Sports Page

It’s been a couple weeks and you should start to be seeing how your team is built, where the strengths and weaknesses are. I’ve come up with one guy at each position that would help you if you’re in a real pinch, whether because of injury or roster construction. These are guys who are owed in under 50% of ESPN standard leagues, so chances are they’re available.

C- Ryan Doumit. Dude! Ryan Doumit is owned in under 3% of leagues. He’s played OF in 5 games (and 1 at 1b) meaning that he’s 5 games away from OF eligibility. He’s not going to be a #1 fantasy catcher but if you’re in a 2 catcher league, or want a backup who will get plenty of ABs and can provide offense, he’s a great grab.

Also see, if you want more guaranteed ABs: Soto, Arencibia, and Suzuki

1b - Bryan LaHair 1b, OF. LaHair could be a short term pickup. Eventually Rizzo is going to get called up, but it’s possible that LaHair will play full-time in the Of after that. So far this year he’s hitting .361 with 5 runs, 2 HR, and 9 RBI.

2b - Robert Andino 2b,SS, 3b. (.316, 8r, 1hr, 5rbi). We’ve all seen how happy he is to be here. He’s the starter at least until Brian Roberts comes back, and who knows when that will be. If Andino keeps up his play, they could find other sports for him in the field.

Also see: Darwin Barney

3b - Jed Lowrie SS,3b. (.250, 5r, 1hr, 2rbi, 1sb). Ok, third is really thin. The best option here would also be Andino, but since I just wrote about him, here’s Lowrie. He was hurt and missed a bunch of the season already. That’s always his biggest flaw, his injury risk. But he’s the starting SS for the Astros, whatever that’s worth.

SS- Stephen Drew. He’s missed the whole season and he’s getting close to coming back. Now’s the best time to grab him if you’re in need of a SS. He’s a career .270 hitter with 15+ hr power. This offense is getting better  every year and he could be right in the middle of it.

For a sneaky/desperate play consider Eduardo Nunez, he’s not getting enough ABs yet, but one infield injury and he’s a full-time player.

OF - Brandon Boesch. Man, I love Boesch. He’s off to a slow start but batting before Cabrera and Prince will make him better. If he continues to slump we could see him slid down the lineup, which would hurt his value.

Also see: Cody Ross. Even without the injuries he would play a lot. With them, he’s their best OF.

SP - Danny Duffy. This kid is a stud in the making. Not sure if he’s quite there yet, but if you’re looking for a pitcher, his next start is again Min. I’m not loving him, but he’s surely spot start worthy.

Also see: Edinson Volquez. PETCO Park is his best friend.

RP - Santiago Casilla. I don’t know. They say he’s now the closer, but he only has 1 save this year. The only reason I suggest him over David Robertson is because he has a lot better chance of collecting saves.

Because I would sure like to name my team “The Humber Games” but he’s not on any of my teams.

Baseball season is just around the corner and we’re rebooting the Sportspage fantasy league. We decided to make a keeper out of this one, so everyone that played last year is invited back. However, we’ll still need new managers to replace the ones that don’t want to come back, or possibly for expansion. We’re currently at 12 teams, but we can expand to 16/18 depending on how much interest there is.

I haven’t hammered out the keeper rules, or how we’ll handle an expansion draft if necessary. We’ll discuss that and changes to the scoring system once we’ve nailed down all the teams. The draft is currently set for Thursday, Mar 31, 8:30 PM ET, so we don’t have a lot of time to sort these things out. I’ll be sending conformation emails to all of the current owners today. Please check your emails and get back to us as soon as possible!

For those of you interested in joining either send me an email at thepackersmacker(@)gmail.com, minus the parentheses. Please include your email address.

Thanks and good luck!

Week 6 is over in the Sports Page Fantasy League and it’s still anyone’s game. Here’s what Mike and Deez had to say about the week.

Mike
Move of the Week: I picked up Johnny Cueto the first day of the week for a spot start. He threw a complete game 1 hit shutout, no walks, 8 ks and picked up 56 points. He was the highest scoring player that played last week. I had 297 points, so that was almost 20% of my points. I won by 46, so that move was the difference between me winning and losing.

Biggest Surprise of the Week: Ricky Romero vs Tex. 55 points. 9 shoutout innings, 5 hits 1 walk, 12 ks. Romero is having a great year and he has reached 12 ks twice this year already.

Goat of the Week: Alfredo Simon. I picked him up for one game. He pitched .1 innings, 4 runs, 3 hit, 1 bb, 1 L, 1 BS. BS is right!

Redo of the Week: Mark DeRosa. This isn’t a this week thing, this is an overall thing. I’ve had DeRosa every year I’ve done fantasy, and I’ve won it all every year. So he’s obviously the reason! OK, maybe not, but he’s been a staple in my plan every year. I took him at the end of the 18th round. In hindsight I need pitching. There weren’t alot of good SP drafted after him, but Zito was still available. Derosa hit .194 with 1 HR and 10 rbi. He had surgery last season and apparently never fully recovered.

Below the JD Drew Line: I agree with Deez that we need to tweak this rule. Maybe we will decide a new slumping player to pick on, we are open to suggestions. I’d love to talk about DeRosa, one round ahead of Drew, but I just did. So let’s talk about Matt Holliday. Batting .293, 4 HR,  14 rbi. I’ve had Holliday in the past, he has times when he slumps bad. He usually at least his for average. The Cardinals are mixing up the lineup now moving Holliday in front of Albert to try to get him more good pitches. Let’s see if it works. Logic makes me think that he will end the year better than Drew, but this one, I’m not positive about. He does have the reputation to be a player hyped by playing in Colorado. Sure he did great the second half of last year, but his splits at and away from Colorado are drastic.

Deez

Move of the Week:  Its hard to get excited for add/drops, so I think I’ll abstain from picking the best one this week.  Talking about actual trades is much more interesting.  Maybe I’m bitter from starting 3-0 and sitting at 3-3 now.

Biggest Surprise of the Week: Joel Pineiro, Angels SP exploded for 69 points last week.  His previous 3 outings were all point losses, including a whopper of -43.  This past week he threw a complete game shutout against Oakland and rocked the Rays early in the week.  Not sure if Oakland is that bad or if Pineiro is turning it around, but I’m sure Fly Ballers didn’t mind the help this week.

Goat of the Week:  Well, Ghostride the Whip is having a bad season to date, with a 1-5 record.  One of the reasons for the L last week was Dan Haren, D’Backs SP who put up a -30 for the week.  27 of those points happened on Sunday, even though the game was in bad weather, thats a bad game total for a usual reliable pitcher.  Looking back over the past month, when Haren does bad, he usually give up 3 or 4 points, but when he’s good for outputs in the high 20s or low 30s.  Ghostride the Whip lost by 56 points, so if Haren puts up 26 (reasonable) instead, that could’ve been a 2nd win.

Redo of the Week: I was out of it this week for various reasons, which was too bad too, because I was head to head with Mike and if I had been paying attention, I could’ve engaged in my favorite fantasy aspect: trash talking.  I talk shit when the teams I root for in real life are playing, it keeps things interesting in fantasy as well.

Below the JD Drew Line:  I’m going with Grady Sizemore… sure he’s well endowed, but he is sucking this season at baseball.  He’s not going to pass JD, Sizemore only has 57 total points to Drew’s 112.  This item is getting too easy as the season goes on.  Drew is tearing it up this month, so maybe his bad days are behind him.  For Sizemore, well, at least when Bron Bron leaves, he’ll be the biggest thing in Cleveland.

In the Sports Page fantasy league parody is still running strong. Only 2 teams have 4 wins, only 2 teams have four losses. The other 8 teams have 2 or 3 wins. Here’s what Jason and I had to say about the week.

Mike L

Move of the Week: Well I made a couple trades this week. It was basically
(when all was said and done) a three team deal that was broken up by a day. When it was all said and done, I traded Casey McGehee (2b/3b) for Stephen Drew (ss), and then traded Drew for Pablo Sandoval (1b/3b). I think this was a win for every team. I fell like I got the player who will get the most points, but both of the other teams got high point guys at weak positions. So it’s hard to tell which player will be the most valuable. For the last two years my 1st round pick has been a SS, so it just goes to show that I love paying for good guys at weak positions (so i think they both made good trades). I feel like power positions can be found more easily. The reason that this is my move of the week is that Brandon won his matchup by 11 points, on Sunday McGehee got 12 points. So that move already won him at least one week.

Biggest Surprise: I gotta go with Dallas Braden’s perfect game. If I was to pick anyone on that day to throw one, he might be my last pick. Not because he’s not a decent pitcher, but he was facing Tampa Bay. I’m not a huge fan of his going forward. He’s in a pitchers park, so he’s got that, but he won’t get a ton of run support. He’s also not a huge strike out guy. Not to mention he’s crazy with all of his “unwritten rules”.

Biggest Goat: Adrian Gonzalez. He was Brian’s 3rd round pick. Him and Mike S tied this week. Gonzalez played six games and only got Brian 1 point. You need more than that out of a pick that high.

Redo of the Week: I played a great (also see: lucky) week. I benched and played guys at the right times. So I’m going to hop back to the Brian Mike tie. I just talked about one of Brian’s guys, so I’ll bring up one of Mike’s, Ted Lilly. I’ve never been a huge Lilly fan. But since he’s been back he’s been bad. That fact that the teams not giving him great run support isn’t helping. Only his first game back (out of four) has he gotten positive points. If Mike benched him this week he would have won.

Below the JD Drew Line: Prince Fielder. He is the highest draft pick that has scored lower than drew. Of course he will score higher than Drew at some point. Maybe I only believe that because I am a Brewers fan. He does strike out a lot. This year he has struck out more than twice as much as he walks. He’s in a pretty god lineup too, so he has no excuses. Maybe he needs to get off that vegetarian diet. Is that still happening?

Deez

Move of the Week:  I got creamed again this week, so I might end up discussing my opponent, the Honolulu Sharks, a lot this week.  Definitely the best move of the week goes to him with adding Jhoulys Chacin, RP, Rockies in the middle of the week.  Chacin’s last 2 outings have given him 34 and 31 points.  The Sharks picked him up 2 days after the 34 point output and were rewarded.  Which brings me to point of emphasis in our league: pitching.  Pitching is so important because our scores run in the 200-300s (or if you’re Mike, the 400s) and one outing by a pitcher could gain you 30 points.  Batters can start all week and won’t produce like that.

Biggest Surprise:  Just as an aside, Jon Garland, SP, Padres, got another 30 points this week, so it is nice to see someone who made my list last week is continuing to haul in the points, even if it was against me.  So my surprise of the week involved the surprise score of the week.  With so many different players and a weekly total of scores, I didn’t think we’d see a tie in fantasy baseball, but it happened this week between I’ll Beat Khari and Marmol Esters.  So, the player I found most surprising in this matchup was Jake Peavy, SP, White Sox.  Prior to this week, he’d been putting up some pretty hefty negative signs, but he turned it around for a positive 66 week total.  He was an 8th round draft pick, but given his recent struggles, this was pretty surprising. 

Biggest Goat:  Whenever I go to write up this item, I look to see what team lost by a lot and who may have been a culprit, or I see who is having an unbelievably bad week.  This week I cannot pass up Max Scherzer, SP, Tigers.  He had an abysmal last three outings, two of which came last week.  On the 3rd, he got rocked for -43 points in 4.1 innings and on the 9th, he lost 18 points in 5 innings of pitching.  This helped bring his season ERA to 6.81, which is obviously fantastic.  The appropriately named Montreal Expos added him on Sunday the 2nd, but only played him for the 18 point loss.  Montreal won this week, so it wasn’t a problem, but I’d be leery of starting him again unless he shows some marked improvement.

Redo of the Week:  Not that it would’ve helped me out tremendously, but I sat on a trade proposal for too long this week.  I was in need of a shortstop and a lot of help actually as I had some injuries that were tough to replace.  I’m not sure where my head was all week, but I at least I ended up with Stephen Drew, SS, D’backs and gave up Pablo Sandoval, 3B, Giants.

My Favorite Item (aka Below the JD Drew Line):  Despite having vertigo, Mr. Drew has been relatively killing it as of late, so this item isn’t as fun as it was two weeks ago.  Hunter Pence, RF, Astros, has been stinking up the joint, but last night he may have jump started his season.  Pence was the 9th round selection by Fly Ballers and has a season total of 57 whole points compared to Mr. Drew’s 94.  Depending on how many bouts of vertigo come and go, this seems like a tough deficit to overcome.  Pence did score 12 points last night, so the potential is definitely there.  However, I think when the season is over, JD will have twice as many points as Pence.

So week 4 of the Sports Page fantasy league just ended. No team is undefeated and no team is win-less. So it’s still anyone’s season. Here’s what Jason and I thought about the last week. (Maybe Mike Smith will add his imput, but he’s got finals this week)

Mike L

Move of the Week:

HCKB added Kosuke Fukudome, ChC OF from Free Agency to Bench. All year (until now) I’ve been able to add and drop Fukudome at will. He’s been the top scoring FA all year. He doesn’t play against lefties, so that will hurt, but when he’s in. He’s been producing. Biggest Surprise: Paul Konerko. 12 HRs this year. 24 RBI. 296. 15 Runs. Damn. He was drafted in the 19th round. 6 of the 12 guys drafted in that round have been dropped at least once.

Goat:

Johan Santana. Deez had the week won. If he just benched Johan on Sunday he would have won. IT’s a hard decision to make because Santana has been real good this year, however the Phils have too. It’s tough as well because the Fly Ballers had guys going in the last game of the week, so you have to weigh if he should start. With that said, Deez is still tops in the league.

Redo of the Week:

I played a pretty great week all around. I benched a lot of SP that ended up in the negative. I did bench Verlander sunday. So I could redo that. He got 35 points on my bench. I decided on Sunday that I wouldn’t start any pitchers though. A giant redo would be drafting Edwin Jackson. There was a lot of good people drafted after him that I could have gotten. He just did so good for me last year that I was blinded. Also, I traded Rich Harden two days ago. He’s pitching a shutout right now…. awesome.

Below the JD Drew Line: (I should add that Drew has been on fire since this was created, as I anticipated. Next week, expect more guys below the line)

So we started something last week, I didn’t post last weeks article I was crazy busy. Sorry Deez. But this is what the rules is and what I wrote about it last week. “This is something we are adding this week. Last week Deez deemed JD Drew his Biggest Goat (and I somewhat agreed). In my opinion Drew is still a 4th of 5th OF on most of the teams in our league. But he’s right on the border of being roster-able. So I made a list of guys (only position players) who were drafted earlier than Drew who have scored less points. We will only mention guys that are rostered. Each week we will each pick one guy, state if he will end the season with more or less points than Drew and why. We will also state if we think they are roster-able.”

So my nominee is Chris Davis pick 162. Chris Davis is a strikeout machine. He is now in the minors because of the call up of Smoak. I don’t see Smoak losing the job. Even if Davis comes back up he won’t pass Drew in points. He strikes out way too much.

Deez

Move of the Week:

I was all set to write up Jon Garland, SP, Padres as my biggest surprise of the week, but then I realized that he wasn’t on an active roster all week. So the Honolulu Sharks picked him up on Sunday, at least capitalizing on nearly half of his 54 points for the week. I think Garland, who pitched 7 scoreless innings last week, is a solid backup player that could help the Sharks in the rotation if he continues his scoring outputs.

Biggest Surprise:

Usual disappointment Barry Zito, SP, Giants has been playing well lately, and more importantly, consistently well. He scored over 20 points for the second week in a row and he moved to 4-0 as a starting pitcher. I think I went with all pitchers this week, but they really are the most important position in our league. While only appearing once or twice a week, their total scoring outputs can dwarf an everyday player.

Biggest Goat:

Edwwwwwin Jackson, SP, Diamondbacks… Boooom, he has had an awful last 2 games, -37 and -49 points. Luckily, Mike was still able to win despite playing him. He has dropped him though! Someone remind me next week to stop picking on Mike, since he isn’t exactly slumming it in our league.

Redo of the Week:

Shocker, as soon as I mentioned being 3-0, I was doomed to lose. The redo of the week would have come yesterday when SP Johan Santana got -43 points and I left CJ Wilson on the bench for +13. Oh did I mention I lost by 25 points? Of course, I don’t know if this technically counts as a redo. I don’t think that I would’ve even considered sitting Santana for Wilson. However, I continue to not respect the advanced lineup feature and sometimes I forget to set my team. I could’ve noticed that I had a lot of starters with the day off and adjusted accordingly. This is all sour grapes though, you win and you lose, no one goes perfect in fantasy.

My New Favorite Item (aka Below the JD Drew Line):

This week I think I’m going to stick with catchers and go with Mike Napoli, who has been so bad. Hes 9/49 for 8 TOTAL points on the year. Thats an average of 0.4 per appearance which is fantastic. He was a 20th round selection for the Fly Ballers and was the first catcher he selected. The Fly Ballers do not start him and I don’t know what circumstance would change that arrangement. Napoli is so bad that leaving the other catcher in for a certain 0 might be a more appealing choice than putting Napoli in for a potential loss of points.