So I'm not just doing these weekly matchups coincidentally
the week I happen to be in first place for the first time since 2012, thanks to
Richie's commish note, but simply because I just did one in my other league and
I was bored at work and realized we needed some more blog fun.
So speaking of me, yeah, I'll say it, I'm in 1st
place after all of y'all said I had a shitty team…"Wow Greinke, bad
pick" "bad keepers," "Cespedes is going to suck this year,"
"Holliday is the same as every year (which is admittedly true)," "You'll
be lucky to make the playoffs," "I'll have a bye and you'll lose
round 1 if you get lucky enough to make it"- Last two courtesy of Alex. Hey,
maybe some or all of these things are true, but for now, I'm Ross Gloating
while I can!
Now onto this week's matchups:
Matchup of the week—Colin
(3rd) vs. TJ (2nd)
Colin might have the worst outfield in the league aside from
Trout, but other than that, his team looks good from top to bottom. He's fully
healthy, recent pickups Danny Salazar and Brandon Morrow are hot, Miggy, Todd Frazier
and Sal Perez are turning it on, and usual suspects, Archer, Sale and McHugh
are dominating. After a tough title belt loss to Jarrett in week 2, Colin
bounced back nicely with an 8-1 drubbing of the defending champ, the Holy
Camel.
TJ has some injuries, but aside from Lucroy, they aren't too
costly. After two wins to start the season, TJ took his first hit last week
against the streaking Kurt, but is still locked into 3rd place. After
a 15 hr 10 steal week 2, TJ cooled off with just 4 hr last week, but looks to
rely on power bats Freeman, Bautista, Upton, Pujols and JD Martinez to help him
get back on track. Lorenzo Cain and Stephen Vogt have been nice little pieces
for TJ this season, and with another good week from them, TJ could grab some
hitting categories. TJs starting pitching has been struggling bit lately, with
just one pitcher posting a sub-3 ERA (Burnett).
Based on season totals thus far, my prediction is TJ wins a
tight one, 5-4.
Next Best Thing—Kurt
(5th) vs. Alex (9th)
The next best matchup this week without a doubt is Kurt vs.
Alex. The smack talk scrap, the former commissioner confrontation, the somewhat
Slingtown scuffle, this could be the bloodiest battle we see this season. Alex
appeared he'd pick up his first win of the season last week, but thanks to a late
Ben comeback, Alex is still Jose Al 0-2ve-1. Alex is leading the league in HR,
as expected, but the AVG and speed are down, and the pitching is very hit or
miss.
Kurt's starting pitching is solid, led by youngsters Dallas
Keuchel and Trevor Bauer (both sub-1 ERA), and if those guys fall off at all,
Pineda and Teheran should be getting back on track. Kurt's hitting is middle of
the pack for the most part in all categories, but has the potential to bust out
at any time.
I like another close score line here, in fact, I'm thinking 5-5 tie with Kurt taking pitching by a somewhat
wide margin and the nippley one narrowly edging out Kurt in 3-4 hitting
categories and working his second straight draw.
Ho-Hum—James (1st)
vs. Ben (8th)
On paper, this should be a walk in the park for James, who
hasn't dropped more than three categories in any of the first three weeks so
far. Ben on the other hand, sits last in HR and RBI and hasn't seemed to find
his rhythm yet...but it's coming, just hopefully not this week. No one in Ben's
lineup has surprised yet, except Anthony Rizzo on the base paths (5 SB), but
it's only a matter of time before Brantley hits his first jack, Cano gets back
over .300 and Encarnacion gets back over .200. Plus, if Pence is back within
the next week or two, that could give Ben's offense a much-needed boost.
Scherzer and Arrieta have kept Ben's pitching afloat, with Zimmerman and
Hutchison trying their best to bring it as far down as possible. Ben's had some
tough luck closing games this year as well, but if Ottavino keeps capitalizing
on his opportunities, some of his other closers will get the message.
James currently has the No, 1 (A-Gon) and 2 (Adam Jones) players
in Yahoo in addition to No. 15 (Dee Gordon), who's keeping James in the steals
game. The hitting has been balanced all year, and might even be a bit better if
he didn't make some bad benching decisions. With the addition of the white hot
Jimmy Paredes, James' hitting should continue to put up solid numbers across
the board. The starting pitching is where he has struggled and has been the
beneficiary of some favorable matchups to this point. Aside from Greinke, the
starting pitching might have the worst ERA in the league, but thanks to solid
efforts from the closers, the ERA has been brought down slightly. Coming off an
8-1 win over Tim, James looks to continue his early-season dominance.
It's looking like a 7-2
win for James, with Ben dropping 4 of 5 hitting categories. The pitching will
be closely mediocre with a tie mixed in somewhere, but James should take the
matchup convincingly.
Battle for the Belt/Upset
Watch- Richie (10th) vs. Jarrett (4th)
Jarrett retained the belt last week with a 5-5 tie against Adrian.
He had a mediocre week all around, which has kind of summed up his first three
weeks. Nothing too impressive so far from Jarrett, except Billy Hamilton,
Kazmir and his relievers. Maybe once Kershaw and Bumgarner realize they are
cy-young caliber pitchers and get off their asses, Jarrett will be back in the saddle
where he feels he should be. We'll also see if his pickup of my second favorite
shortstop in the league (Hechavarria) will help get his bats going.
It looks like the commish might be spending too much time
making surveys and trying to better the league but at what expense? Is there a correlation…I
don't know, just speculating. But by all means, please keep up the blogs,
surveys, messages, etc. it keeps me going at work similarly to this. Richie has
had some bad keeper luck, with Gomez down, Springer slumping early and Kulber
having a similar championship hangover. Aside from Felix, Richie's pitching has
been subpar. Liriano and Colon have been doing a nice job, and when Jesse Hanh
decides to strike someone out, maybe he'll add a bit of value. Longoria hasn't
hit a home run since Opening Day, and Machado and Phillips need to start
hitting again. Richie's team isn't horrible, and certainly not worthy of last
place, it's just not where it should be at the moment when trying to defend a
chalice.
I think this is a big week for Richie…he takes the belt and
picks up his second win of the season, 6-4.
Also, just looking back, it appears that Richie is second in ERA and first in
WHIP so far, which amazes me, but with five starters going tonight, meaning two
starts from each of them, pitching should be a breeze. It's going to come down
to who's hot with the bats this week for both teams.
The "I Only Care
if I'm Adrian or Tim" Matchup
Adrian's hitting is struggling big time, from Ortiz to
Dozier to Beltre to Reyes to Rollins. Kemp and Dickerson are hitting and Mesoraco
is somewhat healthy again and should be beck in the lineup for the better part
of this week (minus tonight). So hopefully that gives Adrian a bit of a boost.
Cueto and Fister are running show atop the rotation, with the rest of the staff
either inconsistent or just bad. Aside from his loss to James, Adrian has been
able to hang around in matchups, putting him in 6th place, dead
center of the middle-of-the-pack shuffle.
Tim, with one less win than Adrian and the same win
percentage, finds himself in 7th. A tough loss last week to James
(in which he failed to reach the innings limit), dropped him from 2nd,
3rd or 4th, whatever he was, down to 7th. Tim
is in a world of hurt right now, as his ace Wainwright just went down for the
season, Puig is gone, Verlander and Ryu remain out indefinitely and his active
hitting keepers (Blackmon and Posey) haven’t hit their stride yet. A-Rod and
Nelson Cruz are clubbing, but without a supporting cast, their stats go to
waste. Tim needs to rely on his starting pitching situation (Price, Odorizzi,
deGrom, Lincecum), find some sort of replacement for Waino and not let the
minimum innings thing cause him lose another category again.
This matchup will be very close…before the Puig and Waino
injuries, I'd have said Tim 6-3, but now I'll thinking a 5-5 tie. These teams are too evenly matched to call a winner and
nothing should change after this week.
