Baseball
Fantasy Baseball Recap: Week Two (Apr. 10 – Apr. 16)
I would like to say that having your two mainstays at shortstop for the year getting hurt in the same week at the start of the 2023 season is NOT […]
I would like to say that having your two mainstays at shortstop for the year getting hurt in the same week at the start of the 2023 season is NOT the way to begin a redemption tour campaign. O’Niel Cruz is out for about four months and has been placed on the 60-day IL. Whether or not I keep him on my roster taking up an IL spot is up in the air. Also just bad for baseball seeing how he was one of the most exciting players in baseball. Let’s toss on Tim Anderson being out 2-4 weeks with a left knee sprain and some person issues. Oh, and later in the week Orlando Arcia, my third string shortstop, will be reevaluated in 10-14 days with a micro-fracture in his hand.
Now the positive mindset would be that injuries are a part of the game and they are going to happen. May as well try and deal with them now instead of later in the year when it might be more stressful or have more dire consequences.
Here we go, onto week two. I am going up against Billy Drakely who had the unpleasant honor of going up against Vaghi in week one.
WEEK TWO: April 10 – April 16
We need to hit the cages on team Where Did You Verdugo. Nobody to got for me this week. Based off my rough calculations, I only had two batters hit at over .333 for the week when i had them playing. Cedric Mullins continues to do beautiful work for me with seven hits in 21 plate appearances, and Midweek pickup J.P Crawford had six hits in 13 at-bats. My top hit-getter was Ozzie Albies with eight hits. He also had two home runs. He was not the problem. Billy had two players with double-digit hits; Bobby Witt Jr. (who I really wanted in the draft) had 12 hits, and Alec Bohm cracked 11 base knocks. Those two picked up for the slumping Julio Rodriguez who only had four hits in 25 at-bats. Can I petition for walks to be a category? I had 42 fucking walks.
In the runs category, Billy and I tied. 37 runs apiece. Marcus Semien had a matchup high seven runs while Witt Jr., and Ty France each had six. Who is Ty France? I will admit I have never heard of this person before. I had a bit more of the balanced approach with the runs scored, having Paul Goldschmidt and Crawford each cross the play six times. In terms of runs left on the table with bench players, Billy may be kicking himself because he had two up on me, both of which came on Sunday with Wilson Contreras and Christian Walker. To madd a bit more salt into the wound, Billy played Ketal Marte in his utility spot, and he was not in the lineup on Sunday for Arizona.
Home runs. Frankly, both Billy and I deserved to lose. Three blasts apiece. Kinda disgraceful. A pathetic performance. Billy’s blasts came from Bohm, Semien and Alejandro Kirk. My round-trippers came from Juan Soto (WHO WENT 2-FOR-21 THIS WEEK. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?) and Ozzie Albies (he had a pair of them).
This was a boat race in RBIs. Absolutely no shot for me to win this one what so ever. Billy had five players with five or more RBI during the week, led by NINE from Alec Bohm. Meanwhile, I had three with over five, and my team leader was Ozzie Albies with seven.
Soto not getting on base, also side Cruz and Anderson getting hurt, did not do do me any favors in the stolen base category. They had nine stolen bases for me last week. This week I had six total stolen bases. Billy took home the dub and took care of business with eight stolen bases. Have of those came from Bobby Witt Jr.
On base percentage. I didn’t have a bad week with a .3582, but Billy had an ever better one with .3765. I didn’t love that my team have 42 walks and still didn’t win this category. Billy only had 25 walks, not very patient at the play but still enough. He had the second best team OBP of the week. France got on base at a .500 clip, and Bohm, Kirk, and Witt Jr. all got on base at over a .450 mark. I had a pair of stars with Mullins (.517) and Crawford (.632), but they could not carry the anchor that was Jordan Walker who had a .154 on base percentage in 26 plate appearances.
Garrett Whitlock. My Guy. After a terrible first start during the week, Whitlock bounced back with one run outing and over his two starts he had 10 strikeouts. Then there is Kevin Gausman (who I put on the record as my Cy Young pick) had 11 strikeouts against the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers offense stinks. Start everyone against the Tigers. Nola, Joe Ryan and Hunter Greene each had 10 strikeouts, but only one other player to get more than five strikeouts.
Billy takes the Wins category. He tied for the best of the week with four other people. It was a lopsided week in terms of the Wins category. You either had five wins and did okay, or you had three or less and you lost. I was in the three category.
I GOT A SAVE. I GOT A SAVE! Last week I had zero, this week I get two. And I win the category. I will take it. Billy got on save from Milwaukee’s Devin Williams, and I got both of mine from Seattle’s Paul Sewald. Really struggle in this category. It is going to be a struggle all year.
If you look at the PDF that is attached later in this blog, Billy and I were racing for the WOAT with this category. Just bad all the way around. Billy had the second worst ERA with 4.263 and I had the shittiest with 4.333. Ryan Pressely had an 81.00 ERA for me but that in 0,1 innings. I want to thank Freddy Peralta for really screwing the pooch with a 9,00 ERA as my final starter of the week. Aaron Nola tossed over 11 innings for Billy which one would think is good for Billy, but his 4.63 ERA was not expected.
How is it that I lose the Wins category and but win the WHIP category. I do not totally understand how this is possible. Billy was really let down by Alek Manoah and Scott Barlow who both had over a 2.00 WHIP. Yikes. The only player I had that had over a 2.00 WHIP was Pressley who pitched only one third of an inning. With that being said, it was only a 0.008 difference. I got lucky in some respect. I an acknowledge that.
MVP goes to Bobby Witt Jr. of the Kansas City Royals. His six runs scored was huge picking up the pace for other players who slacked, and he led Billy’s team with four stolen bases. A .464 on base percentage lifted up his team’s mean in the category as well.
The Least Valuable Player is a little tricky for Billy. He won almost all the hitting categories, so I looked at pitching to see where he could have improved. There was a slight lean toward Aaron Nola, and while he wasn’t good, Billy still won the ERA category. So with that being said I am going to go with Julio Rodriguez of Seattle. He had only four hits in six games against the Cubs and Rockies. If he gets on base more he could score and lift Billy even another category.
Cedric Mullins is my team’s MVP for a second straight week. He batted .333 with seven hits and had two runs scored with six runs batted in and eight walks. Mullins also let my team with four stolen bases. He is going to need to carry that category with Cruz & Anderson on the IL.
It is not a hard choice for me as to who is going to be my Least Valuable Player. My found round draft pick Juan Soto went 2-for-21. He did walk eight times and have an OBP of .345 which is for sure not the lowest on my team, but for a potential MVP to begin the season batting .172, and be batting .095 over his last seven days; that is just atrocious.
MVP TRACKER: Mullins (2)
LVP TRACKER: Casas (1), Soto (1)
WEEK TWO SCOREBOARD
- Michael Kenney texted me to look out for a Sunday collapse. Turns out he was exactly right. Ouch.
- DiMaio winning all the hitting categories and losing all (yes, there is a tie) all the pitching categories is a funny visual.
- I am going to love it when there is a full checkerboard pattern. That is going to be like a scoragami.
WEEK TWO CATEGORY STANDINGS
WEEK THREE MATCHUPS
- We have two matchups with teams with losing records, and two with matchups of winning records. The only middle tier contest is between Huntley (7-14-1) and Kenney (11-9-2).
OVERALL STANDINGS
- Banana Slugs still remains atop and only expands his lead.
- Big Smokey moves up to second and Johnny Baboon slithers his way up to third. Both teams move up the rankings but are more games behind Vaghi.
- Stanko slips down to fourth place while MJK sits in fifth after being third the week prior.
- Bove moves down two spots and The Glas Menagarie moves up one.
- CG Shutpiece movies up from the gutter from 10th to eighth as Huntley stays preserved in ninth place and Bangarang Rufio shifts to 10th after winning just three categories again.
CATEGORY LEADERS (Including Ties)
- Kenney (4) – Hits, Runs, Home Runs, Stolen Bases
- Michaud (3) – Home Runs, Runs Batted In, On Base Percentage
- Vaghi (3) – Saves, Earned Run Average, Walks/Hits Per Inning
- Eric (2) – Strikeout, Wins
- List (2) – Hits, Saves
- Stanko (2) – Stolen Bases, Wins
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