Fantasy Baseball Advice

Homestretch time in the Razzball Commenter and Fantasy Razzball Leagues. Here is the latest…

In the Razzball Commenter League, Mowses (Home Plate Security) and Mil Mascaras (Tequila Two Step) are separated by a mere .46 points at the top. This looks like a two person race at this point as 3rd place PWNightmare is 9 points behind but crazier things have happened (see Lou Pinella benching Jake Fox to f*** my NL-only team).

In the Fantasy Razzball League, we don’t have quite the photo finish shaping up as Jay’s Willy Wonka crew continues to treat the field like a bunch of petulant Veruca Salts with his crop of bad eggs. His 7,077 points is over 600 points ahead of 2nd place Jonathan Halket of THT Fantasy Focus. The only race of note is whether my team can nip Grey’s for a 2nd straight year. Despite a couple weeks of letting a move and a vacation take my eye off the team, I’m only about 100 points behind him, residing in 9th to his 7th. I will be championing my inner Spaceball and flip the switch so my teams will go from suck to blow (apologies to those of you directed from search because of that coin of phrase).

It’s been a while since we checked in on our Razzball Commenter League and Fantasy Razzball League – mainly because I’ve been either on vacation or working like a dog for the past month.  Here it goes…

There’s been a big shakeup in the RCL Standings as previous leader Cruz Control (commenter Anthony) has dropped all the way to 7th as his Gorditas Supreme divisionmate Tijuana Two Step salsas into first.  The new leader – helmed by an unidentified manager whom we’d like to think is ex-WWF star Mil Mascaras – has a whopping 113 points (out of a possible 120) and actually has potential to gain a couple points in the last month.  A look at the masked manager’s Active Stats show that top teams don’t have to get every top draft pick right as Grady Sizemore, Matt Holliday, and David Ortiz are all relative disappointments.  Killer picks like A-Gonz, Joe Mauer, and a three-ace staff of Wainwright, Vazquez, and Beckett definitely helped as did key FA pickups like Kendry Morales, Andrew McCutchen, Ubaldo Jiminez, and Tommy Hanson.

Mowses (Home Plate Security) remains in 2nd with PWNightmare (Halie Selassie Lions of Judah) hopping three spots to 3rd.  Slidenfail ftw and Widespread Panic leapfrogged 10 and 7 spots respectively to crash the top 10.

As for the Fantasy Razzball League, Jay (Willy Wonka) has established a near insurmountable 600+ point lead on second place Jonathan Halket of THT Fantasy Focus.  Paul Moro of UmpBump has chumpbumped his way from 6th to 3rd while Grey and I are now only one spot away from each other in the standings (Grey – 7th, me – 8th).  While it’s sad knowing I’ll have to relinquish last year’s Razzball crown, I hope I can at least have bragging rights in the Razzball office.

BTW Grey, you really need to clean the break room fridge – I know you love your SAGNOF but it doesn’t stand for “Spaghettios Are Great Nasty Old Food”….

This week’s Fantasy Roundtable is hosted by Adam Ronis at Strong Island’s most awesome paper -  Newsday.com.

THE TOPIC: Where would you draft David Wright in a mid-season league and why?

I veered toward the most bearish in the group – saying I’d take him somewhere in picks 20-30.  Grey put him at #14 in his midseason fantasy baseball rankings.  Click on the link above to see what some other Fantasy Bloggers thought…

We’re a little over the halfway mark in baseball so why not check in on our leagues…

First up, the Fantasy Razzball League. Jay – a Razzball commenter – is ahead of a pack which includes 30 bloggers and 50 other participants. The rest of the top five are Mike Podhorzer from FantasyPros911 (who is overdue for a league update in our NL-only league), Jonathan Halket of The Hardball Times Fantasy Focus, our own Grey Albright and Razzball commenter Freak in 5th. I’m in 7th place and it’s going to take a ridiculous 2nd half to try and defend my Fantasy Razzball title from last year.

In our Razzball Commenter leagues, there’s a 3-way battle for first with Anthony, Mowses, and an unnamed entry whose team goes by ‘Tijuana Two Step’. All three are above 100 points in their 12 team leagues which is pretty damn impressive. The craziest part is that Anthony and Tijuana are in the same league with the next team nearly 30 points out. The team known as “I said You’ve Got No Game’ is in 4th followed closely with Rhymenocerous (no sign of Hiphoppotamus), PWNightmare, ThirdandKing, and Doc.

Here are a few blogger shoutouts for those that are still battling in the Fantasy Razzball league:

R.J. White from the Fantasy Baseball Cafe is just outside the Top 10. For those unfamiliar with the Cafe, it’s full of lively debate and the perfect place to take a date if your date is your right hand. I personally like the brick wall on the home page – makes me feel like I’m at some 80’s comedy joint like the Chuckle Shack or Giggles.

The Fantasy Baseball Junkie is lurking just outside the Top 20 – like a sugar junkie loiters in the back of a Dunkin’ Donuts when they chuck the old batch. The Junkie has some good advice and definitely showed some prescience predicting Nyjer Morgan and Scott Hairston would be traded only a couple days before they did.

This week’s Fantasy Roundtable is hosted by phonetically fetishy friends at Fantasy Phenoms.

THE TOPIC: Three pitchers who have exceeded expectations so far are Jon Lester, Zack Greinke and Justin Verlander. Owners of these pitchers have been relying on them as weekly starters who play an intricate role for their fantasy teams. All three are on pace to strike out over 240 batters. If you had to choose one of these pitchers to continue this trend, who would it be? Why?

All three pitchers got a vote so it’ll be interesting to see how all us ‘perts will look in retrospect. I just wish the Phenoms offered up Jason Marquis because I think he’s a lock for 22+ wins…