Week 11 was somewhat
disappointing on the surface. While no
game was close in terms of final score, many of the matchups featured a series
of closely contested categories, leaving it to the owners of the individual
teams to decide whether they have reason for hope or despair.
Seems like Brian Kenny would approve of Danger
Zone’s pitching strategy. After all,
advanced metrics are involved.
In a matchup
of teams trending in opposite directions, Danger Zone took on No Idea, and the
results were about what one would expect.
After a strong start, No Idea has begun to fall out of the race, and
their slide continued. Meanwhile, Danger
Zone kept up their recent string of strong play, having lost only to the two
division leaders since a week 3 loss to No Idea. Despite criticism from various sources around
baseball, the Zone strategy of streaming heavily while backed by a solid core
of pitchers has continued to work, while the team’s offense has begun showing
signs of life. A playoff trip is looking
more and more likely all the time for Kenny Loggins’ favorite LCL team.
MVP: Mike Trout
(.516 OBP, .875 SLG, 6 R, 2 HR, 7 RBI, 1 SB).
Likely the best baseball player on the planet, Trout decided to fill up
the box score this week, with an astounding 1.391 OPS clinching the MVP.
LVP: Michael Bourn
(.176 OBP, .152 SLG, 4 R). Bourn’s lack
of production really cost No Idea, as both runs and steals were within reach in
this matchup.
The
Fighting Vizquels hope a new calisthenics program will help them improve their
performance going forward,
Speaking of division leaders, the Yakety Sackers continue
their roll toward the postseason.
Despite an interesting start to the matchup,highlighted by a performance
for the ages by Lonnie Chisenhall, the Vizquels were worn down by the
weekend. Rob’s sluggers were again
formidable to say the least, bolstered by the arrival of star Pirates
outfielder Gregory Polanco, who lived up to the hype in his first week in the
bigs. The Vizquels held their own
offensively and would have won that side of the scoreboard against at least a
few teams, but their pitching was unfortunately not up to the task.
MVP: Victor Martinez (.423 OBP, .875 SLG, 4 R, 3 HR, 6
RBI). Chisenhall gets special consideration here, but unfortunately, he really
didn’t do anything after Monday, whereas Martinez put up a similar stat line
while contributing throughout the week.
LVP: Justin Verlander (5.2 IP, 11.12 ERA, 2.12 WHIP, 9.53
K/9). Kind of the poster boy for the
Vizquels’ week on the pitching side, Verlander continues to struggle, and
hasn’t lived up to his draft position. Sergio
Romo made a late run at this one, with consecutive blown saves and a 27.00 ERA
for the week.
I
don’t always beat Pat’s team, but when I do, it’s during the regular season.
Two consecutive years of being bounced in the first round
of the playoffs by the DL All Stars seemed to give Bowling Overhand plenty of
motivation this week. The Most
Interesting Team in the WorldTM roared out to a commanding lead and
never looked back, though a mid-week lull in their ability to get on base cost
them any chance of winning OBP or SLG.
Meanwhile, DLAS finished the week strongly, as one would expect from a
team that remains on pace to make the playoffs.
MVP: Evan Gattis (.542 OBP, .905 SLG, 3 HR, 6 R, 7 RBI).
A load of worthy candidates on both sides of this one, going to go with the
lead dog from the winning team.
LVP: Josh Donaldson (.045 OBP, .045 SLG, 1 RBI). I swear
I’m not going to do both MVP and LVP for my team every time I fill in for Adam,
but this one was special, as only a Sunday afternoon hit and RBI saved
Donaldson from going 0 for the week.
This image of the Empire’s
cleanup hitter shows a vastly different picture than the last time we saw him.
It looks like the stress of competing with the league’s
top teams for three consecutive weeks may have caught up with the Empire, as
they took the loss in the week’s most surprising result. The Rooters, after weeks of coming up just
short against tough competition, put together a strong performance across the
board. That plus the Empire’s struggles
to reach base pretty much tell the tale of the week.
MVP: Michael Brantley (.625 OBP, .885 SLG, 9 R, 2 HR, 3
RBI, 1 SB). Brantley’s strong season
continues, as he filled up the box score again this week.
LVP: Mike Minor (2 starts, 9 IP, 11.00 ERA, 2.89 ERA,
9.00 K/9, 0 QS). Minor’s week wasn’t the
worst pitching performance out there, but it was particularly painful, because
It might have been the difference between a 3-8-1 loss and a 6-6 tie.
Finally, the matchup of the week. The 8-3-1 final doesn’t tell the story of the
Wahoos-Demons matchup, as the score went back and forth all week, with most of
the categories being decided by a razor-thin margin. In the end, the difference mostly came down
to consistency. The Wahoos’ week was
driven by a remarkably similar set of performances, while the Demons players’
statistics were all over the place. The
Wahoos find themselves just a game out of the fourth playoff spot, with the
Demons just 8 games back of that, still in strong position for a possible
postseason run.
MVP: Andrew McCutchen (.559 OBP, 1.034 SLG, 4 HR, 5 R, 13
RBI, 2 SB). Despite playing for the
losing team, McCutchen had the best performance in a week of huge numbers.
LVP: Jonathan Villar (.167
OBP, .167 SLG, 1 R, 2 SB) /Nathan Eovaldi/Tony Cingrani (combined 2 starts, 9.1
IP, 11.57 ERA, 2.25 WHIP, 7.72 K/9, 0 QS). This trio could have swung as many
as 5 categories in the Demons’ favor with even average performances.
Standings
| American League | |||
| 1. | Yakety Sax | 79-47-6 | |
| 2. | DL All Stars | 67-59-6 | |
| 3. | The Evil Empire | 50-75-7 | |
| 4. | Fightin' Vizquels | 49-79-4 | |
| 5. | Royal Rooters | 46-80-6 | |
| National League | |||
| 1. | Bowling Overhand | 85-37-10 | |
| 2. | Danger Zone | 74-55-3 | |
| 3. | Cleveland Wahoos | 66-59-7 | |
| 4. | Deathvalley Demons | 58-67-7 | |
| 5. | Team No Idea | 54-70-8 | |
| Updated Tuesday, June 17, 2014 Trophies Tiger Blood-Yackety Sax Chicago Colts-Yackety Sax Louisville Colts-Fightin' Vizquels El Sombrero de Oro-George Springer 2x, The Dirty Fuentes-Kenley Jansen, The Sandman-Trevor Rosenthal, Craig Kimbrel, Ernesto Frieri, The Johnny Burnett Award-Gregory Polanco, Lonnie Chisenhall Walter Johnson Award-Max Scherzer, Yu Darvish The Montgomery Scott More Power Award-Lonnie Chisenhall I'm Thinking RBs-Lonnie Chisenhall Guy Hecker Award-Micahel Brantley | |||
League Manager's Poll
Poll of the Week #10: Unwarranted Predictions EditionBowling Overhand and Yackety Sax seem to be on a collision course for the title game at this rate. So, who do you got?
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