With roughly 42 games left to go the season is basically over, at least for me it is. The league is down to two teams and I'm not one of them so I've basically checked out. The only thing left for Andrew and I is to maintain our teams and desperately try to make trades as the Sept 1st trade deadline approaches.
I'm about 75% checked out right now, and all I can do it hope that the injury bug is done with me. My offense, once a shining example of draft strategy, has been decimated by injuries. Losing two of my best players (Choo and Tulo) for over a month has caught up with me, and the loss of Youkilis is really paying off right now. I'm losing points in close categories that Youk gave me (HR, AVG, RBI) and I have no way to make up for it. My best hope is that Justin Upton and Billy Butler ascend to a higher level of Baseball Consciousness and completely destroy the league over the next 40 games. Add in my ability to add pitchers who quickly find the DL (Jeff Niemann, although I was able to add Jeremy Hellickson) and I'm done, see y'all next year.
Jeremy "Hell Boy" Hellickson, my only hope.
Andrew is still plugging away in 2nd, although he enjoyed a brief stint in 1st. He continues to ride baffling seasons by middling players (Kelly Johnson, Aubrey Huff) and is still in contention. He recently swapped Francisco Liriano for another closer, so he should be gaining in the saves category. I don't think he can win it, but with 42 games left alot of crazy things can happen. A single player on a tear could turn the chase.
Current Status Bert - He fixes the cable? Andrew - Shomor Shabbos!
1 - Chelsea : I can imagine a scenario where Chelsea chokes down the stretch, but they have spent so much money and return most of the team that battered the league last year. I think they win the league by at least 4 points, pad their stats with a few 7-0 wins over Championship bound teams, and feature more than one insufferably arrogant jerk.
How dare you call me insufferably arrogant!
2 - Arsenal : They have all the talent to win the league, but they managed to get their teeth kicked in by Chelsea and Manchester United last year. They still have a small lineup and will probably get pushed around by bigger squads, but they have enough offense to ignore their fragile defending. If, and I know its a big if, they get a full season of van Persie and Fábregas they should have a shot at the title.
Fábregas to Barcalona?! Fábregas to Barcalona?!
3 - Manchester United : A tough pick for half of the Sports Optimator, but last year was their "How the hell did they win the league?" chance and they blew it. Lord Ferg added a few budget players, because you need 15 strikers, and missed out on the big marquee signing you expect of United. I think United is a solid third, and quite possibly tie Arsenal for points but fall to third based on goals scored and/or goal differential.
They aren't broken, I picked you to finish 3rd.
4 - Manchester City : Comfortably out of the Top 3 but firmly in fourth. City has spent and eye watering amount of money to improve their team and should make the Champions League just based on that. Adding YayaTouré, David Silva, and Jerome Boateng (along with 40 other guys) should be enough to put them over Spurs and floundering Liverpool.
Bottom Of The League
18 - Wigan : Newcastle should stay up, so someone has to go down, why not Wigan?
19 - West Brom : Open the season with a brutal loss to Chelsea, welcome to the Premiership.*
20 - Blackpool : The EPL equivalent of a cup of coffee, or maybe its a cup of tea over there, thanks for coming.**
*I wrote this two days ago, and they were torched 6-0 this morning. ** Beat Wigan 4-0 today, maybe they should trade places.
July 11th at about 230pm was the worst possible moment I can think of. No, not because the World Cup ended in a Spanish victory, it was the longest possible time before the next World Cup. Luckily every single day brings us closer to 2014, and the Euro Cup is waiting for me in 2012. I managed to watch every single game, the vast majority live, and aside from being able to live out one of my lesser dreams I was shocked at what a grind it was. Getting up at 3am and sitting in a bar until 2pm was surprisingly exhausting, and I think I managed to carry the bar financially during the 6am to noon doldrums. With all of that in mind you would think that I'd like to take a break from football, but you couldn't possibly be more wrong. I'm actually planning on expanding the amount of time I spend watching a bunch of millionaires kick a ball around for 90 minutes.
I recently decided that I needed to give the German Bundesliga a shot since its apparently the most watched league in Europe. I'm not really clear what that means (attendance or TV viewers), but it was enough to get me thinking about choosing a Bundesliga team to follow. I was able to eliminate one immediately, Bayern Munich, but that left me with quite a few teams to choose from. I started following all of my current teams between the ages of 13 and 18, but I never really put much thought into it beyond "I like Player X" followed by staying with the team over time. I started by asking around for suggestions and just looking over team websites, and I managed to settle on a handful of teams and some criteria for making my final decision.
These are the criteria I decided on, they are by no means final and in no particular order, and are also quite stupid.
Young Talent / Franchise Future : I'd like at least one guy to look forward to seeing for a few years. The weird thing here is that most non-Bayern teams will most likely lose their super talented youth to Bayern eventually, so the best I can hope for is a very talented guy who won't get sold off. I'm also not interested in following a team that just buys all of their players in their prime with eye watering transfer fees.
Bundesliga Tenure : This is an unfortunate requirement since I have no access to the ZweiteBundesliga, and I'm going to be pissed if I settle on a team and they promptly get relegated. I would like my team to win titles, but Manchester United has spoiled me rotten so I'm not going to require my team to win the league regularly. I'm going to be watching everything on ESPN3, so I think setting the bar at "Don't get demoted" is pretty reasonable.
Great Kits : The most ludicrous of my criteria. Being in the design profession causes me to think about these things, so I can't help it. You may laugh, but I would be pissed if I was a Chelsea fan right now. This is also complicated because most Bundesliga teams are Adidas kits, and for some reason the brain trust at Adidas decided to drop a deuce on their teams. Yes, Chelsea is supplied by Adidas.
I've settled on a starting six that I'm going to "audition" this upcoming season, hopefully one of them wins me over.
1 - Werder Bremen. These guys have an unfair advantage right now: MesutÖzil. Özil was awesome for Germany during the World Cup, so they get a Man Crush bonus with a 21 year old guy that looks like a muppet. The problem is that I wouldn't be surprised if Bayern Munich bought him before or during the season. Werder Bremen also has an interesting team history and a habit of staying in the Bundesliga. I'm also happy that they use Nike kits and the Green-Orange color scheme isn't as bad as it sounds. Sadly, this year their kit looks like a complete disaster. It looks like Nike started with Slovakia's Charlie Brown lightning bolt theme and said "How can we make this look worse?", and they nailed it. Bonus : Champions League in 2010-11.
The unintentional comedy here is through the roof, I just wish I spoke German.
2 - Bayer Leverkusen. As soon as Andrew told me that people call them Neverkusen, because they never win the league no matter how good they are, I knew they needed to be included. I have a bad habit of choosing lovable failures without knowing, so why not join the Neverkusen bandwagon? Leverkusen features midfielder Toni Kroos and striker Stefan Kiessling (21 goals), both German nationals. They have a good history of staying up, but their kits (Adidas) aren't so great.Negative : Much to my dismay they have brought back Michael Ballack, and I don't know if I can root for a former Chelsea player that I have never liked.
Something tells me I'll need alot of this.
3 - VfLWolfsburg. These guys were in the Champions League this year and won the Bundesliga in 2008-09, but their coach left the previous season and they had a bit of a meltdown this past season. They feature the league's top scorer in Edin Dzeko (22 goals), but the big budget vultures (Man City) are circling as I type. They also suffer from Adidas kits, but I like their Green-White colors. Bonus : Just hired Steve McClaren who just won the Erdevisie title with FCTwente.
4 - Borussia Dortmund. Recommended by a friend, second least familiar with them. Nevin Subotic is most recognizable player for me, there is some kit potential here with their Yellow-Black non-Adidas look, and a good history of avoiding relegation.
5 - Eintracht Frankfurt. Another recommendation and the biggest unknown for me. They don't have a history of getting relegated, but they don't have a history of finishing top of the table either. Their roster is a giant question mark, and their top scorer had 10 goals last year. They do get points for having a decent non-Adidas kit, and their Red-Black colors go nicely with my existing loyalties. 6 - FCKaiserslautern. This is Andrew's team, so I'm giving them a fair shot. I have no idea who their players are, and they were just promoted from the ZweiteBundesliga. They have a history of moving between the leagues, so I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about them even if they do everything right but wind up bottom of the league. Andrew has nothing but great things to say about them, well he hates their uniforms, so I'm getting some good background on them. Plus, nice to see a team from a small town do well, nothing wrong with a loyal local fan base. Bonus : Andrew's lobbying.
There must be a Zoolander joke here somewhere.
All of the fun starts August 20th, and despite all of my considerations I don't really know who I'm going to wind up with after the season. All of my experience with the Bundesliga revolves around extreme profanities, for real events and video games (FIFA 98 & 99), right around 1998-2001. I'm very interested to see if my life can weather an additional league, something crazy could happen like fostering greater respect for Michael Bradley and ending up a BorussiaMönchengladbach fan. Even if I don't enjoy the Bundesliga at least I'll walk away with some German curse words, its the least I can hope for.
This will be, by far, the most apathetic update yet. As far as I'm concerned the league has pretty much been decided, barring some (additional) bad breaks, I can't see anyone seriously shaking up the standings. You may have guessed that I am not in first. Andrew isn't either, but I'm sure he thinks he still has a shot at the title.
My season ended this weekend when news went out that Kevin Youkilis' season was over due to a thumb injury. I've been missing one of my best players (Tulowitzki and/or Choo) for most of the season, and its hurt me, but this is probably the last straw. I built my team on guys that provide multiple stats, Tulo & Choo are six stat (HR/RBI/SB/BB/BA) studs and now I'm losing a 5 stat stud who gives me what I need most. I've been competitive in HR and king of BB for some reason, so losing those has pretty much doomed me. I've added James Loney since he has been driving a bunch of runs and hitting .300, so my only hope is that my offense lives up to its potential and Grienke/Sanchez go on a hot streak. As far as I'm concerned I'm just trying to stay in the money.
This pretty much sums up the rest of my season.
Andrew's team is stuck in championship limbo from what I can see. He is currently 2.5 behind the leader, but the team in first managed to counter his saves strategy. Andrew acquired a number of closers to gain on saves, but Andrew Bailey landed on the DL and the team he is chasing added Johnathan Papelbon in a trade (shipped out Jaime Garcia at the perfect time). I remain annoyed that Andrew is riding some great seasons from lame players (Kelly Johnson and Adam LaRoche come to mind), but its working for him. If Andrew can take some points away from the leader he has a chance, but right now it looks like both of us are finished.
Current Status Bert - This is a league game, Smokey. Andrew - Dude, nothing is fucked. Come on. You're being very unDude.
I'm running a little bit behind this week, probably because I've spent the last few weeks grinding my teeth and trying not to punch myself in the face (more on that later). The past few weeks saw the MLB trade deadline pass, and it should have quite an effect on the title race. The biggest names trading laundry were Cliff Lee (SEA to TEX), Dan Haren (ARZ to LAA, looks like they don't know about his epic 2nd half meltdowns), and Lance Berkman (HOU to NYY).
The trade of Cliff Lee has not helped me all that much aside from a recent outing where Lee went 9 innings and struck out 13 and Neftali Feliz came in and got the win in the 10th. I would love it if I could get those more often, but as it stands I'm getting killed all over. My offensive dominance has waned, but with Choo and Tulo coming back online and Rod "Do Nothing" Barajas in a pending DL move I may be headed for a strong recovery.
My biggest headache has been the Mike Pelfrey/Phil Hughes shit sandwich, and lets not forget my Nick Markakis/Franklin Gutierrez pre-season mancrush. This is where I start punching myself in the face, since I was all over Gutierrez as a potential 20-20 guy who could hit .300. I was wavering between Gutierrez and Colorado's Carlos Gonzalez, lets see how that worked out for me...
The only bright side I see there is I'm #1 in BB, and dropping 24 would hurt. No, that doesn't help me sleep at night but its true. At least I managed to ditch Pelfrey for Barry Zito in a waiver move.
Hitting for the cycle is soooo overrated.
Andrew's team was somewhat up and down, mostly up. He managed to take a large lead in 2nd, but is now currently tied with me at 61 points. We are both well behind the leader (68.5), but the movement of Haren will improve his fortunes. Andrew has been borderline suicidal over Haren's odd 1st half meltdown, the guy has just not been himself all season, but moving to LA should give him a boost in wins and maybe keep a few fly balls in the park. The big downside of his move is going back to the AL, but Adrew is so far ahead in strikeouts that Haren doesn't need to strike out anyone else for the next three seasons. Andrew remains optimistic that we still have a chance at winning, me... not so much.
World of pain...
Current Status Bert - No, Walter, it didn't look like Larry was about to crack. Well that's your perception... Andrew - I believe in nothing!
Well I'll be damned, the past few weeks have been great for chokesters (Spain & The NL), so maybe that signals new beginnings? Oh who am I kidding, the second half of the season is going to be a series of disappointing events culminating in failure. Andrew and I have descended into standings purgatory and will no doubt will be trapped in 2nd and 3rd for the rest of the season. There may be some hope, notice I said purgatory and not limbo, all the Dante fans out there know what I mean.
The injury bug, well its more like a venomous snake or a rabid dog, has finally bitten Andrew. I know he isn't surprised, and neither am I, but Jake Peavy has finally made his way to the DL with a detached muscle in his right (throwing arm) shoulder. I don't think I have to tell you his season is over. Good thing the White Sox have him signed through 2012, I hear good things about pitchers in their 30's recovering from shoulder surgery. It isn't all bad news though, Andrew managed to jettison Brad Lidge for Jon Rauch in a waiver move, and he added Huston Street for Peavy. With four closers he should make up some serious ground in the saves category.
We had such high hopes...
I'm teetering in 2nd place, but I could have made a move to ruin my season. I failed to do much research when I placed Shin-SooChoo on the DL, and now I'm stuck with a guy who doesn't even start. I only requested Josh Willingham (Nats OF) and Seth Smith (Rockies OF) thinking I would land Willingham, but someone else had a DL move and requested him as well. Smith is hitting .287 with 12HR, but with Choo being out for a long time I may be stuck with this guy for longer than I'd like. I also boned the move because I have 6 OF (we have 5 OF and a UTIL slot), and I took a weak OF when I could have taken any position. I can't believe I'm saying this, but in hindsight I'd almost rather have JD Drew. Even Carlos Quentin and his impressive .244 average would be better than a part time player. The best thing to happen to me, or maybe a not-so-horrible thing, was the trade of Cliff Lee to the Texas Rangers. Upside; Texas has an offense and he should win more games, Downside; Lee goes from a super-defensive team in a pitchers park to an all-offense team in a hitters park.
My favorite Korean, you will be sorely missed.
Current Status Bert - Don't run away from this, Dude! Goddamnit, this affects all of us! Andrew - I'm shomer shabbas!
Well the 2010 World Cup is over and we have a first time winner, sadly it was not the Dutch. Spain hoisted the cup for the few fans that were able to get tickets (You may have noticed how few vuvuzelas could be heard), and the angry people watching on TV. You can't hear it, but I'm grinding my teeth right now.
FIFA has already awarded Diego Forlan the Golden Ball (Best Player) and Thomas Müller the Golden Ball (Top Scorer) and Best Young Player awards. Despite the handing out of "official" awards, we at the Sports Optimator feel that more are required. With no real rational behind them, we present our picks.
The Sports Optimator 2010 World Cup Awards
Team Of The Tournament : Spain (Teeth grinding...). Didn't look like a superpower, but managed to grind down their opponents and win games when it mattered.
Player Of The Tournament : Wesley Sneijder. This was tough, it was down to Sneijder, David Villa, and MesutÖzil. David Villa didn't snag the Golden Ball in the final and didn't really seem all that dominant. Özil looked like he was going to own the tournament, impressive considering that he didn't score much, but he looked spent against Argentina and turned into Mesut The Friendly Ghost against Spain. Sneijder gets the nod based on his overall play, not just goals and assists, and I think he meant more to the Netherlands than Müller did to Germany.
All that for nothing...
Goal Of the Tournament : Giovanni Van Bronckhorst. Absolutely the most amazing goal of the tournament, Uruguay and the rest of the world never saw it coming. This barely beats out Carlos Tevez's blast.
Coach Of the Tournament : Joachim Löw. This could have been Bert van Marwijk, but Germany wasn't getting much hype before the tournament. Löw coached the tournament's juggernaut right up to the Spain loss, its safe to say nobody saw the Germans scoring the most goals and putting up three 4 goal games.
Biggest Disappointment (Team) : France. Do I really need to explain this?
Biggest Disappointment (Player) : Fernando Torres. This could have been Lionel Messi if we had gone with Expectations vs. Performance as the decider. Messi played very well but failed to score, and Torres just... failed. He clinched the award by pulling up lame in the final and rolling around on the ground, Liverpool is kicking themselves for not selling him before the World Cup.
Worst Coach : Raymond Domenech. See Biggest Disappointment (Team).
Still doesn't understand what went wrong.
Worst Pass : Ricardo Osario. This clunker of a back pass could have doubled as the best assist of the tournament, I know Gonzalo Higuian and Argentina liked it.
Most Insufferable Arrogance : DidierDrogba. How dare you flag him offsides.
Most Enjoyable Schadenfreude : France.
Lack Of Class : Ivory Coast. The Ivory Coast ended their tournament in a 3-1 loss to Brazil, but that isn't why they get to take home this award. Once they were down, and well beaten, they resorted to childish thuggery. The worst incident was followed by theatrics and Kaka getting a second yellow. The whole scene was bad enough to knock off Italy's performance against New Zealand as #1.
Jeremy "Hell Boy" Hellickson, my only hope.
