Week 7 Review: Trends and Observations

Team of the Week: The Bay State Bombers.
Unbelievable! As far as I can remember, the Rounders steadily held the first place spot for the better of five weeks. They kept a consistent roto score between 75 and 80. The fact that the Bombers have exceeded that and even reached 85 at one point is astounding!!! All around the Roto universe you rarely find teams in the mid to high 80s. That basically means the team has few weaknesses on both the pitching and hitting categories. Furthermore, the Rounders haven’t lost anything really… they’re still chugging along in the mid-seventies… The Rounders haven’t declined… they’re just watching the Bombers crush the categories.
Interestingly, the Bombers haven’t done it by purely dominating single categories. The Rounders (two 10’s) and the Firebirds (three 10’s) each have more 10s than do the Bombers, who have just one 10 to brag about. But when you get 8’s and 9s in everything else… that’s impressive. Like I said in an earlier column… you don’t need a bunch of 10s to win.

2nd Class Citizens: The Shrewsbury Rounders and the Hilo Firebirds.
If I had the Rounders pitching staff and they had the Firebirds’ bats, we’d have the ultimate team. For the Rounders, the only big pitching names they have are Oswalt and Lidge (who have been okay if not inconsistent), but the other guys on that staff have been solid and steady. That’s team effort.
For the Firebirds, we’ve got big names like Randy Johnson and Eric Gagne… but you know where that’s got them… Big names don’t usually end in big results…

Unusual Stats: Dingle Berries.
Maybe I look too closely at stats, but I saw something that was unusual. For pitching, the Dingle Berries have a 9 in Strikeouts and a 9 in saves but 4’s or 3’s in everything else. Tim Hudson, John Lackey, and Cliff Lee sure are striking a lot of guys out this year, but have relatively high ERAs… And I was surprised to see Chris Reitsma with 7 saves despite his poor ERA. Very interesting.
Another unusual stat was the Dingle Berries tied for last place with homeruns and 9th in RBI while maintaining the best batting average in the league. This is a team with Lance Berkman (with 40 RBI), Vlad Guerrero, Scott Rolen, Pat Burrell, and Michael Young (who’s got only 1 homer so far). If their pitching holds steady (while dropping their ERA’s), and their power slowly comes back (especially with all those hitters), then these guys are ready to make a run.

They just won’t go away: No.1 Dawgs.
You keep thinking that they will sooner or later go into last place and there they are. That Albert Pujols can carry both a real team and a fantasy team, that’s for sure.

Where’s the hitting: Crazy Carl and Sting
Both teams have certain strengths in pitching and they should be okay with their pitching stats when the dust clears. Sting will get more wins and K’s when he gets more starts in and Crazy Carl’s saves will continue to climb and his WHIP will improve just as King Felix figures out his problems.
Now, what’s going to be their Achilles’ heel is their hitting. Sting’s problem is obviously tied in with injuries, but even before Matsui went down he wasn’t giving big numbers like he usually does. Francoeur and Podsednik are both hot right now, but your infielders (Cano, Crosby, Peralta, Uggla, and Sanchez) are mediocre but okay. I’d probably drop Reggie Sanders and get a pitcher, but that’s just me.
Crazy Carl’s situation is a little different. They’re not doing too well in batting average and with guys like Furcal hitting in the low .240s with a lot of at-bats, it doesn’t help. What’s surprised me is Kent and Huff having mediocre seasons right now. Also, it sure is weird seeing Mark Teixeira with less rbi than Brandon Phillips and an injured Moises Alou (and Alou did it with less than ½ the at-bats). The power numbers for Beltran and Bay aren’t too bad, but it would be nice to see them at least hit .285.

Trends:
1. Spot-starting pitching:
I see a lot of starting pitchers being picked up and dropped lately. I guess I did it a lot last year when my starting pitching sucked wind, but it has been so common now. Shoot, I bet some of these pitchers were owned by at least 3 owners during the 1st ¼ of the season.

2. Middle relief:
There was a time when set-up men were never bothered with in fantasy baseball. Today, it’s the best way to get those vulture wins and strikeouts. I myself own two… how about you?

3. Save me!!!
One of our strengths as a league (in League Production) is our number of saves. Whenever a closer goes down we jump on those new closers… It’s rare to see a “graduated” set-up man stay on the waiver wire for more than one hour after the moment he is proclaimed the new team closer.

4. Trade? Maybe not…
A couple of years ago, our league was filling the air with trades. These days, our league owners are better at using the waiver wire to better their teams. A few trades would be good, but it’s also good to see crafty owners build their teams from scouting and current baseball situations.