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??)