TMTW - JULY

Diamond Dynasty:  The month that was…

JULY

News

The Diamond Dynasty celebrated it’s 13th Midsummer classic this season.  Unsurprisingly, the league failed to get together to commemorate the event.  Let’s see how many guys each manager had that actually saw playing time:

8 - Ben

7 - Alex, Colin, Richie

6- Jarrett

5 - James, TJ

4 - Adrian, Drew

3 - Kurt

There were 6 free agents who got in the game as well.

Drew’s Yoenis Cespedes beat out Jarrett’s Todd Frazier for the Home Run Derby crown.  When asked for a comment, Drew said “I have Yoenis Cespedes?”

In the first inning of the All-Star game, TJ and Richie hammered out a deal that sent All-Star SP Jon Lester to Travers for his 2015 8th round (4th after keepers) draft pick (and in the second inning, Lester came on in relief of Felix Hernandez and promptly got shelled.)  TJ now holds 8 of the top 42-ish picks in the 2015 draft and unloads a non-keeper that only would have hurt his draft position next year.  Travers picked up more ammunition for the stretch run in the Boston lefty, who’s enjoying a career year.  The acquisition is even more important with the news that star rookie Masahiro Tanaka will miss at least 6 weeks, if not this season AND next, due to that god damn Tommy John surgery.

Standings Analysis

Aside from Jarrett’s meteoric rise, this league looks much like it did 10 weeks ago.  At the top, Richie’s lead over Alex shrank and shrank and, finally, went into the red as Gentili took over the top spot in the DD.  Those two have occupied the top two spots nearly all season, but the gap has been cut down drastically.  Jarrett has stayed at or improved his rank in the standings since week 7 (he “stayed at” 10th place for a couple weeks before that but, c’mon) and is all the way to 3rd, one of the best mid-season runs this league has ever seen.  Colin, Ben, and James are all jumbling around in 4th-6th and still maintain a comfortable, double digit lead over the non-playoff bottom four; Adrian, TJ, Kurt, and Drew.  With only 6 weeks left, let’s look at the strength of schedule the rest of the way:

.541 - (10) Drew

.523 - (6) James

.522 - (9) TJ

.506 - (1) Alex

.502 - (8) Kurt

.496 - (7) Adrian

.487 - (5) Ben

.481 - (2) Richie

.481 - (3) Jarrett

.468 - (4) Colin

Hey Alex, we have company...

Shutout Watch

Blowouts abound in week 14 as four teams failed to score more than 3 categories.  Jarrett missed shutting out Richie by two stolen bases and .07 WHIP, Colin was 2 wins and .10 WHIP from shutting out Adrian, and in the closest call, Alex was one homer and two runs away from shutting out Kurt.

In the extended week 15, the matchups were competitive across the board.  The closest call on the surface was Jarrett’s 8-2 win over Adrian, though Adrian was never in real danger of being shut out.  Alex’s 7-3 win over TJ was probably the closest we came, as Alex fell 5 runs, 3 RBI’s and 2 wins short.

Week 16 may have been the most lopsided week all season.  Drew (WHAT?!?!) beat TJ 9-1 and missed the shutout by 11 K’s.  Colin missed it by 3 runs and 2 K’s over Alex.  Adrian and Jarrett only lost 2 categories in their matchups but didn’t have the homers to push for the shutout.

Battle for the Belt

What battle?  This is a bloodbath!  Stay the fuck out of Jarrett’s way!  Staaf retained the belt with consecutive wins over Richie, Adrian, and Ben.  That marks 7 straight belt defences for Jear-Bear and a 10-6 record for belt holders this season.

Who’s Hot (new!)

Jarrett.  He got the first ever WWE Belt payout in July and hasn’t lost since week 5.  He’s playing at a .717 clip over the last 9 weeks which has helped him move from 10th to 3rd.  And with the second-weakest schedule down the stretch, he will be pushing hard for one of the byes.  

Who’s Not (new!)

Ben.  His 15-31-4 (.340) record since week 12 has dropped him from 2nd to 5th, including 0-9-1 donut in week 13.  His solid play early on has afforded him some room for error, but he needs to turn the ship around before it gets hairy.

2 Team Spotlight

This week - Pre-season Power Ranking Bookends

Alex - Richie Saw This Coming

In my 2014 pre-season power rankings, I pegged Alex with the top spot.  And despite my best attempts to jinx Gentili and throw him into the DD gutter, he has risen to the challenge and is putting up some stellar numbers.  He hasn’t fallen out of the top 4 all year and currently sits in first place.  His current .600 regular season winning percentage would be just the 8th instance where a manager finishes with a winning percentage at .600 or above (let it be known that “The 600 Club” is now officially a “thing”).  He would join Ben as the only managers to do more than once.  He’s stayed mostly healthy (minus Matt Wieters) which is half the battle and his keepers (minus Jean Segura) have been excellent. With a bye week in reach and the playoffs all but a certainty, Alex hopes his third consecutive playoff appearance will give him his second championship, and his first since 2005.  It’s Alex’s turn in the spotlight!

The offense is solid (if not cliche), posting an overall 39-32-9 (.544) line with no specific strengths or weaknesses.  He has the high-powered stars in Andrew McCutchen, Giancarlo Stanton, and Yasiel Puig (and oh by the way, that was the starting outfield for the NL All-Stars this year...yowza.)  He’s got the resurgent-year guys like Victor Martinez, Justin Morneau, Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley.  And what team would be complete without a dash of the “lightning-in-a-bottle” guys like Brock Holt and Devin Mesoraco?  Despite his clear NL-bias, his offense is well-rounded and is capable of winning any category, any week.  But Alex has done most of his work thus far on the mound.

I haven’t tracked all of Alex’s pickups, but I have to assume with the most moves in the league and an imposing 52-27-1 (.656) pitching record, he is spot-starting the shit out of free agency.  Aside from Felix Hernandez and Craig Kimbrel, it’s a very pedestrian Staaf.  Despite all the spot-starting, Alex is surprisingly just 7-8-1 in Wins.  Even more surprising, his band of misfit starters are leading the league in ERA and WHIP!  Alex is due to get some reinforcements back for the fantasy playoffs in Gerritt Cole (pretty good numbers) and Michael Wacha (very good numbers).  The remaining schedule will be difficult; 4 of his last 5 games are against teams projected to make the playoffs.  But he’s playing great (fantasy) baseball right now and seems to be the team to beat.

Adrian - Richie Saw This Coming, Too

Also in my 2014 pre-season power rankings, I had Adrian finishing in last.  Luckily for him, Drew is “playing” in the same way that these guys are “doing pull ups.”  Adrian’s 2014 campaign is all but decided, as he is 10.5 games behind 6th place for a playoff spot.  Barring a miracle finish, he’ll miss the playoffs for the 3rd straight year and the 5th time in the last 6 seasons.  Let’s see where the train came off the tracks.

The offense is weak, to be polite.  His keepers were a declining second baseman, a solid but aging third baseman, and two outfielders; one who can’t stay healthy and one who had a good two months last season.  The only real power bats you can say that he drafted were Josh Hamilton and Ryan Howard, but he was five years too late on them.  He’s faced some injury adversity but no more than the average squad.  It’s just a weird mish-mash of All Stars from 2008 and 2017 which hasn’t worked out for the young lad.  Among his first 15 selections (keepers included), Jose Reyes and Adrian Beltre are the only guys he picked that have performed at or above their expected levels of production.  We didn’t get a chance to live draft this year but I imagine this was Adrian’s reaction to his offense once he finally saw the full picture.

The pitching is competitive, for the most part.  The 39-36-5 mark is skewed (but not invalidated) by a gnarly 3-13 record in K’s.   He found gold in 9th round draft pick Johnny Cueto, who is arguably the best pitcher in baseball this year.  Other diamonds in the rough like Tyson Ross (18th round NL All Star) and Zach Britton (FA pick up) are top 100 arms that have helped contribute to a top-5 team ERA and WHIP.  Along with Britton, closers Koji Uehara, Jonathan Papelbon, and Aroldis Chapman complete a bullpen that ranks 2nd in saves.  But with a .344 winning percentage on offense, this Staaf would have needed an historic effort to make up for it.  With 6 weeks to go and the trade deadline around the corner, it’ll be interesting to see how much longer Adrian is willing to fight for his 2014 playoff life.

Roto Power Rankings

Offense

1.  Colin (42)

2.  Richie (36)

3.  Ben (35)

3.  Jarrett (35)

5.  Alex (32)

6.  Drew (26)

7.  James (23)

8.  TJ (21)

9.  Kurt (14)

10. Adrian (11)

Defense

1.  Richie (44)

1.  Alex (44)

3.  Ben (31)

4. Colin (30)

5.  Jarrett (27)

6.  Adrian (25)

7.  TJ (23)

8.  James (20)

9.  Drew (19)

10.  Kurt (12)

Overall

1.  Richie (80)

2.  Alex (76)

3.  Colin (72)

4.  Ben (66)

5.  Jarrett (62)

6.  Drew (45)

7.  TJ (44)

8.  James (43)

9.  Adrian (36)

10.  Kurt (26)

July’s All-Stars (as of Monday July 28)

C – Carlos Santana (Kurt)

1B –  C. Johnson (Adrian)

2B – J. Altuve (Colin)

3B –  C. Coghlan (FA)

SS – J. Rollins (Alex)

CI – A. Pujols (Colin)

MI – A. Rendon (Kurt)

OF – J. Werth (Ben)

OF – Torii Hunter (Adrian)

OF – Andrew McCutchen (Alex)

OF – Kole Calhoun (Jarrett)

UTIL – K. Kiermaier (who?) (FA)

SP – C. Kershaw (Jarrett)

SP – D. Price (Drew)

SP – C. Sale (Colin)

SP – F. Hernandez (Alex)

SP – T. Ross (Adrian)

RP – J. Smith (FA)

RP – B. Boxburger (FA)

P – J. Lester (Richie)

P – C. Kluber (Richie)

P – J. deGrom (Colin)