Weekly Matchups - Week 16

Week 16's installment of the DDWPIPOTCFFBE (Diamond Dynasty Weekly Preview In Pursuit Of The Chalice For Fantasy Baseball Excellence)

Last three weeks – The All-Star break comes and goes as Ben and TJ continue to fight over the top spot. James continues to lurk in third and three teams separated by one game jockey for all-important 6^th place as the home stretch begins.

Sleepy's® "Snoozer of the Week" – Richie (9^th) vs Kurt (5^th)

Nobody benefited more from the All-Star-break-induced extra weekend than Richie, who turned a 10-0 deficit against Adrian into an improbable 6-4 victory. But the month prior was an ugly one for the league's best blogger; after his 7-3 win over Colin in week 9, Richie fell back to futility posting 4 bad losses in a row (8-27-5). In a “warning track power” type of season, Richie entered the previous two weekends (and many before that) either in the lead, tied, or well within striking distance of his competition, only to get blown out come Sunday night. Three weeks ago Ben beat Richie 7-1 and two weeks ago, Richie lost 7-3 to Jarrett. Ben and Jarrett's 4 day weekend total over those two weeks looked like this: 32 runs, 12 homers, 33 RBI's, 6 SB, .330 which translates to a full week of 56 runs, 21 homers, 58 RBI's, 11 SB, and a .330 average. Woof. Travers can claim his first winning streak this year if he can get by Kurt, who had been the hottest team in the league prior to last week. An 8-1 thrashing from Ben broke the league's best unbeaten streak this year (8-0-2). Kurt still has yet to win more than 6 categories in a week (can't believe that) but is firmly in 5^th place. Over the last month, the Commissioner has gotten solid play from all types of different sources; newly-acquired C.J. Wilson (30^th) (traded to Colin for Wil Myers), FA pickup Ivan Nova (69th), year-long producers Shin-Soo Choo (55^th) and Patrick Corbin (59^th), and keepers Buster Posey (42^nd) and Carlos Gonzalez (60^th). With the trade deadline BBQ just days away, this week's result could have implications ripple throughout the league.

(season series Kurt 6-4)

Dell's® "Dull Duel" – Colin (8^th) vs Alex (4^th)

Colin looked like he was in good shape following an 8-2 beat down of Jarrett, but all that good was undone in weeks 14 and 15. He gave Drew his first win of the year and then proceeded to get smashed 8-2 by second-place TJ the week after. He's only one game out of the playoffs right now but has a tough schedule to close the season as he is scheduled to take on the top 4 teams in the last 7 weeks of the season. The team continues to be super top-heavy, with Miguel Cabrera and Mike Trout (ranked 1^st and 8^th respectively in the last month) unable to pick up the slack for the rest of the crew (some stats to munch on – Cabrera has hit at least 3 home runs in three consecutive weeks, and Trout's batting averages in the last four contests are .321, .405, .381, and .393). Jean Segura and Hyun-Jin Ryu have regressed (slightly in Segura's case, heavily in Ryu's) and Yu Darvish was lost to a back injury for 3 weeks, though he is set to return this week. He goes to battle against Alex this week who is looking for his first win since a 9-0, near shutout victory over Adrian in week 13. Kurt took him down in week 14 (you can guess the score) but week 15 was a real barn-burner, a 5-5 tie against James that had some really, really close categories. James swept the offensive categories, and Alex home took the pitching categories. Definitely worth checking out the scoreboard if you haven't already. Taking into account the extended week, Felix Hernandez still posted the most impressive single-week totals to date, winning 3 games and posting sub-1 ratios. Colin can't afford to lose many more, and it starts this week.

(season series Alex 8-2)

The Average Match of the Week presented by Not Your Average Joe's – Drew (10^th) vs TJ (2^nd)

Um...watch out TJ? After not doing shit for 2 months, Drew set his line up and has won two weeks in a row. Quick poll: Was it more likely for Drew to win two weeks in a row, or more likely that Richie and Drew would both win in the same week? If you answered both, you were correct! And also insane to think that would happen!

It was Donovan's first wins all year after compiling a 0-11-2 record through the first 13 weeks of the season. Drew beat Colin and Jarrett for the winning streak. The only person happier than Drew after the second victory was Colin, who said “See! It can happen! I told you! It's not just me! Oh thank you Jesus it's not just me!” Lancey now holds the dubious honor of giving Drew and Richie their first wins on the year, though he still has a winning record against the two cellar-dwellers (15-14). The week prior, Drew avoided a 10-0 shutout to James by knocking in one extra RBI than the Grecian. TJ got back to the W column last week following his first losing streak of the year. Kurt and James got the best of him in weeks 13-14, but he laid a serious beat down on Colin last week. Geers posted the best or second best totals in the league last week in RBI's, Wins, Saves, K's, ERA, and WHIP. Desmond Jennings and Jose Bautista have been top-20 performers over the last month and the pitching staff continues to run deep. Drew's bats will need to wake up for him to have a chance this week but his pitching staff has started to wake up and he just might have a glimmer of hope in extending this out-of-nowhere winning streak to 3.

(season series TJ 5-4)

The Post-It® "Noteworthy Match-up" – Adrian (7^th) vs Jarrett (6^th)

Adrian's had a real roller coaster ride in 2013, and the last month has been no exception. The human road-runner had a superbly difficult stretch in weeks 12-14, playing the 1^st, 2^nd, and 4^th placemen. It started badly, losing to TJ and Alex by a combined score of 17-2. Adrian fought back to beat first-place Ben 5-4 two weeks ago, a win that snapped a 7 week win-less streak vs people not named Drew and a 10 week winless streak vs people not named Drew or Richie. The match up against Ben had some big time offense, but it was the pitching that netted Adrian the win (4-1 on defense). As week 15 was halted for All-Star game festivities, he found himself up 10-0 against lowly Richie before throwing up the biggest choke job of the 2013 season thus far, slipping and eventually losing 6-4. Leading on Sunday morning, Adrian's offense went 5/1/4/0/.182 to Richie's 10/4/10/0/.372, costing him runs and average. The pitching was even more of a train wreck, posing an 8.10 ERA and 1.55 WHIP and costing him both those categories too. For the first time all year, he is not in a playoff position despite being in a virtual tie for 6^th. Conveniently, that person this week's match up, Jarrett. Back in week 9 I pointed out that Jarrett was having trouble beating the better teams in the league, and that problem is now abundantly clear. Staaf is 4-2 (35-23-2, .600) against the bottom three teams (Colin, Richie, and Drew) and is 0-6-3 (32-55-3, .372) against everyone else. Furthermore, Jarrett just came out of his 3 week stretch against the aforementioned bottom 3 and managed only a 1-2 record (13-17). He's 5-24-1 on offense dating back to June 3 and is not playing good fantasy baseball right now. If this was the last week of the season this would no doubt be the match-up of the week but as there is plenty of time left in the season, the implications of this week are only so big. But it's still a big match up in terms of jockeying for position for that all-important 6 seed.

(season series 5-5)

Diamond Strike Anywhere Matches® "Match-Up of the Week" – James (3^rd) vs Ben (1^st)

Easy choice for Match-Up of the Week this week as James takes on Ben in a battle of two of the best offenses going. With Kurt's loss last week to Ben coupled with James's “fireworks” tie against Alex, Maimonis now owns the longest active unbeaten streak in the DD, running 9 weeks and encompassing literally the entire league in the process. The streak, which has almost as many ties (4) as wins (5) reaches back to week 7 when he beat – hey, Ben! – 7-3 in a not-so-close match up. For those of you wondering at home, Chris Davis sucked ass that week, hitting only 1 dinky home run and batting a “totally gross” .316. The backbone of this unbeaten streak is the offense, posting a 32-13 (.711) record. The pitching hasn't been bad either, running up a winning record at 23-21-1. But Ben is no slouch on offense either. Since the week 7 loss, O'Connor has posted a .656 winning percentage on offense. But he's also shown great balance, winning the defensive categories at a .633 clip. The offenses in this match up, especially with Chris Davis at the height of his powers (multiple home runs in 5 consecutive contests, 3.4 HR average) is basically a wash, but Ben has a big edge in the pitching department. With Richie and Adrian next on the schedule for James, beating Ben this week could set him up to break Kurt's streak for the longest unbeaten streak of the year.

(season series James 7-3)

A look back at the preseason power rankings

Well, we are midway through the MLB season and it’s been another great first half for the DD. With headline news happening week after week in our league, many storylines have taken center stage.

Some that come to mind are:

The renting deal between Alex and Kurt, the benching of pitching staffs midway through the week, Drew winning his first week of the season last week, Richie and Alex’s epic trade, Drew and Ben having the same team name for way too long, Kurt’s and my respective 10 and 8-week unbeaten streaks, Richie getting closer and closer to owing me and Kurt $20 for finishing with a worse regular-season record following a drunken draft-night wager, Drew forgetting to start Verlander for multiple weeks, our one meeting, Richie’s hundreds of attempts to have a second meeting, Ben’s continued shit luck against Longoria, Kurt renaming the league after Nolan Reimond and Jermaine Dye in consecutive days, Richie’s sweet weekly matchups, and lastly, TJ being just a half game out of first place despite Richie and Kurt picking him to finish 9^th in their preseason power rankings.

This leads me to my next point, which has to do with said power rankings. Let’s look back at how each team has faired thus far and how their current position compares to the preseason power rankings. As of now, zero teams are where they were projected to finish, but there is still plenty of time to turn that around, or for TJ to fall down to 9^th.

Colin: Preseason 1, Current 6

Colin had high expectations coming into this season, as he owned the top two hitters in all of baseball. With the additions of Ryu, Darvish and Segura this year, Colin got off to a hot start as expected, however took a midseason dive thanks to a 7-23 record from weeks 7-9. Just when things were looking up for Colin, beating Jarrett 8-2, an embarrassing loss to Drew has dropped him to within just one game of last pace (not including the developmental teams of Richie and Drew). Colin needs to bank on Wil Myers paying off in the second half after paying the hefty price of CJ Wilson for him, and hope that Medlen does not get bumped to the bullpen as expected when Beachy gets back from the DL.

Kurt: Preseason 2, Current 5

As we all know, mostly from Kurt informing us week after week, he has a good team and his place in the standings does not reflect the quality of his team. First place in cumulative homers, runs, average and wins and yet he finds himself 5^th in the standings. What’s the issue? Well, it’s partially bad luck, partially having four solid, healthy starters all year (Lynn, Zimmerman, Samardazija and Corbin) and having to rotate the rest in and out, having streaky hitters (mostly good streaky though), having a DL-riddled team, and some might say having no closers. Kurt is currently the toughest manager in the league to defeat, as he’s gone 10 straight weeks unbeaten, but he is the least dominant winning team, not taking more than six categories in a single week all season. It will be interesting to see when Kurt gets into the playoffs whether he can scratch out another (what seems to be an easy) 6-4 win or if he’ll have to rely on his regular-season standing to determine his fate following a playoff tie.

Alex: Preseason 3, Current 4

Not bad Richie and Kurt, Alex is just three games off of where you predicted him to finish. Alex has had a pretty dominant year, but has been hurt by Stanton’s injury and Rizzo sucking after a hot start. Puig and Franklin have really helped solidify him as a top dog, losing only to Ben, TJ and Kurt so far. Alex might have the most well balanced offense right now, owning a winning record in every hitting category this year. Alex, out of any team, is actually the one I’m most nervous to face, and I happen to be facing him this week.

Jarrett: Preseason 4, Current 7

Jarrett’s outfield was projected as one of the best coming into the year, but the lack of production from that position is one reason he currently sits in 7^th place. Hamilton- Sucks, Cespedes- .226, Braun- Injured since June 9, now that’s just shit luck. Thankfully, Goldschmidt, Carpenter and Machado are all beasiting right now, and are part of the best corner infield in the league (Jarrett, please switch Carpenter with Rendon so this statement can be true). Jarrett’s pitching staff is scary, unfortunately he’s been edged out in some close matchups the past few weeks. When all his pitchers are on their game, led by Kershaw, the best pitcher in baseball (in my opinion), Jarrett should win 4-1 every week in pitching, he just needs a little more help on the offensive. Four straight losses from weeks 10-13 has bumped Jarrett down to 7^th place, but if Braun comes back soon and if Hamilton starts hitting like he does in the late innings against the Sox against every team, Jarrett could find himself in the top tier of the league pretty soon.

Ben: Preseason 5, Current 1

Ben has five losses to his record so far, but still finds himself in 1^st place thanks to two shutouts and multiple wins in dominant fashion. He was 21-5-4 in his last three weeks prior to losing to Adrian this past week, which propelled him right through Clay’s butt hole and into first place. Led by potential All-Star Game starters Scherzer and Wainwright, Ben has a winning record in every pitching category this year, and is second overall in cumulative WHIP. Ellsbury is leading his team on the base paths, helping him play to a 12-1-1 record in steals and a winning record in each hitting category but RBI. Ben certainly has the bats as well, with Chris Davis, Cano, Encarnacion, the recent pickup of Rauuuuul, and hopefully Dexter Fowler coming back soon. Ben’s cumulative team stats haven’t been the greatest, but he’s well balanced enough and has played the right competition at the right time to find himself atop the leaderboard.

Richie: Preseason 6, Current 9

Well, who could see this one coming? Me obviously, hence me betting 20 doll hairs I would finish with a better regular season record than Rich. As you can tell, I love gloating when I’m ahead, which doesn’t happen often so I take advantage of it when I can. Like for instance when the Mariners are in first place every year at 1-0 and then suck every game after that. Anyway, Richie currently has two healthy starters (Strasburg and Fister) that he actually drafted, which means he had to settle for mediocrity in free agency throughout the season after everyone else nabbed all the good pitchers. The pitching is downright atrocious. His hitting is coming along finally though with Hanley back and better than ever, Wright being only slightly overrated, as he’s starting to somewhat prove me wrong, Gomez still tearing and Craig staying consistent. Richie has just one win all season and is on a four-week losing streak, establishing himself as one of the two worst teams in the league by far. I do feel however if his pitching can string together a couple good weeks, the bats will be good enough to carry him to a few ties or Kurt wins, not completely ruling out the possibility of an August/September playoff push.

Drew: Preseason 7, Current 10

Seriously guys, Drew ahead of me, TJ and Adrian? I hope y’all learned your lesson and despite how future drafts go, will never predict Drew to finish above 10^th ever again. Drew finally picked up his first win of the season last week and it only came 14 weeks young. His suckiness is due to five things: 1. Shitty hitting 2. Shitty pitching 3. Shitty drafting 4. Shitty managing 5. Shitty managing. I hope I relayed the message. He either realized he had a piss poor team early on and decided to do nothing about it or he thought he had a team that could contend, which was obviously horrible judgment. Either way, his lack of attention paid to the league has resulted in a league-low nine moves and 43 wins. Molina has really only been the one consistent spot on offense, but if Hosmer, Werth and Gordon can continue to stay hot, Drew might be able to eek out a couple hitting categories a week, okay, maybe one. Drew hasn’t had one dominant pitcher this season, except maybe AJ Burnett, who just got activated off the DL, Drew’s DL that is. Verlander has been pretty good but Drew missed some of his best starts due to laziness. It’s a long road ahead for Drew, who better bank on trading pieces for draft picks for next season.

James: Preseason 8, Current 3

I honestly wasn’t sure how my season was going to go once I started 13-17. Obviously after the draft I was confident I had the best team, but then as everyone had warned me, Weaver and Dickey were going to have their issues, prompting me to rethink my strategy. Luckily I strung together some nice pickups of Teheran and Fernandez and now that Gio and Weaver are pitching well and Dickey has had a couple good starts, I think my rotation is starting to find its identity. The hitting was never the issue, except for having all my big bats on the DL at some point. Currently, I have eight hitters in the top 77 and that’s helped me to a .500 record or better in every hitting category this year. And my totals aren’t that bad either, as I’m first in RBI, tied for second in homers, third in runs and third in SB (p.s. I’m still not a fan of the category rewards at the end of the season). 

The combination of solid hitting and timely and strategic pitching has helped me on an eight-week unbeaten streak and 24 games over the .500 mark (my highest total in a long time). The next two weeks against Alex and Ben will be tough but then the road the rest of the way is relatively easy (minus week 19 against Kurt). I should stay in the top 3 solely based on lack of competition but losses this week and next to Ben could prove vital, but on the other hand, wins against top teams will go a long way.

TJ- Preseason 9, Current 2

TJ has beaten everybody in the league except me and Colin (playing for second time this week) and started his season with a 9-1-2 weekly record. His success has greatly been due to a whole bunch of surprises, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Frankly, I had no idea Matt Harvey, Josh Donaldson, Mike Minor, Ervin Santana and Jeff Locke would all have the All-Star worthy years they are having, but seriously, who did? Props TJ on those sweet pickups. TJ has lost his last two weeks, but it’s nothing to worry about, as he’s dropped close contests to the two hottest teams in the DD. TJ has a relatively painless schedule the rest of the way so there is less than a minute chance he’ll slip down do his preseason projection of 9^th.

Adrian- Preseason 10, Current 8

Adrian has beaten everyone he’s supposed to and lost to everyone he’s supposed to putting him in 8^th place and just a game out of the playoffs. He’s averaging 6.8^th place per hitting category, and yet he’s only below .500 for the year in home runs. It’s not all his fault however, as Matt Kemp has missed a chunk of the season, Headly has sucked balls, and Wandy and Cueto have really been sidelined due to injury. It honestly didn’t look like Adrian had a 10^th place team before the season started, but with all his injuries and poor free agent replacements, it’s starting to look more and more like it. He’s extremely lucky there’s Richie and Drew to beat up on 2/9^ths of the weeks and to keep him out of the bottom dwellers.

Fantasy Dream Team Rosters

Every month I'll highlight the outstanding fantasy performers and give you the optimal line up. The lineups are based off of their true positions based on games played (Chris Davis is 1B-OF eligible but hasn't logged anytime in the OF in 2013.)

Dream Team (June)

C – Buster Posey (Kurt)

1B – Chris Davis (Ben)

2B – Jason Kipnis (James)

3B – Miguel Cabrera (Colin)

SS – Hanley Ramirez (Richie)

OF – Jacoby Ellsbury (Ben)

OF – Mike Trout (Colin)

OF – Starling Marte (James)

UTIL – Ian Desmond (Kurt)

SP – Madison Bumgarner (Jarrett)

SP – Clayton Kershaw (Jarrett)

SP – Matt Harvey (TJ)

SP – Max Scherzer (Ben)

SP – Kyle Loshe (Colin)

CL – Steve Cishek (Colin)

Dream Team (Season)

C – Yadier Molina (Drew)

1B – Chris Davis (Ben)

2B – Jason Kipnis (James)

3B – Miguel Cabrera (Colin)

SS – Jean Segura (Colin)

OF – Carlos Gonzalez (Kurt)

OF – Mike Trout (Colin)

OF – Adam Jones (James)

UTIL – Paul Goldschmidt (Jarrett)

SP – Clayton Kershaw (Jarrett)

SP – Max Scherzer (Ben)

SP – Matt Harvey (TJ)

SP – Adam Wainwright (Ben)

SP – Jordan Zimmerman (Kurt)

CL – Joe Nathan (Ben)