Taking Notice: Week 6

If you haven't heard by now, this story about Tampa Bay Rays Manager Joe Maddon and his lineup card blunder is amateurishly comical. Let me give you the gist: So some time between 10:00 AM and noon on Sunday, Maddon decides to fill out his lineup card wearing his Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience glasses instead of his prescription lenses. He pencils both Ben Zobrist and Evan Longoria in at third base thereby forfeiting the right to a DH and the pitcher must then occupy the third spot in the hitting order. Meanwhile, Longo rode the pine for eight innings until getting his lone pinch-hit opportunity. I can't imagine any fantasy owner being pleased with the way this situation was handled. And, could you imagine if something like this had happened during Cal Ripken's consecutive game streak?

"Sorry Mr. Ripken, but due to your boneheaded coach's miscue, your streak of consecutive games played ends at 2,129. But you sure made one heck of a run!"


Here's what we saw in Week 6 From Around the League...

• What do you get when an indestructible force collides with an immovable object? No, this isn't some Comic-Con plug. Of course, I'm referring to the matchup that pitted arguably the two hottest teams in the league in Lincecum Honor and Yuri Sucart M.D. What we witnessed was an offensive showdown that concluded with both teams amassing better than .920 OPS's. While the counting stats (R, HR, RBI, and TB) went to 'Cum Honor, Yuri was able to neutralize them with batting average and OPS to keep his undefeated record alive.

There were two other stalemates in Week 6 between the Frederick Keys v. Fantasy Filipinos and Gangsta Nation v. Jonny Gomes' Wife. Let's begin with The Flips.

• Adrian Gonzalez must go home every night feeling like the Hunchback of Notre Dame the way he carries the punchless Padres around. Gonzalez tallied another 5 homers this week (but only drove in 7 RBIs, laughable) bringing his total up to 15 for the season. He has 29 RBIs on the year. Something about that stat line just doesn't sit right. On any other team Gonzalez and his 1.017 OPS should be approaching upwards of 60 ribbies by now. The Filipinos won 6 out of the 8 offensive categories (with one tie) largely on the back of the Hunchback.
• It was another up and down week offensively for the Keys. A week after showing great promise, Jay Bruce, HanRam, Brian McRambis, and V. Wells all put up a collective dud--going homerless in Week 6. I don't necessarily worry about any of the aforementioned players, per se, but it'd be nice to see some consistency out of this group of hitters from week to week. With the addition of Matt Holliday in left field, this is one of the more formidable offenses on paper.
• Lance Berkman is finally showing signs of breaking out of his mini-slump for Gangsta Nation. You don't keep good hitters down for long and with El Caballo also heating up for Houston, the 'Stros may start to put a few wins together. Gangsta has also benefited from the surprisingly good play of Juan Pierre, ManRam's fill-in in left field. I'm usually not a fan of one-stat wonders but this might not be such a train wreck after all since his playing time is strictly limited to 50 or so games. Pierre would get exposed over the course of a full season, but in limited time, he may be able to put up a .290/.390/.410 (BA/OBP/SLG) with 20-25 SBs. This isn't bad considering he's never posted an OPS better than .793 in his 9 year career.
• I can't even put this gently: Jonny Gomes' Wife lucked out with a tie due, in part, to Gangsta's lackluster pitching. JG's Wife sported a collective 5.36 ERA and 1.51 WHIP, which ranked 5th and 4th worst this week, respectively. That simply should not have been good enough for a tie, unless, that is, you happen to play the one team with the worst ERA and WHIP in the league in Gangsta. This is why Head-to-Head matchups in Fantasy Sports are so great. Just a side note: After Nick Sparkakis and The Hebrew Hammer (Braun) toasted Inspect Her Gadget last week, they went 9 for 42 (.214 ) and hit zero homers. FML.
  

• He Got Roids From Riding The Trikey, formerly known as How Bout 'Dem (Bubble) 'Boys and I Want to F*ck A-Rod's Labrum, won this week. [I'm pretty sure Robby changes his team name every week just so I'd have to go through the trouble of typing it out. Double-Standard!] Anyway, though they trailed by one heading into Sunday's matchup against Laminated Wood, pulled out an 8-5-2 victory behind a strong seven inning performance by Roy Halladay. If it wasn't for Zack Greinke's Bob Gibson-like start to the 2009 season, Halladay would be receiving most of the early season pitching accolades. As it stands, Roy's sitting on 8 wins (#1 in the Majors) and boasts a 2.78 ERA.

• Until this week, I thought streamers were a party decoration. But apparently, Average White Guy, formerly Team Longhorns, used the "streaming" technique to accumulate a league best 105 strikeouts in Week 6! Unfortunately for the White Man, they still fell to The Fast and the Bi-Curious, 7-6-2. It is all pretty hilarious if you think about it. Every outcome happened exactly the way we thought it would when this debate began. [I can channel Coach Dennis Green's words now... "They were who we thought they were!"]. Team A (we'll call them The Streamers) won K's, QS's and W's. Team B (we'll call them The Practicals) won L's, ERA and WHIP. Just how effective is this technique? I may submit my own post on this subject when I have a bit more time. But in the meantime, I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic in the comments section.

• Finally, we come to the most lop-sided matchup of the week. San Francisco Switchhitters essentially took Inspect Her Gadget into the woodshed and went to work on them with a pruning saw. No, it wasn't pretty. And yes, it did hurt. Prince Fielder awoke from his slumber and decided that Week 6 would be the appropriate time to double his power production on the year with four homers (9 total). Wonderful. Ryan Zimmerman and Joe "Pauer" each put up 3 more home runs for Switchhitters. Dude, where did Mauer get all this power from? Hopefully he's not using the same tricycle ManRam's been riding.

Raking:

• Raul Ibanez is pretty good, if you haven't heard. No amount of fantasy research done would have led you to believe that Ibanez would have a career year during his age 36 season. I will say this though, Raul does have the type of body that typically ages well, unlike the Prince Fielder's and David Ortiz's of the world. (That's why Ryan Howard was smart to shed 15-20 pounds this past offseason--it will prolong his career from hitting a precipitous decline when he's 34 or 35, a la Ortiz and Mo Vaughan). I'm a stone cold believer now that Ibanez is well on his way to shattering his previous bests in Kansas City (2002) and Seattle (2006). I'm not sure who lucked out more, Lincecum Honor or the damn Phillies.

• I said what I needed to say about Adrian Gonzalez earlier in my weekly recap from around the league. In my mind, he's already overtaken Jake Peavy as the single most valuable player on the San Diego Padres. Adrian has an VORP, or Value over Replacement Player, of 18.1 which is good for 19th in the league offensively. Peavy doesn't crack the top 30 list for pitchers. VORP is an interesting SABRmetric stat in terms of teasing out individual player contributions for those of you who are into this sorta thing.

• Ask anyone who the last 5 AL MVPs were and Justin Morneau's name probably gets left off the list. Morny was the 2006 MVP in an admittedly down offensive year, but an MVP nonetheless. Yet, he's never mentioned among the elite first basemen's and he's never cracked the first round of fantasy drafts in terms of average draft positions (ADP). JM was solid in Week 6 clubbing 4 homers, scoring 7 runs and driving in 6. He's another power hitter who suffers from a poor supporting cast. He, too, should be looking at 45+ ribbies if he weren't hitting behind the likes of Carlos Gomez and Denard Span.

• This has been quite a season so far for Victor Martinez. V-Mart rebounded from unquestionably his worst season in '08 to perhaps his finest as a major leaguer. For players who qualify with at least 100 ABs, Martinez is leading the AL in batting average, on-base, and 4th in slugging percentage. And what about that VORP stat I mentioned earlier? Yeah, he's the number one player in terms of his value over the average replacement player. Simply put, he's in a class all by himself right now.

Filthy:

• Trevor Hassel-Hoffman tops the Filthy list with a superfluous week 6. Picking up four saves in any given week is quite the accomplishment, especially for this 41 year old with the rubber arm. Now, he could have just as easily blown three of them and given up 6 runs. That's just the nature of the beast... gotta roll with it when you can.

• Some time around the All-Star break in '08 I became a big Wandy Rodriguez supporter. Nothing about him jumps out at you, particularly not his slender 5'10", 170 lb. soaking wet frame. You've come to expect dominant pitchers to have a certain look about them, whether it is Josh Beckett's hulky legs or Randy Johnson's imposing stare. Nope, not mild-mannered, baby-faced Wandy. But since around the All-Star break, Wandy's averaged right around a strikeout an inning. In 114.1 innings, he's racked up 114 Ks. More impressively, WanRod's walk rates continue to drop. He has success written all over him and will supplant Roy Oswalt as the staff ace by next year.

• Folks, the wheels have not fallen off the wagon for Cliff Lee, despite the constant grumblings from Lee-owners. He's simply the recipient of very poor run support at the moment. (Johan Santana and Jair Jurrjens both called and told Cliff to take a number). In his last 5 starts, he's averaged 7.2 IPs while only giving up 6 runs total. His record in those 5 games are 1-3. Go figure. If someone, anyone on that Cleveland team besides V-Mart decides to play this year, Lee may very well be 5-2 instead of 2-5 right now.

• Roy Halladay. Stud. The only starting pitcher that I (and I am only one man's opinion) deem worthy of a second round fantasy pick. Not CC Sabathia. Not Santana. But Roy Halladay.

Power Rankings (as of May 17, 2009)

Average White Guy jumps up five spots to no. 6 in the rankings despite taking the loss. Sucart, 'Cum Honor and Bi-Curious all holding steady from the previous week.