Fantasy Baseball Advice

The inaugural Razzball season has ended and – in a fitting conclusion – the two representatives from this blog finished 1-2 (Contributor Lou Poulas finished last but that’s because he’s too focused on all-stars).  The final score:  Rudy – 96, Grey – 94

(Quick aside for those who haven’t been following.  Based on rules of our own invention, we played a full fantasy season where the goal was to field the worst team possible (click here for the genesis of it).  While I had some doubts going into it, I’ve got to say that I had more fun in this league than my expert leagues and my cash league combined.  Who knew rooting against players could be so fun?)

The season went down to the last day when Rudy’s team gained an extra point in ABs from tough competitor Aardvark Trading Co (5,238 to 5,220) and Grey lost a point after his crappy pitchers managed to best the staff of Mop Up Duty 772 to 770 Ks.  Both teams set records that will be tough to duplicate in future years:

• Rudy – 5238 ABs with only 75 HR and 499 RBIs.  That translates to about 6 HR and 38 RBI per 403 ABs across the 13 hitting roster slots.
• Grey – Over 1362 IP, a ridiculous 5.72 ERA and 1.58 WHIP.  (the MLB average ERA was about 4.15)

Fantasy Baseball Generals finished a strong 3rd at 86.5 points, led by an amazing pitching staff that managed to lose 112 games and give up 226 HRs (both league highs) and finish 2nd to Grey in both ERA (5.25) and WHIP (1.51).  After a slow start, Mike P. of the FBG put together as awful a team as any.

4th place went to Aardvark Trading Co – the holding company for the Cards In The Attic blog.  They were one of only 3 teams that had the intestinal fortitude to reach the 5200 AB minimum (failure to reach that mark meant pro-rated 120/35/120/.320 stats).  His solidly crappy offense was let down by a merely incompetent pitching staff.

Herb Urban finished in 5th displaying a keen affection for Dave Kingman as he finished with the 2nd most HRs (that’s bad) but 2nd most Ks and 2nd lowest average (both good).

See below for the final standings.  Stay tuned for posts that will contain the final rosters/stats as well as a final season Point Shares to determine who was the most ‘invaluable’ player in the majors this year…

What up, Razzball Nation!

I’ve been away for a couple weeks touring around Italy. I saw the town where the Baldellis have been contracting mitochondrial diseases for centuries, watched as Pete Incaviglia’s cousin used a vicious uppercut to generate topspin for a winning bocce roll, and took part in a old-fashioned Tommy Lasorda pasta crawl (I did NOT need that last plate of penne arrabiata…)

While away, my fantasy teams were left to fare on their own. One expert league team that just never got into second gear this year got called out by another blogger (what, who knew Joe Torre would hate on Pierre so much?) and my other expert league team fell from 1st to 5th (but I’m still in contention). In fact, all my teams did bad while I was away….which turned out just fine for my Razzball team…

Yes, I’ve snuck ahead of Grey with 3 weeks left to go in the inaugural Razzball season – 94.5 points to 94 (out of 120). Our friendly rival Mike from the FB Generals is still in the running at 88 points and the rest of the crew are poised to be spoilers as most of the categories are still very close.

How close is this battle? If Grey had one less run (or I had one more), he’d be in first. Crazy. And the points I’ve gained in ERA/WHIP by inching up to 4.89/1.49 can disappear with a quality start or two.

Stay tuned…

We’ve got a three-way pennant race going as we head into the last 1/4 of the season! Our own Grey has seen his 9 point lead evaporate over the past two weeks down to only 1 point against his most bitter rival – his blogger in crime Rudy Gamble. That’s right, me. And Fantasy Baseball Generals (led by Mike Podhorzer) have met my pace and cut a 13 point deficit down to 5.5 points out.

It’s hard to fault Grey as his team has increased by 1.5 points over the fortnight – it’s just my team and the Generals team have harvested a bumper crop of points after spreading fertilizer all over our respective rosters. It’s tough to know if the momentum will continue or they’ll be a correction. The Generals gained an amazing 5 points in runs over the two weeks, going from 5 points to 10. But look at the top 5 adjusted totals for Runs: 517 (Generals), 519 (DFA), 520 (Rotoprofessor), 522 (Grey), 525 (Rudy). And Grey leads the Generals by only 1 HR (89-88) and 1 K (685-684) + me by only 1 Loss (69-68). Crazy.

While it’s too early to count out Roto Professor, DFA, one-time leader Aardvark Trading Co and Herb Urban, the 17 point gap b/w the 3rd place FB Generals and the 4th place Roto Professor hints that they may be limited to competing for 4th and spoiler roles.

Mop Up Duty can move up from his 8th position but his blog name seems appropos for his team’s performance. Greener on the Other Side (aka FantasyPhenoms) is being spared the ignominy of solid anchor Defunct Baseball Lab which is run by our favorite guest blogger Lou Poulas who clearly is too enamored by his Fantasy Baseball Hall of Famers and All-Stars to concentrate on Razz*Stars.

I’m off to Europe for two weeks so next update will be the week of September 8th. I’ll do weekly updates from then on..

It’s been a long time since we showed the Razzball Standings – over 6 weeks to be exact (see here for the June 14th standings).

Grey has made it all the way to 1st place and has a 9 point lead on the pack – despite being 200 AB below the prorated AB minimum of 3530 (pro-rated 5200) and having to accept the penalty. With 90 out of 120 points, he’s sucked both on offense and in pitching – 2nd across 4 of the 6 offensive categories and 3rd or better across 4 of the 6 pitching categories. Top underperformers on his team include 3B-eligible Cezar Izturis (246 AB of 30/1/15/.236), 1B -eligible Jose Vidro (299 AB of 27/7/45/.236), and a cavalcade of pitchers including Greg Reynolds (46 IP of 7.63/1.70), Josh Fogg (48 IP of 8.32/1.66), and Tom Gorzelnanny (70.1 IP of 5.89/1.75). The only solace for the league is most of his best pitchers – as is always the case in Razzball – have been demoted, dropped, or sent to the Disgraceful List.

It’s Razzball 1-2 right now as my team (Rudy’s) is current in 2nd place. My offense is in the lead with 47 points thanks to having a number of high-AB/low HR players such as Michael Bourn, Willy Taveras, Fred Lewis, and Cristian Guzman. My pitching has overperformed for much of the past 6 weeks led by shockingly good performances by Paul Maholm (133 IP of 3.79/1.23), Kyle Lohse (102 IP of 3.79/1.26), and Doug Davis (67 IP of 3.63/1.30). Really, how many teams have to be in your regular mixed league before you start these guys – 15? I’m optimistic that I’ll enjoy a nice ride down the slope of regression with these guys though (see Doug Davis’s Sunday outing of 5 ER in 1 2/3 IP).

Razzball aficionados Fantasy Baseball Generals have jumped all the way from 8th to 3rd, led by a 44 point pitching staff headed by Brandon Backe (10 Losses, 4.72/1.56 in 130 IP) and the sabermetric-loving Brian Bannister (9 Losses, 5.40/1.41).

The biggest faller is one-time leader AardvarkTradingCo.com who now resides in 6th. While his .275 batting average is better than many normal FLB teams, it has been great pitching performances that have been his downfall. I thought I had it bad but how could 65 IP of Colorado’s Ubaldo Jiminez net out to 2.07 ERA / 1.16 WHIP? Gil Meche with 107 IP at 3.28 ERA/1.18 WHIP? Crazy…

Click on the below image for the standings. Click here for our Razzball Point Shares player rater to see the best of the worst.

Since the last time we reported the Razzball standings, there’s been a shakeup at the top.

The big mover – Razzball’s own Grey. He’s shot up from 8th to 2nd and is now threatening to take the lead from Cards In The Attic who has been in the top 3 since the beginning of the year.

Our non-blogger entry DFA has slipped from 2nd to 3rd. I’ve fell back from 1st to 4th as my pitching has upgraded to ordinary. How could Kyle Lohse, Kyle Kendrick, and Jon Garland keep pitching so well?

We’ve got a logjam between 5th and 8th. After seeing Grey jump from 8th to 2nd, no doubt that any of these teams could quickly shoot into contention. My eye is on Fantasy Baseball Generals if they can ever get close to the minimum AB total and avoid the penalty stats.

Click on the below image for the standings. Click here for our Razzball Point Shares player rater to see the best of the worst.