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 6th place
as the home stretch begins.
Sleepy's® "Snoozer of the
Week" – Richie (9th)
vs Kurt (5th)
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 5th place. Over the last month, the
Commissioner has gotten solid play from all types of different
sources; newly-acquired C.J. Wilson (30th) (traded to
Colin for Wil Myers), FA pickup Ivan Nova (69th), year-long producers
Shin-Soo Choo (55th) and Patrick Corbin (59th),
and keepers Buster Posey (42nd) and Carlos Gonzalez
(60th). 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 (8th)
vs Alex (4th)
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 1st
and 8th 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
(10th)
vs TJ (2nd)
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
(7th)
vs Jarrett (6th)
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 1st,
2nd,
and 4th
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
6th.
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
(3rd)
vs Ben (1st)
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)
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