Edwards Kings Weekly Blog

[Sack]

Wayne, did you really bench Wiggy in that home run haven known as Citifield?

Sorry, bro........enjoyed the read and as soon as I read about you benching Wiggy Had to drop
You a note to say that we have all been there, I feel your pain. Hang in there and thanks for
The good read as always. So, do we ever get to read a blog on that Auction squad?

[Edwards Kings]

Wayne, did you really bench Wiggy in that home run haven known as Citifield?

Sorry, bro........enjoyed the read and as soon as I read about you benching Wiggy Had to drop
You a note to say that we have all been there, I feel your pain. Hang in there and thanks for
The good read as always. So, do we ever get to read a blog on that Auction squad?

The Wiggy move was a dumb one, I grant you. As I was interacting with my family (holidays should not fall on Monday during baseball season...maybe Congress could enact a bill stating such and call it the "NFBC Act"...the President would sign it if he though it would get him a few hundred votes!), I thought to myself why would I bench Wiggy and keep Seth Smith. Unfortunately I got back to my computer too late.

I will do a write up on our auction league, though for my team the circumstances are eerily similar. Sad.

[Edwards Kings]

I am in one of the Auction Championship leagues with some great players and of course nice guys. If someone had predicted after the auction that I would be chasing Dave Clum by only a few points and ahead of Bobby Jurney by a few at this stage of the contest, I would have said "OK, I am good with that!" That is exactly where I am at and unfortunately for Bobby and Dave that means they are down in the third division with me.

During the auction, I was teasing Ken Magner because he was hoarding his money as if it were dragon's gold and he could take it home with him. Who is laughing now? Ken sits at the top with a 10+ point lead as of today and I think something like fourth in the overall. Just goes to show you that you do not have to bite on all those expensive players who are tossed out first. Matt Shepherd, Jon Stadtmueller, Jim Nicola and Rick Talley round out the top tier right now. As expected, each stat category is very tight, especially after the top slots in RBI, Runs (Ken has nice 1/2 week leads in those), ERA (Jon's ERA is just sick good), and BA (the brightest spot on Mason Favazza's team so far as he is second in this category in the overall auction standings). Still a lot of movement yet to come especially given the potentially serious injuries that were just reported.

One interesting dynamic that will play out over the year is the FA money situation. There are four teams that still have $800+ bucks, including Jon who has been stingiest of all (c'mon...cut loose Jon...Cody Ross is begging for a $200+ bid ). There are seven teams with less than $400 left, including three of the top five. The rest of us sit with between $650 and $700 to spend. In short, there is a lot of money left in this league (eight teams with $650+), but some of the top teams may get squeezed. No impact player will go cheap unless someone uses up a reserve slot to get them before they show up on radar. That might be tough to do as we are averaging three DL players per team.

The player with the highest winning bid on my team is Mike Carp ($89) and man does he smell like one that has been landed and left on the dock. Since I have had him in, he has had six total hits, though three of them have been HR, a category I am in serious need of. I started him this week because of the games in Texas and he does not play Monday since the brain-trust with the Mariners DHed and led-off Jaso! Nice! Anyway, of the fifteen players I have bought, eight are still on my team, some of which are closers in waiting (Benoit and Balfour), some are producing enough to keep around (Sean Rodriguez) and others are helping stink the place up.

As to my team, a lot of the same story as my Main Event debacle. My pitchers have collectively a 86% strikeout rate with a 3:1 K to BB ratio. I should be doing well, but they are giving up too many hits and too many hits that turn into earned runs. As such, my ERA and WHIP may be unsalvagable and winning percentage (W/GS 27%) probably nailed me in that category too. Dan Haren and Anibal Sanchez have been good, but unlucky (four wins in nineteen starts) and I have been able to move Harang in and out to good results, but the rest of my staff can only be viewed as grossly under-performing what I had predicted (Nicasio, Niese, Blanton). It is so bad, I have had to rely on Bartolo Colon (I picked him up in the auction for $4 mainly to get a head start on wins) way too much. I have two closers (Ok...one closer in Myers and Putz) and am hanging in there just behind the leaders.

So many injuries to my bats (Young, Youk, Longoria) hurt me early. I have two back but really need Longoria back and healthy. I have so many guys hitting way under 0.250 (Alexei Rameriz, Smoak, Espinosa, Avila), that my BA should have no where to go but up. My counting stats are all off as well. It is so bad, I could probably add them all up on fingers and toes with one shoe left on. By position, all are under-performing except catcher where Pierzynski has been excellent (Avila not so much). I still like my OF core (Justin Upton, Corey Hart, Chris Young, Dexter Fowler, and Denard Span) with it's power/speed blend. Longoria back will add to Youk and Smoak (or his eventual replacement) to help me make up some lost ground there. Alexei Rameriz, Danny Espinosa, and Sean Rodriguez could also be very balanced power/speed at the MI slots. At utility, Carp or Helton could be serviceable.

Anyway, I am not hanging up my mechanical pencil just yet. First step, achieve mediocrity.

[Sack]

Thanks Wayne, enjoyed reading the write up.

Cody Ross was a tough call this week, but like Jason Werth before him I find it hard to hold guys that are so far away from
returning. I added in the fact that the Boston OF will eventually be a crowded place when Cody returns. Hate to ever give up
on power but I was a Lorenzo Cain fan this season and will try and stash him unless I get some bad news on his rehab.

Wasn't a plan to sit and wait early, but that is how the Auction played out. I hate to participate against my good friend and partner, Jim Christie because despite what I say about him on the boards he does know his stuff and we were are always talking baseball. We liked several of the same players and didn't want to knock heads with him. One player I did like was JD Martinez. I felt he would be an inexpensive outfielder I could get for less than $5. You tossed him early and kept going. I think he went for $7 and I was upset I missed out on him. Ironic, if memory serves I think somebody else jumped in after we did our dollar for dollar battle. That turned into Jason Bay. Not good.


Tough league with a lot of great players. Be a battle, for sure. Best of luck the rest of the way and thanks for taking the time to pen something out in regard to the auctions. Players old/new that simply read your blogs should be able to take away something with each read that can be applied to better there game. Good stuff.

[Edwards Kings]

Interesting week for me in both the Main and the Auction Championship. John Danks was available in both leagues and despite the fact that there were several decent to very good pitching options out there (Hutchison, Eovaldi, etc.) I opted to win a bid on Danks. And I did. To the point I guess I overrated how my league mates viewed Danks given he is close to returning. In both leagues I bid $120+ ($123 in the Main with a $21 runner up bid, and $163 in the Auction with no other bids). Now, of course, I have buyers remorse. Not because I do not think Danks can rebound to be extremely valuable mid-rotation starter that could present some huge dividends in August/September, but because I misread/mis-guessed and wasted so much of my FA budget. I still have around $500 to play with for the year, so I am not in a bargain bin mentality yet, but still that is a costly mistake.

On Danks...as far as gambles go, he is one I am willing to take. The risk, of course, is that he is more injured than what the ChiSox are telling the newspapers. While he has had some bad luck, to date he has had trouble with the better teams (Detroit got to him on May 14th and Boston on April 27th) and while he has had some better games against the weaker opponents, he has not dominated them as he had in the past. A lot is being made of his lack of control, but in reality he has can still come within the walk rate he had 2009-2010. It is his strikeouts that are down the most. He has always been a good (not great) source of K's. Even though he missed a few starts last year, he has averaged 31 starts and 195 IP with 150+ K's (about 78%) over the last four years. But this is this year and he has only been striking out people at a 56% rate. They keep saying the "soreness" that put Danks on the DL is not the shoulder but "behind his left shoulder". I do not know if that is better, but as long as it is not elbow or directly related to the shoulder socket, I hope there is no long term arm issues. He just turned 27 and he has a proven track record of success. Hell, he still has time to improve! I hope I am not just trying to convince myself, but except for overpaying, I really like this pick up.

I also went for Lonnie Chisenhall. I thought he was the best bat available. However, my $51 bid came up $8 short. That darn Mets fan (man, those guys are uppity since that not so no-hitter no-hitter!) Glenn! I also lost out by about the same amount of bucks on David Cooper. I wasn't even the runner up as Scott Jenstad snagged him. I like how he has hit in Toronto but am not too upset over this one. His intermediate term prospects are not too good if Lind and Vladdy come up. I ended up with Andres Torres who is disappointing again. It is pretty clear that we will never see 2010 again, but since Baxter's unfortunate injury, Torres will battle for AB with Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Scott Hairston after Bay gets back. He may not be on my team long.

Even with the good weeks from Beckham, Delmon Young, De Aza, Brantley, Castro, Headley and Duda, I am still not getting much traction offensively, though the 11 SB last week was nice. My pitchers actually won some of there games (six to be exact) ad I ended up with five saves. So a decent week. That is like two in the first 8.5, but you gotta start somewhere!

[Glenneration X]

I also went for Lonnie Chisenhall. I thought he was the best bat available. However, my $51 bid came up $8 short. That darn Mets fan (man, those guys are uppity since that not so no-hitter no-hitter!) Glenn!

LOL Wayne, we Mets fans are feeling a bit uppity these days. I'm sensing some magic eminating from Queens this season.

As far as FAAB this week, I think you and I were on similar pages. I also felt Chisenhall was the best bat out there. In fact, I bid on him for all 5 of my 15-teamers where he was available and had the winning bids for three. Danks has been another target of mine since others have been dropping him and over the past couple weeks, I've managed to roster him on another pair of teams, including my other Main. Here's to hoping we both had it right this week.

Keep on fighting the good fight in this league Bud. I have a pretty strong feeling that you'll be making some noise here before all is said and done. I'm hoping I'm right there with you making noise before too long as well.

[Edwards Kings]

Period 10 Results – As far as pitching goes, I have had a little (very little but knock on wood) resurgence. After Period 8, with 16 wins, I was sitting three full weeks behind on my wins target having won a pathetic 22% of games started. In the two weeks since, I have been able to generate 13 wins (plus one from Axford) out of 19 games started. I am still way behind of course, but I was able to cut the wins deficit by 1/3. The ERA and WHIP during the same period was good (not great) 3.867 and 1.266 respectively, but given it was over a healthy 130.1 IP, it did represent some improvement in both those categories. Strikeouts continue to be my team’s strongest suit averaging 55 per period for the year. Saves were a good news (five in Period 9)/bad news (none last week). There is clearly a decision to be made here and soon.

For batting, I tracked well theses past two weeks and making up a little ground in HR, SB and RBI’s. Runs, surprisingly, are falling off a bit as I am now a full week behind my targets. RBI’s and SB are one hot week off track. For the year, I am averaging nearly 300 AB a week which is good except for my BA which is about 30 hits off target. Cumulatively it is going to become increasingly difficult to move that number substantially. Power is the big hole here. I am two weeks off pace. Having less than 10 per week in six of the first seven full weeks of stats has dug a really big hole. News has it I may be getting some help here from my DL's soon.

The decent week has moved me all the way up to 12th in my league. WHOOOO-HOOOOO!

Period 10 FAAB – This area is a true weakness in my in-season management this year. Last week I WAY overpaid for Danks (I still like having him, but valued him way more than my league-mates…a costly misjudgment). This week, I wanted to grab two of Alex Presley, Gaby Sanchez, Brett Wallace, or Justin Maxwell. I undershot on my initial and conditional bids and lost out on all of them to Glenn, Rick, and Chad. These guys are third tier guys (no, not Glenn, Rick, and Chad but the other guys) no doubt in their respective callings. They do have some upside promise and are playing full-time right now so are worth considering for sure. They could have given me some decent options. Just imagine me doing my best (but by no means good) Don Adams impression “Missed it by THAT much!” I wish I could get smart.



In any regard, I still dropped Torres (I made the mistake of watching him play and he just looks lost) who with Bay back will lose AB, and Jesus Flores whom I can no longer afford to let sit on my bench. I was actually considering Flores to play over Russell Martin, but the four HR week by the damn Yankee kind of put that to bed. As replacements, I picked up Jarrod Dyson. A nice speed source, he will be of good, but limited value during interleague play in NL parks as long as the Royals are playing Hosmer in the OF to get Butler’s bat in the game (talk about three degrees of separation!). He cost a buck like Matt Hague, who is a cheap project. Hague will likely continue to lose AB now that Alvarez is back from his mini-vacation and Presley is back up.

I also picked up Michael Friers for $5. When Estrada is back (I have heard the 26th), Friers will be the loser so I will probably on have him for a start or two. Mature for a “young” pitcher (27), he has always shown good control in the minors. This has carried over in his first three starts with the Brewers (2 walks and 17 K’s in 18 IP) though has been hittable (23). Not sure how much of that is bad luck or how much is his 89 mph fastball. He may get a start in Minnesota this week.

Period 11 Plans – Pray.

[Edwards Kings]

I screwed up my draft, mismanaged my team to date, have fallen below “Pathetic” in the third division to the “Afterbirth” division, and my blog (never exciting) has become a redundant stream of self-flagellation that does not really add much to the collective.

So instead let me tell you about a minor league game I went to Saturday. My wife and I saw the Gwinnett Braves take on the Columbus Clippers (a Cleveland Indians affiliate). It was a spur of the moment thing that ended up being a nice night even if the nice folks at Coolray Field (I HATE that name) have forgotten that it was a minor league stadium and have jacked the prices up to major league stadium rip-offs. Normally, I buy outfield grass seats ($6 I think) then hang around to see what season ticket holders didn’t show up and poach better seats. This time we decided to splurge and bought $38 per seats at home-plate level next to the visitor on-deck area slightly up the first base line. Except for the fact some “nice” parents decided to sit a hyperactive five year old next to me (had the game gone extra innings, making six would have been a 50:50 proposition for the kid), the price was worth it as I could razz the ump with relative ease.

We got lucky as two pitchers with major league experience and varying degrees of major league hype were starting, Julio Teheran and Chris Schwinden. In addition, the Braves fielded guys like Tyler Pastornicky (SS batting third), Jose Constanza (LF and leadoff), Felix Pie (RF, fifth) and even Ruben Gotay (3B eighth). The Clippers had their share too of guys who have seen major league AB's in Ezequiel Carrera, Jason Donald, Cord Phelps, Matt LaPorta, Russ Canzler, and Trevor Crowe. A nice list of guys with significant major league AB’s, failed prospects, or both.

The guy I really was excited to see was Teheran. I wanted to see him bang the strike zone and dominate. Like my fantasy teams this year, I was sadly disappointed. First, he needed 80+ pitches to get through four innings. Then the Braves pulled him with the Atlanta Jerknal-Constipation speculating that he was pulled about the same time that Beachy got hurt. I did not believe it when I read it and may have been proven right when the big club decided to bring up Jurrjens instead. Given how poorly the results have been with Jurrjens in the minors this year, I think you can take that as a real indictment on Teheran. From my amateur prospective, Julio was awful. He rarely seemed to be ahead of the hitters and when he did get ahead, he could not seem to punch them out with his “good” stuff. Given that the scoreboard speed gun is notoriously inaccurate, I would say that his fastballs were rarely breaking 92. He seemed to me to be relying more on the curve and change-up with difficulty placing them where he wanted (change-up high and the curve low and inside). The Clippers were not overly aggressive at the plate and Teheran did not seem to offer much to make them swing. He only walked two in four innings, but there were a lot of 2-2 and 3-2 counts. There were two fly-ball outs on Teheran and I think four of the hits were liners including one Canzler guessed right on and parked over the wall. Just not a good outing. Not the kid I saw last year at all.

A moment to grip about the home-plate ump. Young guy (David Soucy was his name I think) who was easy to understand and took two foul balls (one close to the nads) showing he was pretty tough. But he missed two calls badly. One was on a slow roller sacrifice bunt attempt by the Clippers. JC Boscan, the Braves catchers, walks with it up the third-base line (i.e. I could see up the third base line from my seats) and picked it up when it rolled foul. However, Soucy claimed Boscan picked it up while it was still in the chalk. BULL! That advanced runner eventually came around to score. The second really bad blown call was when the ball hit the handle of a Clipper bat and plunked Soucy in the chest on the ricochet. He did not call the foul even though everyone in the stadium heard it and could see the ball change directions. I rode him pretty good after that second one.

I know that Chris Schwinden got hammered before the Mets cut him loose and his long-term prospects are to be the nameless rabble in middle relief, but he was pretty solid this night going seven complete (102 pitches), 2:1 ground-out to fly ball-out ratio, three hits and one walk. His only mistake seemed to be allowing Constanza to get hold of one. The Braves had a couple of well hit balls the second time through the lineup, but then Schwinden calmed down and the Braves never really challenged. Not electric stuff, but around the plate and consistent.

Canzler was the only Clipper player who looked like he could hit going 2 – 4 with the dinger. LaPorta sucked swamp water going 0 – 4 with three strike-outs. LaPorta did make three excellent plays at first base, though. Crow and Carrera were also unimpressive going 0-fer.

Don’t look for Pastornicky or Gotay anytime soon. They only had one walk between them. The worst part was both were double-clutching on defense. Felix Pie is an absolute mess. I wondered why the Atlanta Braves went for Constanza when they needed another outfielder when they had Pie on the farm…now I know. Only one hard hit ball (an out) and he threw to third on the off chance to nail a runner at least twice allowing the runner on first to advance into scoring position. The second time he did it, my wife asked me if I was having fun or was I going to bring up a lung during my fit and the five year old kid next to me damn near pissed himself. I hate bad baseball.

Anyway, pretty flat game. No stolen bases but Boscan did throw behind a runner on third after a pitched ball and nailed him. A really nice play.

How was your Fathers Day Weekend?

[Edwards Kings]

Almost at mid-point of the year and my team still languishes. I have moved from draft day enthusiasm (In it to WIN it!), to the sickening realization that placing high in the overall is out (I can still win some money in my league, though!) to where I am now which is damn this sucks (being a spoiler is my only chance at a shred of dignity).

I still have enough money to mess some things up as only two people have more money than me and one of those hasn't made a move in almost three weeks. So, in the forlorn hope of improving my team to mediocrity, I have the money to grab what talent shows up either from the minors or back off the DL. I am determined that people will pay full value if they want what passes for the cream of the crop in the FA pool.

Currently six of my seven reserve roster spots are tied up with DL'd players. That is partly by design. Four players I drafted are on the DL (Longoria, Markakis, Marcum, and Dempster). I add to them two others. One is Berkman, who still wants to be back before the All-Star Break. The other is John Danks, whom I spent big bucks on under the erroneous assumption that he would be back soon. His sore shoulder turned out to be a Grade 1 sub-scapula tear, so I will not see him for about another month at least. Neither Dempster nor Marcum will come back exactly when eligible, so I will continue to cobble my pitching staff together. It had been my intent to dump saves and my closers to concentrate on starters (K's and Wins) since it will impossible to make up ground from where I am in both Saves and Wins, but not now. There are not enough decent choices out there in starters to warrant that move.

In short, I am still engaged, but now my team is a cross between the bratty little brother who is no good for nothing except being a pest and the fat kid picked last who you stuck out in right field because no one ever hit it that way anyway.

[Edwards Kings]

I have been planning to do a necropsy on the dog that has been my team since it became obvious that I would not be relevant (since April maybe) and I will do just that in a day or so.

But I wanted to share something good with my friends...I have just signed an offer letter...I am employed again as of next Monday! Not that I was ever worried (yeah..right!), but you know the old saying about wrestling a gorilla? About how you cannot quit when you get tired, only when the gorilla gets tired? Well, it feels like that gorilla has been on my shoulders for a long time and he finally found something else to play with.

Anyway, have a cold one in honor of my good fortune over the next few days. I know I will.

[Likewhat17]

That's awesome news Wayne, congrats!

[Glenneration X]

Congrats Wayne, that's great news and I'm very happy for you and your family.

As far as your team, injuries, bad luck, and an underperformance or two may have left it short of what you had hoped, but whether you finish in first or last, you always play with the same level of class. It was a pleasure meeting you in March and a true honor and challenge to go against you in this league.

Thanks for the blog, it's always a great read. See you next year Bud.

[Edwards Kings]

As I was watching “Into the West” over the weekend a week or so ago, I was struck by on the characters, Growling Bear. He provides counsel and prophecy to one of the characters as a departed elder-turned spirit guide. We have those, too, here in Georgia. Spirit guides I mean. However, since the Trail of Tears during the time of Andy "By God" Jackson, our spirit guides are, shall we say, second string. For example, my spirit guide, Bubba, is not quite as imposing or dignified as Growling Bear is. It might be his comb-over, blood-shot pop-eye, tattoo that at one time might have said “Mary” but for the world it looks like “Murray” now, or the fact that his Slim Jim and MD 20/20 stained wife-beater that he wears doesn’t quite cover up the extra hundred or so pounds that followed him from this world to the next. And I never knew that spirit guides could smell. Evidently personal hygiene has never been Bubba’s strong suit.

Anyway, last March, I showed Bubba my roster. He read the list, cocked the eye-brow over his pop-eye, belched (I swear I got the distinct smell of pickled eggs) and said in his time-tested, venerable manner:

"Damn Slick, whose shoe did you scap this one off of! You are so screwed!"

Turns out Bubba was so right. I am not going to do a complete analysis of what went wrong. Just whine a bit here and then look forward to next March. So, Wayne's whine's are:

1) I wanted to lock up three closers initially (perhaps one early and two more in the middle rounds), but decided due to the how I thought things were breaking to burn two top 10 draft picks on solid slingers. John Axford (7th) and Brian Wilson (10th) ended up netting me zilch. I avoided all of the expensive early bidding on closers-du-jour, but never approached consistent save production. I went with one guy picked out of the FA pool for most of the year (Jannsen) then all starters.

2) My first three starters were "Mr. Consistency" Dan Haren (4th), "Mr. No Better Arm in Baseball" Josh Johnson (6th), and Shaun Marcum (11th) . If you are looking for about 45-50 wins, 550 K's, 3.500ERA and 1.225 WHIP or something similar out of your first three starters, these were not the guys to do it. Injuries and inconsistency were all these guys had to offer. Both the Angels and the Fish spent alot of money of free agents and neither even made the playoff's, which certain hurt the win category.

3) Evan Longoria as my first round pick hurt. He was out from late April to August. I never could replace his production.

4) Jason Werth and Nick Markakis as my first two outfielders. I needed rebounds and balanced productivity and all I got was an Abbott and Costello routine.

5) I really thought I had stolen some late thunder in Lucas Duda. Rather than a big bang, all I ended up with was a New Year's Eve party favor.

The list really goes on. Pedroia did not give me 2nd round points. Starlin Castro came out well but was really not worth the 3rd round pick. In short, outside of Montero as a decent catcher in the fifth round, my whole top 10 rounds were pretty much mediocre to horrible.

So what about next year? I seem to say that a lot.

I haven't worked out too much on my strategy yet, but initially I still want to get three closers. The cost in the draft will be high, but it seems to free up so much FA money not having to get into those silly early season bidding wars it just seems logical to me.

Meat, meat, and more meat. Even if it costs BA, I want those knuckle draggers who hit homeruns and are in the middle of powerful line-ups early.

Get speed late. Look at guys like Everth Cabrera, Rajai Davis, Ben Revere. Don't want to build a team around them, but 35+ steal guys are available later than you might expect.

We are still in a pitching era it appears. At least two of my top ten picks will be starters, but I probably will not take one prior to the fifth round. Just too volitile.

One of the few pitching targets I came close to hitting was K's. Keep targeting the high power arms.

I was all about rebound candidates this year it seems. Those are good targets, but try not to make them such a focus.

Young blood late. I have a habit of picking mult-posistion utility types to sit my bench. I want to gamble more on June impact players.

Anyway, I will probably get into the real prep swing in a month or so. I hope I do better next year. I want to make Bubba proud.

[Oaktown]

Enjoyed the blog Wayne, was fun to read it being in your league. See ya in March.

[Edwards Kings]

Enjoyed the blog Wayne, was fun to read it being in your league. See ya in March.

Thanks Scott! You had a great year and I hope to lock horns with you again in the future (with me showing a bit more game).

[MadCow Sez]

Nicely done as always, Wayne. Looking forward to catching up in Vegas, 2013.

[Edwards Kings]

Nicely done as always, Wayne. Looking forward to catching up in Vegas, 2013.

You bet, Dan. Already got the count-down clock going.