Week Twenty-Three

In my two Yahoo leagues, the 23rd week of the fantasy baseball season is the first round of the playoffs. Due to both solid managing and unintelligent opponents, I had byes in both leagues, earning the top seed in one league and the second seed in the other.

In my keeper league, however, playoff races were still alive and well. The first 3 playoff spots were determined, but there were 4 teams within 6 games of each other for the final 3. I had the best record of the 4, so it would take an impressive collapse to keep me out, but like a porch at Tom Arnold's house, I was due for a collapse. And besides, I started Bonderman again.

Bonderman had 2 starts. Why I thought he might be good escapes me at the moment. The point is, he wasn't. His combined totals from his two starts were ugly. Sarah Jessica Parker ugly:

6.2 INN, 14 HA, 4 BB, 4 K, 9 ER

He put a nice exclamation point on what has truly been a huge collapse for him in the second half. He is reason number one for the Tiger's disappearance in the standings. Thankfully for me, my opponent started Dontrelle Willis and Braden Looper, who combined for 3 starts, and also suck. They were almost worse:

12.2 INN, 23 HA, 5BB, 10K, 15 ER

Smoltz threw 7 one-hit innings, Shields was dominant for 2 starts and I cruised to a 5-0-1 record in the pitching categories.

On the offensive side, there was the good:
Hafner (2HR, 8 RBI)
Ibanez (2 HR, 6 RBI)
Teixeira (HR, 4RBI)
Wright (2 HR, 4RBI)

There was the bad:
Furcal (2-26, .151 OPS)
Bay (3-15, .600 OPS)
Matsui (1-16, .348 OPS)

And there was the ugly:
Matsui again. God bless him, he's just not a handsome man.

Furcal has just been nothing but a disappointment in almost every week but that one in May when he had about 18 hits. He doesn't run and he won't even sniff the 14 HR he hit last year. But then again, I drafted him on at least two of my three teams, which meant, frankly that he had to disappoint. Here's a list of all the players that I drafted at least twice this year. Enjoy.

Rich Harden
BJ Ryan
JD Drew
Rafael Furcal
Gary Sheffield
Travis Hafner

Not a great list. Not a lot of expectations exceeded here. Thankfully I had the common sense to avoid Vernon Wells and the good fortune to not draft Chris Carpenter.

But back to the week in question. I always seem to have a player who just shits himself and produces a 2-20 week. Gary Sheffield has done it at least 4 times. Nobody I play ever has a player do that poorly. I never see a guy I'm going against put up an OPS under .300. It's not like my guys are bad, I just always have someone vanish for 7 days. Regardless, I won a weak HR battle 9-6, making this now 6 consecutive weeks for my team without double digit homers. Could be an issue come playoff time.

I eeked out RBI by 2, tied in runs and lost the rest to finish the week 7-3-2 and sit pretty with the #4 seed heading into the playoffs.

I have a hard choice coming up. Do I stick with Jason Bay, who has still been terrible since I traded for him, or put Sheffield back in my lineup? Sheffield hasn't been the same since his shoulder injury, but has been doing a little better of late. It's usually customary for me to go down swinging with my best guys. Or at least the guys I've had from the beginning. If I lost and Sheffield hit 3 homers on my bench it would be a lot more upsetting then if Bay exploded on my bench.

You know things are going well when you make lineup decisions based on who you would rather lose with.

Looking Ahead

I have 3 playoff matchups next week including one against my wife, who won her first round matchup despite having easily the worst pitching staff in the league. With Cole Hamels on the DL, she has no starting pitcher ranked in the top 200. Seriously. Her staff is headined by the likes of Joel Pineiro, Doug Davis and Brian Bannister. Seriously. How did she win, you ask? Funny story. Not funny "ha ha" or funny "chuckle, chuckle" but the kind of funny that doesn't elicit any laughter at all. Like "just got caught masturbating funny," or "really bad hangnail" funny.

Anyway, sometimes the most important thing that happens in a matchup occurs before the matchup even starts. Sunday morning (sunday is the last day we can add players and have them be active for the following week) the team with the #2 seed dropped Daisuke Matsuzaka. Dice-K had been struggling and has looked tired. However, he's still a 200 K guy with great win potential. Naturally, the biggest pussyface in our league jumped all over him and expected Dice-K, with 2 starts no less, to help him expell my wife from the playoffs.

Obviously, he should have run that plan past Matsuzaka first, who proceeded to win one of those 2 starts, and put up an ERA of 16.88 with a WHIP of 2.50. Numbers so bad, that not even Doug Davis, Roger Clemens or Paul Byrd could have been worse, and my wife moved on. Take out Dice-K's numbers and she loses. That's good stuff. Especially since the team she beat is the same team that beat me in the finals last year when 8 of my starting 12 hitters took the last day of the season off. Do I hold a grudge? Short answer: Yes.