Fantasy Baseball Playoffs ftw...

Since the self-proclaimed fantasy guru just did another fantasy draft review, I thought I’d take this time to dissect the fantasy baseball season and offer some predictions for the fantasy baseball playoffs.

First off, I need to boost my fantasy ego more and the only way to do this is by quashing some of Widukind's pre-season predictions. In the interest of fairness, though, I should say that Widukind got many things right. A) You’re in first, and relatively deservedly so (although your hitting is average, you may have statistically one of the best pitching staffs ever). B) You basically predicted the top 5, although definitely not in the correct order (you predicted You, Mark, Me, Kremer Trevor, while the actual order is You, Me, Kremer, Trevor, Mark). With that said, here are a few of your more specific predictions that went terribly, terribly wrong.

1.To Lonny: “I don’t like Mauer at 57. He’s already hurt, and he’s just a 3 category player at this point. Guys who went right after like Garret Atkins or Alexei Ramirez would have fit well in your thin infield.” Besides the obvious point that Mauer was an absolute steal at 57, the guys you mention, especially Atkins, have had markedly down years. Did I mention Atkins sucks dyno dick? Ramirez is at least respectable. But Mauer, whoop, gooooooodddd pick lonny!

2.To me: “Sure, Chris Davis is beastly-looking, but if he busts? You’re fucked like you were last night by that big cylinder that lurks around under your bed.” And… “Getting Chris Davis at 71 is great value; you’re not reaching like many people have with him so far, and he has the potential to be way better than the 71st best player this season. And you’ll need that to happen.” Yeah so… Chris Davis sucks balls, and was my worst pick this year, but considering I still have the best offense in the league (look it up), you were very wrong about my team in general. Very, horribly, wrong. Pujols is God.

3. To Trevor: “Wainwright. I like him, but 86th is just too high. He doesn’t K enough to warrant that high of a pick, and he’s still only pitched one full season in the bigs.” Yeah no, that was wrong. His line this year is Lincecum esque (he technically is more likely to win the Cy Young according to Cy Young predictor, but I’m expecting a no-hitter by the God himself this weekend against Colorado, so that’ll change).

Ahh, my ego feels so much better now. I really like the Mauer quote. And finally, in answer to Widukind's point about my so-called theft of Greinke: Your specific quote was you liked Jones and Greinke. I remember specifically mentioning I was iffy on Jones. I was correct. He’s really not having that great of a year when you take away the first two months. Fluke to me. I don’t believe I mentioned Greinke even. And I picked Greinke because he was to me, the next best player available. Considering the other people drafted in that round included Johnny Peralta, Jorge Cantu, Matt Wieters (bahahaahaha, he really needs to learn to wait back on pitches a little better, he’s getting destroyed by changeups and sliders) I think I made the appropriate pick.

Alright a quick review of the season just for the people who are making the playoffs.

Poo Taste Fart Tart
Considering you took hitters with you first 9 picks, and your hitting, although it looks scary, has been around league average for most of the season, your team should be bad. But your pitching is disgusting. Absurd. You’re leading this year in Wins, ERA, Ks, and QSs. Most by a pretty good amount. Even fucking Blanton is having a good year. God fucking damnit. And Kemp. I believe your line from two years ago was “I also got the real young Dodger talent (aka NOT Matt Kemp), James Loney.” Yeah Loney’s been good and all, but you were very, very wrong. I was right. Go fist yourself.
Best Pick: Carpenter and Jurrjens. Both are beasts. Getting them in the 15th and 16th were the second and third best steals behind getting Pujols 2nd overall.
Worst Pick: Bruce is the easy pick here b/c of the injury and the .207 average before the injury, but I don’t like picking someone who was injured b/c those are typically somewhat random. So your worst pick is Ordonez. God he sucks. And you blasted me for not picking Ordonez when I picked Chipper. Jeeze.
Best Pickup: Ubaldo Jimenez. Mr. Hands drafted him in the 19th and then dropped him. Considering how terrible his pitching has been, that was a crucial drop for him and a huge pickup for you. But you did drop Morales, which would have been a huge pick for you.

Queef Monster
Great team name… Moving on, I’ve had a good year but got killed by a few hitting and pitching categories. Considering I have statistically the best hitting team, it’s incredibly frustrating that I can’t get RBIs. So gheyyyy. And Quality Starts blows as a statistic (more on this later).
Best Pick: Derek Jeter in the 12th. I really didn’t have an astounding draft but Jeter falling to me in the 12th was huge. A top 15 hitter in the 12th?! Made up for a pretty lousy draft overall.
Worst Pick: Toss up really between Milledge and Davis. I’m gonna go with Davis though because he is a Devil who refuses to keep his head on the ball. And Milledge has actually come back somewhat nicely in the last two weeks. Boy, I really didn’t have a great draft looking over it. Good thing I’m a fantasy expert with my pickups!
Best pickup: Zobrist. Carried my team for a while. Wins best fantasy pickup of the year!!

Eliza’s Spicy Balls
You actually had a really bad draft, but you’re bright spots have really carried you. Berkman and ManRam were both obvious disappointments. Same with Dempster and Nolasco. Lilly and Aardsma have both been huge feathers in your cap, though, and your hitting has been completely carried by Ramirez, who’s just an amazing hitter, and Reynolds.
Best Pick: Reynolds in the 13th wins in a tie with Carpenter and Jurrjens for the best picks of the draft. He’s cooled a little bit but a really good year for him. But he might be retarded. He apparently said “I don’t see why the strike out is a bad statistic.” God you’re fucking retarded. This is a guy who has struck out 3 times in 5 ABs with the bases loaded and is hitting .232 with RISP with 59 strikeouts in 139 ABs. That’s not so good. I’m all for a guy who swings out of his ass on every pitch. But at least appreciate the negative effects of a strikeout on your team’s productivity.
Worst Pick: Ramirez is the obvious one, but you couldn’t have predicted the suspension. So my choice would be Ludwick in the 8th. Bad pick there.
Best pickup: You really haven’t had many good pick ups this year kremdog, but Aardsma was a great pickup. Throws very hard. Considering we traded him for Hawkins in 05, that goes on a growing list of terrible Sabean moves.

Blow My Meat Whistle
Considering you too have been noticeably absent this year from making a lot of moves, it’s not a huge surprise your team has fallen off recently. You are still statistically the best team in the league, but that is mainly front-loaded. That said, you’ve definitely been a bit unlucky. Your team is scary and you really love the Phils as Widukind pointed out in his post-draft analysis. You have statistically the 2nd best pitching led by the surprise Wandy (who I hate) and Wainwright. But you are going to need your hitters to perform better if you want to make it deep into the playoffs.
Best Pick: You had a lot of very good picks here, and you definitely win the award for best draft in hindsight. By a long shot. Werth, Ibanez, Johnson, Wainwright were all great picks, but Wandy in the 23rd is almost up there with Carpenter, Jurrjens, and Reynolds.
Worst Pick: Ramirez is an obvious one considering the injuries, but I’m gonna go with Guthrie. Not a good year for him, but he was a late pick so you didn’t lose out on much
Best Pick Up: Not many here. If you had paid much closer attention, you could probably have run away with the league. Montero was a good pickup I guess, although he’s definitely cooled.

Mr. Hands’ Team
Mark, it hurts me to say this because you are my mortal enemy, but your team scares me heading into the playoffs. Overall, your pitching has really let you down this year, but you’ve got a guy who looks to be heating up with 5 QS this month in Anderson and you have Cliff Lee who’s been making the NL his bitch for a while now.
Best Pick: You had by far the worst draft of those in competition. Your first 6 picks have all disappointed you in some way, especially Rollins. It’s remarkable you’re still around. Doesn’t say much for the rest of the league. But your seventh pick in Lee was huge, and you’ve really benefitted from his trade.
Worst Pick: All of your first 6. I’m even including Morneau even though he’s had a good year just for dramatic effect. Rollins sucks, Longoria is a god, but I think his wrist has been a real problem this year and even though he’s racked up the RBIs and Runs, that average is a killer. Webb, pbfffffffffffffffffffff, you reached for Ramirez, and McLouth isn’t good.
Best Pickup: Kendry Morales!!!! Makes up for dropping Ubaldo. He’s good. Finally an Angel’s prospect is reaching his potential!

Mark is Gay!
Your team is boring. Only people worth talking about are Verlander and Mauer.
Best Pick: Verlander and Mauer.
Worst Pick: Pretty much everybody else besides Halladay and Crawford. Oh but you traded Halladay for David Wright. That worked out well…
Best Pickup: Franklin and Feldman. Feldman apparently has the third best pitch in baseball behind Lincecum’s changeup and Kershaw’s fastball.

Playoff Predictions
Round 1

4. Eliza’s Spicy Balls vs. 5. Mr. Hands’ Team
This one may not be very close. Mr. Hands is having a good week pitching and it carries over into an 8-3 slaughter of Kremdog.

3. Blow My Meat Whistle vs. 6. Mark is Gay!
Trevor wins a close one 6-5 in a rematch of this weeks matchup, although neither team performs well.

Round 2

1. Poo Taste Fart Tart vs. 5 Mr. Hands’ Team
In a matchup of fantasy titans, the difference maker is Cliff Lee, who gets two starts against the Nationals and the Mets, dooming the Fart Tart, and providing yet another year of the season number 1 not winning a playoff game.

2. Queef Monster vs. 3. Blow My Meat Whistle
The Queef Monster prevails buoyed by two great starts from Sabathia against the Orioles and the Rays and Pujols beating up on the Brewers.

Championship
2. Queef Monster vs. 5. Mr. Hands’ Team
In a rematch of last years Semis, Queef Monster avenges his unfair defeat and prevails as League champion!!! Not sure why, but it happens!

1. Poo Taste Fart Tart vs. 3. Blow My Meat Whistle
I don’t really care who wins, but my intuition (read: hope) says Trevor!

As you probably can tell, my predictions are based off of countless analytical calculations I can make in my head in the blink of eye. They have absolutely nothing to do reckless guess and supreme desire. Absolutely nothing.

Finally, here’s my last point. I don’t like Quality Starts as a fantasy statistic. Before I go further, I must say this is entirely self-serving. Entirely. Now, moving on, I will start by saying QS is logically a great stat for fantasy baseball. It benefits the pitcher whose team might be subpar and who keeps getting shafted in the Win column, a la Matt Cain in prior years. This logic does transfer somewhat to reality as the team with by far the best pitching staff, Fart Tart, leads in this category by 3 QS. After that, though, logic goes out the door. The teams with the worst and second-worst pitching staffs, Poo Train and Tomahawkcock, are in second and third. Salad Tossers, who has an average pitching staff at best, is in fourth. My team with the third best pitching staff, judged primarily through era and whip, is in 9th. This has led me to believe that Quality Starts benefits the truly great pitching stuff (such as, admittedly, Fart Tart’s) that can start every pitcher, every start with very good results. But the fantasy manager who is forced to pick matchups because his pitching is good, but certainly not great, is fucked over by QS. A good fantasy manager with a good rotation could potentially compete in wins, era, whip, and strikeouts, but lose severely in QS. While a shitty manager who has okay pitchers, but doesn’t pick matchups so he starts every pitcher every time, might lose wins, era, whip, and strikeouts, but could win QS by virtue of the sheer volume of starts he has for his pitchers. This is annoying. Basically every time I look at the stats that show that Tomahawkcock with his 4.58 era (next closest is 4.15) and 1.40 whip (next closest is 1.35) has 19 more quality starts than I do (95 to 76), I nearly go into epileptic shock. Watch me lose the championship by only QS. That’s like someone losing the championship on double-plays or errors.

It’s not just the last part; this entire post is basically self-serving. Still, to the playoffs my friends!