LABR / TOUT

[JohnP]

Greg - I can't remember if you participated in TOUT or LABR this year. If so...could you give us an update on standings? Or maybe someone else can? Just curious. Thanks.

[ToddZ]

Greg and Shawn are in both AL and NL LABR

AL LABR

NL LABR

MIXED LABR

AL Tout

NL Tout

Mix Tout

[Walla Walla]

Todd, The links were nice. But as far as the LABR leagues go STATS seems to want to charge for access. Maybe I just couldn't figure it out. Not like a lot of people follow single leagues anymore.

[ToddZ]

Sorry, links fixed -- and, a lot more people than you think still follow single leagues, though maybe not here.

[Greg Ambrosius]

Greg - I can't remember if you participated in TOUT or LABR this year. If so...could you give us an update on standings? Or maybe someone else can? Just curious. Thanks.

John, our LABR teams are like night and day. Shawn has managed that AL team to a first place standing with a nice trade of Adrian Gonzalez for Albert Pujols when Pujols' stock was at his lowest, while picking up a few closers off the waiver wire. But his $7 bid for Mike Trout was the key to this team. Heck, he wanted Adam Dunn and Alex Rios and I wouldn't let him take either guy!! If we had Dunn instead of Mark Reynolds we'd be running away with the AL LABR title.

We have extra speed to chase if needed and we might need to swing a late August deal because we lost Jonathan Broxton to the NL. That hurt. But we have a solid team and if we can hold off Nate we'll have our first LABR League title. Again, Shawn is doing most of the work, but we stay in touch and have fun analyzing the team.

Here's today's standings:

Standings Based on Stats Thru Sunday August 5
Rank Team and Owner Total
1 NFBC Greg Ambrosius 92
2 ESPN Nate Ravitz 85.5
3 Yahoo Brad Evans 78
4 Mastersball Perry Van Hook 69.5
5 Sandlot ShrinkLarry Schechter 67.5
6 KFFL Nicholas Minnix 67.5
7 Baseball HQ Dave Adler 66
8 RotoWire Chris Liss 56
9 Full Moon Sports Colton/ Wolf 54
10 Jeff Erickson 51.5
11 USA TODAY Steve Gardner 47
12 Jason Collette 45.5

Our NL team has been a mess all year long. Our big 3 of Braun, Votto, Tulo couldn't carry the offensive load and even our $8 bid of Bryce Harper hasn't been enough. Offensively we're a mess. Greinke and Kershaw and Josh Johnson also weren't enough to carry our pitching staff. Kenley Jansen was a nice closer, but we're near the bottom and have little chance of a top half finish. We're trying to get to 6th or so, but it will be tough.

Still, the Stars 'n Scrubs theory could produce 1 LABR League title this year. That would be a breakthrough, for sure!!

[CraigW]

Greg - I can't remember if you participated in TOUT or LABR this year. If so...could you give us an update on standings? Or maybe someone else can? Just curious. Thanks.

John, our LABR teams are like night and day. Shawn has managed that AL team to a first place standing with a nice trade of Adrian Gonzalez for Albert Pujols when Pujols' stock was at his lowest, while picking up a few closers off the waiver wire. But his $7 bid for Mike Trout was the key to this team. Heck, he wanted Adam Dunn and Alex Rios and I wouldn't let him take either guy!! If we had Dunn instead of Mark Reynolds we'd be running away with the AL LABR title.

We have extra speed to chase if needed and we might need to swing a late August deal because we lost Jonathan Broxton to the NL. That hurt. But we have a solid team and if we can hold off Nate we'll have our first LABR League title. Again, Shawn is doing most of the work, but we stay in touch and have fun analyzing the team.

Here's today's standings:

Standings Based on Stats Thru Sunday August 5
Rank Team and Owner Total
1 NFBC Greg Ambrosius 92
2 ESPN Nate Ravitz 85.5
3 Yahoo Brad Evans 78
4 Mastersball Perry Van Hook 69.5
5 Sandlot ShrinkLarry Schechter 67.5
6 KFFL Nicholas Minnix 67.5
7 Baseball HQ Dave Adler 66
8 RotoWire Chris Liss 56
9 Full Moon Sports Colton/ Wolf 54
10 Jeff Erickson 51.5
11 USA TODAY Steve Gardner 47
12 Jason Collette 45.5

Our NL team has been a mess all year long. Our big 3 of Braun, Votto, Tulo couldn't carry the offensive load and even our $8 bid of Bryce Harper hasn't been enough. Offensively we're a mess. Greinke and Kershaw and Josh Johnson also weren't enough to carry our pitching staff. Kenley Jansen was a nice closer, but we're near the bottom and have little chance of a top half finish. We're trying to get to 6th or so, but it will be tough.

Still, the Stars 'n Scrubs theory could produce 1 LABR League title this year. That would be a breakthrough, for sure!!

The return of Longoria certainly won't hurt matters much....

[Greg Ambrosius]

Yup, we sure have missed that power bat the last two months. His return would help.

We don't have a Fi$cher Party in the NFFC yet, but I think a Williams & Berkich party could be just as fun!!! Let me know when you have the entertainment lined up!!

[CraigW]

Yup, we sure have missed that power bat the last two months. His return would help.

We don't have a Fi$cher Party in the NFFC yet, but I think a Williams & Berkich party could be just as fun!!! Let me know when you have the entertainment lined up!!

LOL
Berkich was the center of attention to that pair of fine ladies. I 'll see what he can do to bring them and there friends back! What ever happened to the Fi$her's?

[Greg Ambrosius]

Yup, we sure have missed that power bat the last two months. His return would help.

We don't have a Fi$cher Party in the NFFC yet, but I think a Williams & Berkich party could be just as fun!!! Let me know when you have the entertainment lined up!!

LOL
Berkich was the center of attention to that pair of fine ladies. I 'll see what he can do to bring them and there friends back! What ever happened to the Fi$her's?

They still play in the NFFC, but they do both Mains Online. They returned the year after you and Mike were there with even more interesting results, but haven't been back to Las Vegas since. We all miss those fun days!! If you guys are coming to Las Vegas for live events again, stop on over to the Bellagio when you have time. It would be great to catch up again. We're no longer with Fanball, by the way!!

[Joe Sambito]

Greg,

Can we get an update? Are you guys going to bring home the gold?

[ToddZ]

The links above work

Greg/Shawn are in 3rd but only 1 pt out -- this is going to be close

[Greg Ambrosius]

Greg,

Can we get an update? Are you guys going to bring home the gold?

We have led LABR AL since early July and once had a double-digit lead. We've maintained our 93-96 point total for much of the season, but Nate Ravitz started to inch closer to us in August and then his offense exploded in September. Meanwhile, Brad Evans of Yahoo was a good 15-18 points behind in August and his offense has really exploded these last two weeks and now he's in the mix.

Heading into the week, we had 95 points and Nate had 93, with Brad at 91. Nate passed us in batting average and went to 94 points while we had 93.5 and Brad had 91. Last night we needed a win by Jon Lester to hang onto 2nd place there and when Andrew Bailey blew that Win and Brad got a win later in Seattle he tied us for the Wins total and passed us in RBIs. Nate now leads with 94 points, Brad has 93.5 and we have 93. We need a cheap win today and 3 more RBIs than Brad from losers like Pujols, Longoria, Jennings, Trout (bad finish) to move ahead of Brad in RBIs. It's not going to be easy, especially with Brad having Kuroda going today, but we'll see. It would be a bad beat to be at 93-96 points all year long and have these boys pass us for the LABR League title, but it happens. We just couldn't get enough wins to pull away and our offense stalled in September, but hopefully we have one miracle day left in us.

Should be fun and all three of us want that first LABR League title. Great season here.

In the NL we are 9th and no better. That team just never performed for us. Steve Moyer of Baseball Info Solutions has led that one from start to finish, although he was tied with Ray Flowers on Monday. Steve should hold off Ray for the title, but that's also been a great, great race.

All good fun, for sure.

[CC's Desperados]

It's seems like yesterday when I arrived in Arizona to compete with Greg Ambrosius in the LABR. I don't have a long history in the event, but I do have a long history of following it. It is an honor to play in the event and I have to thank Greg for giving me the opportunity to play with him. I think the event has gained more exposure with the addition of Sirius Radio the past two years. It really is the first event that gets your juices flowing.

I had in my head this great write how Ambrosius wins the pennant with the key transaction being a scrub player Johnny Giavotella, but some Yahoo named Brad Evans stole our moment of glory. Fantasy baseball is such a war where each player is competing for every possible point. The grind of the season sometimes isn't rewarded until the finish line.

This year's AL LABR league was set up to be a two dog race over the last six weeks of the season. ESPN's Nate Ravitz had great pitching and he made his first key move in late July when he traded Mitch Moreland and Jake McGee for Rafael Soriano. Soriano was a player we (NFBC team) could have had in May, but we were unsure if he would keep the closing job long term. We decided to acquire Jonathan Broxton for Jason Hammel which worked in our favor until Broxton was traded to the NL. Nate acquired a third closer on August 19th when he traded Jean Segura and Scott Downs to Jason Collette of Baseball Prospectus.

Nate's goal was to make up saves. It was his weakest category. His moves did work as he made up three or four points in saves. His team only had four starters over the last month, but he was able to maintain his wins and K's thanks to solid pitching by David Price, James Shields, Andy Pettitte, and Doug Fister. Nate won Andy Pettitte in free agency for $34 in mid May.

Meanwhile Brad Evans had a stud offensive team with underperforming starters. He came out of the auction with two solid closer - Jim Johnson ($9) and Chris Perez ($9). Brad quickly peddled Chris Perez and Vinnie Pestano to Wolf/Colston (Full Moon) for Tom Milone and Andy Wilk. Brad found his missing piece to the puzzle on the waiver wire when the Marlins were having their fire sale. He picked up Anibal Sanchez for $41 on July 27th. Sanchez was quickly drilled for 22 base runners and 12 runs in 8.1 inning which buried Brad even further down in whip and ERA. On September 3rd, Brad picked up Hector Santiago for $3.

The NFBC team moved into 1st place sometime in the mid summer. We held 1st place for everyday until the last weekend of the season. With two weeks to go, I knew wins were the key category for us. We were solid in wins all season, but we hit dry patch where we were struggling to win games. I spent most of the early part of September trying to block Nate from acquiring any more bats as I thought his team had risk in batting points. Looking back, I wish we would have blocked one more player. On September 3rd, I place a $2 bid on Josh Donaldson and $2 on Stephen Drew. I thought Nate had weakness at catcher and Donaldson would have been a huge upgrade. Donaldson hit .257 with 3 HR's and 12 RBI. At the time I thought I didn't have another spot for Drew. I had Johnny Giavotella at MI and I thought he would get regular at bats over the last month of the season. If we purchased Drew , we would have caught Brad in RBI.

In LABR, if you pick up a players, they have to go into your starting lineup. You can't bench a player unless he was drafted as one the original six bench players in March unless a players is sent back to the minors.

Nate had $2 left at the time and he bid $1 on Stephen Drew. We were in first place so we need to out bid him because we would lose in a tie bid. At the time, we had $5 of free agent dollars left. Over the last month, Drew hit .252 with 4 HR's and 12 RBI. Nate was trying desperately to hang onto as many offensive points as he could, but his offense wasn't the same without Jose Bautista. He caught a break when Adam Dunn was hurt and later Alejandro De Aza as DeWayne Wise gained more playing time than expected (2 HR's, 10 RBI, and 5 SB's over the last month). Over the last month Nate was able to hang onto every hitting point and he gained a couple more than expect thanks to Nick Swisher hitting .406 with 4 HR's and 15 RBI over the last 16 games of the season. I think Swisher's hot streak was the reason we lost the title.

For most of the season we were leading the batting average category. With 10 days left in the season, our team was hitting .270+. Nate's team was in 2nd at .266+. We had almost a four point edge. Over the next week, we dropped to .2675 and Nate moved to .2680. On Friday night with 6 days left in the season, we had 96 points. At the time, I still thought Nate was the only threat. I thought the league was going to be decided in the RBI and wins category.

On Saturday night when Nate passed us in batting average, Brad Evans had a killer night in RBI. He had 16 and we only had 1. Over the last month, we slowly but surely wore down Brad's lead in RBI. Heading into Saturday, we had a 7 RBI lead over Brad. At the same time, Nate was trying his best to pass Nick Minnix (KFFL) in RBI. He was behind him by 2 RBI for about three weeks. When Brad passed us in RBI and Nate in batting average, we dropped to 94 points. We were still in the lead, but the wins were extremely important.

As the pack was closing on us in wins, Nate was somehow gaining ground in wins. His team was just clicking. When Joaquin Benoit won back to back games on September 26th and 27th, I thought we were in trouble. Nate owned him and it helped push him higher in the win total. When David Price won his start on Sunday, Nate moved into 1st place. We really needed to get a couple of wins or we need to pass Nate back in batting average.

Brad was still linger off the pace. He was in a dog fight with us in wins, but he had more starters. He was also threatening to pass us in whip. At the time, we both didn't see the collapse of Jason Collette's pitching staff. Jason was ahead of both of us in whip. When Luke Hochevar was blasted in the 5th inning against Cleveland, it allowed both Brad and our team to pass him in whip. Hochevar allowed 7 base runners in the 5th inning. I was hoping that we would stay in front of Collette and Brad would struggled to gain the point.

On Monday night, the league got real interesting for Brad. When Hector Santiago pitched 7 shutout innings while allowing only 2 base runners, it put Brad in position where he could steal the title. The great night by Santiago put Brad's team in position to gain another unforeseen point in ERA.

Nate biggest competition for points over the last three day was Nick Minnix. Nick could steal a point from Nate in wins and strikeouts plus he was barely beating him in RBI.

On Tuesday night, I was just sick watching James Shields mow down the Orioles. I thought for sure the 15 K's were going to earn Nate the title. He also had Doug Fister pitching later in the day. When Fister was knocked out of the game in the 5th with no chance at a win and short K's, Nate could sense his chance at winning the title slip away. Later that night Travis Blackley picked up a win which allowed Dave Adler (BHQ)to inch close to Nate in wins. Baltimore also announced that Chris Tillman was going to pitching Wednesday which gave Nick Minnix another bullet to run Nate down in K's.

With Red Sox winning 3-1 going into the bottom of the 9th, we would gain a win by Jon Lester. I thought this win would give us the title. At the time, we were tied with Brad in wins and one win behind Larry Schechter (Sandlot Shrink). When Raul Ibanez hit a 2 run HR to tie the game, I knew we only had one shot at the title. We needed to catch Brad in RBI. Our team failed to hit on Monday and Tuesday which allowed Nate to pull away from us in BA.

When the gutless Pujols Angels faced Hisashi Iwakuma later in the night, I knew the season was on the line for us. Pujols came to the plate with 6 runners on base. He failed to get a hit which further helped Brad's chances. When Iwakuma won the game, Nate knew his chance of winning were slim. Brad gained a point in wins while we lost a half point. This put Brad a half point behind Nate, but Nate was going to lose a point in K's as Nick was only one strikeout behind him after Grant Balfour struck out two batters in a save for Oakland.

Nate's only chance on the last day of the season was to pass Nick in RBI. Brad had Hiroki Kuroda going, but most of us thought he would get a quick hook. Brad could actually lose a point in ERA if he struggled.

Nick quickly passed Nate in strikeouts when Brandon Morrow had 2 K's in the first innings. As the Yankees were piling up runs against the Red Sox, it was clear New York was going to let Kuroda pitch 5 innings to get the win which helped Brad gain another half point. Nate was able to scratch his way into a tie with Nick in RBI and he finally passed him in the bottom of the 7th in the Red Sox/Yankees game when Nick Swisher had an RBI single.

If there was a tied for first place, it would go to a ten category tie breaker. In this case Nate would lose to Brad 6-4. Our team held a 6-4 tie breaker lead over Brad and 6-4 over Nate. I think if there was a three way tie, Nate would have won 4-3-3.
With the win by Kuroda, Brad jumped into 1st place. His only chance of losing was if our team caught him in RBI. Evan Longoria tried to help our team as he hit 3 HR's with 3 RBI. Josh Donaldson had a couple of chances early in the game to drive in runs, but he failed to deliver. When Michael Saunders stepped to the plate in the bottom of the 7th inning against the Angels with runner on 1st and 2nd, we were 2 RBI behind Brad. With 2 RBI, we would move into a tie with Brad in RBI and there would be a three way tie for the league title. Saunders hit a deep drive to center field that was caught for an out which ended what could have been a dream ending to the season.

We still have a couple more innings in the Angels game and we had our stud Johnny Giavotella still alive against Detroit plus Evan Longoria had one more at bat.

When Mike Trout singled in the top of the 8th, I decided to go down stairs and turn on the TV to see if Albert Pujols could finally do something. The moment reminded me of 1986 and 2004 when I refused to let the season die without seeing the last out of the Red Sox games. Dave Henderson delivered a memorable moment and the Red Sox broke the curse of the Bambino against the Yankees. As I turned the TV on, I see at Peter Bourjos come to the plate. The moment never developed as the Angels pinch hit for Pujols and off went the TV. Longoria did get one more chance at the plate and he even had a runner on base, but he grounded out to third base. The NFBC team had a Texas Rangers feel to the end of the season. We limped to the finish line and winless streak for Ambrosius and company last another year.

I've played in many leagues with a lot of money on the line, but this title had more value to me. On Wednesday night, I had a NFBC 12 team title in jeopardy where I could lose $2000, but the LABR team was the focus of my attention. It's a great league against top talent and it is extremely tough to save the franchise after the auction . Trades can be made, but they are very tough to pull off.

It's a great win from Brad Evans. I congratulate him on a great season. I sure Nate feels the same as we do. It's a tough grind to put that much passion into something and come away empty. In the end, it will be a great story for the Yahoo team.