Week 11's installment of the
DDWPIPOTCFFBE (Diamond Dynasty Weekly Preview In Pursuit Of The
Chalice For Fantasy Baseball Excellence)
Last week – TJ beats up on Ben to
retake first place but a controversial trade overshadows the week
Sleepy's® "Snoozer of the
Week" – Drew (10th) vs Adrian (7th)
The
beat goes on for Drew, who is still searching for his first win. He
may not be aware but he managed to tie Richie 5-5 last week, breaking
a 9 week losing streak. He's 10-10 against Richie, but just 20-52-8
(.300%) against everyone else. The offense numbers were pedestrian
again except for his fantastic .330 average. He had 8 guys hit .308
or better, and 3 above .407. Drew won three pitching categories this
week, dominating wins (which is easy to do if your opponent has 1),
winning comfortably in k's and eeking out WHIP. He'll have a tougher
go of it this week against Adrian, who has been floating in the
playoff bubble range for 2 solid months now. Last week didn't help,
dropping a 6-4 decision to Colin who's fighting to get back into the
playoff picture. Adrian outlasted Colin by one home run, 4 RBI's,
and one stolen base. Domonic Brown put together another great week,
rolling 6/3/7/2/.346 and really contributing well in every category.
Adrian Beltre went deep three times too. But on defense he could
only manage to take saves, a small accomplishment against a
closer-less Colin. Adrian, what in the hell is that picture?? I
think it's a bullet? I'm guessing it's the 1953 Washington Bullets
logo.
(season series Adrian 6-2)
Dell's® "Dull Duel" –
Richie (9th) vs TJ (1st)
Richie,
Richie, Richie. Ah, what could have been. A win last week against
Colin, your first chance at a bona fide winning streak in 2013
against lowly Drew...and you play the last place team to a tie. Even
more embarrassing, you're the only team to play Drew twice, and the
only team to not beat him! You could look at the match-up and say
that a .314 average should be enough to win (Drew hit .330) but on
the other hand, 3 SB ain't nothin' special (Drew had 2). Richie had
WHIP until the final day, slipping and eventually losing the category
by .06...whips...Hanley Ramirez came back for a solid 5 minutes
before the hamstring started acting up again. But the biggest blow
was losing Stephen Strasburgh to strained lat one week after dealing
away Felix Hernandez, leaving his rotation paper thin. He'll have to
step up his game this week against TJ as another mediocre effort will
definitely not be enough to beat the first placemen. TJ beat Ben 7-3
last week to retake first place in the DD, but his week was nothing
to write home about. Jay Bruce had the best week on the team,
hitting two homers, driving in 7, and batting .381. Despite the lack
luster performance, he still won 4 of 5 offensive categories. The
pitching was good enough, taking 3 of 5. As this is posting is a
little late, we can already see that TJ is out to an early 7-2 lead
(Desmond Jennings was a free agent on Friday and now already has 2
home runs, give me a fucking break. This year will never end.)
Richie is looking to fight back from an 8-1 loss in week 2.
(season series TJ 8-1).
The Average Match of the Week
presented by Not Your Average Joe's – Kurt (6th)
vs Colin (8th)
In another edition of the Summit
Series, Kurt hopes to avenge his 7-1 loss to Colin way back in week
2. These are two teams heading in opposite directions. Kurt hasn't
lost in 6 weeks (4-0-2) and battled James to a 5-5 tie last week in a
tightly contested match-up (we'll get back to that), while Colin won
for the first time in 5 weeks last week with a 6-4 win over Adrian.
Lancey led the league with a .337 average but fell just short in HR,
RBI, and SB. He had more guys hit over .400 than under .300, pretty
impressive. Colin also managed to put up a non-closer shutout on
defense, taking each category with ease. 2 gold stars go to Kris
Medlen with 2 wins, 12 K's, z-e-r-o ERA and 0.95 WHIP. Let's shift
the focus to Kurt, who had 13 starts by Thursday morning and had K's
locked up early on. That prompted James, who was sporting a
miniscule ERA and WHIP, to bench his pitchers in an effort to combat
the deluge of starts. In response to James's move, Kurt made a
controversial trade, which was more of a player loan, with Alex.
Kurt acquired closers for the weekend in exchange for a couple
starters that were slated to start over the weekend, starts which
Alex needed in his match-up against Jarrett. The two reversed the
trade once the week was over. The trade was met with much animosity
and it will force all of us to re-evaluate the competitive health of
this league that we all love so much. Freddy Douglas once said “If
these is no struggle, there is no progress.” If fantasy baseball
leagues are important enough to have landmark moments, this would be
it.
(season series Colin 7-1)
The Post-It® "Noteworthy
Match-up" – James (3rd) vs Jarrett
(5th)
After winning 4 of 5 weeks, James has
cooled off a bit. He's thrown up 5-5 ties in the last two weeks to
middle-of-the-pack teams (Adrian and Kurt), and he's got another
opponent in that same zip code this week. James could only manage to
win 2 offensive categories last week, taking homers 10-9 and steals
7-3. Troy Tulowitzki had one of the best individual performances
this year at an 8/4/8/0/.429 clip. Matt Holliday was excellent as
well, scoring 8 runs and hitting .409. He's facing Jarrett this
week, who is still looking for his first win against an opponent
outside the bottom 3. He lost last week to Alex 7-3 in a close one.
Paul Goldschmidt continues to impress (12 RBI) and Yoenis Cespedes
jacked 4 dingers, but it was only enough for a 1-4 record on offense.
The pitching was only slightly better, and the lack of closers
already handicaps the score. Can Jarrett finally beat a quality
opponent? Or will James get back to his winning ways?
(season series 5-5)
Diamond Strike Anywhere Matches®
"Match-Up of the Week" – Alex (4th)
vs Ben (2nd)
And the battle royale this week is
between two very different manager strategies. Alex leads the league
in moves but finds himself two games behind Ben, who has made the
third least. Alex won 7-3 over Jarrett last week, posting big time
offensive numbers. He's won 4 of 5 and 6 of 8. He did most of his
damage last week on Tuesday and Thursday, combining for 10 runs, 7
homers, 27 RBI, and a .330-ish average. Gentilli had some phenominal
offensive performances too, with David Ortiz, Mark Teixeira, and
Yasiel Puig combining for 10 bombs and 30 RBI's – but no stolen
bases, so not that good. Alex, where in the hell are you
going to put Granderson in when he gets back? McCutchen ain't goin'
anywhere, Michael Cuddyer is 52nd overall, Puig is a
rookie sensation, and Stanton is Stanton. Even if you wanted to move
Cuddyer to 1B/CI, you'd have to bench Rizzo or Ortiz! A true
embarrassment of riches. The ratios were a little high on defense,
costing him ERA and WHIP but he took home the accruing statistics.
He's got Ben this week, who had first place in his hands for a blink
of an eye before falling to TJ 7-3. Ben wore the offense dunce cap
last week, hitting 4 homers, driving in just 19, and hitting a putrid
.227. Jacoby Ellsbury was one of the few bright spots, stealing 3
bases (now leads the AL) and hitting .462 in limited action. Not
much of a spot starter, Ben lost wins and K's. He split the ratios
and gave TJ his first loss in saves. If Chris Davis
Ben can have a bounce back week, this should be one hell of a battle.
Oh yeah, and Alex is probably looking for revenge on that whole 10-0
shutout in week 2.
(season series Ben 10-0)
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