Edwards King Main Event Blog

[Edwards Kings]

somebody bid $102 on castro in chitown- hope they don't read your blog. maybe it was starlin' castro.

I used Castro for about a week. 0-18...did get an RBI though!

Hope they have better luck.

[Edwards Kings]

Fruit-basket turn-over on the Braves...Stubbs cut, Peterson down, D'Arnaud up, Brignac up, Tuiasosopo up, Foltynewicz up, Gant down...arranging deck chairs...

[KJ Duke]

Plan succeeding. Get those drafts picks.

[Edwards Kings]

Yup. Swanson (and Albies) already moved up a level in the minors. Blair makes his MLB debut. Ruiz doing well in AAA.

[Edwards Kings]

Wow! How nice it is to finally have a good week. I hit or exceeded all of my targets despite visiting the foul-up fairy with regards to when I played Jason Castro (I missed his homeruns) and Plawecki.



Still have both those guys so I am sure I will screw it up again. I got my 300 AB for the week (OK, 297, but close enough and would have made it if not for Ellsbury and Avisail missing some games) and was able to generate awesome counting stats (not necessarily because of the extra AB over prior weeks but it helped). A lot of bats woke up so I was able to get a 0.316 BA to go with 50 R, 17 HR, 45 RBI and 7 SB (Ellsbury had four before the hip injury). I was able to get four wins out of eight games started. Had two so-so starts (Hammel’s 2nd and deGrom’s) to with six awesome ones. Had 48 K’s (a nice 91% K/IP ratio), an ERA of 1.880 and a WHIP of 0.987 out of the starters. Yes, I know it will not always be like this, but weeks like this are nice to have.



I did not use Betances this week as I had invested in Darren O’Day whose stay as temporary closers was all too short (with apologies to Britton owners). He did get one of my four saves this week however. Familia and Vizcaino both gave up runs this week. Familia has not been quite as dominate as last year though he did get two saves over the weekend. Vizcaino is hampered by playing for the Braves who cannot buy a win.

In short, the week was good enough to be the second best week last week, but not quite good enough for a Pete Rose autopenned baseball.

General trends are started to evidence themselves, as you would expect as we are not almost 20% through the season. Still a lot of time for players to go on hot streaks and impact results, but by now (or shortly) players are letting you know their characters. In other words, it’s time for the NFBC Baby New Year to shed the diaper. It ain’t early no more.

One trend on my team so far is the investment in quality starting pitching has paid off. I picked starters in Rounds 3 (deGrom), 5 (Hamels), 8 (Tanaka), 11 (Samardzija), 15 (Hammel), and 16 (Kennedy). That was planning. But I have also been lucky in that I have used those six starters all year with the exception of third rounder deGrom, whom I replaced for three starts with Latos (I did predict Latos was not as bad as he had shown last year and I did take advantage of some favorable early match ups, but the three wins in three starts can only be categorized as luck). The collective very hot start for most of these guys (Hamels is the only starter with a WHIP over 1.200 and Samardzija is the only one with an ERA over 3.00) has me with, by a thin margin, the best ERA right now in the NFBC Main with the 30st best WHIP and tied for 36th in Wins thanks to a lucky 59.9% win percentage. I do not believe I am jinxing myself because I do anticipate a correction. However, this is a nice base to build some core stats on and I should be able to withstand a few blow-ups. My biggest fear is the one I cannot control, injury.



Another pitching trend is another one, though this one I anticipated. I have what is basically 1 ½ closers. Familia, though a bit rocky here through the first five weeks, has 10 saves, behind only Jansen and Jeanmar Gomez (Gomez! ). Actually, Gomez gives me some home that the Braves can go through a hot streak and make Vizcaino worthwhile. I am short a closer but this is not the trend I anticipated. I have used Betances as my ninth guy. While the K’s I have gotten out of that position are not bad (25), they are 10-20 behind the better starters contributing in that category. As such, I am 10-20 K’s behind my targets in that respect. I have basically hit my K targets in four of the five weeks played so far, so hopefully I can stay close. Latos will not help me with K’s much, but I did invest a draft pick in Ryu, whom I hope to get back before the end of the month. With his historical 8.0-ish K per nine rate, I hope to be able to stream my starters such that I can make up the K-deficit and allow me to use three relievers.

Week 5 FAAB – Some trends here to. To date, 57% of the winning bids had no runner up bid. That means that collectively, if we had perfect foresight, my league would have only spent $79 where instead fallible as we are, we spent $782. Slicing the data slightly differently, a bid of $31 was successful nearly 70% of the time. On average, my league-mates and I have spent over 26% of available funds. I myself have spent only 17.5%. But the trend I notice in this league is these guys really know how to manage the FA bidding process. In the last two weeks alone, eleven of the twelve top bids have each had quality runner up bids. Nobody (dammit) is throwing money away. And there is a lot of money left out there. My favorite FA strategy of bullying some bids because I have more money in the second half to help move some categories will be moot this year I think.

For the week, I was surprised, given the early week series in SF, that Justin Smoak was so popular. He will lose some starts given no DH by the Bay, but he still generated a $126 winning bid ($88 runner-up). I bid, but not to that level at all. Other top bids were for Rajai Davis for $279 ($171 RU) and Mike Leake for $147 ($126 RU). I was not a player on those guys. None of my meagre bids had other bids. I got Brett Wallace for $13 (my first conditional to Smoak), Addison Reed for $3 and Jason Grilli for $3. Reed and Grilli are both good and bad. Good as they, in my mind, are the most likely handcuffs to Familia and Vizcaino. Bad because I now am using two spots (Vizcaino and Grilli) for a questionable amount of saves.

Batting wise I am down some counting stats, but not too much. I think my bats in general are underperforming so I do not want to knee-jerk too much FA $ on a player like Smoak who may give some upside to HR but with the price of more BA challenge. Wallace is a flyer given he hit the ball with a little authority late last year. Solarte is still a few weeks away and the Padres are in Milwaukee over the weekend, so Wallace could be an interesting streamer. We will see.

I dropped O’Day, Desmond Jennings (oh my lord what a laugher he has been), and Latos. I may regret the latter, but he has some pretty tough match-ups coming and playing him would be like checking to see how much power is in the keg using a blow torch for light.

Week 6 Plans – Another week like the last one, please. Betances is back in for pitching. Otherwise no change. I will have to see if Ellsbury will play. If not, I have Hicks (whom I may use anyway as he may get AB while A-Hole is on the DL) as back-up. I have to decide how best to use Plawecki and Castro (so which would you use, Dumb or Dumber?). And I have to decide where to use or if to use Wallace. I have enough roster flexibility to have a couple of spots to use him. Holt (good BA in limited play last week, but little else) is the most likely player to sit.

Hope you all had a good Mothers Day being (more) subservient to the Queen(s)! If not....

[Edwards Kings]

Ahhh....

Started Castro at home, Plawecki hits a homer...damn!

[Edwards Kings]

My goal is to win my league. I of course would rather finish in the money than not, but my goal is to win and anything else is really irrelevant. As such, as we cross the quarter point time-wise sometime mid-week, I am in the “hunt”. I use the term loosely because compared to what Dave Potts is doing in this league right now, I am in the “hunt” only compared to others in my league not named Dave Potts. I am hunting, but have no gun, no bullets, and no idea where the forest is. Right now, it looks as if I can be only as successful a hunter as Elmer Fudd.



Five of us nearer the top are within 11.5 points of one another. Add another 23.5 points and you reach Dave and his Top 10 overall current placement. An awesome start, Dave. Especially when you consider Dave lost Schwarber early. Simply amazing, not unexpected, and congratulations.

Now, we can still catch Dave (i.e. too late to be early, too early to be too late), but really Dave’s team will have to regress a bit in order for that realistically to happen. There is time but right now we are getting an old fashioned ass-kicking. I have had those before. I know what they feel like.

Week Six Results – I cobbled together enough AB in order to get 317 this week, but I am relying on sub-replacement level players at my fifth outfield spot, my corner-man spot, and my utility spot. Between the three spots (manned by Holt, Wallace, and Chisenhall), l got a putrid 0.170 BA with six runs, two HR, and four RBI’s (no steals). No offensive player was especially hot though it was nice to see Lucroy wake up and having Hicks on my roster to cover Ellsbury paid off a bit. Duda and Donaldson definitely took naps last week. Still it was not my worst offensive week with a 0.274 BA, on target with Runs and RBI’s (40 and 37 respectively), and a few short on HR and Stolen Bases (8/4). Perhaps it is a good thing. My team wants upgrades in at least three areas, had no players really cut loose, but still managed to be at least marginally competitive. If this ends up being a bad week, the prognosis can be good. While I am under on most of my targets, the deficits are far from insurmountable, though I will have to pay close attention to the results to keep them from getting out of hand.



Pitching was drug down this week by poorly performing Tanaka and Kennedy. My biggest concern however is deGrom, my #1, my ACE. For the year, he has won 50% of his starts with a 2.500 ERA and 1.194 WHIP, which of course is pretty damn good. However, the K’s are not coming. Last year he struck out 205 in 191 IP (a 107% rate per IP). This year his K-Rate is 64%. I wanted to go with six starters most of the year and so far this has not hurt me in ERA, WHIP and Wins. But I drafted guys for their outstanding strike-out potential as well. I am concerned that with the comments out of spring training and the early results, all may not be well with deGrom. His loss, should he be hiding injury, could be devastating to my team.

For the week I hit my targets for K’s and WHIP. ERA’s got blown up by the aforementioned Tanaka and Kennedy. Wins were a little short with three, and I got two early week saves from Familia then nada.

Week Six FA – Who would have thunk it that Wilmer Flores would go on the DL before David Wright? I dropped Flores and picked up Espinosa for a $13 bid ($1 runner-up). Not that he is an upgrade, but I like having options in case one of my MI gets hurt early in the week so I do not risk losing a whole weeks’ worth of stats. Michael Sanicola, whom I unfortunately did not get a chance to talk with so much during the draft, nabbed Brandon Guyer for $76 with my $51 being the runner up. Could be a nice pick up if Guyer can beat his historical platoon splits. I was looking for a replacement on my bench for Brett Wallace given the impending return of Solarte. I also lost out on Luis Valbuena (went for $20), who could have some utility until the Astros bring up Reed. Lost out as well on the recently resurgent Headley. Since he was going to be playing on the road, I thought a minor bid would get him, but he went for $40. Ended up with Cheslor (I wonder how many of his teachers thought that was a typo) Cuthbert for $1. I do not think the Royals will be as bad as they have been all season, and Cuthbert may have a role even when Moustakas comes back.

Since my starting six will get only six starts this week, I bid on the only starter that I thought might be helpful to my team, Matt Andriese. Not an ideal fit as he only has one road start this week, but my $71 bid was enough to get him (runner-up $40). Other winning bids from other teams of note:

Buxton ($77/$48)
Duffy ($61, $49)
Foltynewicz ($43/$35) – Had his fastball working yesterday against the Royals. Used his breaking stuff more later in the game, but was still able to hit the mid-90’s on the fastball too. Some of the hardest hit balls came off his change-up however. Until that really develops, he is essentially a two-pitch pitcher.
By the way, Dave still has $900 in FA money left…geez…..

Week Seven Plans – I really did not upgrade my team last week. Ellsbury will be back for the week, so that will help, though Hicks now goes back to part time and the Yankees start the week in Arizona, so my guess is Ellsbury will not play all three. Mets are at home, so I will probably go with Plawecki over Castro. I will stay with Holt as my fifth outfielder as Boston appears to be facing only right-handers this week. John Jaso will be my CM given the Pirates will be facing the all-RH Braves rotation. May change up for the week end, though. If Chisenhall returns from bereavement, he will be my utility. If not, Cheslor is the man. My only pitching staff challenge is whether to go with one Detroit road start Andriese, or stay with Betances (who got me seven K’s and a win last week!). TBD.

Two lions are walking through the jungle. The first lion falls slightly behind the second and suddenly licks the second lion on that sensitive spot just beneath the upturned tail. The second lion jumps, well jumps just like you would expect when the unexpected happens and roars “WHAT THE HELL!”

The first lion shakes his head apologetically and responds “I ate Hillary Clinton yesterday and I would do just about anything to get that taste out of my mouth!”



To be fair and balanced, an equally distasteful (pun intended) Trump joke next week….

[Edwards Kings]

"The Braves have fired manager Fredi Gonzalez, according to David O'Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

A change has been rumored in recent weeks, so the Braves decided to put an end to the speculation. It's obviously not Gonzalez's fault that the Braves own a major-league worst 9-28 record. You can only do so much with this roster. But the powers that be felt that a shakeup was needed. Mark Bowman of MLB.com reports that Triple-A Gwinnett manager Brian Snitker will be his replacement."

Writing was on the wall....

[headhunters]

the snitker era begins- how the mighty have fallen.

[Edwards Kings]

In case anyone was wondering if I have been ignoring you all this week, I have. My wife and I are on vacation, starting in LA (that's "Lower Alabama" to the uninformed) and are now residing in the heart of the Redneck Riviera (Fort Walton Beach). More on the blog once I am forced by the misfortune of being born poor to go back to work and the real world.

Donald Trump has such an ego that when he is banging a supermodel, he is fantasizing about masturbating.



Told you I would be equally rude to both...

[Edwards Kings]

I knew my good luck on wins had to have a correction. So far this week in six starts (excluding a seventh by Hammel that was abbreviated to two innings), I have a 2.368 ERA from my starters with a respectable 1.237 WHIP (only respectable thanks in large part to the five walks given up by Kennedy). My team has given up one earned run or less in four of those starts (one of the exceptions is the Braves decided that Samardzija was the one starting pitcher in a month that they could hit) and went seven innings in three of those starts and six in two others.

Wins? Zero....

[Edwards Kings]

Just a little more than one-third of the weeks through…two months…as Dan mentioned in one of his earlier posts, your team is now your team. It’s strengths and it’s weaknesses are apparent. Sure, some players are (1) underperforming and can have a hot summer to make you forget about the doldrums of Spring. Some players are smokin’, (2) almost sure to regress and make you wonder what the hell happened!



Fortunately, my team is still in a money hunt, but Dave Potts team still dominates. My team is buoyed by some great starting pitching, though probably my team only has the third best starting six (at least as far as the overall standings are concerned). My luck has certainly turned on wins, however. deGrom did not win any of his six starts last month. Hamels (not pitching that well but good K’s) and Tanaka (pitching better overall, but not really striking people out) each won a third of their starts. Samardizja has been lights out (until the two floaters last week) and Hammel too, each winning four of their seven starts. Ian Kennedy has felt the decline of the Royals, winning once in seven starts. I used Matt Andriese last week in a two-start streamer. Worked pretty well too (one win, great ERA, decent K’s).

For the month, my starters generated a disappointing 35% win percentage despite excellent peripherals (3.204 ERA, 1.152 WHIP, 90.4% K/IP, 3.3 K/BB ratio) over 40 starts. Still, my strategy on primarily using only six starters has me just below where I need to be in K’s. As it is though, I do have 51.0 pitching points out of ERA, WHIP, K, and Wins.

My swing-man pitcher (Betances) has been what I needed, especially as I had him on my bench last week in favor of Andriese. I have a premier closer (Familia)and a third tier closer (or really an excellent closer in Vizcaino on a third tier team), so I lag in Saves (mid-pack with 7.5 points).

My offense, such as it is, is Daniel Murphy anchored by his other-worldly batting average and monster production during May. See #2 in my opening paragraph. Brandon Crawford is I would say a bit of a disappointment, only in so much as last year was such a surprise. He is actually tracking favorably to his numbers last year. Alcides Escobar is, as expected, mainly an asset in stolen bases.

On the corners, Duda has caved, so I am scrambling in power, which to date is up overall while I am seriously behind in my targets. John Jaso as at times be an empty BA fill-in, but not even enough of the time to be worthwhile. Donaldson smoked out of the gate and fell back hard last month. Chisenhall has been a decent BA as well but had more SB (2) than HR (1) last month.

Catchers has been ok with Lucroy waking up the dead in Milwaukee. Jaso has been alright, though I missed some key production in month experimenting with Kevin Plawecki. Jaso now has an illness resident only in Houston for catchers called the “Gattis Bug”.

For outfield, Cespedes has been my best, though sporadic, contributor. Blackmon, my first OF picked, woke up a bit later in the month though only had two SB. Ellsbury continues his resurgence with six SB last month. This is where the “good” news ends. Avisail Garcia continues to be below replacement value. Fifth OF and UT has been a combo of Holt (until the concussion DL), Hicks, who continues to show why Minnesota gave up on him, Chisenhall, and Jeff Francoeur, who shows real BA value streaming when you have a couple of LH pitchers going.

My targets in BA and SB can still be reached (especially if Blackmon starts stealing bases again). I am way behind on the increased offensive trend and I am a solid week behind in my preseason goals for HR, RBI, and Runs. Really two weeks behind HR as more are leaving the yard so far this year than expected. If you planned on 260 HR for the year being enough for 80% of the available points, you may have to adjust your thinking.

Week Nine FA – Man, what a visit from the foul-up fairy. I had myself convinces that the world would bid on James Loney (right, fantasy’s in a vacuum, $53 no runner-up), and Tyler Naquin (same). Hope they were worth the money. I bid and lost on Will Harris, who buzz happens may get saves in Houston. Rusty Clark (really nice guy…kind of old school like me…whom I really enjoyed sitting next to in the draft sooooo long ago) won the bidding. My $103 bid was not nearly enough. I did get my handcuff for Familia back in Addison Reed and my conditional. Still do not have a third closer, so mid-pack saves is about all I can expect right now. Only five of the 29 winning bids had runner up bids, so I guess we were all chasing different needs. One of the bidding wars was for Dae-Ho Lee, whom I think will be a nice pick up for my friend and wild/wooly Irishman, Mike Duggan. Lee was my first conditional if I had not gotten Loney.

Week Ten Plans – There are as many as 10 guys still in the money hunt I would say in my league (not including Dave, who sits way on top), seven of which are separated by 18.5 points. We are still moving as much as several points a day, so anything is still possible. I have to decide, pitching wise, if Betances bad week portends some extended rest. In his place, I could play Andriese who has a home against Houston. I do not trust Andriese much. He is a blow up waiting to happen if the match-up is not just right (i.e. I was willing to start him against a Perez/Gordon/Moustakas-less KC and against no-hit Minnesota). Even without Andriese, I can have nine starts this week, five of which are against some of baseballs weaker sisters.

I know it is foolish, but I still sit on Duda. Maybe one more week. Loney will take his spot. Hicks goes to the bench in favor of Naquin. I will also sit Brandon Crawford probably as he only has two games on the road to start the week. Scooter will my MI for the first half of the week. Only one more game played…more gut feel I guess.

Oh well…could be a mistake....

[Edwards Kings]

So, I am talking with one of few people in my office who play fantasy baseball (h-2-h), and I ask his position on my last roster spot for the weekend.

Me: "I am a little thin, but for my last two roster spots, would you use Avisail Garcia, Scooter Gennett, or James Loney?"

Friend: reaction...



Me: "Like I said, I have left myself a little thin in options. I could go Hicks, but the Yanks are only facing RHers this weekend. So what would you do?"

Friend: reaction...



Me: "Gee, thanks a bunch. So, you are basically saying....?"

Friend: reaction....



Me: "Really? It is not THAT bad?!?"

Friend: reaction....



Me: reaction...

[Edwards Kings]

The question for today kiddies is “How do we take a reasonably well constructed fantasy baseball team and turn it into a steaming pile of dog-doo?” Well, let’s ask the expert, Wayne Edwards….



Well, let’s start with catcher. I drafted Lucroy (ok, so far so good) and took a late (I ran out of what I thought were acceptable options) flyer on Jason Castro. According to the NFBC ratings, Castro right now is a “Top 10” catcher. Shows how weak the position is, but I lost some key Castro stats with the Plawecki experiment. Stepped in it there.

Drafted Donaldson (no grey matter there, fell to me), Duda, and Hector Olivera. Should have been two great power sources and a flyer on the Cuban import whom both the Dodgers and the Braves saw something in. Duda hurt his back (and for some reason I still hold on to him) and Olivera decided to bounce his “date” around the very public Ritz. Replaced them with Jaso and Looney. The prior layer of supplemental shoe material is not even dry or crusty yet, but I have added another level there.

I drafted NYM cast-off Daniel Murphy (ok, this one is so far so very good), Brandon Crawford (down some in power, which is very much a weakness on my team, but otherwise trending favorably to last year’s numbers) and Alcides Escobar (got him for the speed and that is pretty much all he is giving me). OK, top to bottom, not the most exciting MI, but serviceable.

In the outfield I reached for Charlie Blackmon in the second round. Injury has cut his first half numbers, but lately has turned up the heat a bit, so I will rank this on as the book is still out. Got him for speed (since I was going to get SOOOOO much power with Duda), but so far his HR output is higher than his SB. I didn’t plan on 40+ SB, but 30+ would be nice. Cespedes, other than the fact he is a Mutt, has been what I wanted and has a chance to replicate last year’s excellent numbers. I took a gamble on Ellsbury on the hope of 30 or so SB and 100 runs. The malaise in the Yankee offense is not doing me any favorites in the Runs department, but Ellsbury still has a chance to steal 30. Aaron Hicks was drafted to hold his books and continues to be a reserve on my roster. Then comes another gamble that is not paying off, Avisail Garcia. He has been mediocre at best and not the breakout candidate I expected. My fifth was another gamble in Desmond Jennings. Only 29, I was hoping for a return to 10-15 HR and 20-30 SB. Nice combo. Hasn’t happened so far in 2016, although he has shown a little life last week. Also drafted Broke Holt and Rusney Castillo as flyers who could be fifth outfield types if Desmond didn’t pan out. Survey says!



Utility was brilliance in action by my drafting Billy Butler who I thought would get 450 AB as a part time DH. He has played more than I expected (at first base I mean), but he will be lucky to get 300 AB this season. Dropped early.

I have been more fortunate in pitching as I have only used seven starters for six spots. I have used a mix of four starters and middle relievers as the seventh pitcher, mainly looking to avoid blow-ups. That much has worked as they are combined to generate a 2.095 ERA with a 1.009 WHIP to go with 53 K’s in 38.2 IP on three wins and a save. The K’s are only about 60% of a good starter rate and the wins/saves is nothing to write home to mother about. Familia has given me saves, but a few notable blow ups have kept his ERA/WHIP marginal for the guy leading MLB in saves. Vizcaino got burned in a couple of non-save situations, but otherwise his numbers are fine except he has too few save opportunities. I picked Jennings up again due to his hot week. Who knows, he could be relevant again and replace Garcia or Tyler Naquin whom I picked up last week as one of my outfielders.

All that said, I am at best still in the hunt for a money position. My team management has been of the caliber to get me fired if someone else besides me owned this team. I hold Duda, Holt, and Ryu (pitching again) on my reserves which is too much DL time. Holt may be back soon as he has at least been cleared to begin baseball activity. Probably would not have held him if he didn’t have the position flexibility, which is really kind of stupid on my part. As mentioned, I also have Hicks for when Ellsbury or Gardner go on the DL. I dropped last week weak stick Chisenhall for weak stick Asche. Mehhh… I picked up Motte in case the Estevez alternative goes south in Colorado (I did bid $101 on Estevez, but was the runner up).

I did what is probably another foolish thing. I spent $169 to get Tim Anderson (runner up bid $157). Others are higher on Anderson than I am. I am honestly not sure he will give me more than a speed, and I already had Alcides Escobar. Not the best fit, but I went for it anyway hoping for a surprise. Based on most of the other bids I was within consensus range, though one league was interesting (Tim Anderson (ChW) $10 Main Event Online March 30 8 pm ET League 2 One Eyed Jack). Nice. I did not get into the O’Brien (despite what the manager said, I am just not sure how much he will play) or Tallion sweepstakes.

See? I am clearly not the Bobby Cox of fantasy managers. I need power as I have not replaced Duda’s (projected) contributions and I have basically a speed team that is barely middle-pack in that category. I am close on pitching but still need that third closer for sure. None of what I am doing will catch Potts, so right now I am not worried about that or at least I will not worry about that until I am in second place.

[Edwards Kings]

Work has been kicking my ass, so other than a few flyby postings regarding politics, I have not written here. I am still busy, but about baseball...abbreviated, but here is where I see my team....

Since we are now at (or just a few games past) mid-point, it is interesting how things have turned out, as it always is. With my pitching targets to start the year I should be around 50 wins (I have 49), I should have around 700 K's (I have 702), I should have an ERA around 3.500 (3.161), WHIP around 1.200 (1.155) and saves around 40 (I have 41). I have been VERY fortunate with injury as with a two week exception for deGrom (in which I got lucky with early Latos), I have used the same six pitchers in my first six pitching slots. These seven guys in six slots have generated 17 starts (except Hammel who pitches tonight...against the Braves!), an 88% K-rate (I have a legitimate shot at 200+ K 's in three of my pitching slots), a better than 3:1 K/BB ratio, nearly a 43% win rate (would be higher but deGrom got zero wins in May and June despite pitching really well), and less than 88% hit rate. My saves have been buoyed by Familia's 30 saves (I've had a sixty save closer before, could I be so fortunate again). Nothing to gripe about or fear, right?

We don't work that way.



I should expect (wait for it Dan) a little regression. While I think my Win% has more upside, I am expected my ERA and WHIP to rise a bit. I may be able to get through the rest of the season without injury to this staff, but that would be very lucky, so I should expect a few bumps in the road there. I shouldn't expect another 30 saves from Familia, though I hope opportunity and ability will cause Vizcaino (if he is not traded and if he can work out his base-on-balls issue) to be a little more helpful.

For the first half I relied mainly on Betances and that has helped keep my last pitching slot from being a drain (2.236 ERA, 0.936 WHIP with 63 K's, 3 W and 1 SV). I have also used O'Day, Reed, Siegrist, Andriese (two start week), and Tyler Anderson (two start week this week) in this slot, too. Going forward, I will use primarily streaming starters here unless I can pick up a third closer (I have Nate Jones on my bench in case Robertson gets traded). This will probably not help ERA/WHIP, but may help in a few more wins and strikeouts.

But the biggest surprise here is despite hitting my targets, I am 50 K's behind the points I was targeting and eight or so Saves behind. Saves I kind of get because three teams are basically tanking or tanked in the category with 20 or less. Conversely, the top three teams in the category already have 50 or more. My best hope is get two or three more points but my expectation is without a third closer, I will end up about where I am (9.0 points).

Of course, to do that (go with three closers), I would have to not stream starters into my last pitcher slot, which of course is my best hope at making up some K's since we appear heading for new records here. I am on track to get about 1,400 K's, but four teams in my league can hit 1,500. If I did stick with six starters, I could still pick up five points here (there are seven teams in the mid-tier of K's with less than 10 separating us).

In any regard, besides streaming a slot, I have (stupidly) held on to Ryu since the draft. He pitches today. If he can show return to form over his next few starts, I can up the number of games started in the second half (I have 104 right now) by streaming seven or eight pitchers out of the six slots based on who has the double starts (something I have not really done much of to this point).

Batting is where I have real problems. I have totally missed out on the HR increases of the first half to the point that I am really hurting in the power stats. But that is a story for another time as people are lining up to bitch slap me some more...I think they are all demoquacks....

[Edwards Kings]

"Bartolo Colon has been added to the National League All-Star team as a replacement for Madison Bumgarner.
Bumgarner isn't going to pitch since he's slated to start Sunday. Colon put up a 3.28 ERA and 1.22 WHIP over 98 2/3 innings in the first half. There are no doubt more deserving options, but manager Terry Collins picked his guy. Plus, who doesn't love Bartolo?"



Lardolo celebrates making the All-Star Team at age 43!

In a related not, Terry Collins will now get a bucket of fried chicken every month for life....

[headhunters]

long time ago when my daughter started playing sports "seriously" i told her; and always have told her, that the #1 rule in sports is - ya gotta be available. always have loved bartola and buerle, maddox . they took the ball, they pitched. funny- reading about the mets this year- 42,345,000 words written about matz, thor, harvey, and degrom. about 15 about fat bart- but who took the ball every 5th day? don't forget- back in the day barto threw 100mph. without looking- i bet he leads the team in wins- i know they don't matter much anymore- until they figure out who gets to play in the playoffs. pretty sure they don't look at obp%, fip, etc or do they?

[Edwards Kings]

In my Main Event league as of last night nine teams are within nine wins of one another, seven teams are within 32 K's, six teams are withing 16 runs, five teams are within five stolen bases. No teams has more than 57.0 pitching points and only 7.5 points separate the top five pitching teams and you would have to say at least six teams very much in the money hunt. I am sure there are tighter leagues, but this one is gonna be close.

Fighting like cats and dogs...

[Edwards Kings]

I hate this game....I really do. Last night, two great starts, no wins. For the week, I have two wins and no starts today. Five of my starts this week averaged 6 2/3 IP, with less than a hit per inning, a greater than 89% K rate, a K/BB rate of 7.5, ERA 1.337, WHIP 1.040 ERA. Five no-decisions.

Did I mention I hate this game....

[DOUGHBOYS]

In fantasy baseball, it is still incredible to me how much better a pitcher looks with a 6 inn, 8 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 K line and leaves the game with a 7-3 lead, than a pitcher with a 6 inn, 8 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 K who leaves the game behind 3-1.

[Edwards Kings]

So many new options for playing time, roles...I feel like a kid in a candy store.

Really...all kinds of choices...not enough damn money....