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) (9th) vs Kurt
(8th)
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 (10th) vs TJ (4th)
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 (6th)
vs Ben (2nd)
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
(5th) vs Jarrett (1st)
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 5th, 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 (3rd)
vs Alex (7th)
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 8th and 5th respectively over that time.
It doesn't hurt to have the surprise offensive force of the year in
Jean Segura either, who's ranked 4th 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 9th place ranking is 136 spots away,
with Hyun-Jin Ryu at 145th. Go past Ryu and it's even
uglier – third place is Tommy Milone at 213th. 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)
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