Monday, July 22, 2013

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 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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