Shot of Courage: Week 12: Revisited

Another wild week of fantasy action is in the books, and Week 12 didn’t fail to impress. Between teams breaking out of their losing skids, blockbuster trades, and perennial league powerhouses getting knocked off, this week had it all. Let’s get into it.

TEAM	BATTERS						PITCHERS						TOTAL
NAME	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG	IP	QS	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	SCORE
Team No Idea	41	7	32	3	.3153	.3750	55.2	6	5	2.587	1.096	7.275	5-6-1
Royal Rooters	32	7	36	5	.3442	.4603	41.1	3	6	4.790	1.282	8.492	6-5-1

Much like in real life, Masahiro Tanka is the best part of a bad team.

There was really no choice for game of the week besides the Royal Rooters finally getting off the schneid and putting a mark in the win column. Scoring was a little all over the place for this one, with No Idea putting together an impressive pitching week but a sub-par offensive effort. The RR managed to hit enough to get the victory, winning stolen bases and saves. While there were few offensive standouts, Melky Cabrera did manage to put together a 10 hit week and a .696 SLG percentage. Anibal Sanchez, AJ Burnett, and Masahiro Tanaka did their best to get the win for No Idea, but the Rooters’ large number of closers kept their K/9 high enough to get the win.

MVP: Masahiro Tanaka 13 IP 2.77 ERA 11.08 K/9

LVP: Chris Davis .280SLG 2R 3H

TEAM	BATTERS						PITCHERS						TOTAL
NAME	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG	IP	QS	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	SCORE
Cleveland Wahoos	45	8	40	6	.3333	.4053	71.2	7	6	4.144	1.381	9.419	2-10-0
Danger Zone	49	13	60	11	.3421	.4696	79.1	8	0	4.084	1.235	6.807	10-2-0

Even Ramirez can't believe how well he did this week.

Probably the biggest surprise of the week came in this game, which saw the Cleveland Wahoos get taken behind the shed (at least according to the final score.) Both teams went for a quantity over quality strategy for pitching, with Danger Zone coming out 8 innings pitched and one quality start ahead. The real dominance came at the dish, with DZ putting together 13 homers and 11 steals. The offensive charge was led by the unexpected break-out of old man Aramis Ramirez, who had a 3 homer week. This win puts a comforting cushion between second and third place in the NL, and ended up inadvertently doing the DL All Stars a big favor by preventing Cleveland from making up any ground for the last wildcard slot. The Wahoos were not helped by Max Scherzer earning himself this season’s first Vin Mazzaro award (unexpected for the reigning Cy Young winner.) This one actually moved the Colts/Colonels trophy for, what, the fourth time this year? On the bright side, the US patent office revoking Washington’s trademark made the Wahoos only the second most racist Native American team name in sports.

MVP: Aramis Ramirez 3 HR 10 RBI .964 SLG

LVP: Xander Bogarts .154 SLG, 3 H, 1R

TEAM	BATTERS						PITCHERS						TOTAL
NAME	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG	IP	QS	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	SCORE
DL All Stars	45	7	39	4	.3429	.4129	73.0	8	5	2.712	1.055	7.397	2-9-1
Yakety Sax	52	14	50	6	.3499	.4575	101.0	8	7	3.743	1.455	7.842	9-2-1

No one has ever seen Rob in person, but this author believes he looks something like this.

Yakety Sax went ahead and put any doubts as to who is the powerhouse in the AL to rest this week. One would expect a first place versus second place match to be a bit closer than this, but this was just not particularly close in either phase. Trading away Edwin Encarnacion mid-week did nothing to slow down the Sackers’ offensive onslaught, and 73 Innings of 2.71 ERA ball wasn’t enough to take away more than two of the pitching categories for DLA. “K”hris Davis has rebounded nicely from a dismal start to the season, putting two over the fence this week and driving in 9. Rob’s managerial moves really shined this week, between the trade that added Darvish and Minor to his team (though Encarnacion’s efforts later in the week seem to suggest he may not be fading after all,) the quality streaming that put together 100+ IP, stashing Polanco well in advance of his promotion to the bigs, and the addition of Mark Melancon now that Pittsburgh has pulled their head out of their asses and given him the closing job. Thankfully the Wahoos stumbled this week as well, or DLA may have been looking up from fifth place.

MVP: Khris Davis, Carlos Santana, and Anthony Rendon. Seriously, that was a lot of home runs.

LVP: Manny Machado 5 H, 1 R, .200 SLG

TEAM	BATTERS						PITCHERS						TOTAL
NAME	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG	IP	QS	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	SCORE
Deathvalley Demons	44	15	48	3	.3462	.4803	52.1	3	1	4.127	1.433	6.363	4-8-0
Bowling Overhand	41	6	42	11	.3483	.3976	61.0	6	6	2.066	1.033	11.066	8-4-0

Remember in week 1 when the analysts wondered if Kershaw was going to be ok this season?
Yeah, he doesn't either.

The other division leader also took care of business in week 11. DVD actually had a pretty solid week hitting, with 15HR and .4803 SLG. The Most Interesting Team in the World™ did manage to put together some serious speed with 11 steals and dominated from the bump, managing to accomplish the rare feat of a double digit K/9 for the week (15 K’s for Clayton Kershaw may have had something to do with that.) The men from Death Valley have continued to show good power week in and week out through break-out performances from Cruz, Rizzo, and Gordon (Gore-dawn,) and if they can get their pitching figured out can potentially do some serious damage down the stretch. Bowling Overhand was helped out a lot by Kershaw in what was sort of a meh week for them, but with pitching like this they're going to be tough to stop.

MVP: How could it be anyone besides Clayton Kershaw?

LVP: James Shields 6.43 ERA, 5.14 K/9, 0 QS

TEAM	BATTERS						PITCHERS						TOTAL
NAME	R	HR	RBI	SB	OBP	SLG	IP	QS	SV	ERA	WHIP	K/9	SCORE
The Evil Empire	45	12	35	3	.3222	.4428	56.2	5	4	2.382	1.112	7.465	5-5-2
Fightin' Vizquels	36	10	36	5	.3425	.4196	57.0	5	4	5.684	1.474	7.895	5-5-2

Anybody else notice this isn't actually the picture of them kissing from the movie?

While the Empire can’t manage to be interesting from a competitive standpoint, at least they can make interesting trades. Perhaps that isn’t fair, since the Blacksburg Bombers did manage to put together good enough stats to at least compete in the other games this week, but still can’t quite put things together enough to get a win. The addition of Edwin Encarnacion mid-week led to a nice power surge that took several of the offensive categories away after slamming 4 homers in 5 days, but a late scratch of Michael Wacha’s Sunday start killed any chance for the now-depleted Imperial starting rotation to take back IP or QS. The Empire will look to…oh wait, there was another team in this game? Oh, right. The Vizquels saw strong performances from Ryan Howard and Yoenis Cespedes (it really is a shame that outfield throw of his doesn’t count for any kind of fantasy stats, as it was a thing of beauty.) Justin Verlander and Ervin Santana, while not putting together dominant pitching performances, managed to eat enough innings and strike out enough batters to take those categories and ensure the tie.

MVP: Edwin Encarnacion 4 HR 9 RBI .444 OBP/ Ryan Howard 9RBI .690 SLG 6 R

LVP: Michael Wacha’s Shoulder/ Matt Cain 12.60 ERA 5.0 IP 5.4 K/9

Standings

American League
1.	Yakety Sax	88-49-7
2.	DL All Stars	69-68-7
3.	The Evil Empire	54-80-10
4.	Fightin' Vizquels	54-84-6
5.	Royal Rooters	52-84-8
National League
1.	Bowling Overhand	93-41-10
2.	Danger Zone	84-57-3
3.	Cleveland Wahoos	68-69-7
4.	Deathvalley Demons	62-75-7
5.	Team No Idea	59-76-9
Updated Monday, June 23, 2014

Trophies (Bear with us, folks, there’s a lot of them this week)

Tiger Blood: Danger Zone

The Sandman: Kenly Jansen, Rafael Soriano, Aroldis Chapman, Mark Melancon, Addison Reed, Joe Nathan,

El Sombrero de Oro: Ian Desmond

Chicago Colts: Danger Zone

Louisville Colonels: Cleveland Wahoos

The Gehrig Award: Nick Swisher, Jonathon Lucroy, Chris Davis

Zach Grienke Syndrome: Drew Pomeranz

Nolan Ryan Junior Achievement Award: Clayton Kershaw

The Tom Cheney Award: Clayton Kershaw

The Dirty Fuentes: Francisco Rodriguez

The Vin Mazzaro: Max Scherzer

Speedy Gonzalez: Billy Hamilton

League Manager's Poll

Poll of the Week #11: More Power Edition
This one's pretty simple: if you lined these guys up at the plate and had a homerun derby, who would win?