Diamond Dynasty: The month that was…
APRIL
News
It takes big news to overshadow the excitement of the start
of a season. But Alex [redacted] managed
to do just that, proposing to longtime girlfriend Jillian [redacted]. Alex, I want to personally thank you for
giving my girlfriend yet another bullet of marriage ammunition; I think you’re
the 10th or 11th person we know to be engaged. But seriously, congratulations man, great
stuff. Glad to have my first fantasy
sister-in-law. By the way, is the
Chalice of Fantasy Baseball Excellence now the Alex [redacted] Memorial Cup?
Standings
Analysis
As expected, there was plenty of shuffling in the standings
over the first month of the season.
Richie moved up from 10th to 1st, Adrian slipped
all the way down to 8th after a hot start, and Ben found his way
back to 1st place (and now sits in 2nd) after starting
the year in the bottom half. Colin has
steadily climbed the ranks and finds himself in the top 3, and Alex hasn’t
fallen lower than 4th all season.
TJ and Kurt have been bouncing around the middle of the pack (5th
and 7th respectively), but Drew is moving in the wrong direction
(now 9th). James leapfrogged
4 managers following his first win of the season to put him in 6th,
which leaves Jarrett, the only manager who’s failed to crack the top 8 in
2014. There should be another month of
jockeying for position until the standings become just a bit more static.
Shutout watch
In week 1, Adrian beat Richie 8-2 but did not challenge
Travers for saves or strikeouts. The
closest we came in week 1 was probably Alex’s 7-2 victory over Jarrett, where
Alex missed the shutout by 7 runs and 3 stolen bases. They tied in homers.
Week 2 also had some close calls as Ben fell 2 saves short
of tapping the shutout pool bank. His
consolation prize was a 9-1 win over Adrian.
After being on the wrong end of a near-shutout the previous week, Richie
narrowly missed cashing in after an 8-1 win over James. But by Sunday night, the stolen bases were
out of reach and James tacked on a late save to tie saves.
Week 3 had competitive matches across the board and no real
shutout threats.
There was a shutout resurgence in week 4. Richie led 8-0 heading into Sunday Night
Baseball and needed a win from Masahito Tanaka and a steal from Brian McCann
for the elusive 10-0 victory, but both Yankees failed him. James was finally able to stop the losing
streak at 3 with the same 8-0 tally over Kurt, drawing no blood in wins or
saves. And what good timing it was for
Maimonis, who now holds the WWE Championshit Belt!
Battle
for the Belt
What a segue! The WWE
Belt can’t seem to find a home after changing hands for 3 of the first 4 weeks
in 2014. Ben barely got his fingerprints
on it before handing it off to Colin after a week 1 defeat. Colin puff puff passed it after week 2 to
Kurt, who was finally able to give this poor foster-child of a belt a home to
stay after beating Adrian in week 3. But
Kurt grew tired of the little bugger and gave it to Mams in week 4. TJ will have the next crack at the belt when
he faces James in week 5. You know that
website, wheresgeorge.com? We need to
register a domain for this belt.
Ok, we don’t need to.
2 Team
Spotlight
Ben –
The Champ Returns for More
After his second championship run in 2013, Ben clearly had a lot of keeper choices. While they haven’t been bad, I’m sure Ben was looking for a little more pop out of the bats he kept. Robbie Cano, Chris Davis, and Edwin Encarnacion each had 24 or more home runs last season**, but have only combined for 4 this year. Jacoby Ellsbury is still searching for his first home run but has been excellent otherwise, burning up the basepaths and hitting .312. The infield is pretty weak, with the best-ranked player falling in at 168 (Anthony Rizzo). The outfield features three players at 61st or better (Ellsbury, Jayson Werth, and Michael Brantley) but this team is struggling offensively overall, falling to last place in homers and runs. It all adds up to the worst-performing offense in April, racking up a measly 14 roto points.
The pitching has been markedly better, led by Scott Kazmir
of all people. After moving to
pitcher-friendly Oakland, Kazmir boasts a 1.62 ERA and sub-1 WHIP, to go along
with a 3-0 record and almost a strikeout per inning. Max Scherzer and James Shields have been
extremely reliable veterans out of the gate, putting up 40+ K’s each with great
ratios. Younger arms like Yordano
Ventura and Andrew Cashner have been almost as good to round out a really
strong front 5. Ben is also a top-5
saves team getting contributions from Glen Perkins, Fernando Rodney, and Joakim
Soria, newly-crowned Angels closer Joe Smith (what’s your middle name,
America?) will only help to boost the
numbers. The staff checks in at third
place on the roto rankings.
Despite the dragging overall roto numbers (O’Connor is
firmly in 6th), Ben has played above his statistics and sits in
second place. Ben started with the WWE Title
Belt but immediately lost it after week 1.
He’s riding a 3 week winning streak and has scored at least 4 points in
each match up this year. Considering his
offense is still asleep, I’d say Ben is poised for another playoff run.
James – April's Walking Wounded
After a third-place finish in 2013, James
stumbled out of the gate this year. But
after a big victory against Kurt in week 4, he’s right back in the thick of
it. Other than Tulo, his keepers have
been largely absent. Jason Kipnis, Adam
Jones, and Starling Marte are all batting under .265, but have managed
contributed in other categories. James
has been riding the bats of Adrian Gonzalez and Carlos Beltran, who are
responsible for 13 of the club’s home runs.
James is in the middle of the pack offensively with 29 roto points
thanks to his league-leading 29 SB’s**.
If he can get guys like Allen Craig and Billy Butler to pick up the
slack, his offense should be just fine.
No pitching staff has been hit harder with the injury bug
early on than this one. Mike Minor and
Hisashi Iwakuma are on track to join their big league clubs in early May after
starting the season on the DL. Whoever
James Paxton is, James has him too and he’s on the DL. But the biggest blow thus far is the loss of
Matt Moore, who is one of the latest to fall victim to the dreaded Tommy John
surgery (I think I heard something like 15 pitchers have elected for TJ surgery
already this season). With all those
injuries, and an already shaky bullpen (see the pre-season power rankings),
Maimonis had one of the worst roto staffs in the league through April.
After spending the first 3 weeks in the cellar, James almost
captured a 10-0 shutout in week 4. The
win bumped him up to 6th place, but it was especially timely as he
now has the WWE Title Belt! He’s the
fourth manager to hold the belt in as many weeks, so it’ll be interesting to
see if this sends him onto a prolonged winning streak. With reinforcements on the horizon, James
looks to be headed in the right direction.
**Educated guesses at these stats
Roto
Power Rankings
Offense
1. Colin (41)
2. Alex (34)
3. TJ (31)
4. Jarrett (30)
5. Richie (30)
6. James (29)
7. Drew (28)
8. Kurt (22)
9. Adrian (16)
10. Ben (14)
Defense
1. Richie (41)
2. Alex (40)
3. Ben (36)
4. Drew (35)
5. TJ (26)
6. Colin (26)
7. Adrian (25)
8. Kurt (21)
9. James (15)
10. Jarrett (10)
Overall
1. Alex (74)
2. Richie (71)
3. Colin (67)
4. Drew (63)
5. TJ (57)
6. Ben (50)
7. James (44)
8. Kurt (43)
9. Adrian (41)
10. Jarrett (40)
April’s
All-Stars (as of Monday 4/28)
C – D. Mesoraco (FA)
1B – J. Abreu (Richie)
2B – B. Dozier (Richie)
3B – J. Donaldson (Richie)
SS – A. Ramirez (Drew)
CI – A. Gonzalez (James)
MI – T. Tulowitzki (James)
OF – C. Blackmon (Colin)
OF – G. Stanton (Alex)
OF – J. Upton (TJ)
OF – N. Cruz (TJ)
UTIL – A. Pujols (Colin)
SP – A. Wainwright (Drew)
SP – J. Cueto (Adrian)
SP – J. Hammel (FA)
SP – A. Harang (Colin)
SP – F. Hernandez (Alex)
RP – F. Rodriguez (Richie)
RP – A. Wood (James)
P – J. Fernandez (James)
P – M. Perez (Kurt)
P – M. Tanaka (Richie)
