And the Beat Goes On...

Yes, it’s already Tuesday at 4pm, and I’m only now starting to author this brilliant blog. Call me a douche; call me lazy; call me whatever you like, but soon enough you might be calling me “employed.” That’s right…I’ve spent the last 2 days being put through the ringer as I am finally interviewing again. That is my lame excuse for the lateness.

Now before you go crying yourself to sleep tonight thinking the fantasy blog might be coming to an abrupt end (like the fate suffered by an inferior blog a few years ago), hear this: no job will ever cause me to miss a week of posting the creamy goodness that is this blog. I am committed. As my team continues to play like its roster is filled with Corkys from Life Goes On, the blogs will only get stronger. That’s a promise.

Since week 5 is well under way at this point, and I’m sure you all looked at the week 4 results intimately, I’m gonna skip the usual matchup by matchup breakdown, and instead just run through some notes & observations. I apologize in advance if your team doesn’t get as much of a mention as usual, but look out for next week’s blog which I’m thinking will be the season’s 1st Power Rankings.

OK, everyone ready? Great. Here we go with some verbal diarrhea:

-My team is 0-4. I have been predicting this all along, and it’s not like I drafted with the intention to be historically shitty. Sometimes you just know. This makes me think that when teams like the Pirates, Nationals, Astros, etc, say things like, “You know, I think if everyone plays up to their capabilities this year, we can make a run in our division,” they are 150% full of shit and they know it. If your team is putrid, you know it. My team is going to win under 5 games this year; that’s a fact.

-There’s been some great chatter on the League home page this year, mostly in response to my blog postings. I noticed the only 3 posts on the home page that haven’t gotten responses are the ones where someone is saying, “So & so are on the trading block. Make me an offer.” Ben, Fred, and MattyP, I would say that if you really want to make a trade, you should probably put in the efforts yourselves of looking at other teams & proposing something. I know in real baseball if a team was to say that Greinke is available, other teams would throw out trade offers and different packages of players. But in fantasy where we’re all equal parts busy & lazy, you need to do the leg work (unless the 3 of you have gotten a bunch of trade offers that I don’t know about. In that case, disregard this entire paragraph).

-I fully believe in something called the “Ross Guaranteed Jinx,” where I claim something will never happen, or I call a player out for sucking balls, and the opposite immediately happens. In last week’s blog, I mentioned, “Jason Bay’s predictable lack of power,” and almost immediately after I wrote the words down, he hit his 1st HR of the season. I also called out Ryan Howard for a terrible week 3 after signing a huge contract. He responded with a 2HR, .400 OBP week for the Jew Lovers. And of course I was going up against Howard last week. So for this week, I am calling out my entire team: you guys blow, you will never be real baseball players, and you certainly can’t get me a win against Fred (come on jinx…).

-Last night on ESPN, John Kruk stated that so far in 2010 the best pitcher in baseball is Ubaldo Jimenez, and the best hitter is Robinson Cano. I set out today to prove him wrong, and unfortunately I can’t. Jimenez has definitely been the best pitcher. For hitters, you can make a case for several other guys, but considering Cano is a 2B, he’s probably been the best from a fantasy standpoint. Congratulations to Graham for having both of these players. 2 other quick notes on this topic: 1). I could have kept Cano, but instead opted for Adam Jones, who they are considering renaming the Mendoza Line after. 2). I called Ben out for drafting Strasburg waaaaaaaayyyyy too early, and his only response was, “Yeah I guess I could have gotten a guy like Jimenez in that same round.” I don’t care how well Strasburg is doing in the minors right now, I think we can all agree it’d be better to have Jimenez (for 2010 and maybe beyond).

-Congrats to the Beckett List for having the most players (8) currently ranked in the top 50 based on 2010 stats. The Angry Brets & yours truly are tied for least players on that top 50 list with 2 each.

-And now for my weekly Fred bashing… Back in March, when I saw that Fred chose Edwin Jackson as a keeper, I nearly choked on my chocolate milkshake from In-n-Out. But I decided to hold off judgment considering the jokes I was running out there as keepers. Well here are Jackson’s numbers after 6 starts: 32.1 innings, 29 hits, 10 walks, 17K, 1 win, 8.07 ERA, 1.76 WHIP. I’m not even asking the question; I’m just gonna definitively state that Edwin Jackson is the worst keeper in fantasy baseball history.

-One more Fred gem…does anyone remember his postings over “the cagey pickup of Travis Hafner on opening day?” For those of you who don’t know Fred very well, he has this recurring issue of pontificating about his greatness and then eventually having to eat his words. Let’s check in on cagey pickup Hafner: 74 at-bats, 2HR, 7RBI, .189 avg, .303 OBP, .311 SLG…what a steal by the Pbears!

-Don’t know if anyone saw a recent report that the percentage of black players in MLB is once again dropping. This is something the Born Again Fantasy League takes very seriously. So I am implementing a “no blacky left behind policy,” where each team is required to have a minimum of 6 black players on its roster at all times. Don’t worry. This shouldn’t be hard since this commissioner’s office defines black people as: nonwhites…African American, Latino, Hispanic, all forms of Asian, Middle Eastern/Egyptian, whatever race those dark-skinned Hawaiian people are, and in Mike Cameron’s case, the darkest of dark chocolate.

Final note: I love writing these blogs & hopefully you at least tolerate reading them. That being said, I understand it’s always more entertaining to read if your team/players are talked about a good amount. So at the end of each week, if you notice that you made a particularly amazing move to get a free agent, or if you’re like me and left your 2 best starting pitchers on the bench only to have them dominate, please feel free to shoot me a message with this info. I try to look at all teams & all moves as much as I can, but I’m sure I miss plenty of interesting tidbits. Help me entertain you. That is all.