An O.N.Thug's Perspective: Episode III - Eating Popcorn, While the Cheese (Sandwich) Stands Alone, Part I

This is the first of a 3-part review of the 2011 UPL Baseball season, and given the exciting finish, I'll start at the end.  In a nutshell, this is UPL Keeper Era: 3 seasons, 3 champions, 6 teams on the podium, with only 3 teams repeating podium performances.  Things have not settled like you may have figured a keeper league would.  And a lot of it was on display last night, when for the 2nd season in a row, game 162 in real-life baseball changed the fortunes of UPL Baseball.  And this is what this post is about.  But first some context.

About 6 or 7 weeks ago, Westy made a trade with Pauly, sending Craig Kimbrel to Hats for Bats, in exchange for Michael Pineda.  Most of the audience thought that it was a reasonable trade, moving a closer to get a live, young SP who had been pretty good through his first 4 or 5 months.  Rupert begged to differ, posting one of his classic messages about how he had been offering much better deals, and bemoaning the fact that Westy had settled on trading Kimbrel for a "cheese sandwich."  More on cheese sandwiches later.

The other prominent feature of the final weeks of 2011 UPL Baseball was popcorn.  Back in late June, Greg, in another of his subtle-so-as-to-not-be-subtle jabs, was commenting on how the O.N. Thugs were being uncooperative in his efforts in acquiring Clayton Kershaw, and how that it was clear that the Thugs were pushing for a Hats for Bats championship.  And before I had the chance to respond, the conversation was continued by Westy and C-Lauff, and Greg threw in this gem:

Passive-aggressive.  It's what's for dinner.  That and popcorn.

In any case, at this point, Hats for Bats were dominating the league, flying over the 140 mark.  And the O.N. Thugs were about 3 weeks into their annual comeback efforts, having moved from about 80 points up to about 95 points.  And mind you, the Thugs were in 5th of 6th place at the time (though it was better than the 7th or 8th place they were in at the start of June).  Naturally, the Thugs found reason for confidence.  And of course, there had to be a reply. 

 The latest in UPL icons: Greg enjoying popcorn, while I remind people to never get in a land war with China.

As an aside, I've been proud of how little explicit vulgarity I've been using in my trash talk. 

For the first couple months, the Thugs were publicly quiet about their 2011 team, but privately, they liked the squad.  After all, the disastrous May/June that led to the mediocre results had to be the worst-case scenario (Dunn being awful, Jeter looking old, Carpenter getting smacked around, Volquez getting demoted, Kershaw not hitting his stride, yet).  In conversations with OD and CJ, the Thugs would explain how things were trending upward, how they still had the best pitching staff in the UPL, and how Pauly was going to come back to earth, as Bautista and Weaver came back to earth.  The thought was that there was too much variance in Pauly's pitching for this to keep up.  And in these conversations, OD and CJ would just say "uh-huh" while rolling their eyes.  To paraphrase OD, "Uh, yeah.  I was pretty sure that you were talking out of your ass."

By any fair assessment, back in June, an O.N. Thugs victory would have been uber-Sisyphean.

Of course, this is how an O.N. Thug (or any other delusional person) sees the world.

But at the end of June, the Thugs went public by co-opting O.N. Thugs icon, Terrell Owens, and telling everyone who wasn't going to be involved (like Greg and Westy) to just sit back and enjoy the show (despite the fact that the Thugs well back in the standings).  But by the time September rolled around, the O.N. Thugs had moved all the way up to about 110 points, pretty much passing Greg up in the standings, to be in 3rd place.  And at the same time, C-Lauff had made a run, and was emerging as a winner in the duel w/ Pauly for first, with both teams running around 125-130 points.  So the O.N. Thugs had the task of making up 15-20 fantasy points, and jumping 2 teams.  Clearly, the O.N. Thugs had the title in the bag :-)

And amazingly enough, the picture of the UPL was sort of like this, through Game 161, out of 162, as the O.N. Thugs were in 1st place on the penultimate standings, with 123.5 points, with Pauly and C-Lauff just behind.

 Generally, in situations like this, you bet on Rock.  Paper and Scissor are generally afterthoughts.

But like Dr. Jones, the Jabrones make an epic escape, aided by two cheese sandwiches.

If you've ever played in a poorly designed head-to-head league, one of the features is the churning of pitchers.  Basically, you pick up and drop pitchers so you can use them for a given start.  Generally, a keeper league will dissuade you from doing that too much.  However, the last few days of the season end up being like those head-to-head leagues - you figure out who your keepers are, and anyone who you know won't be kept may get dropped so that you can pick up an SP to get an extra start or two in the hopes of chasing an extra W or getting a miracle bump in ERA or WHIP.  Similarly, you may start to try to find a random HR or SB with an offensive player that would hurt your OBP or SLG in the long run, but may be a quick miracle cure.  From an aesthetic standpoint, it's sort of an ugly way to win - much like hitting your opponent with a steel chair while your manager distracts the ref.  From a practical standpoint, you have to do it, because it maximizes your chances, and if you do it right, can steal you a point or two at the end of the season. 

In anticipation of the churning, the Thugs evoked some of Rupert's imagery:

Channel your inner Homer... mmm... cheese sandwiches...

Now, I have to admit that when I posted this, I knew that I had an advantage.  First of all, I was up by one W on both Pauly and C-Lauff.  And more importantly, I wouldn't get hurt by an L, as I was 3 L's behind Pauly.  So I had some room to work with.  And in fact, I sort of wanted Pauly and C-Lauff to stretch.  My logic was that the Fantasy Gods would punish anyone who was going to start a cheese sandwich, if not with an L, but at least with a bad ERA/WHIP.  And Pauly and I were dueling over both ERA and WHIP, and C-Lauff was at risk in WHIP (with, ironically, Cheeseheads).  My thought was that the churn could easily take a turn for the worst, and hang them with 1 or 2 L's (which would be worth 0.5 to 1 points), and that they could backfire in ERA and WHIP.  And the second thought that I had was that I had a guy who wasn't a cheese sandwich (Carpenter) who had a pedigree, who was on a roll in September, and who was playing in a must-win game.  I liked my chances w/out churning an starter, especially when I looked down the list.

Wade LeBlanc didn't look bad starting in SD, but the Cubs felt like the sort of team that may go off and hand a dozen runs on a team when the game is meaningless.

Ted Lilly looked reasonable, but I had bet against the D-Backs twice with Tim Lincecum, and gotten bit both times.  Basically, I didn't feel like messing with the D-Backs with the season on the line.

Christ Volstad against WAS wouldn't be terrible, but he was going up against Stephen Strasburg, who was looking solid.

And really, that was about it for me.

When I saw that Pauly got Miguel Batista, my first thought was that "Pauly's an idiot.  Miguel Batista died years ago."  But I looked closer, and it turns out that Batista was, in fact, alive, and starting for the Mets against my Reds.  My Reds who finished 2nd in the league in runs scored.  So my thought changed to, "Pauly's crazy - he's about to give me that point in WHIP, too."  It was at that point that I decided that I was going to start Volquez, as well (I did check to see if OD, who I was tied with in W, had starters going, and saw that he had 2).  I figured that I needed to give myself a chance to stay ahead of OD, in case he got a W.  That and it would be fitting for me to let Volquez atone for his fantasy baseball sins.  So I had one cheese sandwich going, and it was one that had a high ceiling.  So I felt that I was in a stronger position than either C-Lauff of Pauly with my pitching.

So the morning comes, and I roll out of bed.  I see that Volquez was pitching well, but the Reds were down 1-0.  Eh.  Whatever.  Then I notice that Volquez gave up a 2-run HR.  Uggh.  Oh well.  At least the Reds will get to Batista and punish him eventually, right?

So I get showered, and roll out to lunch.  And I see this show up on my Blackberry.:

 Sometimes there's no justice :-)  Also, Pauly had that icon before Sheen had his #DuhWinning meltdown.

Really?  And sure enough, Volquez gets stuck w/ the L, though his line of 7 IP, 3ER, 6H, 1BB, and 5K is actually pretty decent.  But at this point, my grip on ERA had slipped, so that I was percentage points behind.

And a little while after, I see this on my Facebook feed, from Tom, White Sox fan, one of Mikey's old roommates, and former UPL Football dim-wit turned finalist (Tom was the guy who didn't look at the rules and drafted Pittsburgh DEF early in the first round, presumably because "defense wins championships," and was labeled as Tweedledum [or Tweedledummer, I don't really remember] by myself).

Tweedledum (or dummer) as the bearer of bad news.

Of course, I thought to myself, "Sucks to be Greg (who owned Sergio Santos).  Sale just tossed 1 2/3 last night to get the SV.  He's young, and they're going to build up his arm strength to be a starter next season.  There's no way they're going to jeopardize that."  And then I realized that this was the White Sox we were talking about.  The same White Sox that seem to botch player development and had everything go wrong this season.  So I just had to check.  And sure enough, somehow it was Chris Sale on the mound.  At least he didn't blow out his arm (I don't think).  But the damage was done.  1/3 IP, 2ER, 2H, 3BB.  I don' t know exactly how close it would have been. But I lost a point in ERA to Pauly after the Volquez and Sale debacle, and it didn't look like I could get it back (I was then at 3.20, while Pauly was down to 3.17).  Happily, the 2 L's didn't factor into it.  And in all honesty, I probably would not have been gutsy enough to start Volquez had L's mattered.

At that point, Pauly was in first, I was behind, and C-Lauff had lost ground. I still had hope because I had other avenues to victory (namely by scoring some runs on offense, swiping a few bases, or racking up some OBP).  And there was plenty of play left, as Pauly still had one more cheese sandwich, and C-Lauff had 2 cheese sandwiches to eat.

Which set the stage for the exciting finish to the season, where the UPL championship wasn't won until the last pitch was thrown.

More on that in Episode III, part II.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Concession Stand

I think that this just wasn't my year in baseball. I have to be honest, the 2009 edition of the O.N. Thugs baseball club was just mystifying to me, particularly my offense. Coming out of the draft, I knew that my strength was going to be my pitching, but I thought that my offense was going to be good, and competitive for top end points. Boy, I was wrong. Here's what I wrote in my draft recap:

I'm planning on having my way with SV, and the rate stats. I'll need to dig up another starter or two, but should be able to compete with W, L, and K, as well. Pitching projections don't work nearly as well, when you get into the counting numbers, but the goal is to get 60 points (out of a possible 72) from my pitching.

Well, I was sort of right. I started off really slow (Harden was really bad), and then Peavy went down. But for the last few months, I've had the best pitching (rate-wise), anchored by Lincecum, Carpenter, and Kershaw. Unfortunately, I just haven't had the W's show up. Doing a quick check of my starters, it's sort of sick. If you count up the unlucky outcomes (L's or ND's when they pitched well) and subtract out the lucky outcomes (W's or ND's when they pitched poorly), it's sick. Lincecum has been unlucky 9 times, and lucky 2 times. Carpenter has been unlucky 5 times, and hasn't been lucky. Harden has been unlucky 6 times and lucky once. And since I traded for him, Kershaw has been unlucky 7 times, and hasn't been lucky. Now, I understand that there's a greater likelihood of being unlucky (since the bullpen comes in and blows it) than lucky (where your offense bails you out), but these numbers just seem incredible to me. Instead of 7 games over .500, I can't help but wonder if this collection "should" have been something like 25 games over .500 (essentially with a couple fewer L's, and with about 15 more W's). That right there is 8 points in the standings, which would have put my offense at like 62 points, and still in competition for about 5 more points. I still think that some things will work out in my favor on this end, but the lack of W's has been a killer.

But not as much a killer as my offense. Back in April, I was somewhat optimistic.

My OBP will be good - should be around .375 this year, which should put me at the top of the league. And my SLG should be around .475, which should put me in the top 3, at least. I think that I can squeeze 225 HR out of this lineup, which will make me competitive. With this team 900 R should be a given. The RBI are a little more tenuous, with a projection of 870 RBI being reasonable. With SB, my starters should net me about 80 SB, but I have the option of getting steals w/ Tavarez and Lopez. The only question is how much other offense that will cost me. The goal is to get 52 points with the first 5 categories, and then to play SB by ear, and try to cheat my way to 5 points in SB.

First the good news. My team is slow, but I had enough speed to get my way to 5 points in SB, even w/out playing Tavaras or Lopez much (both of whom have been dropped). Also, I was dead on with my prediction about OBP. I'm leading the league at .376, and that's after a bad week of offense. So far, so good. Normally OBP correlates pretty highly with R and RBI. Unfortunately, I'm currently in 5th place or so in both R and RBI, and I think that I've juiced about all of the R and RBI I can get out of my OBP. Where I've gotten killed is with my HR,
specifically with David Wright, the Thome/Delgado pairing, and Russell Martin and Nick Markakis taking a step back (rather than making The Leap). Originally, I had guessed 225 HR, which would have been roughly 3rd in the league, based on historical numbers. I'm currently on pace for about 195, and this includes the Jorge Posada acquisition, and Derek Jeter and Josh Willingham contributing more than expected. You very quickly see why my offense has disappointed.

Quick breakdown, with projected 2009 totals, as well as reasonable guesses for the players coming into the season.

David Wright actual (projected 2009 totals): .400/.459, 95R, 12HR, 78RBI, 27SB
David Wright reasonable guess 2009: .395/.525, 110R, 35HR, 115RBI, 25SB

Russell Martin actual (projected 2009 totals): .356/.338, 65R, 8HR, 55RBI, 12SB
Russell Martin reasonable guess 2009: .370/.420, 85R, 15HR, 80RBI, 18SB

Nick Markakis actual (projected 2009 totals): .350/.460, 95R, 19HR, 110RBI, 15SB
Nick Markakis reasonable guess 2009: .380/.500, 105R, 28HR, 105RBI, 15SB

Missing stats from Wright/Martin/Markakis: .004 OBP, .020 SLG, 45R, 39HR, 57RBI, 4SB

We're talking 6 points in SLG, 4 in R, 5 in HR, 3.5 in RBI. 18.5 points right there. Don't get me wrong. Jeter's made up some ground for me (maybe .001 OBP, .002 SLG, 12R, 5HR, and 10SB). And the Willingham pickup helped me out. But when you give up that much ground from your top picks, you have to get lucky late in the draft.

You'll notice that in part 2 of the draft recap, I say that the key to winning is not whiffing on your first 3 picks. Out of my top 5 picks, only Lincecum performed up to snuff. I picked Wright 1st, Lincecum 2nd, Markakis 3rd, Peavy 4th, and Martin 5th. My first 3 hitters whiffed, and Peavy got hurt. That makes it really though to win. The way to make up for it is to hit with your late round picks. I managed to get a couple of those right, big time. George Sherrill has been awfully good, but lost a lot of value after being traded to the Dodgers. And Carpenter has been one of the best pitchers this year. However, where I really needed to hit big with with Thome/Delgado, since I needed the power.

Thome actual (stats when traded - 107 Games): .372/.493, 55R, 23HR, 74RBI
Delgado actual (stats until injured - 26 Games): .393/.521, 15R, 4HR, 23RBI

A reasonable projection for the two players combined would look like this:

Thome reasonable guess: .370/.490, 80R, 30HR, 95RBI
Delgado reasonable guess: .390/.510, 95R, 32HR, 105RBI

Of course this is assuming no injuries. But that's what you always assume. Naturally, you have to adjust your plans, if you need replacement players. I've had a knack for doing well in free agency in the past, so I sort of ignore the potential of injuries, I guess...

You can certainly discount some for injuries. But to only get 2/3 a season out of the 2 of them was tough. Had I gotten the 135 games out of each of them, that may have been enough to help out the rest of the offense to make up for the lack of production from Wright/Markakis/Martin. But that wasn't meant to be.

Anyway, if I hit my goals in pitching and hitting, I'm looking at 117 points, which should put me in a spot to compete for the league this year. Granted, those are optimistic goals, but I have a suspicion that the UPL Keeper Era will have a distinct O.N. Thugs flavor.

This doesn't seem like it's going to work out. In fact, I'm looking at a 4th place finish. Oh well. I guess that the major question is to figure out if this was just me being a little unlucky this year, or if my assumptions/projections were just off. I will grant that I tend to build me teams a little on the fragile side. I definitely play to win, and figure that 2nd place is no better than last place, so I take on more risk with injury-prone players. But really, the lack of production hasn't come due to injury from these sorts of players. Oh well. Back to the drawing board... well... in a couple weeks, anyway, when it's official that the O.N. Thugs aren't going for the Roland Slam in 2009...

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

Letting the Axe Fall

Well, I guess it was inevitable, but the company I work for banned the Yahoo Fantasy Homepage (and all team pages) from access while at work. Its a frustrating situation, but given the sheer amount of time most employees were spending on the fantasy webpage I'd say it was a necessity productivity-wise. So, a state of the Union, while I watch my season finally end...

League: ....Of Doom
Team: TheJimmyDixSpecials
Record / Points: 4-11 (10th place), 1111pts (3rd highest point average)
Summary: Losing 5 games by less than 8 points was rough. This league was a victim of its early success, as the waiver wire for TE's never got better than an injured Jeremy Shockey and my TE sucked but was still necessary. Neglect and focus on my other two leagues led to me leaving Reggie Bush in despite his injury for two weeks, two losses that eliminated me from the playoffs. The motto for next year will be that less is more - especially with limited time and internet access.

League: GFL
Team: Tatum Bell's Luggage
Record / Points: 7-5-1 (4th place), 1081 (7th place)
Summary: This is my money league, so I'm especially anxious to see how this weekend turned out. Like in the UPL, poor QB selection with high draft picks plauged my team the whole season long. Unlike my other leagues, the GFL maintained a strong sense of parity and the point spread remained tight.

League: UPL
Team: JimmyDixSpecials - various
Record / Points: 6-7 (8th place), 1825 (8th place)
Summary: Whew, what a bloodbath. Unlike other leagues, a late surge and luck alone secured my spot in the playoffs. The first few weeks were doomed as it quickly became apparent that my poor drafting of Steve Smith, Matt Hasselbeck and Carson Palmer was going to hurt me fast. Picking up Kyle Orton was blatant homerism - and a desperate move that paid off. Then, when he got hurt, I (apparently) tested the patience of the Fantasy Football Gods by grabbing Tyler Thigpen and letting the newbie play. Whatever. I made the playoffs. After a miraculous run in the previous playoffs - see post from the Chairman titled "The Worst Day of the Year" - I was content to let the season end, the Jimmy Dix mirroring the overperformance and luck of the 2008 Chicago White Sox season.

I might have a chance to win it all in my money league. I need Steve Smith to have a GAME.

Fantasy Karma - In Action

The Football Gods are angry with me and extracting their vengeance for my schadenfreude musings. I'm offically 0-2 and dead last in all leagues. The UPL is the only league that I really care about, and I botched the draft as much as one can botch a draft. Steve Smith. Tom Brady. Matt Hasselbeck and Carson Palmer. Ryan Grant. LT's 20 yard games.

Guess Roland was right.

Where Baseball Players Go to Die

Piggybacking on friend and fellow Fantasy Baseball blogger, Greg and his latest post about tirades, I have a tirade, although considerably less profanity-laced than Lee Elia's, of my own I need to get off my chest.

Growing up as a Cubs fan, I undoubtedly tortured myself with all sorts of theories that tried to explain the Cubs' decades of futility. One of my favorites was that once a Cubs player was traded away from the team, he would have a career resurgence. Conversely, players that were already stars would all of a sudden hit a slump once they donned Cubbie Blue. As torturous as this exercise was, it gave me a strange sense of calm, as if I was supposed to feel better about their baseball impotence because I had a theory to explain it. I guess you have to have a sense of calm to endure the success of Dennis "The Eck" Eckersley with the A's after a few sub-par years with the Cubs, for example. I take this so far that I fully expect one-time phenom (and pitcher who is forever linked to the Steve Bartman episode in the 2003 playoffs) Mark Prior, currently trying to make a rehab comeback with the Padres, to miraculously reverse his proneness to injury, and be a Cy Young candidate just because he's not with the Cubs anymore.

Unfortunately, this theory doesn't just apply to the Cubs. I have, and others share, this same theory for my own fantasy teams (baseball, in particular) as well. One big example from this year's team is David Wright. 1st round stud and 5-stat darling, Mr. Wright Stuff, upon hearing that he was going to be traded to my team, "IamJabrone", from "Muddy Mud Skippers" immediately decided to hit a slump. Don't believe me? Check out these stats:

David Wright as a member of MMS: .311AVG, 13 Runs, 4 HR's, 19 RBI's, 3 SB's, .441 OBP and .635 SLG in 20 games.

David Wright as a member of IAJ: .220AVG, 7 Runs, 2 HR's, 12 RBI's, 1 SB, .324 OBP and .356 SLG in 15 games.

Too few data points to make conclusions you say? That might be true, but consider this: David Wright was hitting the casing of the ball in the early part of the season, but then hit a major slump which many would say he is still in. When did this slump begin? That's right, April 21st, the exact day that the trade was accepted by both managers.

Let's look at Ryan Zimmerman, the 3B who was sent in return (along with Billy Wagner)

Ryan Zimmerman as a member of IAJ: .215AVG, 8 Runs, 2 HR's, 9 RBI's, 0 SB, .240 OBP, .333 SLG in 20 games.

Ryan Zimmerman as a member of MMS: .279AVG, 9 Runs, 3HR's, 9 RBI's, 0 SB, .323 OBP, .459 SLG in 15 games.

If you don't believe it now, consider last year's trade where I should have received a slightly better end of a deal with O.D. where I receive Brett Myers (who was on the DL at the time) and Rafael Furcal for Todd Jones and someone else who I can't remember. What happened? Brett Myers moves to a closers role and proceeds to finish the season with an ERA around 5.00. And Furcal? He finishes with the worst season of his career by far. Note: Roland drafted Furcal this year who, in case you've been in a coma for the last 6 weeks, is one of the hottest players in baseball this year. There are similar stories in basketball and many others in baseball that I've managed to purge from my memory so that I can just wake up in the morning without feeling ill. You've been warned: If you're a fan of a baseball team and want to see them win a World Series, make sure that none of their key players play for a C-Lauff managed team.

However, there's another side to this story. Whereas players go to decompose and rot as members of my roster, players decide to step things up when hearing that they will become members of Roland's team. Want examples? I have plenty.

This year, Roland trades raking Aramis Ramirez to Black Sox and the day that Aramis Ramirez arrives on the Black Sox roster, he gets in the wrist and misses 3 or 4 games in a row. Pat Burrell, top 10 fantasy player for Roland at the time of the proposed trade, learns that he will be joining O.D's squad and immediately hits a 1 for 17 slump. Remember the trade that sent Paul Konerko and Brett Myers to C.J. in return for a supposedly injury-risk Albert Pujols? Konerko has been terrible and Myers has been marginal. Meanwhile, Pujols is playing very Pujols-esque and not at all like he's an injury risk. Even before these trades, Roland was probably going to have the top hitting team in the UPL this year. His pitching? On paper, not so much. Yet, he picks up unknown guys who put random letters in their unpronounceable name (see: EdiNson Volquez and Jair Jurrjens) who proceed to pitch like Johan Santana and Jake Peavy. UPL members who weren't paying any attention beware. We will not be held liable for any fantasy casualties that may occur as a result of trading with Roland.

To those of you who have read this far, congrats for putting up with this much whining on your free time. Now I have to go see whether or not Mark Prior is available. Then again, maybe not.