looked over my opponent's roster and did a little comparison. I almost laughed when I saw that his utility player was Shane Victorino and mine was Hafner. I expected to win the offensive stats based on that alone.

Hafner: 4-22, 4 H, 2B, 3 RBI, R, 3 BB, 0.507 OPS

Victorino: 8-31, 8 H, 2 2B, HR, RBI, 3 R, SB, BB, 0.701 OPS

Simply astounding. Hafner was outhit by SHANE VICTORINO! How the fuck is that even possible? Almost more upsetting was the fact that his team managed to have a whip of 0.767.

Looks like I missed that JD Drew turnaround week by one, as this week he homers twice and knocks in 10 runs. Granted, most of that came in one game, but hey, it still counts. Or at least, it would have counted, if I hadn't benched him...In both of my leagues where I own him...And then finished one of those weeks tied in homers....

Week Nine

Gary Sheffield is officially on fire. 11 runs this week. 11 runs. That's almost 2/game. He lead two of my teams to victory and didn't say or do anything stupid.

Let's get to my predictions from last week.

I said: "And Berkman, well I really need Berkman to start hitting, so I'll go ahead and predict that he does."
Result: Berkman hits .100 for the week with an OPS under .500. But he did homer once and knock in 6 runs, so I'm almost happy about it. Which should tell you a lot about Berkman this year.
I said: "This is the week JD Drew breaks out of his slump."
Result: A .100 average, an OPS of .450 and no homers. But at least he did hurt his hamstring. It seems to me that "J.D. Drew" has got to be acronym for "Ground out to the right side." If Manny led off every inning with a double, Drew would be the king of productive outs. But he isn't. He just makes outs.
I said: "Atkins is at home all week so he's got to start hitting right?"
Result: Not so much. 4 runs and a .267 avg. Not much. I especially liked it when Clint Hurdle said Atkins wouldn't start over the weekend because he was slumping so badly, and then played on Sunday (while I benched him) and homered. Appreciated that.

I suppose if we've learned anything from this, and we probably haven't, it's that my predictions are rarely right, and are mostly based on my needs.


Thankfully for that team, Hafner had a homer and 8 RBI and Kelly Johson hit .500 for the week to help Sheffield out. Franciso Cordero picked up 4 saves and waiver wire wonder Accardo had 2 saves and a vulture win, while my opponent's bullpen featured Todd Jones (47.25 ERA, 9.75 WHIP), Jonathan Broxton (21.60 ERA) and Dan Wheeler (16.20 ERA). That's the kind of stuff other teams complain about.

My Keeper League was tight all week long. I ended up winning Runs by 1, Homers and RBI by 2 and losing hits and steals by 1. This league actually provided me the most frustration of the week. On Sunday, Dan Wheeler melts down, blowing save and allowing runs. I dash to the computer and see that my ERA,WHIP and BAA were suddenly lower. This immediately confirms that I am an enormous loser. I bask in the glow of this 3 category swing. For about 12 seconds. That's how long it took Solomon Torres (I know it's my fault for having him, but he was still getting saves - at least until his first meltdown of the week, which cost him the closer's job, but it's a weekly league so I just had to hope he wouldn't pitch again. But he did. And of course, it was bad) to enter a game and give up 4 hits to the only 5 batters he would face, 2 of them scoring. I bid farewell to my brief leads in all 3 categories. And by "bid farewell," mean I screamed profanities and punched the couch pillows.

For the record, Torres is now off my team. He's terrible. The worst part about his fantasy season is that his best week, (Week 1 when he had 4 saves in 4 chances) he was on my bench.

Looking to next week, I see that Orlando Cabrera and Vlad are on all 3 teams I'll be facing so I expect career weeks out of them. Also, in a desperate attempt to replace Abreu in one league, I was beaten out to add Gary Matthews Jr. I know, I don't want him on my team, and I know he isn't good, but he seems to be getting RBI's. Maybe he decided to use that shipment of HGH that he ordered and had delivered to his house and then at the last second decided he shouldn't use.....

Also, I've decided - in the league I have Bonds - to give him one more week, and not play Raul Ibanez. So we'll see how that goes. Also, rumor has it that Harden - if he comes back and isn't killed by fantasy players, A's fans, or a light mist - could be headed to the bullpen. Great.