2012 FOFC Hardcore Baseball League! (Season Over: Congrats, PF)

[Danny]

Ah ok, not too bad then.

Transactions processed today, but they processed for tomorrow so I couldnt put them in my lineup. A little weird for sure.

[samifan24]

Who drafted Cleveland's Vinnie Pestano? Cause he's on my roster somehow. I'll release him for you.

[TRO]

You did.

Via list through SI in round 25.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Also: a reminder to set your lineups. The season starts tomorrow morning!

SI

Best time of the year!

Spring.. March Madness, hockey playoffs, NFL draft, baseball, I get laid more often, etc..

[CleBrownsfan]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Best time of the year!

Spring.. March Madness, hockey playoffs, NFL draft, baseball, I get laid more often, etc..

Please give me tips on this department???!!! Being married with two kids kinda puts a damper for me

[Ramzavail]

Hang onto pestano hes gonna be good

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by TRO

You did.

Via list through SI in round 25.

Samifan,
That was my bad. It was supposed to be Jordan Pacheco but I list-picked Pestano for you. Keep Pestano or switch out for Pacheco. Pacheco is a free agent so it won't cost you waiver position to swap them out. Or just keep Pestano or swap for someone else.

Anyone else,
I'd request that you wait until at least Friday if you want to pick up Pacheco to make up for my mistake.

SI

[samifan24]

Funny, I saw Pestano go and I was upset about it. If he's actually on my roster, I'll take it. As a Tribe fan, I predict he'll be closing games instead of Perez by June. He's a more dominant pitcher, too.

[samifan24]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Samifan,
That was my bad. It was supposed to be Jordan Pacheco but I list-picked Pestano for you. Keep Pestano or switch out for Pacheco. Pacheco is a free agent so it won't cost you waiver position to swap them out. Or just keep Pestano or swap for someone else.

Sorry for the confusion, SI. You had it right all along.

[sterlingice]

I'm glad we're all good because I'm still all confused

Let's get the season under way

SI

[samifan24]

So are we all going to lose our pitching categories for the week since hardly anyone hit the 42 IP requirement during week one?

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Not 42, 48 :-)

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

I read on the front page of yahoo that the commissioner can adjust the total for week one. Don't know if it is too late for sterling ice to do that.

[TRO]

I think we should adjust the IP requirement for the first week. I will lose all pitching categories anyway, but seeing only two teams with qualifying totals isn't very fun.

[PackerFanatic]

I was pretty baffled when I saw my matchup had 9 ties...then I saw both of us missed the pitching limit. I'd be all for removing it for that first week.

[Danny]

No official ruling on this? I am definitely with the side of no IP requirement from that first week. I was actually surprised the first matchup didnt continue into this week

[Comey]

I'm all for removing it, and I'm one of the teams who (inexplicably) reached the limit.

[sterlingice]

Well, crap. I was down in Houston for the weekend, visiting my parents, so I didn't check FOFC at all. It seemed odd to me that there were a lot of ties. Honestly, I assumed it was like in previous years where the opening week and All Star week had no IP limits. Let me see if there is something I can do.

SI

[sterlingice]

I can't find a way to change that now, tho. Does anyone know what the initial message said about how to do it?

SI

[Danny]

i dont know either

[PackerFanatic]

According to this, you won't be able to go back and change those IP limits...

Fantasy Baseball - Week 1 Minimum Innings pitched | Fantasy Baseball Help

Can you alter scores at all? I can't recall if you have that option...

[samifan24]

Ugh. I lost 12-2 this week despite my pitching staff throwing 72 2/3 innings of 2.72 ball.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by samifan24

Ugh. I lost 12-2 this week despite my pitching staff throwing 72 2/3 innings of 2.72 ball.

It's about time my team rebounds after that horrible start.

[sterlingice]

Well, the bad news is that I missed the minimum inning requirements. The "good news" is that even if I had 6 more innings, I would have lost all 7 pitching categories.

SI

[Danny]

SI, no chance that first week gets edited? It cost me 5 wins.

[sterlingice]

There's nothing I can do about it, unfortunately. There's no commissioner tool to update scores or edit results

SI

[Danny]

That sucks .

I will accept a +5 bonus at the end in consolation

[Ramzavail]

time to talk about keeper rules yet?

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Ramzavail

time to talk about keeper rules yet?

Sure- tho you're in first after slaughtering me last week so I don't see why

It still won't be for this year's teams as I think being a keeper league substantially affects people's drafting strategies but it would be to set it up for next year.

I think it would give an added dimension to the league that would be welcome and I'm curious what others think about that

We would definitely need to take care as to how it was designed as I think there are a lot of keeper rules that can be taken advantage of and I definitely don't want to promote tanking. Again, part of what I really like about this and the Alternate Rules Football league is that we have a really low rate of dead teams for it being a free league because of the time sink from the draft.

SI

[Ramzavail]

well yes, I'm fine for implementing it for next years draft.

For me, and maybe others will agree, I think my suggestions are different from most as you aren't keeping the top 30-40 best players in the league and if you can imagine years down the road - the draft will still be stockpiled with great players as either they are unable to be kept (because of the 3 year rule) or teams have better valued keepers (ie. Keep Halladay as a 2nd round pick or Keep Bumgarner as a 17th round keeper).

With that said, I'm in two leagues and both have implemented these rules for nearly 10 years, so I can answer any questions or re-propose my suggestions again in a more consolidated fashion.

I will write an article probably around July/August that will detail some keeper decisions *had* we implemented my suggestions this year and give them a good sense of what each team and what keepers they *would* have kept.

[Danny]

I think your suggestion is fine for starting after next years draft

[Ramzavail]

and to lessen the complication here, or maybe not, considering this is a "hardcore" league - we can do away with free agent keepers and just not allow them to be kept. And therefore, there isn't this wacky calculation that has to go into what round they will be kept at.

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Looking to trade pitching for hitting. All interesting offers considered.

You can pm me to negotiate the interesting offer that I will be considering.

[TRO]

I'm looking to trade my soul for a Royals win. Can anybody make that happen?

[CleBrownsfan]

Originally Posted by TRO

I'm looking to trade my soul for a Royals win. Can anybody make that happen?

I will not help you there!! Lol

[Danny]

Damn, Pineda done for the year.

[CleBrownsfan]

Originally Posted by Danny

Damn, Pineda done for the year.

And Seattle claims they didn't know anything about it.... suuuurrre

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by TRO

I'm looking to trade my soul for a Royals win. Can anybody make that happen?

I made this point a day or two ago: at what point is it ok to switch from being depressed to just accepting laughably bad and cheering for futility records?

SI

[bronconick]

Hey, CNNSI's power rankings have KC #7!

[sterlingice]

Holy crap. Can I get a healthy team?!?

Current players on the DL: Zimmerman, Young, Hudson, and Dempster to go along with token DL player Sizemore. And Choo hasn't played in a week almost

SI

[PackerFanatic]

I love it when one of my players breaks his damn wrist on Sunday night baseball...while I am not watching, of course. Looks like I am a man down this week... *grumble grumble*

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

I know it is early ,but only five teams in our league have winning records...wow.

Time to start making some trades!

[CleBrownsfan]

And one of those team is ME!!!!!

[PackerFanatic]

Originally Posted by LastWhiteSoxFanStanding

I know it is early ,but only five teams in our league have winning records...wow.

Time to start making some trades!

And four of them are in the Squid Division. Crazy.

[sterlingice]

If my team could stay healthy for more than 5 minutes, I'd be in a lot better shape. Then again, I knew those risks when I drafted. It's just that I'm having issues with Dempster, Zimmerman, Young, Hudson, and Youkilis. A couple of those have had injury issues before but I was expecting them from other places instead.

SI

[sterlingice]

Time for the one month update!

Rank		Team	W-L-T	Pct	Div	GB	Last Week	Waiver	Moves
Trout Division
2.		Killing Me Smalls	39-20-11	.636	2-3-9	-	8-5-1	4	3
6.		ALL IN	29-30-11	.493	3-2-9	10	7-6-1	6	14
8.		Royal Apes	28-37-5	.436	6-8-0	14	5-6-3	12	12
9.		Roadkill Cafe	26-35-9	.436	1-5-8	14	1-13-0	8	8
11.		Indianapolis Iguanii	27-41-2	.400	8-6-0	16.5	3-11-0	11	10
12.		Hartford Heroes	20-37-13	.379	5-1-8	18	4-9-1	3	6
Squid Division
1.		The Amazin' Mess	41-19-10	.657	7-0-7	-	9-4-1	7	6
3.		Hunters	38-23-9	.607	1-5-8	3.5	13-1-0	5	13
4.		CleBrownsFan	32-26-12	.543	5-1-8	8	6-5-3	9	8
5.		Klein Bottles	30-28-12	.514	0-7-7	10	5-8-1	1	3
7.		Troy Trojans	33-37-0	.471	3-11-0	13	11-3-0	2	1
10.		Shamrocks	28-38-4	.429	11-3-0	16	6-7-1	10	4

One month is in the books and it's a tale of two divisions. We'll start with the Squids because they're actually good. The overall #1 team is The Amazin' Mess. They have 4 weekly wins and only 1 weekly loss. They are 5-0-0 for AVG, OBP, and SLG. The offense is potent and balanced, only lacking in speed, and containing 5 of the top 20 players in the league in Kemp (2), Beltran (4), Ortiz (10), Jeter (12), and Wright (18). The pitching is middle of the road but led by Felix Hernandez's (14th) stellar season.

For as dominant as the Mess are, the Hunters are only 3.5 behind them and #3 overall. The hitting is lead by Carlos Gonzalez (#5 overall) while the pitching is anchored by Jered Weaver (#3) and the balance continues throughout the team. Both offense and pitching have 5 top 100 players and no huge sink holes with substantial playing time. Random fact: Hunters are 2 of the teams in the league with a 5-0 mark in SBs (Killing Me Smalls being the other).

#4 CleBrownsFan are similarly balanced as Hunters, but the talent hasn't performed quite as well. They have 3 hitters (Altuve, Heyward, and MCabera) and 3 pitchers (Strasburg, Cain, Westbrook) in the top 100. They are the only team with under 10 pitcher wins so far this season. However, the hitting has fared much better with 5 categories out of 7 with winning records.

The Klein Bottles are 4th in the division and #5 seed for the playoffs. Ryan Braun's offseason has done nothing to his game as he's the #7 ranked player so far this season. He is paired up with 4 more top 100 hitters and 4 top 100 pitchers. It's a dominant team but there are some bad players getting a lot of playing time due to a mess of injuries: Longoria, Howard, Quentin, JRivera, BJUpton, and Bailey. If get healthy, this could be a team to be reckoned with.

Some years, MizzouRah's collection of unwanted veterans, misfits, and Cardinals do extremely well. This year's version of the Troy Trojans are holding 7th place, just a hair out of a playoff spot. The hitting is very good with no elite players but 8 players in the top 100 including Furcal, Freese, and Molina. The pitchers are not nearly as good with only 4 in the top 200 with Cardinals Adam Wainwright and Fernando Salas outside of the top 500. It might be time to make some WW acquisitions or trades for pitching as Troy has a winning record on all but SB on offense and a losing record on all pitching categories.

The Shamrocks are 6th in the division and 10th overall. After winning in week 1, they have lost 4 straight weeks. There are only 3 of the top 100 performing players on the team and none of them are pitchers. Dan Haren and Matt Moore, the only SPs taken by the team in the first 10 rounds, have been disappointing. Also, Brett Gardner, Coco Crisp, and Sergio Santos have all been on the DL for a couple of weeks. Roster moves might be in order as none have been made since April 9th. C'mon, keep the team active.

When I said only the Squids were good, that didn't include the #2 team in the league, Killing Me Smalls. They are the only team above .500 in the Trout and are winning it by 10 games at this point. Their starting pitching, led by Verlander, Shields, and Cueto has been great with only two SP with an ERA above 3.20 and both of those are below 4.00. They lost the weird oddball first week but have won all 4 since.

ALL IN is in a position for the final playoff spot if the season ended today. That run of 6 straight SP to begin the draft has paid dividends but it leaves the team short on the hitting side. A resurgent Adam Dunn and Alex Rodriguez lead the offense but they are the only top 100 players on that side of the ball for the squad. And they have been active on the WW with a league-leading 14 moves.

The Royal Apes would be around .500 but for a 12-1 loss back in week 2. They missed the IP requirements by 0.2 innings but that would still have netted them only 1 point (losses) even if they hadn't. They have some very pleasant surprises in Kyle Lohse, Yu Darvish, Bartolo Colon, and Carlos Zambrano. But they also have some very unpleasant surprises in the underperforming Tim Lincecum, Heath Bell, Ian Kennedy, and Jose Reyes.

Roadkill Cafe started out strong at 22-11 but has lost the last two weeks 4-24. They have 3 of the top 10 players so far this season in Josh Hamilton, Jay Bruce (?), and Lance Lynn (??). However, there hasn't been a lot of pitching on the team beyond Lynn and Gio Gonzalez. It seems like a rotating mess of high WHIPs and low strikeouts. They don't believe in saves (0).

I like to think that the #11 Indianapolis Iguanii have done their part to help the Squid Division as they have played the #1, #3, #4, and #7 teams and lost all but one of those weeks. Dempster, Zimmerman, Young, Hudson, Youkilis, and Choo have all missed at least half of the young season on the DL. The pitching has been mediocre, save for Jake Peavy's 8th ranked season. The hitting has been similarly mediocre and when you put those together with no depth and having to plug in waiver wire slop, you get 11th place.

The Hartford Heroes round out the league at #12. The good news is that the season is still young and even as bad as it has been, they're only 8 games out of a playoff spot. The power has been significantly lacking with no player with more than 6 home runs and no one with more than 21 RBIs or 18 runs. The only .300 hitter is Andrew McCutchen. I think it's been noted a bit in the national media that Albert Pujols has had a slow start and that has really hurt the offense. Gallardo (5), Latos (7), and Scherzer (12) were three of the top 4 pitchers taken by the team and they have not lived up to expectations.

SI

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Thanks for the awesome and comprehensive update!

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

And out of all the weeks for me up to go up against Josh Hamilton, grrrr :-)

[Travis]

Great write up and details, thanks!

[samifan24]

Love the monthly updates, SI. Thanks for doing them.