Not Bullish. Not Bearish. Definitely Thuggish: An (Almost) Decade of UPL Hijinks

With the close of the Twenty-Aughts, the UPL has evolved from a haphazard grouping of random chumps into... well... uh... maybe we haven't evolved from a membership standpoint. But we've been innovating quite a bit. In both baseball and basketball, we've moved from a season-long points league, to a roto league. And this has probably been for the better, since our points leagues were always largely decided 2/3 of the way through (if not earlier). Now, with the roto format, we've had some incredibly exciting finishes the last few years, with a number of ties.

In football, we've always been a little ahead of the curve with our stats, and have been pushing the limits of roster complexity by having additional flex positions and allowing return yardage. And recently, we have added individual defensive players to the point where now we have 4 starting defensive players, in addition to a team defense. We haven't started drafting punters, but you better believe that as soon as Yahoo! adds that feature, we'll be figuring out what round we should draft Shane Lechler in (probably the 9th, if you had to know it).

Interestingly, leagues like this pretty much run themselves, once you have things up an running. And with as much momentum as we've gained in the 9 years since our start-up back in 2001 Baseball, we've been able to add on some innovations, including this space. The UPL Blog has been a fun little project, which we've undertaken (and are always looking for more authors!). But I think that need for a space like this really took off with the idea that we were going to try to extend the reach of the fantasy season by going with keeper leagues in baseball and basketball. And with any keeper league, you have to figure out new rules, like how you will handle keepers, the draft order, etc. The UPL Blog has let us make these announcements, even when Yahoo! doesn't have things ready to go. Part of the innovation has been things like doing a UPL Draft Lottery prior to the basketball season, which was a successful venture. I believe that we'll carry it over into baseball.

As much as I love thinking about how we've been able to improve the UPL, and having some ideas of where we want to go forward, that's not really why we play the game. At the end of the day, it's all about the jewelry.

Sport	Year	Teams	Champ	2nd	3rd	4th
Baseball	2001	10	'90Reds	O.N. Thugs	IamJabrone	Westy
Baseball	2002	?	O.N. Thugs	?	?	?
Baseball	2003	11	O.N. Thugs	IamJabrone	Cheeseheads	SuckCurveballs
Baseball	2004	14	O.N. Thugs	Champaign Toast	Westy	GenEric
Baseball	2005	12	O.N. Thugs	IamJabrone	Westy	SuckCurveballs
Baseball	2006	11	Phatsnapper	Westy	O.N. Thugs	IamJabrone
Baseball	2007	11	O.N. Thugs (tie)	'90Reds (tie)	IamJabrone	Milwaukee
Baseball	2008	12	IamJabrone	O.N. Thugs	SuckCurveballs	JimmyDix
Baseball	2009	12	'90Reds	Westy	IamJabrone	O.N. Thugs
Basketball	2002	9	O.N. Thugs	Tweedledumm	C-Lauff	SuperFriends
Basketball	2003	12	O.N. Thugs	Westy	3 Men & Afro	SuckBasketballs
Basketball	2004	9	Westy	O.N. Thugs	Sparty	Groove
Basketball	2005	7	Westy	O.N. Thugs	Milwaukee	Groove
Basketball	2006	8	O.N. Thugs (tie)	IamJabrone (tie)	SuckBasketballs	Milwaukee
Basketball	2007	10	O.N. Thugs	IamJabrone	chowtime	Westy
Basketball	2008	12	O.N. Thugs	IamJabrone	chowtime	Westy
Basketball	2009	11	O.N. Thugs (tie)	Stephan (tie)	Sparty	IamJabrone
Football	2001	9	I Giocatori	ChrisF	Dino	Panda Bears
Football	2002	12	I Giocatori	Westy	IamJabrone	GenEric
Football	2003	14	O.N. Thugs	Tweedledummer	I Giocatori (tie)	Tweedledumm (tie)
Football	2004	14	Tweedledumm	Tweedledummer	Cheeseheads	O.N. Thugs
Football	2005	14	I Giocatori	IamJabrone	O.N. Thugs	Yvonne
Football	2006	10	I Giocatori	O.N. Thugs	GenEric	IamJabrone
Football	2007	12	JimmyDix	O.N. Thugs	I Giocatori	Dino
Football	2008	12	IamJabrone	Stephan	I Giocatori	O.N. Thugs
Football	2009	14	Dino	Stephan	O.N. Thugs	IamJabrone

First of all, does anyone remember anything from 2002 Baseball (# of teams, who finished 2nd, 3rd, etc.). Yahoo! doesn't have any records of that year. All I remember is that the O.N. Thugs won, and it was was the last year we did a points league, because for the 2nd straight year, the season was over by mid-July, and people stopped checking their team. And I seem to recall Greg finishing in the bottom half, and not being able to follow-up his inaugural victory. If you could help me fill in the blanks, that would be great.

In any case, some interesting things to look at here. First of all in the roto leauges, the UPL has a definite Thuggish flavor, with the O.N. Thugs taking home 6 out of 8 championships in hoops, and 5 out of 9 in hardball. But that isn't to say that there isn't some competition in each. In both sports, there are repeat champs ('90 Reds with 3 baseball titles and Westy with 2 hoops titles). And those O.N. Thugs victories weren't all clean victories (a baseball tie w/ '90 Reds, and 2 hoops ties, one with IamJabrone, and one with Stephan). And recently, there have been some rumblings in baseball, where the '90 Reds have been champs 2 out of the last 3 years, and where IamJabrone has actually outperformed the O.N. Thugs two years running. In fact, the O.N. Thugs - IamJabrone interactions has actually started to look like a rivalry, with the two franchises going toe-to-toe on a regular basis, including this year's hoops rivalry which is essentially a dead heat between the two teams halfway through the season.

Perhaps the most impressive feat is in UPL Football, where resident savant I Giocatori has managed to win 4 times, with no one else able to claim more than one title. In fact, UPL Football has had the most diversity with 6 different champions over 9 seasons with 4 of those champs having never won a UPL title in another sport. Just for the record, we've had 4 champs in baseball and 2 in hoops.

We've had some unlikely champions throughout the UPL history. There was 2007 Football, where UPL newcomer JimmyDix not only rolls through the regular season as the #1 seed, but actually verifies things by rolling through the playoffs, en route to a championship in his first UPL experience, making UPL regulars like Schultzie and GenEric throw up in their mouths. There was 2004 Football, where Tweedledum and Tweedledummer played in probably the most unlikely football final in UPL history, with Tweedledum taking home the title, leaving Tweedledummer in 2nd place for the 2nd year in the row. This was a far cry from the Tweedledummer who neglected to look at the scoring rules, and decided that defense wins championships, and picked the Pittsburgh Defense in the 1st round back in 2002. And of course there was 2006 Baseball where Phatsnapper somehow took home a title, sandwiched between 17th place finishes every year before that and every year since.

And there have been some amazing wins by familiar faces. Like in 2006 Football, where I Giocatori backs into the playoffs with the 8th seed, at 6-7, only to punk Westy in the opening round, and then squeeze out two tough W's over the Jabrones and Thugs to win his 4th ring. There was 2007 Baseball and 2009 Basketball, where the O.N. Thugs were left for dead, lingering in 10th place or so at the half-way point, only to loudly storm back for championships, and betting on themselves along the way. In fact, the O.N. Thugs bet the Jabrones a dollar that they would finish ahead of them in 2007 Baseball. At the time, the O.N. Thugs were mired in 10th place, and the Jabrones were in 1st, so it appeared to be a sucker's bet, against the O.N. Thugs. What happened was a ridiculously rise into first, which resulted in the UPL Bill, which is signed by the Jabrones, carries the name of every UPL Baseball champion, and is currently the only UPL trophy. A similar story happened in 2008 Basketball, when the O.N. Thugs were decimated by injuries in the first half of the season, but managed to stay afloat long enough to wait for their players to get healthy and make a run at the title. Interestingly, in both instances, the O.N. Thugs actually managed to take a clean lead in the league, only to give back a half point on the last day of the season and end up in a tie for 1st.

As we open up the Twenty-Teen's, the UPL looks as strong as ever, with a healthy 14 team football season, and two healthy keeper leagues in baseball and basketball. Things should be exciting, as we move into decade #2 for the UPL.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)

The Sins of the Past

Recently, longtime UPL owner Jeff posed the question of why his team was so bad:

Jeff: Why does IamJabberjaw's team suck so badly? Please, help me!

Naturally, this had to become a UPL post.

My thoughts:

Dear Jeff,

My friend, you are paying for sins of years past. Well, last year's, past...er... sins... yeah.

Last year, you got really, really unlucky with your first 2 picks (Brand and Baron Davis). Your 3rd round pick was Calderon, who was traded for Okeafor, who you ended up not keeping (but has been pretty decent this year). Your 4th pick was J-Rich who has been really disappointing in PHX. Your 5th pick was Okur, whose numbers have also been way off the last 2 years. Your 6th pick was Biedrins, who you've since let go, and who was running the Nellie Curse. And your best draft pick was Derrick Rose in the 8th, who you traded for Eric Gordon (a good keeper) and Michael Beasley (who you didn't keep, probably rightly so).

So not only did you get unlucky with the top two (who you need to anchor a team), you're 4th, 5th, and 6th picks have underachieved. And you probably made a bad trade moving D-Rose.

This means, that coming into this year, you were already stuck behind the 8-ball. Normally, when you fill up your list of 8 keepers, there are a couple players that are absolutely obvious (think, LBJ, Wade, Kobe, Dirk, etc.) - the guys who would be drafted in the first 2 rounds of a non-keeper league. You didn't have any of those guys, so you started at a huge disadvantage. Instead, you had about 10 guys who would have been picked between the 4th and 10th round of a non-keeper draft. That makes it really hard to win this year.

But there's good news. You have a chance, moving forward, to right the ship.

Brooks, Ariza, and Landry have been pretty good for HOU, especially w/ them giving up on T-Mac. That's a good thing for you. Brooks and Ariza probably stay really strong when Yao comes back, though Landry's value next year may go down. Count this was a win.

You made a strong trade for Joakim Noah, who's looking to be a 3rd round pick in non-keeper drafts next year, and is probably your best big. This also counts as a win for you. Your other strong big is Al Harrington, who puts up nice numbers in the Knicks system (18.5 and 6, with some 3PM). So he alleviates pressure on your 3PM. In fact, you have a lot of excess 3PM to trade. You should definitely try to do that.

Eric Gordon's proving himself to be a legit pro, and is a good 3PM guy. That's also good. He's a keeper. Now, you also have a couple other players who are a lot like Eric Gordon, in fantasy terms (Ben Gordon, J-Rich, Jamal Crawford). Can you get any value from these guys? Ben Gordon's the most reliable of the bunch, but is stuck in a strange Detroit situation. J-Rich has a ton of upside, but is the 3rd or 4th option in PHX (behind Nash, Amare, and probably Grant Hill) Crawford is playing well, but comes off the bench.

You've got a couple bigs you have to make decisions on in Nene and Okur. And similarly, you have to figure out what to do with Bibby, Harden, and Morrow.

Now, it should be clear where your rosters is anchored: Eric Gordon, Joakim Noah, Aaron Brooks, and probably Trevor Ariza. The efficiency is suspect, but your hustle stats will be solid. This leaves 4 slots, give or take, and you still need to fill with keepers. The thing to remember is that when you're drafting next year, you're drafting no worse than a 9th rounder. So, the goal is to get as many players who should be 8th round picks or better.

This means, that as the season progresses, players may get dropped because they're hurt. You need to be all over that (for example, if someone like T-Mac or Yao gets dropped, they're great to have on your roster, since you have a ton of flexibility). This also means that you should continue working the trade game, big time. There are definitely teams that could use some 3PM, in the form of Ben Gordon, J-Rich, Crawford, Okur, or maybe even Bibby. You should target younger players with high ceilings, even if they haven't achieved a ton, yet. Basically, you need to hit a home run or two, and it doesn't really matter that much if you strike out. Guys like Gordon, Crawford, etc. will be available in the draft next year.

I think that overall, the question that anyone has to ask themselves is if their team is building or if their team is contending, because there are two very different strategies for these two scenarios. (Note, there could very well be more than these 2 modes, but let's keep things simple for now). If you're building, your goal is to maximize the number of obvious keepers on your roster. If you're contending, you're shopping for parts. So, if you're a builder, then you need to market your parts faster than the other builders, and you need to look for potential keepers in return.

For example, if you offer the Jabrones, say, Ben Gordon for Gilbert Arenas or Anthony Randolph, he may look you up on that. Your roster is in a much better spot to take on a question mark than his is. He's looking to win a title (however misguided that attempt is), so he may sell a piece of the future for a shot now, if it gives him roster flexibility. Take advantage of that.

Best of luck in your future endeavors.

Warmest regards,
-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)