Weekly Matchups - Week 9

Sunday, June 2 - Red Sox @ Yankees

8pm - Location: TBA (but probably TITS) 

 

Week 9's installment of the DDWPIPOTCFFBE (Diamond Dynasty Weekly Preview In Pursuit Of The Chalice For Fantasy Baseball Excellence)

 

Last week – TJ regains first place with a win over Jarrett who falls 4 spots in a log-jammed race, and Alex bolsters his staff with a familiar face in the first DD trade of the year (brought to you by ScottTrade ®)

Sleepy's® "Snoozer of the Week" – Ben (2^nd) vs Drew (10^th)

Ben was the dominatrix of the week (that's absolutely a thing now), winning by the largest margin of victory (8-2 over Colin). It was closer than the score suggested though, as Ben won by 2 RBI's, 1 SB, percentage points in average, and 1 win. Much of the thanks goes to Chris Davis, who blasted 4 homers and hit .480. On the bump, Max Scherzer netted him two wins and 13 K's, and Derek Holland and Matt Cain each got a win and double-digit strikeouts. He was able to put up a solid sub-3 ERA and flirted with a sub-1 WHIP, nice goin' Benjamin. It was a good bounce back win for the scientist, or whatever you do, after losing 2 in a row. He moves back up to second place, narrowly above the 3^rd and 4^th placemen. He's the favorite this week as he has Drew in his sights, who lost to Alex 6-3 last week. It's 7 L's in a row for Donovan and the offense is struggling more and more every week. Only 2 home runs – the lowest number I can recall since starting these write-ups – and 26 RBI's against Alex, the latter of which actually won him the category. He actually managed to go 2-2-1 on offense this week but it's still tough to see those results. I probably don't have to comment on the pitching, it's a broken record at this point. The blowout potential plus lack of animosity between these two puts this firmly into the Snoozer of the Week.

(season series 0-0)

Dell's® "Dull Duel" – Colin (8^th) vs Richie (9^th)

I need help coming up with a name for the opposite, or the submissive victim of the dominatrix. Any ideas? Either way, Colin was that person this week. His 8-2 loss to Ben dropped him to 8^th place and he is in a mini free-fall. He's followed up a 3-1 stretch with a nasty 0-2-1 mark, including back to back 8-2 losses. Like I mentioned, it was sort of close but tough shit son. Anyway, the bash brothers - I think I'll just go with Crout from now on – were spectacular again this week. This was probably their best week of 2013, stacking up a vicious stat line of 17/5/17/4/.400ish. It must be awesome to roll those guys out every week. But despite all this smoke I'm blowing up their asses, the offense went just 1-4 last week. The pitching was decent (16 K's from Cole Hamels) but it wasn't good enough to catch Ben. But if there's one remedy for a losing streak, it's getting to play Cheech and Chon-I mean, Drew and Richie. Colin draws the better-looking basement-dweller this week in hopes of Wrighting the ship (segue! You see that?) Richie handed over the Martha Jones Trophy to James following a 7-2 beat down last week (he held it since week 7 of 2012 with a 6-4 victory, which was followed by a 4-4 tie in week 16.) He got shelled offensively, losing all 5 categories for the umpteenth time this year. I don't have the records nor do I wish to spend the amount of time digging them up, so I'll just assume that Richie's 2-27-1 mark on offense over the past 6 weeks is the worst offensive output in league history. The sputtering offense led to one of the bigger trades that the Diamond Dynasty has seen in it's history, prompting Richie to take action to try to become more offensively competitive by dealing Felix Hernandez (back) to Alex for David Wright and a conditional draft pick in 2014. Richie acquired Hernandez from Alex just 2 years ago for Jimmy Rollins, John Axford, Hiroki Kuroda and J.J. Putz when the managers faced similar situations; Alex was making his playoff push while Richie was acquiring a new potential keeper. I regrettably mentioned to James that he might consider covering all of the DD trades this year and give his two cents on the blog so that we can get some more articles up, and he proceeded to rip me to shreds. I have tried to take the high road and bite my tongue, but I simply will not allow myself to be attacked so maliciously and erroneously. Full disclosure: The next paragraph is a public bitch session directed to James and is probably white noise to most of you, so feel free to skip over it.

James,

I should have known that a Mariner fanboy would write up that shit – you would have said I got the short end of the stick if I gave up Felix for Colin's imminent panic-trade of Crout (still on the table my man, FYI. Anyone you want.) But the fact of the matter is David Wright is a 30-30 threat at a position that does not feature those types of guys. You try to belittle the draft pick I also acquired by pointing to Danny Espinosa and Corey Hart, but you fail to mention that Carlos Gomez (17^th), Clay Buchholz (12^th), and Chris Davis (4^th) all went in that round or the immediate round after. There can be IMMENSE potential in picks in that area – it's not a last round pick like you make it out to be. It's not my job to make or not make trades based on how it effects my trade partner – I evaluate trades based on what I think is best for my team. If you think Alex has a better team, so be it – at least I'm not sitting on my ass in the basement hoping for a miracle and predictably missing the playoffs (sound familiar? I'll give you a hint – YOU LAST YEAR). Last thing - “Maybe I’m just angry you wouldn’t even entertain a single offer from me for weeks and then went on listening to everything Alex had to say and went as far as verbally committing to something after rejecting me flat out without hearing a single player offer”...the FUCK are you talking about?! I literally gave you the chance to match via text and you said, and I quote, “Not officially (deal/offer of Adam Jones), but if you want to, pull the trigger with Alex...I don't wanna trade just to compete with him, I'd think about doing something if you really wanted to though. Plus, I really love my team right now.” I don't really care who you think won the trade despite the fact that you went way over the top, essentially mocking me for getting cents on the dollar (never mind Wright has a better O-Rank than Felix). It's genuinely interesting to get different points of view on it instead of me just filling up the blog all the time, I really mean that. But at least get your facts straight if you're going to try to make me look stupid.

(season series 0-0)

The Average Match of the Week presented by Not Your Average Joe's – James (3^rd) vs Adrian (6^th)

James beat up on Richie this week – both in the match up and (poorly) on the blog. But facts are facts – James' offense is clicking in a big way. 12 homers, 10 SB and a .300 average will go a long way toward ripping off a big winning streak. He's arguably the hottest team right now, winning 4 out of his last 5 at a .667% clip (TJ leads the league at .581% this year). Adam Jones had 4 solo shots and scored 7 runs to lead the team. A 2-2-1 record on the pitching side of things led to an easy victory for James, as this match was over by the weekend. He's got a tougher match-up this week against Adrian, who's had some really close matches the past two weeks. He was edged 6-4 to a suddenly rolling Kurt, who we'll touch on in a minute. Adrian went 3-2 on offense but could only take saves from closer-less Kurt. Adrian was only one good spot start away from changing things dramatically though, but it was not to be. A big win by either of these guys and we could be looking at a new first place team!

(season series 0-0)

The Post-It® "Noteworthy Match-up" – Jarrett (5^th) vs Kurt (7^th)

Roommate battle!! Lots of smack talk already brewing for this match up despite one of them maintaining his always stoic demeanor. Rumors of upwards of $800 is being wagered on this match up with a possible unsuspecting third party taking the fall. Aaaaaaanyway, Jarrett lost last week to TJ, relinquishing the top spot in the DD. It dropped him down to 5^th just because y'all are so tightly packed way up there, but a closer look at his weekly results suggest a troubling trend. He is 3-3-2 on the season, but he doesn't have a big win to hang his hat on. In weeks 4-6 he played Colin (currently 8^th), Richie (9^th), and Drew (10^th) and ripped off 3 wins in a row. Outside of that stretch, everything else has either been a tie or a loss. Jarrett kind of stunk all around this week, with only 6 homers, .264 average, 2 wins, and undesirable ERA/WHIP's. He's taking on Kurt who has very quietly turned the luck around. He's won 5 of 6 though he hasn't scored better than 6-4 in any of the wins. In fact, he's given up 4 categories in all of his wins but his least recent one. I wouldn't say that he's reached a dominating streak yet, but he's starting to show some signs of a title defense. Carlos Gonzalez kept plugging away with a 6/3/5/1/.296 slash line and is now the second-best fantasy baseballer in the land and Joey Votto scored 8 runs and hit .381. Kurt has made it back to .500 on the season and I think he's got a good shot to keep the good mojo goin'.

(season series 0-0)

Diamond Strike Anywhere Matches® "Match-Up of the Week" – TJ (1^st) vs Alex (4^th)

Congratulations to Mr. TJ Geers, the big winner of last week's Diamond Strike Match-up of the

Week! He walloped Jarrett 7-3 to re-take first place in the DD. TJ had really solid offensive numbers across the board last week, with 40+ runs and RBI's and a .314 average. He spot-started his way to 8 wins, 6 saves, and got juuuuust enough strikeouts from Jerome Williams's spot start on Sunday to win by one little strike out. But this match up will be long remembered for Kurt's words of wisdom, shown below:

“LOL! Where does Shit Happen? The Clay Buttholes! LOLOLOLOLOL”

-K. Gottschalk

Truer words have never been spoken.

Geers has a tough draw this week against Alex, who's won 5 of 6 and now features one of the deepest rotations in the league with his acquisition of Felix Hernandez. He's got 5 pitchers currently ranked between 31 and 66, though he's hovering around .500 in W, K, ERA, and WHIP. He took care of business last week against Drew, 6-3, despite a pretty quiet offensive week from his squad. He only managed 5 homers and a .221 average but found a way to gut it out for the win. Curtis Granderson's seat on the DL wasn't even cold yet when he broke his knuckle on a HBP – he'll miss another 4 weeks. You'd think Curtis would try to get out of the way by now, as he's lost 95% of his season thus far to HPB fractures. Regardless of the outcome, I'm sure it won't provide much clarity in the standings. Next week is revenge week people! Get back at those who did you wrong on the first pass!

Drew, we have a lot of work to do.

(season series 0-0)

Weekly Matchups - Week 8

Week 8's installment of the DDWPIPOTCFFBE (Diamond Dynasty Weekly Preview In Pursuit Of The Chalice For Fantasy Baseball Excellence)

Last week – Alex wins big over Colin and James takes care of business against Ben, making for one of the most log-jammed standings in recent memory!

Sleepy's® "Snoozer of the Week" – Drew (10th) vs Alex (3rd)

Drew!! You were so close! You were one Jay Bruce Sunday homer from not losing this week!  A valiant effort against potent TJ, but ultimately a 5-4 loss.  Drew had his best offensive output in weeks, posting 38 runs, 8 dingers, and a .346 batting average.  First round pick Billy Butler finally had a break out week knocking in 10 and hitting .480, and Michael Bourn stole 2 bases in his first full week back after missing the last month with a finger injury.  The pitching, on the other hand, continues to be in shambles.  Despite all the big names, his only pitcher ranked in the top 100 is A.J. Burnett (55).  As far as I can remember, his 6.51 ERA and 1.77 WHIP last week are the worst marks for the DD this year.  He had more guys with an ERA above 4.50 (6) than below it (4).  Drew is last in Wins, ERA, WHIP, and RBI, and he's second to last in HR, Runs, and SB.  I smell fire sale.  He'll try to break the 6 week losing streak against Alex, who is one of 8 teams who are basically all the same.  All 8 of you overachievers are within 6.5 games of each other, and the top 5 are within 2.5 games.  FYI: PLENTY of seats down here with Drew and I.  We have couches, doritos, cable TV - it's really not that bad once you get over the smell.  Alex survived Miguel Cabrera's Sunday night onslaught (3 homers!) to crush Colin 8-2.  Ok, worst case scenario would have been 7-2 but you get the idea.  There were a couple close calls (1 HR, 1 SB) but Alex took everything except for runs and average, where Colin posted a remarkable .358.  David Ortiz, who totally isn't using any performance enhancing substances, continued his stellar season last week with 3 homers, 12 RBI, and a .458 batting average and is now ranked 72nd despite only playing slightly more than half of the Sox's's's's games (25/44).  The defense was excellent as well, highlighted by Matt Moore's 2 wins (8-0 this year) and 11 k's.   He also got 4 saves and 0.00 ERA from Edward Mujica.  Alex has won 4 of the last 5 matches and is a big favorite this week. 

(season series 0-0)

Dell's® "Dull Duel" – Colin (7th) vs Ben (5th)

Colin fell to Alex 8-2 in last week's Match-Up of the Week and is just 1-2-1 after a 2-1 start.  He didn't have a bad week on offense, scoring 48 runs and hitting .358 (both highs for the week) but he fell just short in other categories.  Miguel Cabrera lit up the scoreboard again, scoring and driving in 7 runs, hitting .429, and going deep 4 times.  Jean Segura chipped in with 4 SB.  For the year, Colin boasts 4 players in the top 19 with Cabrera (1st), Segura (5th), Yu Darvish (9th), and Mike Trout (19th) all having great seasons thus far.  His pitching was awful, posting poor numbers in all 5 categories and losing each by a long shot.  Ben had only a slightly better result last week against James, losing 7-3.  He had a pretty shit week across the board, getting high numbers where he needed low numbers and vice versa.  Ryan Zimmerman drove in 9 and Elvis Andrus stole 5 bases in the losing effort.  Ben has now lost 2 weeks in a row but is still only 2.5 games out as we approach the midway point of the year.

(season series 0-0)

The Average Match of the Week presented by Not Your Average Joe's – Kurt (8th) vs Adrian (6th)

Every so often I have to consider the story lines over the standings in determining how enticing these match-ups are.  As previously noted, everyone not named Drew or Richie are essentially on the same level at this time so the current standings don't/can't really dictate the match-ups.  I think the amount of abuse and/or general mistreatment that Kurt has shelled out at Adrian over the past 10+ years is enough to bump this up to the Average Match of the Week spot, and it should be a pretty good match-up anyway.  After taking a look at the season totals, they're the top 2 teams in runs scored.  Kurt has a big advantage in homers (80-43) but Adrian can say the same in SB (45-27).  The RBI's and average are close enough to be a toss up.  It might be tougher for Adrian on defense, as he trails the closer-less Kurt by a wide margin in everything but saves.  Taking a quick look at last week, Kurt beat Richie 6-4, expectedly going 4-1 on offense (CarGo: 8/3/8/3/.375) but only 2-3 on defense.  Adrian also went 4-1 on offense last week (7 SB from Everth Cabrera!) but was awful on defense, taking only saves from a closer-less Jarrett en route to a 5-5 tie.  Let's see if Adrian can stick it to Kurt this week.

(season series 0-0)

The Post-It® "Noteworthy Match-up" – Richie (9th) vs James (4th)

Mini-rivalry week continues with the Martha Jones trophy on the line as Richie takes on James.  Maimonis is playing great as of late, rolling a 3-1 record over the last month.  He's scored at least 5 in 5/7 weeks this year.  Last week he took down Ben 7-3 in what was a pretty comfortable win.  He went 3-2 on offensive behind Jason Kipnis (7/3/8/2/.417) and 4-1 on defense.  He boasted a sparkling 1.81 ERA 0.96 WHIP (no one individually had an ERA above 3.00).  All of these numbers make my prediction even more ridiculous, but this match up is exactly the kick in the ass that my team needs.  Richie 6, James 3.  Mark it down.  Richie has been showing some signs of life offensively but is still pretty much the worst offense in the league, and didn't do anything to improve his mark last week against Kurt.  He managed to steal the RBI category behind a Sunday night bases-clearing double by Prince Fielder (after an IBB to Cabrera with guys on first and second, no less...you must respect the big man!) but ended up 1-4 offensively.  He performed better on defense, going 3-2.  Richie will need to continue his good fortune in WHIP, ERA, and saves, and take a leap offensively to take down the Manimal for his first win of the year.   

(season series 0-0)

Diamond Strike Anywhere Matches® "Match-Up of the Week" – TJ (2nd) vs Jarrett (1st)

While I did devalue the standings this week, you simply can't ignore a 1-2 matchup!  First  place has been occupied by one of these two every week but 1 (Ben in week 6).  TJ has been all over the place recently, going 1-1-1 in the last 3 weeks but being outscored 18-11 over that time.  TJ failed to win an offense category against Drew's anemic bats, but the pitching was pretty solid.  He escaped with a 5-4 win, but he'll need his bats to wake up against Jarrett because Staaf's staaf (I think I make that joke every week) is 21-6-1 discounting the saves category.  He has two of the top 6 pitchers in Clayton Kershaw (3rd) and Shelby Miller (6th).  Jarrett had a pretty average week himself but tied Adrian 5-5 behind Paul Goldschmidt (3 home runs, ranked 3rd overall on the year) and Justin Masterson (2 wins, 20 K's, 0.00 ERA, 0.75 WHIP). There's no guarantee that either team will be in first after this week with such a log jam at the top, but at least they have a head start against the competish.  

(season series 0-0)

Weekly Matchups - Week 7

Week 7's installment of the DDWPIPOTCFFBE (Diamond Dynasty Weekly Preview In Pursuit Of The Chalice For Fantasy Baseball Excellence)

Last week – Three tiers start to form

Sleepy's® "Snoozer of the Week" – Richie (again) (9^th) vs Kurt (8^th)

Richie is one of the many teams this year who can't seem to get a full week of out his roster. He's led on Friday many times, only to see his team cough it up on the weekend, usually losing by a wide margin. This week was no different, losing 8-2 to Adrian and falling to 0-4-2 on the year. This puts him in the bottom tier with Drew, clearly behind the middle of the pack. He lost all 5 fucking offensive categories AGAIN, and he is a truly anemic 1-18-1 on offense over the last four weeks. No one worth mentioning on this dismal squad this week. The pitching was better and is the only reason why he's not in last place. He's top 4 in saves, ERA, and WHIP and has 3 of the top 5 (and 4 of the top 10) closers based on saves. You know it's going bad when the only thing going well is saves. He squares off against Kurt, who wrote a whole blog bitching about how unlucky he's been. But, at least it allowed me to read SOMETHING else about the DD, so thank you, I guess. Kurt edged out Ben last week, 5-4 thanks to the most predictable performance of the week: Evan Longoria. He started the week with a grand slam on Monday night and finished with an 8/3/11/0/.464 stat line, one of the best we've seen on the young season. All told, his team put up some big numbers across the board with 39 runs, 15 homers, and 45 RBI. The defense wasn't too much worse but it couldn't keep pace with Ben's numbers, and he lost those categories 1-3-1. The 5-4 win puts Kurt on the back end of a log-jammed middle tier. Here's hoping that Kurt's shitty luck continues.

(season series 0-0)

Dell's® "Dull Duel" – Drew (10^th) vs TJ (4^th)

Drew is in a total free-fall, having lost 5 weeks in a row and in the bottom tier with Richie. His last two weeks have been especially ugly, losing to Colin and Jarrett (both good teams) by a combined score of 16-3-1. He actually had a decent offensive week, posting 10 homers, 31 RBI, and a .314 team average, but Jarrett was just a little better in most of those areas. Alex Gordon was a stand out performer, jacking 3 bombs and hitting .393. Things are absolutely falling apart on defense for Drew. Despite a seemly jacked pitching staff, he had none – ZERO – wins last week. Verlander, Price, Sabathia, Gallardo, Burnett, even Ryan Dempster and Ricky Nolasco could not get one measly win. He had bloated ERA/WHIP numbers and lost 4 of the 5 defensive categories. He's got another tough match up this week against fourth-ranked TJ, who is still trying to get back on the horse after being knocked out of first place. He played Colin to a 5-5 tie last week in a pretty tightly contested battle. He got level production across the offense and saves from 5 different closers. Despite Matt Harvey striking out 16, he lost by 5 strikeouts but still managed to put up a great ERA/WHIP. TJ is in the top tier, just 1.5 games off the lead, and he's got a good chance at reclaiming first place next Monday morning.

(season series 0-0)

The Average Match of the Week presented by Not Your Average Joe's – James (6^th) vs Ben (2^nd)

James saved some face with a late comeback but still lost to Alex 6-3 last week. He got at best average production from his offense, mustering 28 runs, 8 homers, 29 RBI, 1 stolen base and a .246 average, but it was enough to go 3-2 against Gentilli. The pitching really let him down, failing to win a category. Coco Crisp has been activated from the 15-day DL, so Mams should be getting a boost if Coco can keep the early success rolling. Mams is pretty stacked with high-end talent, boasting 6 guys in the top 38, but he doesn't have too many more guys before the numbers start to get big. If he could find some more suitable fill-in pieces and drop guys like, oh, I don't know, Didi Gergorius (is that a real person???) he might be able to move up to the top tier. Yes, his note right now says “there aren't many shortstops that are playing better than him right now” but that's bullshit, he's 256 overall in the last 30 days and that's the most generous rank he has going for him. Yahoo! is retarded. He's taking on Ben this week, who fought back against Kurt Longoria but eventually fell, 5-4. Very mediocre stats offensively (actually, very similar to James last week) allowed him to take only one category. Chris Davis went deep twice and knocked in 7 runs, pretty solid week. The pitching was a little bit better, netting him 3 victories and a sparkling ERA/WHIP. This should be a very competitive match-up between two closeted homosexuals.

(season series 0-0)

The Post-It® "Noteworthy Match-up" – Adrian (5^th) vs Jarrett (1^st)

And now we move to the best game on paper this week. Adrian beat up on Richie last week, winning comfortably 8-2 and breaking his 3 week win-less streak in the process. The win launched him up 2 places to 5^th, but still in the second tier. Adrian had decent production but really just needed his guys to show up against Richie, who apparently took another week off. He swept the offensive categories, squeezing out a batting average win by .004. Beltre and Pedroia were good, combining for 9 runs, 3 homers, 10 RBI, 1 SB, and an average around .400. He managed to steal the K's category by 2 and the WHIP by .02 to give him the big win. He's squaring off against your new leader of the pack, Mr. Jarrett Staaf. His 7-2-1 win over lowly Drew has him looking down on the rest of us. The win was his third in a row (22-6 record) and he's really turned it around after a 0-2-1 start to the season. A week after stealing 3 bases, Paul Goldschmidt hit 4 bombs, drove in 9, and hit .348 to pace the offense. His pitching was even better, posting 6 wins, 85 K's, and fantastic ERA/WHIP digits. Adrian's hoping that the win last week had more to do with his production than his floundering, pathetic opponent, but he'll be put to the test this week against the new King.

(season series 0-0)

Diamond Strike Anywhere Matches® "Match-Up of the Week" – Colin (3^rd) vs Alex (7^th)

I'm ranking this battle Numero Uno because these teams are my picks to be the last standing in September. Both of these guys have record-skewing losses (Alex 0-10 in week 2, Colin 0-9 in week 4) that have dropped these guys down to their respective positions. But every other week for them is either a win (most of the time), a tie, or a close loss. Colin is coming of a hard fought 5-5 tie against TJ, quite a fine team so no shame there. Trout and Cabrera are starting to turn it on over the past month and are ranked 8^th and 5^th respectively over that time. It doesn't hurt to have the surprise offensive force of the year in Jean Segura either, who's ranked 4^th on the year. Joe Mauer had a great week, turning in 10 runs and hitting .533. The pitching is ugly for Colin, despite taking wins and K's last week. It's Yu Darvish, and then...um...well, no one really. The closest performer to Yu's 9^th place ranking is 136 spots away, with Hyun-Jin Ryu at 145^th. Go past Ryu and it's even uglier – third place is Tommy Milone at 213^th. Cole Hamels and Kris Medlen have really underperformed and none of his long shots have come in. And despite all that, somehow – SOMEHOW – he is 17-11-2 on defense this year. Ah, the glory of H2H. He's got Alex in his sights this week, who is 3-1 in his last 4 weeks since the 10-0 shutout loss (no Alex, I won't stop referencing that). Alex is adding a huge bat this week as Curtis Granderson has been activated from the DL and will be taking his first meaningful swings of 2013. The big man held off a late surge from James to win 6-3 last week, but he lost a lot of close categories (1 run, 3 homers, 2 RBI). The defense was a little bit better, going 4-0-1 but the numbers weren't great – 4 wins, 3.96 ERA, and a 1.23 WHIP. The best part of this match up was definitely the smack talk, worth a quick read if you haven't seen it yet. Quick synopsis: Chris Sale took a shit on James' face as Alex had hoped. This should be a good match up, but with Alex's recent play and the addition of Granderson I see him taking the glory this week.

(season series 0-0)

Week 6 Power Rankings and the debut of the Luck Index

As I was watching my offense pile up an insurmountable lead in the counting stats early in the week against Ben, I thought to myself and those around me; Damn, Ben is pretty unlucky.

Later, after looking at my teams performance compared to its record, my thought process changed to; Fuck Ben, I've been so unlucky.

Shortly after that, I started clicking around the other matchups to see what else was going on. I didn't want to be Complains about Matchups Guy, even if for a short while, but I knew that the two time defending champion needs to hold himself to higher standards than your average fantasy baseballer.

The truth is, it is better to be lucky than good. However, usually when you are good you get lucky. That didn't seem to be the case this year for me, or maybe I just wasn't as good as I thought I was. Maybe spot-starting is a better idea than being patient with your pitchers. But it just didn't seem right to drop Patrick Corbin and his 1.75 ERA, or Jeremy Guthrie and his 2.28 ERA for the likes of Nick Tepesch, Felix Doubront, Ryan Vogelsong and Bud Norris. (these are all players that James has spot-started that posted ERAs above 10. Sorry to pick on you Mams, but I went with the person that made the most moves.)

However you slice it, its not about bulk, its not about quality, it is all about timing. Owning players when they are at their peak, and playing cold teams at the right time. So, rather than complain about it, I decided to delve into the issue in a new segment I call The Luck Index.

Here's how it works. I took the power rankings in each category then took the power rankings based on W-L record for each category, then found the difference. Negative numbers symbolize bad luck. Or negative luck. Here is an example for RBIs:

RBI
Manager	PR	Standing	Diff
Alex	10	8	-2
Adrian	2	10	8
Ben	7	1.5	-5.5
Colin	3	6	3
Drew	1	4	3
James	9	6	-3
Jarrett	8	9	1
Kurt	5	3	-2
TJ	4	6	2
Richie	6	1.5	-4.5

 

I picked this one because this was the most extreme example that didn’t involve me. (League leader in R, HR, AVG and W, yet only 1 game over .500 in those 4 categories.)

As you can see, Adrian is terrible at driving in runs.  He has the second fewest in the league.  Yet, he has the best record in RBI.  That is 8 points on the luck index, because he is 8 spots ahead in the standings of where he should be.

On the other end of the spectrum, Ben is getting screwed.  It didn’t help that Longoria dropped an 11 spot on him, but it sure was hilarious to everyone else.

Either way, I now present to you the Week 6 Luck Index:

1. Colin (+13.5)
Colin gets a boost in WHIP, where he is 4 spots ahead of where he should be. Meanwhile, he is only below his score in two of ten categories, and no more than 1.5 spots below his performance.

2. Adrian (+11.5)
Adrian gets a huge boost in RBI (see example.)  Aside from that Adrian is correctly placed in the standings in three of 10 categories, with a luck score of 0. (not many 0s across the board.)

3. James (+7)
James' pitching staff is terrible.  He has the worst ERA and the worst WHIP in the league, yet is 6-6 in those categories.  Proobably because, as we saw with Alex, he pressures other managers in to spot-starting...  Sorry to blow up your spot

4. Jarrett (+3.5)
Jarrett got some mild luck here, nothing big across the board.  Spoiler Alert:  you will find out that he is power ranked 2nd.  So to see that the first place team has gotten a small amount of good fortune is not too surprising, but does not take away from his performance.

5. Drew (+1.5)
Drew should actually be in 11th place.  Not much more to say about this one.

6. Ben (+.5) 
Ben has had remarkable fortune.  He got a luck score of 0 in 4 categories, meaning that you're getting exactly what you see out of him.  Way to not game the system, Ben. We're happy to have you.

7. TJ (-3.5)
TJ has had some bad beats on R's and K's, but it hasn't hurt him too bad.

8. Alex (-5)
Alex has had some hard luck on SB. But, it looks like I found the first flaw in this system as he had way more SBs to start the season than he has the past few weeks in losses.  Shit.  Either way, he could be a bit higher given his performances.

9. Richie (-8)
Richie has had some bad luck, but his performances haven't been that great either.  On offense, his best record in a category is the second worst record in the league.  However, he only ranks in the top 8 in one category.  The worse get worser.

10. Kurt (-21)
Very, very unlucky.  And rather than write about it, here are the power rankings.  Keep in mind that Kurt is in 8th Place.

1	Kurt	72.5
2	Jarrett	67.5
3	TJ	63
4	Alex	63
5	Ben	60
6	Colin	53.5
7	James	50
8	Adrian	46.5
9	Richie	45.5
10	Drew	28.5

Weekly Matchups - Week 6

Week 6's installment of the DDWPIPOTCFFBE (Diamond Dynasty Weekly Preview In Pursuit Of The Chalice For Fantasy Baseball Excellence)

Last week –Two 9-1 wins cause bottleneck at the top, and the gang gets together on Sunday for the first time!

Sleepy's® "Snoozer of the Week" – Drew (10^th) vs Jarrett (5^th)

Drew was on the wrong end of a 9-1 drubbing, getting buried by Colin in a non-closer shutout. He lost all 5 offensive categories and none of them were all that close. Donovan now falls to 7-11-2 on offense this year despite being in last or second to last in every offensive category (bizarro-Kurt). The pitching was really ugly too, posting only three wins, 47 K's, and way-too-big ERA's and WHIPs. Benching the best pitcher on earth was a bold play that did not pay off. Just kidding it wasn't bold it was stupid as f*ck. Drew has now lost 4 weeks in a row, and is still win-less on the season. He'll probably lose again this week to Jarrett, who beat out Richie in a back and forth battle on Sunday. Both teams were up 6-3 at one point on Sunday but when the dust settled, Jarrett had sealed up a 6-4 victory. The win was his second in a row. He got just enough contributions to win by 2 runs, 1 RBI, 1 SB, and a .012 margin in average. Standout performers were Manny Machado (7/3/5/1/.333) and Nolan Arenado (5/3/8/0/.357). Paul “overachiever” Goldschmidt somehow stole 3 bases. His pitching was so-so, only posting 3 wins but getting decent ratio numbers.

(season series 0-0)

Dell's® "Dull Duel" – Richie (9^th) vs Adrian (7^th)

Richie was a hard luck loser last week, leading for most of the week but coughing up the lead late on Sunday. Despite his best offensive week this year, he still fell 6-4 to Jarrett (but he did manage to get out of the basement!) Richie got his highest home run total of the season (13) thanks to Prince Fielder (5/3/10/0/.333) and Carlos Gomez (8/3/5/5.462), who is ranked as the best player over the last two weeks. Proud of ya kid. The loss extends Richie's win-less week streak to 5 (0-3-2) and he is 3-20-2 on offense (I had a hard time typing that.) He'll continue the search for his first win against Adrian, who has lost his way (0-2-1) after a good start (2-0). Adrian's pitching was all out of whack and it cost him the match up against Ben, losing 6-3. He had 6 guys with an ERA above 5.06, and no double digit strikeout guys. The offense was OK, with average numbers across the board and no real standouts. Adrian doesn't own anyone ranked in the top 37, and his pitching staff does not feature a top-100 player this year (though he does have four pitchers on the DL). Both teams are hoping for better results this week.

(season series 0-0)

The Average Match of the Week presented by Not Your Average Joe's – Alex (6^th) vs Mams (4^th)

Mams has cowardly waited until he has a winning record to start bragging about how great he and his outfield is. Nonetheless, he moved up to 4^th place after a big 9-1 win last week over the previously undefeated TJ. His offense was on display, mashing 19 taters, stealing 8 bases, and hitting .307 with gaudy runs/RBI toals behind huge weeks from Mark Trumbo (5 homers) and Starling Marte (7/4/8/3/.333). Honorable mention goes out to Troy Tulowitzki's .636 average. The pitching was not quite as dominant, with only 3 saves and big ratios, but it was enough to beat out TJ's ugly regression week. He sets his sights on Alex, who fell to Kurt in a close 6-4 decision. Alex almost matched James's output last week, hitting 17 homers of his own despite having arguably his two best home run hitters on the DL (Giancarlo Stanton and Curtis Granderson). David Wright was the only guy to go deep more than twice, which means everybody chipped in (10/13 players hit a home run.) His pitching was pretty terrible, winning only saves against the closer-less Kurt. This should be a good battle against these two smack-talking chums.

(season series 0-0)

The Post-It® "Noteworthy Match-up" – Colin (2^nd) vs TJ (3^rd)

The best on-paper match up of the week pits Colin against TJ. Colin was able to make up for most of the damage he suffered two weeks ago (9-0 loss to Jarrett) by winning 9-1 against Drew last week. His offense was good, but it didn't have to be. He took all 5 offensive categories with ease. The bash brothers (Miguel Cabrera and Mike Trout ) were at it again, combining for 15 runs, 6 homers, 20 RBI's 1 SB, and a batting average in the high .300's. Jean Segura (Jean?!?) also went deep 3 times. Colin managed to strike out 109 behind 5 double-digit performers, highlighted by Yu Darvish's 23. Darvish is probably going to his 300 K's this year which is crazy. Colin's pitching now stands at 15-8-2 on the year including saves, but 15-5-0 without it (no closers). That's good for second in the league behind....TJ! His 17-7-1 record on defense is the class of the DD. He suffered his first loss last week and it was a doozy – 9-1 against James. The loss drops hm out of first place for the first time all season. His stats were definitely below average across the board, but he would have fell short even with a good week – No one was beating Mams this week. Justin Upton looks to be coming back down to earth, hitting only .150 with (finally) no home runs. TJ really didn't have any standouts last week on either side of the ball and with Colin seemly heating up, he'll need to turn that trend around quickly.

(season series 0-0)

Diamond Strike Anywhere Matches® "Match-Up of the Week" – Ben (1^nd) vs Kurt (8^th)

If I had written this on Monday morning, I may not have ranked this to be the most intriguing match up. But the fact that Evan Longoria hit a grand slam tonight was just too good to pass up. If Evan Longoria dies suddenly, Ben's pretty much suspect number one, right? I mean no one rapes Ben like Longoria rapes Ben. Tulo raped me, Yahoo! raped Alex, but this is approaching record setting. I also think that this weirdly makes Ben the backwards underdog of this 1-8 match up. Anyway, Ben's playing great. 3-0-1 in his last 4, taking down Adrian last week despite some ugly numbers. He only amassed 25 runs and 29 RBI to go along with his .262 team average. The pitching was better though, as he was able to win Wins, K's, and ERA/WHIP. Ben is leading a balanced attack this year, going 15-9-1 on offensive and 13-8-4 on defense. In order to stay in first he'll have to beat Kurt, who's had a roller coaster of a season thus far. He was able to hold on and beat Alex last week 6-4 thanks to some good pitching performances from Jeff Samardzija (13 K's) and a lot of low ERA/WHIP guys. It's too late to fact check so I'll just take Kurt's word; despite leading the league in Runs and Average, he's just 5-5 in those categories. Kurt is right in the middle of the second tier in the standings but a win against Ben should put him right back in the thick of things. And if anyone's interested, I think I'll put the over/under on Longoria's home runs this week at 8.5 (take the over).

(season series 0-0)

I just think this would be nice to have