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.
Well, the All Star break is finally upon us. With half the season behind us we have a decent picture of how things are going to go down the stretch. The 1st place team is still comfortably in first with 66.5 points, 5 ahead of me and 9 ahead of Andrew. Things look bleak for the rest of the league with 4th place at 52.5 points, we have a smaller league than usual (9 teams) so we changed the rules so the top three get prize money. Being “safely” in the money isn’t comforting to Andrew who isn’t happy with anything but the title, typical German.
The past 10 games have been cruel to Andrew, but he retains some optimism that the Baseball Gods will work their magic on the 1st place team. He may be right, but it’s going to be hard to knock him off his pitching perch. The current leader has been riding high on the league’s best staff by far (35.5 points), which has been held aloft by super-buy Ubaldo Jimenez (14-1, 1.83ERA), super-rookie Jaime Garcia (7-4, 2.27ERA), and first half monsters Josh Johnson (8-3, 1.83ERA) and Matt Garza (9-5, 4.05ERA). Aside from Javier Vasquez’s start and Garza’s recent ERA explosion his staff has been solid all season, I’m not 100% clear where Andrew sees room for a fall so I’m not all that hopeful. He is going to have to deal with an injury to V-Mart, but he has the studly Cano-Longoria combo to fall back on.
Andrew’s hitters have started to cool off, and his pitching staff is not what it was to start the season. Jake Peavy has had some good starts, but he also has had a meltdown here and there. Aside from Adam Wainwright, who I covet, Andrew’s arms have been all over the place. Francisco Liriano is starting to plummet back to earth, and Dan Haren could be moving into his dangerous post-break slump. If history has anything to say, Haren’s second half numbers could be brutal considering his start. Who knows, Andrew has enormous upside in his staff and has traded his way into a three closer (Lidge-Gregg-Bailey) rotation which will help him gain ground in the saves department.
Haren watches one of his 19 homers given up, well on his way to a career worst.
My team is now on the verge of a complete implosion. I can already see my team bursting into flames as my best performer, Shin-Soo Choo, is joining Tulo on the DL for 6-8 weeks. I still have the best offense in the league, but only by 2.5 points. Losing Tulo and Choo Choo ends my dream of hammering the hell out of the ball, but a lot of my best hitters have been ice cold (Holliday-Upton-Markakis) and I’ve had to sit and watch my totals drop. My catchers (Barajas-Y.Molina) have been horrible lately, but the two headed monster of Youk-Zimmerman has been keeping me afloat. I’ve done everything I can with my pitching staff, but it’s not working out all that well just yet. Mat Latos has been awesome, Greinke gave me 2 wins in a row after the poor guy went 2-8 through 15 starts, but Pelfrey, Sanchez, and Hughes have all been getting shelled lately. At least they go 5+, strike out 5 or so, and don’t walk everyone (I’m looking at you Rich Harden) so it could be worse.
Padres and Royals and Mets, Oh shit.
Current Status
Bert – So he says, “My son can't hold a job, my daughter's married to a fuckin' loser, and I got a rash on my ass so bad I can't hardly siddown. But you know me. I can't complain.”
Andrew - I'm sorry, I wasn't listening.
Mid-Season Thoughts
Yeah, but what I meant was…
Vernon Wells. Wow, were we way off on him. Even if he does nothing for the rest of the season he was well worth the $1. Maybe once his steroid cycle ends, err, I mean his good luck, he may even out. He is well on pace for a career year and has already made our predictions look horrible.
Chipper Jones. So that slump last year wasn’t a fluke, huh, well at least I didn’t buy him. Chipper’s decline has been so sudden and drastic, its tough to see a solid player like him completely melt down.
Calmer Than You
$1 Closers. I am SO happy that I spent $1 on Billy Wagner and Frank Francisco. I had to dump Francisco for Neftali Feliz (who leads the AL with 21 saves) so it wasn’t perfect, but had I thrown down cash for a Broxton or Papelbon I am 100% sure I would not be where I am.
Matt Cain. Andrew and I sat in stunned disbelief when he went for $10. I think Andrew still has nightmares about this because he had TWO chances to get him for that price after the original winner didn’t have the salary space. Ubaldo Jimenez went for the same price (I backed off after spending all my money on Lester and Lee), but we had no idea he would be the best pitcher in baseball. Cain has a deceptive 6-7 record, but his 76K, 2.93ERA, and 1.14WHIP make him a major steal at $10. I’m not sure when Andrew will get over this, maybe never.
As this was going to press, all of the teams that were eliminated suffered a complete collapse in their stock prices and can now be found on the pink sheets, but the more significant teams had to be included because their downfall was so complete that it can't be ignored.
Apple
1 - Argentina. It pains me to type this, but they look very dangerous. Even with an egomaniac at the helm they managed to come together and play very well without relying on Messi. If they were on the same region of the bracket as the US I'd say they were a lock to make the finals, but they will have to go through Germany (Yes, I think England will lose) and a back-to-life Spain. Cokehead vs. Chokesters may decide who gets to the final.
Get a room.
2 - Holland. The Dutch are one stupid Rafael Van Der Vaart handball from shutting out all of their opponents. They didn't have a very strong group, but they won all three games (joining Argentina as the only 3-0 teams) mostly without the help of Arjen Robben. They look good, seem vulnerable to counter-attacks, and have the fortune of being on the "easiest" side of the bracket. The best team they could face is Brazil, no easy task, but the reward for beating them would be the winner of the Urugauy/US/Ghana/South Korea pillow-fight bracket. I know, I'm being harsh on Uruguay.
3 - North & South America. The Americas handed out a serious ass whuppin' this year with 7 of 8 teams advancing and a whopping 4 group winners. Everyone expected Brazil and Argentina to win their groups, but the emergence of Uruguay and, to a lesser extent, the USA, were pleasant surprises. I would love to be wrong here, but we could see an all America final. One side of the bracket "should" feature three (Brazil, Uruguay, USA) teams. Way to go continents!
4 - Messi Apologists. With no goals to fawn over the comments quickly shifted to how great he is despite the lack of a Messianic (Ahh, see what I did there?) performance. To be fair, he did create 3 goals, and is one of the few players to keep some nasty free kicks below the crossbar, and in one case right on it.
British Petroleum
1 - France. The most complete implosion I can possibly imagine short of getting into a fight with themselves during a game or physically turning into a black hole and destroying all life on earth. They looked like complete shit on the field, they came in with a sex scandal, they fought on the training field (when they weren't protesting), their clown of a coach sent someone home, and South Africa sent them packing in their final game. Not much else to say; they deserved to be eliminated on so many levels.
The only person still confused about France's early exit.
2 - Africa. No, not the continent, the teams. 5 of 6 teams failed to leave the group stage including the feisty host who went out with a bang against France. I'm impressed with the passion for the game seen throughout the World Cup, so its a little sad to see no local teams to cheer on aside from Ghana.
3 - Messi Fanboys. No goals, and I'm sure people were expecting 4 a game all from 50 yards out or after running through 10 defenders. Even Ronaldo has scored, so all of the Messi-Maradona comparisons seem overblown so far. He hasn't owned the tournament, let alone a single game, so maybe teams have been planning around him. Who knows, maybe he will rise up against Mexico and Germany (Shit, did I just jinx the Germans?!).
4 - Kim Jong Il / North Korea. After they parked the bus so well against Brazil, the glorious leader's secret commands couldn't save them from the first bona fide ass kicking of the tournament. I would have to look at the tape again, but I think even Figo managed to score in that one - definitely not what Kim Jong Il had planned... or was it? That devilish bastard. To make things worse, they were thumped by the Ivory Coast 3-0 this morning; at least they held Portugal's massive goal differential to keep Drogba out of the second round.
You are going to need two more fingers for the Portugal result.
There were a lot more topics, but I don't want to bludgeon you with complaints. Just barely missing the cut were Officials (Blind?), Ivory Coast (Thuggish against Brazil), and the USA (Winning England's group!). I'll close this report with a few words about our original predictions.
I Told You So!
Australia. See, the Sports Optimator isn't wrong about everything. The media's favorite underdog was just that, a dog, and failed to surprise anyone but Serbia. They did manage to suffer from two redcards, both going to their best players, so they could have done a little better, but probably not much.
Ronaldo. Ok, I was half right. He didn't do much aside from producing a frightening free kick and scoring the goofiest goal of the tournament in a 7-0 blasting of North Korea. Portugal managed to find life working around his black hole style of possession; sadly, this robbed us from his repertoire of diving theatrics and tears. I'm patiently waiting for him to guide a knock-out round implosion.
I Was Misquoted...
France & Italy. I was so confident they were just good enough to win their groups despite all of their problems, and I couldn't be happier to have been proven wrong. Both teams played like crap and never really looked like they wanted to move on. Italy only showed some life at the end of their 3-2 loss to Slovakia. And, it couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of guys. My biggest fear now is that the curse of the Optimator is going to finish the job. I really should have been more down on Holland and higher on Argentina.
The past 10 games have been a real rollercoaster of emotions, mainly for me, culminating in what should be the final three for the remainder of the season. It is starting to look like the 1st place team is untouchable, although Andrew disagrees, and the Sports Optimators will be trading barbs and places in the standing for some time.
The biggest personal tragedy for me was losing out on the Stephen Strasburg Lottery by one position in the standings. I had dropped to fourth with Brett Anderson heading for the DL, but the team in fifth had an ace up their sleeve with Daisuke Matsuzaka DL eligible. Disaster also struck when one of my favorite bathwater sources, Troy Tulowitzki, broke his wrist and will be out at least 6-8 weeks. The only upside to the past week or so was some managerial magic, and crazy luck, when I managed to transform Brett Anderson (DL), Rich Harden (DL, thank God), and Wade Davis into Matt Latos, Mike Pelfrey, and Zach “I May Be Clinically Depressed Again” Greinke. The Davis-Greinke trade seems lopsided, much like my Ibanez-Upton swap, but until Davis got shelled twice in a row it didn’t look so bad. I’m rolling the dice that Greinke and Upton wake up in the second half and keep me in the money.
Maybe next year Stephen, when I'll have to pay $40 for you.
I wasn’t the only one pulling off some transaction magic as Andrew managed to jettison the shaky Ricky Nolasco in exchange for Andrew Bailey. Andrew likes to ride starters, get a big lead in Ks (which he has), then trade for closers. Sadly he has not had a lot of low budget closer luck like I have, even though Frank Francisco cost me a sup move, so Andrew is now on his 5th closer (Frasor, Gregg, Capps, Bailey, Lidge) and relying on Brad Lidge to help him out. At least he didn’t pay $15 for Lidge, and I will never have him again. Andrew definitely has the most solid core of starters, especially with Haren coming around, and he thinks it will only be a matter of time before his staff if #1 and putting him top of the league.
I'm shocked Andrew has forgotten about this.
The World Cup has done a great job of keeping me distracted, sometimes its good to ignore the standings, but once the Cup is decided I have a feeling I’ll be right back to giving myself a heart attack over every Jonathan Sanchez meltdown.
Current Status Bert - “Well Dude, we just don't know.” Andrew - “That's a great plan, Walter. That's fuckin' ingenious, if I understand it correctly. It's a Swiss fuckin' watch.”
This pretty much sums up the rest of my season.
