Tommy's Thoughts #10

The wise and rotund Mama Jams has oft cautioned me to ignore all fantasy prognosticators, and to rely instead on my wits and the cold realities of the data. Something happened this past week that didn't just strengthen Mama's case; it also proved that Derrek Lee is a puss.

On May 9th, Vernon Wells went down with a fractured wrist sustained while making a diving catch. Immediately, the bells of fantasy doom began tolling. Conventional wisdom apparently holds that it takes YEARS to come back from a wrist injury, because Derrek Lee is still using it as an excuse two years after he hurt his.

One retard opined, "Once [Wells] returns, it will take him awhile to regain his hitting eye. Wells will not produce much power once he returns, either. Hitters who suffer wrist injuries similar to Wells' usually do not regain all their power for at least a year after the injury. You can use Derrek Lee's recovery from a similar injury as a benchmark."

Another fat loser wrote, "try and sell on Wells while you can get value for him. He’s not going to be the same Vernon Wells at the plate when he returns from a serious wrist injury. Ask Derrek Lee."

And this skank wrote that Wells was out for up to two months, and "As is often the case with these wrist injuries, there is likely to be extra time tacked on to allow the athlete to get the normal range of motion necessary to grip the bat and the strength to swing effectively."

It wasn't just fantasy dorks making these claims. FC principal (and Lee owner) C. Dave Sahl made similar comments on Shortpants recently with regard to wrist injury recovery time. Maybe that's not the best example of a non-fantasy-dork, but my point is, this injury was widely held to be Derrek Lee's Wrist II: The Quest For The Four-Year Rehab.

All the while, Wells' rehab proceeded smoothly. As the principal victims of the 2006 Derrek Lee injury, we of LM management were inclined to believe the so-called experts, but Vern was looking pretty good in his recovery, and didn't have any of the annoying setbacks that characterized Lee's rehab, including the only known case of "PTSD of the wrist" in medical history...

On Saturday, Wells was activated by the Blue Jays, less than a month after his injury. Sure, he was back, but his bat would be as limp as a wet noodle, right?

Saturday: 2 for 3, double, RBI
Sunday: 3 for 4, 2R, HR
Monday: 0 for 5 (game-tying RBI single later changed to an error by crooked official scorer)
Tuesday: 2 for 4, HR

Just in time to cover Carl Crawford's suspension for excessive pugilism...welcome back, Vernon.

Fantasy experts - smell me!

LAST WEEK'S GAME

Don't know how my fellow Northeastern GMs rode out the brutal heat wave last weekend, but my only clear memory is stalking around my living room half nude in the 100 degree heat, pouring down Harpoon UFOs like they were the essence of life itself, and screaming at Erik Bedard to cough up runs against the Red Sox.

It was a hard-fought game against the valiant gladiators of PMF. They shocked us initially by taking huge leads in runs and hits, our foremost domain, while our pitching staff floundered horribly. But as the week went on, the matchup grew tighter and tighter. LM got some serious hitting going on, while PMF hurlers like Jonathan Sanchez (kept from a likely CG SO by a six-run seventh inning in his support) cranked up the K's and wins. By Sunday morning, it was a 10-9 squeaker with PMF barely in front. That's when GM Bobby Walls did a very daring thing.

Leading comfortably in wins and strikeouts, leading losses by one, way ahead in ERA and WHIP, but way behind in K/BB and tied in HR, with both teams over minimum IP, he ran three starters out there on Sunday afternoon. There is a word for this, and that word is BALLS. Basically, this amounted to risking multiple safe categories on a CG SO-seeking gamble.

From most GMs, this would be unmitigated insanity, but PMF has the arms to back it up. The starters were Halladay, Dick Hard and Bedard. Each of them was a known shutout threat. With PMF's initial leads in runs and hits crumbling by the day, this was a bold move to turn the tables on LM.

Unfortunately, it didn't work. Halladay surrendered a dong to Luke Scott that handed one point to LM. Bedard endured a brutal 40-pitch third inning in ridiculous Fenway heat (thank you Dustin Pedroia). Harden dominated the Angels, but gave up three runs in 6 innings. The collective 1-0, 21 K effort would have been glorious on a Monday; but on this Sunday it wasn't enough to save PMF.

Still, I felt compelled to pour out the last delicious gulp of my last UFO onto my quickly browning lawn - out of respect for my homie. Many years ago, before the IP minimum went to its current level, I called Rob a coward for benching starters. (His response: "I'm starting Kazmir in a fit of rage!") Last week, he showed me the true meaning of courage. Bravo PMF.

WEEK TEN RECAP

As the weekend began, it looked as if we might have upset specials across the LOWV, but many of the favored teams ended up rallying to win close contests. With one notable exception. But we’ll get to that…

The Game of the Week was the Lacey Underalls vs. the Banana Belt, not particularly because of the stat lines involved, but because both GMs were desperate for a win. The erstwhile titans of the LOWV game found themselves, at this early June date, searching for a victory that would boost their sagging momentum. Their smack talk smacked of desperation. They fought for each category, tooth and nail. And in the end, neither of them got what they really wanted – a decisive victory.

A week before, Lacey attempted to make light of the smack talk function by having chit chat with Snaturals GM Major James Beans. Now all trace of good humor was gone from the team’s dispatches, in which Mama Jams declared herself “PISSED OFF!!” and ordered her team to “Start hittin or GET LOST!” The Daniel Webster-like advocate for civility in the LOWV was suddenly beating her team like a rented mule. To some extent, they responded. With Lacey’s typically sterling pitching stats balanced by a fantastic sixteen dingers, you’d think Mama would be satisfied with the result. But the team turned in another week of poor AVG and OPS, and got waxed by BB in the offensive counting stats. Yet they held their ground elsewhere: ultimately, the key players for Lacey were the awesome Hanley Ramirez and his top-notch closers.

Schmentz tried a different tack with his roster, beseeching them boosterishly to do their part in the battle. Going into the weekend, he targeted doubles (“doubles fest tonight guys! hang em and bang em!”) and he ended up pulling out the category by one. Not all his pleas succeeded, though. My sources in the BB organization told me on Thursday that the team was concerned about their pitchers surrendering homers, particularly Ubaldo Jiminez. This concern proved to be well-founded: a dongfest ensued and BB lost the category 9 to 7. You could look at this as being the difference, as LU beat BB by 1 point, 10 to 9.

While a virtual deadlock can be a satisfying result under certain conditions, neither GM could have been thrilled with the outcome here. LU will certainly take the one-point victory over his longtime playoff nemesis, but he is still looking for the decisive win needed to get back on top of the league. BB stalemated a potent opponent, always a solid outcome, but still trails the playoff bubble by more than ten games and lost ground on sixth place for another week.

Now, the season is long and both teams have plenty of time to achieve their preseason goals. At the very least, they proved their quality by battling each other to a draw.

My personal hero this week is the aforementioned Major Beans, who ambushed and slaughtered FC in a massacre of memorable proportions. As the rout developed over the week, my sources within FC obdurately held to a brittle confidence, with comments like “I have to think we’ll rally” that betrayed his inner dismay. Nice try, Power of Positive Thinking. His offensive might never materialized, and while Snatty delivered fine hitting numbers even without his Big Papi (Johnny Damon smacked 18 hits), he didn’t really need them when matched against FC’s .236 average and appalling .642 OPS. This deficit was compounded by an utter rout in the pitching categories, with triumphant Ervin Santana leading the way to an 8-1 flush.

It was not so long ago when Chris ventured on Shortpants that if Banana Belt got beat by “Snatty Boom-Boom,” this was an omen of the champion’s destruction. You don’t have to be an ink scientist to figure out that he was saying that Snaturals sucks. Obviously, he had no clue that a 17-3 blowout was coming his way Willow Avenue Style, with a coup de grace in the form of a well-aimed homophobic jibe.

FC was unceremoniously tossed from first place and will no doubt plot his comeback immediately, as evidenced by his refusal to summit with me this weekend in favor of vague “out of town” plans, which no doubt include spreadsheets, baseball cards, lots of his favorite Talented Mr Roto Columns, and plenty of evil cackling.

James Beans jumps to 8th and now has a chance to make a run into the playoff picture…

BI got some clutch performances from some underrated players. Joe Crede and JD Drew, much-maligned, laid wood on the ball and buoyed an otherwise lackluster lineup. Crede hit .611 with 5 HR and a 2.222 OPS! Suck it, Josh Fields supporters! BI also got a CG SO from Hiroki Kuroda, who was absolutely dominant. However, despite these individual performances from BI, Mothership rolled 23 deep in this game and deployed every player he could get his hands on. Some of his stats were ugly – 52 whiffs by the hitters and a 6.63 ERA for the pitchers – but Mike Jones threw enough logs on the fire to win most of the counting stats, and triumphed thanks to the depth of his overall lineup, as evidenced by his taking of AVG and OPS. The Ship continues to demonstrate that it has improved on last season, and right now the team is hovering around .500 and the middle tier of the standings, and looking to move up.

After promising to fart in Rob’s face and then guaranteeing victory over Mike, BI has dropped both games.

The tilted score of the unB/DLBP matchup disguised a thrilling pitching battle, as two streaky staffs brought their best efforts against one another. Matching 7-1 records was only the beginning: these teams battled down to the final day for Ks, ERA and WHIP (decided in favor of DLBP, 1.32 to 1.33). However, the game got out of hand once DLBP applied offensive pressure, and in a maneuver akin to turning unB’s flank, he took virtually every offensive category and ended up trouncing the Louisiana team 12-5. In the “silver lining” file, unB got fantastic starts from young arms Jeremy Guthrie and Gavin Floyd, which may be some consolation as Phil Hughes wallows on the DL.

As I write this, a serious-voiced man on NPR is reading the spiel of the corporate sponsor over the Dean Ween guitar solo from “Bananas and Blow.”

ERdR grows more entrenched among the league’s elite with each passing week, and held ground once more with an 11-9 squeaker over VR. Along with Lacey, Equipe smacked 16 dongs, turning a once-sacred LM record into a foul three way. Equipe’s pitching was nasty, and although he received few holds last week, he seems to have successfully rebuilt his bullpen after the first edition was derailed by injuries – nice pickups include Alex Hinshaw. How did VR – begging for mercy from the jump off – manage to mitigate the damage from Neil’s team firing on all cylinders? Batting average and the hits and doubles that come along with it – led by Nick Markakis – while nabbing pitching K’s and, shockingly, stolen bases. Gary Matthews Jr. had more swipes than Jacoby Ellsbury.

After I maligned Flash’s staff in my column last week, I received a telegram that read “Eff You. Stop” from Cole Hamels. I must have read the whole Wikipedia trying to find out whether telegrams in the 21st century still require the use of “stop”, so I could determine whether Cole wanted me to stop criticizing his team, or whether he just wanted to say eff you, end of transmission. It goes without saying that the answer would determine whether Hamels was a wimp or a badass, information I would add to my compendious dossier on all LOWV talent. Before I could find an answer, I checked my StatTracker and saw he had hurled a CG SO. At that point, I abandoned my research. Although his name sounds like an American Idol contestant or a handbag line, Hamels is a badass. Meanwhile, Mauer, Uggla and Swisher managed to provide enough offense to seal the win over Guapo.

One bright spot for El Guapo was his record-tying ten saves, which trounced Flash at his own specialty and forced Stokes Esq. to share his record book entry. However, Guapo won both AVG and OPS and yet got beaten in every offensive counting stat, which is pretty damn hard to do. The only explanation is fewer at bats...

But should one really shuffle the lineup when the bench is populated by sorry Bay Area outfielders? Guapo may be right in this case.

RECORD WATCH

After ten weeks, ERdR, LU and LM now jointly hold two records: Most HR in a week (16) and fewest GIDP in a week (1). Interestingly, despite limiting his GIDP to one in week 3, ERdR is the worst GIDP offender in the league with a total of 68.

The seven-win efforts of the unB and DLBP staffs was a shared record, along with FC (week 1) and ERdR (week 6).

Although the fewest-saves and fewest-holds records have been tied by several teams (as with any record that is zero) , it's worth noting that VR recorded no saves for the 8th week, while Guapo recorded no holds for the 9th week. Clearly, these teams have decided to specialize in one at the expense of the other, a strategy that has definite merit. However, head-to-head stats indicate that while Guapo is 8-2 in saves (and tied the record last week, as previously noted), VR is 5-2-3 in holds...

Dumbest entry in the record book: although the stat for Most Wins (Single Week) records the opponent this record came against, there's a also separate entry for Most Losses (Single Week). I don't have to tell you that this will necessarily describe the exact same matchup. Is it really necessary to rub the worst shellacking in league history in someone's face like that?

Although I enjoy tracking the Strength-of-schedule numbers, they will be pretty meaningless until the end of the season. After 3 more weeks, at which point all teams will have played all other teams, the person with the "hardest schedule" will be the person with the worst record, and the person with the "easiest schedule" will be the person with the best record. How insightful...

JUNIOR LEAGUE REPORT

In their continuing quest to prove their fantasy superiority, LU and FC used the fifth round to choose prospect picks that had not yet entered pro baseball. That status has been revoked; the 2008 draft saw FC's Pedro Alvarez go 2nd to the Pirates (kiss of death) while LU's Justin Smoak went 11th to the Rangers (sound the horn for dongtime).

One prospect blog gushes about one of Pedro's fellow Bayou Chocolate Turds: "Have you been paying attention to what New Hampshire’s (Blue Jays) Travis Snider is doing? It’s pretty impressive. After playing exclusively at DH at the beginning of the season with a sore elbow, Snider has played nine of the last 10 games in the outfield, and he’s been pretty good at the plate, too. Yesterday, the 20-year-old Snider went 3-for-4 with a walk to raise his slash stats to .273/.373/.459 in 204 plate appearances. Not bad for one of the youngest players in Double-A." I think we'll soon be seeing these Turds wearing the "brown and darker brown" of FC.

The Mike Moustakas Medal for funny names chosen in the first round: Yonder Alonso; honorable mention to Lonnie Chisenhall.

Enough about them Turds. LM fifth-round pick Aaron Poreda was promoted to Double-A...this is a big deal because he's the first of our young-ass prospects to make the move. Baseball America notes that "Poreda, who last year had the highest peak velocity of any lefthander in the minors, had a 46-18 K-BB mark and a 1.52 groundout-to-air out ratio thanks to the heavy action on his fastball."

LM PENIS / GENIUS

Last week's penis: Kevin Slowey. When I signed this punk ass off the street he swore to me he'd make PMF pay. Even though it seems to me that he already did that, I took him at his word. He delivered a mediocre start during the week, so I cut him to bring back Vernon. On his last day on the roster he BEGGED me to start him. I wisely didn't. He got shelled. If baseball was all about K/BB he'd be a hall of famer. Unfortunately, it isn't.

Last week's genius: When I watched Milton Bradley get into a fight with a fan at Dodger Stadium a few years back, a shameful episode that saw him storm across the entire field, swearing at the fans and ripping his jersey off, I called him a punk and wrote him off for life. Until I needed an OF, that is. Last week he was an absolute god, ripping off 12 R, 11 H, 3 2B, 5 HR, 9 RBI, 4 SB, .478/1.908. Those are insane numbers! Genius!!

THIS WEEK'S HATED ENEMY

Oh sure, on paper this looks lopsided. The LOWV's #1 team against the LOWV's #14 team. 50 games difference in the standings. But you know what? This is gonna be a lot closer than anyone thinks, for the following reasons:

1. My pitching staff is utterly unpredictable. I don't think I can trust anyone at this point, except maybe 10-win Cliff Lee and $22 closer Joe Nathan.

2. JD Drew. David Jonathan has his stroke locked in and continues to kill every pitcher he faces. Even getting hit on the wrist by Bedard on Sunday, a fate that normally sidelines him for a month plus, led to a run - and he didn't miss a single at bat and continued his torrid hitting the next day. I fear him in this condition.

3. Week 10, Snaturals v. FC. All the proof you need that head-to-head is a many-teated bitch.

4. No victory guarantee. Bravado has been BI's worst enemy. Will silence be his boon companion?

5. John Lannan almost ruined our season last year by breaking Chase Utley's hand...and there he is on the BI roster.

6. Adrian Beltre's yacht.

Needless to say, for all these reasons and more, I am taking my opponent very seriously. If LM blows this golden opportunity to entrench, there will be hell to pay!

ENDQUOTE

"I defend everything our guys did. I feel proud of the way we handled the situation."

Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon, boasting about his thuggish team. He later praised his son for kicking the shit out of the kid who cut him in line at the middle school cafeteria, and gave his daughter an iPhone for bitchslapping a romantic rival at the mall. Good for you Joe.