Week 2...Is it almost time for fantasy football? Please?

Quick non-fantasy story for you all…Aaron & I were golfing on Sunday afternoon and a woman who was in our group asked me if we’re from Wisconsin. She paused for a few seconds which gave me time to wonder why the hell she’d think that. Then she says “Or do you guys just like drinking Pabst?” As Aaron said later, that was one of the most random assumptions ever made…we drink PBRs so we must be from Wisconsin.

Speaking of assumptions, I assumed going into week 2 that I had no chance to win the saves category. I loaded up on starts--9 total I think--and only had 1 closer. I assumed I’d take wins and give up saves, and of course the opposite happened. Only 3 wins from my 9 starts & somehow 3 saves from 1 guy was enough to win that category. Of course none of this matters when your opponent has 6 categories locked up by Tuesday.

On a related note, I’m now focusing all my efforts on scouting players for next year, so within a few weeks I expect to make an announcement regarding who the 1st overall pick in the 2011 draft will be. Stay tuned.

Overall it was a pretty uninteresting weekend as every team that was winning on Friday held on to win the week. Where’s the drama? Oh well, let’s begin our week 2 recap with the closest matchup so far this year.

Angry Brets beat Red Red Even 5-5-0

In years past, this would have gone in the books as a tie, but alas the league has evolved, changes have been made, and Scott is the first one to get screwed by the Runs Tiebreaker. With such a tight race going into the weekend (Brets led 6-4 on Friday morning), you’d think the Evens would make a conscious effort to close the gap on runs knowing it could come down to that. They didn’t. As a matter of fact, the Evens played most of the week as if they were running out a bunch of David Ortiz & J.D. Drew clones on offense. Of course it doesn’t help to start a player who’s on the DL (Rollins…though he didn’t get hurt until Monday, bad luck there), and another player who’s hurt most of the week (Carlos Gonzalez).

In this space last week, the Brets’ offense was ripped to shreds, possibly prematurely. They certainly responded by mashing 14HRs with 46RBI. Chase Utley took the media’s harsh words most personally as he put up an amazing 5HRs alone this week. The Brets’ offense was so good this week that even starting a player who didn’t play for a good chunk of the week (Zimmerman) couldn’t hurt them.

The pitching matchup went almost exactly as expected. The Evens loaded up on starts (8) while the Brets loaded up on closers (4). Sure enough the Brets won saves…just barely. The Evens took the other 4 pitching categories. The key to the Evens’ pitching week was getting a combined 29innings, 0.62ERA from Wainwright, Oswalt, Rivera & Nunez. Question for the Brets: how long is the Javier Vazquez experiment gonna go on for? I don’t play your team until week 7 so I say keep the experiment alive at least until then.

Final note: Sometimes there is just so much info to pour over that even the best blogger misses some interesting stats, but I can’t believe I almost missed this one: the Angry Brets have not gotten a single Win from their pitchers yet this year!

Let’s move on to the only 2 undefeated teams in the league: Pigeon Boys and Boats ‘n Hoes. Coincidentally both teams had their wins locked up very early this week.

Pigeon Boys beat Dorchestah 34%ers 6-4-0

Sure you could look at this score and think it was a great matchup. A battle of crusty old owners who have been facing each other in fantasy sports for most of their lives. But you’d be ignorant. You see, as early as Friday morning the Pigeon Boys had 5 categories locked up, including Runs. So it was a stress-free weekend for Neil, knowing he couldn’t possibly lose. Even though Dorchestah made a late charge and almost caught the Boys in HRs, it wouldn’t have mattered since Neil’s team had 5 saves over the weekend to lock that category up too.

In case you haven’t noticed, Neil’s pitching strategy this year is to go with 4 closers and only 3 starters. One of those starters is Lincecum. The goal is to win Saves, ERA, WHIP each week, and not care much about Ks and Wins. For a moment it seemed the strategy might not pay off this week as he only won Saves and even that was up for debate until the weekend.

While the Boys didn’t put up eye-popping offensive numbers this week (except for 8SBs), they would have basically had to somehow put up negative numbers in order to lose to the 34%ers. If it wasn’t for a 4HR, 9RBI, .529OBP day on Sunday, Ben‘s team would have put up Rossian stats for the week.. For a team so obviously built on offense, Dorchestah is middle of the pack in Runs, RBI, OBP and last in SB. Leading the way in HR is a small consolation at this time. Perhaps Ian Kinsler’s pending return 2 weeks from now will be the straw that stirs the 34%ers offensive drink. Oh, wait, Dorchestah plays Smell of Penetration this week? Consider yourself 2-1, Ben, and feel free to start focusing on your week 4 matchup.

Final Note: As good as Neil probably thinks his team is right now, it’s not like he’s tearing things up statistically. Here is where he’s at compared to the league: Runs = 6th, HR = 6th, RBI = 4th, SB = 3rd, OBP = 11th, K = 10th, Wins = 8th, SV = 1st, ERA, 8th, WHIP = 10th. Some would say he’s a lucky 2-0.

Team Boats ‘n Hoes beats Smell of Penetration 7-2-1

And in another installment of “it was over before it began,” the Hoes beat up on my shitty team all week long. It was so bad that Aaron’s 2 Dodgers players (Kemp & Ethier) put up more HR than my entire offense for the week. On Friday morning, Kemp, Ethier and Polanco had more Runs, HR, RBI than my entire team. The Hoes had Runs, HR, RBI locked up by Wednesday; that’s not an exaggeration. Again, with my team you’re looking at potentially one of the worst group of players ever assembled in any fantasy sport.

When I drafted Jason Heyward, I was slightly mad that I might have picked him too early. Now? Thank God I got him because in my quest to build for next year, he’s gonna be an important piece. If it wasn’t for Heyward & Cruz, I might be turning over commissioner/blogger duties to someone else so I could take the rest of the year to do some serious soul searching.

Not much left to say…Aaron has the best team in the league right now. He’s 2-0 and has better stats overall than the other 2-0 team (Pigeon Boys). Even more noteworthy, the Hoes would have beaten the Pigeon Boys quite handily in both week 1 & 2 if they had been matched up. Speaking of potentially amazing matchups, mark your calendars for week 7, when the Hoes will take on the Boys, both teams possibly being 6-0 at that point.

Final Note: The putrid Smell of Penetration team ranks last in 3 categories (Runs, OBP, WHIP), 2nd to last in 3 categories (SB, Ks, ERA), and ranks no higher than 5th in any category (RBI).

And now for the rest of the week 2 outcomes….

Za Brah beats Jew Lovers 8-1-1

In a matchup of the 2 teams most likely to dominate the “accidentally started someone on the DL” category, the Brahs beat the Lover of Jews anticlimactically as the score never shifted after Thursday. This is the type of “battle” that bores bloggers like me to death. The Brahs had a solid week, nothing amazing by any means, while the Lovers gave a new definition to words like appalling, horrific, vomit-inducing.

Congratulations, Werner. You could not have beaten a single team in the league in week 2. I expect things like that from my own team, and maybe Fred’s, but not yours. It appears as though Werner took my advice from last week, which was to give up on the Saves category (0 this week), but I didn’t mean give up all together. Only 1 HR all week? Only 2 Wins? Pathetic. And to make it worse, the Lovers face the #1 team this week, Boats ‘n Hoes.

For the Brahs, it’s always beneficial when you have 2 starting pitchers facing the Red Sox offense. In this case it was Shields & Garza…2 automatic wins. Speaking of the Sox, not even starting Ellsbury last week (who didn’t play a single game) could ruin the win for the Brahs. By the way, for those of you who have pitchers like Garza, Halladay, Lincecum, etc, you should appreciate what you’ve got. It must be nice to get potentially excited about watching your pitcher start, knowing he’s a Cy Young caliber guy and will most likely dominate…we should all be so lucky.

Final Note: Za Brah has never finished better than 8th place in the Born Again League, but this year could be different as the team is finally putting up solid stats, including Ks (1st), Runs, Wins, WHIP (3rd), and HR (4th).

The Beckett List beats Team Boston Pancakes 6-4-0

As the final starting pitcher for the week between these 2 teams, Max Scherzer did everything in his power to get the Pancakes a win…the 2 categories he needed to swing for his team--Ks & Wins--he did, but the rest of the Pancakes team let him down. You could even argue that the team’s offense actually performed the “boston pancake” on owner Matty P on Sunday, refusing to show up on the most important day of this young season. When reached via Gchat this morning, Matty P said, “The team is still in a state of shock that Prince [Fielder] and Bitch Tits [Alex Rodriguez] have 1 combined home run.” Also, for those of you keeping score at home, Prince Fielder has the same amount of RBI this season as Tim Lincecum. Of course it goes without saying that the Pancakes got dominated in every offensive category this week.

And who was doing the dominating? None other than newcomer Bryan Paul, owner of the Beckett List. On behalf of all the owners (except for Matty P obviously), congrats on your first career win in the Born Again League. The key to this win was the team’s namesake player, Josh Beckett, who put up 7 innings with 0 earned runs and a miniscule 0.71WHIP against the Rays on Friday night. That’s right…hard as it is to believe, a very small percentage of the Red Sox players are displaying actual talent this year.

Final Note: Both of these teams play in emotional matchups this week. The Beckett List is up against older brother Scott Paul, owner of Red Red Even…this typically unbiased commissioner is rooting for Bryan to “do it for the little brothers” this week. And the Pancakes are up against former college BFF Ryan Lavery, owner of Za Brah. When asked if that rivalry could possibly be as emotional as 2 brothers facing each other, Ryan replied, “Let me answer your question with a question. What are brothers anyway? Are brothers 2 men who have a very special, unbreakable bond? Do brothers kiss each other on the cheek in lieu of a handshake? Do brothers have “who can masturbate the quickest” races? Do brothers perform the act of space docking together?

(see definition 5: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=space+docking )

If the answer to those questions is ‘yes,’ then me and Matty P are as much brothers as anyone.”

Hackin’ Holts beat Polar Bears Rule II 6-2-2

This may have been the matchup most up for grabs heading into the weekend. Even though Holts were up 7-0-3 on Friday morning, the teams were tied in 3 categories and 4 others were reasonably close (RBI, OBP, SV, WHIP). But as anyone could have guessed by now, the Bears’ players shrunk from the spotlight at the most crucial time.

Credit is due to the Holts & owner Graham Holt. The pitching was a model of efficiency this week. The Holts got 4 Wins out of only 5 total starts, and the closers got 6 Saves in 6 chances. That’s how you draw it up in the offseason. And of course, the pitching got a HUGE contribution from Ubaldo Jimenez’s no-hitter on Saturday.

For the Pbears, you could say that Jair Jurrjens pulled a “reverse Ubaldo” by throwing 11.1 innings with 11 earned runs this week. When reached for comment, owner Jon Friedner said, “The Pbears aren’t ready to throw in the towel yet…looking to make a big statement this week against the Pigeon Boys.” While Jon may be looking at that as a “David vs. Goliath” matchup, I think it’d be better described as a “Paraplegic David vs. Goliath & all of Goliath’s gigantic relatives” matchup. Good luck to you, 2nd worst team in the league.

Final Note: As fun as it is to make fun of Fred’s non-contender of a team, I will point out that between the only 0-2 teams (him & me), he would have beat me in both weeks 1 & 2, including a 7-3 domination in week 2. Therefore, as soon as I come to an agreement with the #1 pick in next year’s draft, Fred can start thinking about who he’ll take with pick 2.