Week 12 Review 2009

Ryan Howitzers DEF Brain Freeze 5-3-2

It’s uncanny at this point. I know Blog’s been kind of harping on the luck of the Howitzers, but how else are these wins explained?? RH won average batting .269. He won ERA with a 4.22. He won WHIP with a 1.55! Those numbers simply are not normally winning numbers. There’s certainly some jealousy here. Regs put up an ERA of 2.75 and a WHIP of 1.28… and lost both. Bad wins happen all the time in fantasy, just like in poker. In both games there is only so much you can control, the rest is up to… chance? luck? voodoo? Whatever it is, Ryan Howitzers has it in spades. Just look at Kevin Millwood’s season for confirmation. This win puts RH % points ahead of Brain Freeze for first place in the CAN division. Brain Freeze went 0-4 with spot starters this week watching Mazzaro, Braden, Cahill and Pineiro all shockingly stink out the joint; hence the bad ERA and WHIP wins for RH. BF also saw 3 of his 4 closers post ERA’s over 13. For those scoring at home, that’s not good. Remember when Evan Longoria was the next Mike Schmidt? Well, here are his numbers for the last month: 7-3-8-0-.221. Not quite elite material. He’s still ranked 30th for the season, but only 769th for the month, and 1215th for the week. News Flash: BF is really going to need April Evan to come back if they’re going to try to make noise in the 2nd half.

Stud of the Week: Not a whole lot of offensive studliness here… do we give this to a closer (Mo) or a one start starter (Yo)? We’ll go with Gallardo: 1-0-1.17-0.91-10.57

Dud of the Week: There were so many bad pitchers here… Robby Cano was awful, but his 1 SB was very useful to BF… We’ll go with Russell Martin for seasonal disappointment: 2-0-0-0-.238

Karma Kameleons DEF Jobu’s Hats for Bats 9-1

Here are two numbers for Jobu to chew on. 4-16. Jobu has played KK twice since skunking them in week one, and Jobu’s record since against KK has been 4-16. That means, despite losing the first meeting 0-10, KK wins the season series against Jobu 16-14. That’s kind of remarkable. This comes one week after Jobu throttled the mighty Swine 8-2. Jobu is clearly allergic to momentum. In week 12 Thor was only slightly above human, instead of immortal… and look at what happens. Karma has found pitching gold from Zach Duke and John Danks. That’s just nuts.

Stud of the Week: As Jobu clearly recognized, Aaron Hill went off: 7-4-8-1-.346.

Dud of the Week: I know you can’t expect awesomeness from the catcher position every week, but if Jobu gets one run from his C, it changes the score: Yadier Molina: 0-0-1-0-.200

Snot on the Ball DEF Regulators 6-4

As Snot has pointed out, this makes 7 lossless weeks in a row for the team that was supposedly punting 2009. They have mailed miserably in that regard, so… na na na na na. This win puts Snot ½ a game out of the #5 seed, and if the week 13 scores hold up, Snot will have it... taking it away from Regulators… who are the most mediocre, vanilla, boring team ever. Snot is the same team that has moved Cruz, J-Up, Ethier, Street, Holliday and Lind for, essentially, picks. Yet they still have lost only 9 offensive categories since week 4. Catch that: Out of 45 offensive contents since week 4, Snot is 32-9-4. By comparison, Swine is 37-8 in the pitching categories during that same time period. The big difference is, of course… Swine has been trying to win this year. Snot can attribute their 09 success to 2 things: 5 uber-stud, top 10 players, and the impatience of other teams. Morneau, Wright, Utley, Braun and Lincecum are awesome. Put them on Bounty Hunters roster and even they would be .500. But Snot has been able to snatch up the roster fodder of teams like Regs and Jobu and turn them into functioning fantasy options. Jose Lopez… JJ Hardy… Ricky Nolasco…CJ Wilson… Juan Rivera… for some reason these guys suffer through career long slumps on other rosters, but perform like HOF’ers on Snot’s roster… oh… and he has 5 #1’s next year… Huzzah…

Stud of the Week: Snot won SB by 1 and HR by 1… Ladies and Gentlemen… Adam LaRoche’s week 12 line: 6-2-5-1-.458. I give up.

Dud of the Week: There really wasn’t blatant suckiness on either roster… we’ll give this to Wandy Rodriguez, who didn’t exactly help Regs compete in the pitching %’s: 0-0-6.00-1.83-4.50

Swine Nine DEF Bobz Boyz 5-4-1

A fairly competitive matchup here between #1 and #7. Blog has already documented Swiney’s recent ‘issues’, but they’re still putting up above average numbers across the board. The Boyz continue to be much more competitive since the first third of the season, but they’re going to need to get a couple of blow outs if they’re going to sneak into the playoffs… or of course they could just wait for the Regs to completely implode. AJ Burnett, remarkably, was most likely responsible for this score not being reversed. Swine won K/9 with a 9.18, beating BB’z 9.16. Burnett’s pitching line was 1-0-0.00-0.57-12.86. Good enough to edge Yovani for pitcher of the week, but not good enough to beat out…

Stud of the Week: Hanley Ramirez: 5-3-15-2-.385. Swiney still lost RBI, HR and average… which should have Swiney concerned.

Dud of the Week: Rafael Furcal, quite possibly, could stink: 2-0-0-0-.200

Legends DEF Bounty Hunters 5-3-2

The battle for VA Supremacy was riveting and amazing… or boring and uninteresting… yeah, let’s go with that one. These 2 teams are pretty much battling for last place in the CPL, and with KK’s ownership of Jobu, 8th place may be slipping away as well (FYI, the trade deadline is 8/16/09). Legends does get Manny back this week, but unless Manny can get Jimmy Rollins on female fertility drugs soon, there might not be much hope for the Legends SS to be productive in 2009. If Rollins were cut right now, would teams use a waiver position to grab him? Probably… but it’s not nearly as automatic as it would have been a month ago. As for Bounty Hunters, another week, another L. Blog has been there/done that. Best of luck down the stretch.

Stud of the Week: A-Rod helped Legends tie HR and win RBI by 3. If A-Rod can maintain his momentum from this week and Manny can come back as Manny, Legends may win more offensive categories than they lose the rest of the way: 5-2-9-0-.368

Dud of the Week: Wow. Just wow. Jimmy Rollins: 1-0-0-0-.000.

Manager of the Week: Kongrats Karma. You have proved it’s not so bad to drink Jobu’s Rum.

Player of the Week: Hanley Ramirez

Pitcher of the Week: AJ Burnett