Weekly All-Stars Wk# 3

This is the weekly All-Stars for week #3. These players were determined by ranking "all players" by "Rank" (not "O" Rank). Just plucked em from the top of the list.

If you owned one of these players you probably had some decent #'s in some categories. If you owned 2 of these players your team probably had a pretty good week overall. If you owned 3 of these players you are cheating! If a player was a FA then shame on us all.

Pos	Player	H/AB	R	H	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	Owner
C	Brandon Inge	8/20	5	8	3	6	0	0.400	Tenn Hitters
1B	Albert Pujols	9/20	7	9	3	11	3	0.450	Squirrels
2B	Ian Kinsler	5/28	5	5	3	6	1	0.179	Ageless
SS	Alexei Ramírez	7/22	3	7	1	5	3	0.318	Tenn Hitters
3B	Mike Lowell	10/23	4	10	2	11	0	0.435	Stars
LF	Ryan Braun	13/23	7	13	3	8	0	0.565	Halfway
CF	Jacoby Ellsbury	10/26	9	10	1	3	6	0.385	Woody
RF	Jay Bruce	10/22	6	10	4	8	0	0.455	Halfway
Pos	Player	IP	W	L	S	BB	K	ERA	Owner
SP	Rich Harden	12	2	0	0	4	17	3.00	Stars
RP	Ryan Franklin	2.1	0	0	3	1	3	0.00	Baseman

Week in Review Error

Duh! How could I leave out Squirrels for beating Champs 6-0 in the pitching category as well? There were 3 teams that won 6-0 on the pitching side of things. Now that is another rarity that wasn't mentioned. What a strange week it was!

Week 3 in Review: Week of the Blowouts

It's early yet, but getting blown out can sure put a damper on things, especially if a team is already struggling to get to .500. This week there were 3..... count 'em....3 amjor blow outs. There is usually 1 to 2 smack downs per week, but 3, especially of this magnitude, is most unheard of in HH. Plus, a 12-0 smackdown as Squirrels did to Champs is about as rare as a Jason Kendall Homerun! Geesh, one would think with all the p0tency Champs lineup has, that would never happen. But, anything can and does happen in Head to Head. Plaz got a real tough break running into the hot hitting Hardballers team. Plaz's offensive numbers weren't all that bad, yet his pitching was atrocious. Stars put the hammer down on Zonk. Stars offense is for real as the numbers are at or near the top in almost every category for all 3 weeks. Zonk's streaming ways sure didn't do much this week as absolutely nothing worked.
Now for some numbers. Shall we?

Runs: Hardballers 39 Made up for last weeks nonproduction after many hits.
Woodie 18 This is a big hit or miss club. Big misses this week.
Hits: Hardballers 80 Talk about putting a little whoop ass on! 2 weeks in a row now with several hits. Could be a trend.
Woodie 40 May have too many power hitters on this club. See the 2008 REDS.
HR's REDS 13 Rick was due to break out on offense and this was the week. Now can it continue is the question?
Woodie and Zonk 5 Both these teams have the capability to hit 15 next week.
RBI's: Stars and HH 40 These are two top offensive clubs. Hardballers numbers don't quite show it yet, but with a lot of hits comes much production. Stars numbers have been a force 3 weeks straight.
Woodie 18 Timmy's team had one of those awful weeks.
SB's: Squirrels and B-Man 7 Squirrels didn't have top offensive numbers for the most part, but didn't need to have. B-Man does have plenty of speed and the offensive numbers are really not that bad despite the outcomes.
REDS 1 Reminds me of past REDS teams with lots of power and little speed, but this trend won't continue. Rick's team is more balanced this year. Expect more steals to come.
Avg.: Hardballers .365 Plaz was playing Randy at the wrong time offensively.
Woodie .219 Did I already say Timmy had a bad week??

Pitching Observations
Two teams that dominated the categories against their opponents were Baseman and Hardballers by taking 6 of 6. B-Man's numbers rivaled last week for most of the week, but due to not having as many starts as Tennessee needed to keep the lead and throw in some scrubs off off waivers, so the numbers inflated a bit. Just waiting for Price to get called up and for Kuroda to come off the DL, and then the scrubs can stay on waivers! Randy performed nicely as well with a solid ERA and BB/K ratio. Really didn't need great numbers this week though against Plaz whose pitching just fell apart. His numbers will get better though. They better!

Squirrels carried the league's best ERA at 1.97. This team just vaulted up the standings. Wonder why? 12 points surely helps.

REDS got only 2 points on defense, but had a nice BB/K ratio of 3.83 to lead the league.

Zonk, the streaming maniac himself, really had no luck at all on the WW. Had only 1 W to 9 L's. I am not sure, but 9 L's may have tied or broken an all-time record. Playing the WW like that is a risk from week to week. Primarily trying to go for a split, maybe win 4-2, or lose 2-4 and hope the offense carries your team. Myself, I do stream, but out of necessity. For Zonk, it is a built in strategy than can sometimes work, but it is like rolling the dice playing craps. Hoping to hit Lucky 7's. Too much stress for me to handle playing like that.

Hope you all enjoyed. Sorry for not mentioning much about Ageless (well Mike has been getting plenty of publicity, so one week can't hurt), Tennessee (who was a tough battle this week for me), and Utica (team is getting health back, so watch out!) Please check back on the blog each Sunday night or Monday for my weekly updates for "The Week In Review." I will give reminders for the time being on the league posts though.

BASEMAN

Mid-Week Report

This posting identifies the stronger performances thus far for the current week.

I plan on making this a regular weekly report. However, beginning with the next report (following this posting) I plan to post at the Hardball Heaven Blog Site which Randy has so nicely implemented. If you have not got this site bookmarked, take the time and do it now. http://heavenball.blogspot.com/

I rank these performances based upon the ranking of each of our 12 team stats in the league. If a team ranks within the top 4 spots in the league, they get a point. Thus, the superior team would be the team that ranks among the top 4 in all twelve (12) stat categories.

Okay, into week 3 thus far – thru Thursday. I have titled this period as the 50% point of the total week.

STRONG PERFORMANCES
Well. It looks like the current 2008 League Champion Halfway Hardballers is flexing their muscles for thus far, the team is the current strongest performer of the week – thus far. Of the key stats, the team is in the top 4 ranking category in 8 of the 12 spots with 5 of them in hitting and 3 in pitching. I have to admit to one factor I have voiced in the past. Halfway Hardballers seems to consistently play to their competition, but that is not the case thus far this week. If it were – Hardballers would win the matchup – but with a much lower performance. They are matched up against Plasmatics. In top performance ranking they have just appeared in 1 spot – the weakest performer of the week – thus far. Score at this point, Hardballers is bashing on, 8-1-3.

Oh my gosh, next strongest performer, previously season to date better known as the dogs of the league – a team that looked like they were permitting everyone to beat upon them may be waking up. Blind Squirrels is crushing Champions who as the 2nd worse performer thus far this week with just 2 points among the top 4 teams in the league. It’s obvious that these top two performers should be playing this week among the stronger teams in the league. The Blind Squirrels is crushing Champions 10-1—1 thus far this week. They rank among the top teams in 7 of the 12 categories with strength shown in pitching – 6 of the 7 leading stats.

Unlike the Top 2 Performers, BASEMAN is not rolling over their opponent. They, in fact, are losing their matchup against the Tenn Hitters 5-6-1. I guess this qualifies for the leagues Hardluck Team thus far this week. BASEMAN’s last pitching accomplishment appears to have been no fluke for the trend has continued thus far thru this week. However, they have pitched just 10 innings thus far. In those innings, they have garnered 2 Wins and two Saves with just an ERA of 0.90. They have been placed among the leaders in 4 pitching categories thus far and has thrown in an additional 2 in hitting – a total of 6 stat categories.

AVERAGE PERFORMERS
Ageless One may not be one of the top performing teams this week as the owner has stated, but they certainly are not among the weak teams in the league this week either. They rank among the top teams in 5 of 12 stat categories, 3 in hitting and 2 in pitching. They appear to be handling the Uticans pretty easily, winning 8-4-0 thus far.

The REDS are also reflecting an average performance thus far with 5 points thus far, and line up with Ageless’s stats, with 3 in hitting and 2 in pitching. REDS is winning their matchup this week thus far, beating Morning Wood 7-5-0.

Stars is performing as expected, to put it mildly. They also have accumulated 5 total points, all 5 in hitting. In fact, their hitting performance ranks only behind Halfway Hardballers in performance. Pitching performance thus far needs to be reinforced for the rest of the week. Hitting has helped them take a lead of 7-3-0 against Zonk – a good opponent for them to beat because I feel they are now underperforming and will eventually emerge among the contending teams.

The Tenn Hitters is the last ranked average performing team thus far this week. Their matchup with BASEMAN is very much up in the air thus far. The big question for Tennessee is whether BASEMAN’s pitching will hold up. This matchup appears to be one the most competitive thus far this week with Tenn Hiters on the lower end thus far – 5-6-1.

BELOW AVERAGE PERFORMANCES
New York Uticans has been hampered by injuries and score reflects just that with Ageless One handling them very easily – thus far, 8-4-0. The Uticans have placed among the 4 Top Performing Teams in the league in just 3 categories, 2 in hitting and 1 in pitching. To improve, it appears the room for such is in their pitching – where they have just pitched 14.0 innings to date.

Morning Wood is another below performer and like the Utican’s, have scored in just 3 categories among the better team performers in the league. Their favorable categories were all in pitching. They are thus far losing a close matchup against REDS 5-7-0 but, must show improved hitting to win their match.

Zonk, like the above two ranked teams, is performing below average. They are losing thus far to Stars, mainly due to Stars superb hitting performance. But there is room to improve – especially in pitching. Hitting appears that this portion of the score will go unchanged.

POOR PERFORMING TEAMS
Our league’s 4th Place Champions appears to be falling in the standings by the end of this week. Only Plasmatics is having a worse week. But, the Champions score is more discouraging, being hammered by tenth place (hot scoring performer) Blind Squirrels – 10-1-1, a team Champions needs to be beating to remain in favorable status. Champs has won just two of the Top Team stat categories – 1 each in hitting and pitching.

Plasmatics distinguishes themselves this week as the poorest performer of the week – a not wanting category award. Plasmatics, I’m sure, will be looking to accomplish what they did last week – coming back from a first half weeks poor performance to end up in an even scoring contest. They may have trouble against the improved hitting by Halfway Hardballers.

Weekly All-Stars wk #2

This is the weekly All-Stars for week #2. These players were determined by ranking "all players" by Rank (not OR). Just plucked em from the top of the list.

If you owned one of these players you probably had some decent #'s in some categories. If you owned 2 of these players your team probably had a pretty good week overall. If you owned 3 of these players you are cheating! If a player was a FA then shame on us all.

Pos	Player	H/AB	R	H	HR	RBI	SB	AVG	Owner
C	Victor Maritnez	11/26	6	11	2	4	0	0.393	Utica
1B	Carlos Peña	9/27	6	9	4	12	0	0.333	Woody
2B	Ian Kinsler	15/27	9	15	2	6	6	0.556	Ageless
SS	Michael Young	8/25	6	8	3	5	2	0.320	Ageless
3B	Kevin Youkilis	10/24	8	10	2	6	0	0.417	Squirrels
LF	Andre Either	9/23	8	9	4	12	0	0.391	Stars
CF	Cody Ross	9/21	4	9	3	11	0	0.429	FA
RF	Matt Kemp	9/23	8	9	2	9	3	0.391	Baseman
Pos	Player	IP	W	L	S	BB	K	ERA	Owner
SP	Zack Greinke	14.0	2	0	0	2	19	0.00	Baseman
RP	Heath Bell	4.0	0	0	4	0	4	0.00	Stars

Just a Game

Baseball fans all over America look forward to Opening Week with jubilee as the "Boys of Summer" are back in action and the signal is sent that summer awaits! For us fantasy managers, the start of the season means looking forward to righting the ship from the previous season (unless one is the Champ of course) and humbling all the other so-called experts in the league. For me, I even look forward to gorging on all the MLB action I can consume in a week by watching games live on Direct TV. For those that may not know, MLB's package with Direct TV is free for one week at the start of the season! Talk about heavenly bliss for a MLB fanatic like myself! But, because I am so fanatical, I only limit myself to the one very special week, or else I may look like Casper the Ghost all summer by not getting out of the house much. Know what I mean! I must prioritize and actually live some kind of life. StatTracker is addicting enough, let alone watching baseball live on tv.

But, do you all know something? There is no heaven on earth. Yes, we have Hardball Heaven, but that doesn't count. I was reminded of this just today, April 9, when I heard the announcement of Nick Adenhart, a young 22 year old pitcher for the Angels who died in a car crash coming home from the game he had pitched in just a few hours before the crash. I had been watching parts of that game and saw this young guy pitch six scoreless innings against the A's. It was only his 4th major league start to boot. Never would I have thought this promising starter in the major leagues would be taken with two other friends via a hit and run that same night. I was saddened by the news when I heard it. Sometimes you don't even have to know the other person. Your heart is just jolted by certain events.

So, when I saw that the game between the Angels & A's today was postponed, it meant nothing to me in terms of fantasy. Yes, I needed Hendrick and Abreu's AB's today as I am battling right behind Ageless in offense and need a few hits, runs, RBI's to get a lead on him. But, I was once again reminded that fantasy baseball is just that; IT IS STRICTLY FANTASY! Sometimes it is easy to think that professional athletes are immune to life's problems and realities because of all the fame and fortune. But, I was reminded that life is fleeting. No game is too important. No relationship too small. No unkind words should be spoken. No greed should be consuming.

Not one of us is guaranteed tomorrow. The Lord really put this on my heart today as I have been consumed lately with work, baseball, and not giving my wife the priority she deserves. I am not really sure why a Nick Adenhart was taken from earth so soon, but I learned another valuable lesson today due to this tragic event. I think we can all do the same to some degree or another. Hardball Heaven is the greatest league and I love it, but it pales in comparison to how everyone should be living their lives and keeping truths in perspective.

BASEMAN

The Wait

Here we sit. We have had our draft. We have made our predictions. We have made some early roster tweaks.

And now we wait.

This is an unusual year in that we had to draft early in order to participate in week 1. We anxiously read the injury reports each day. We still comb the editorials looking for a clue on who is going to be hot, have a breakout season or win a roster spot. We are already beginning to curse the sorry bastard that limited the rosters to 21 players.

We have looked at our opponents lineup more than a few times already and have rationalized that we are in good shape going in to week 1. We hope against hope that we get off to a good start.

Why did "I" have to get "fill in the manager" week 1? Oh well, no matter, it is a long season remember? Marathon not a sprint.

Well fire the dang gun and let's get this marathon started! The waiting is debilitating. The 6th, which is the 1st full slate of games, seems as though it will never get here. 14 roster moves and 1 trade have already been made and we ain't even seen a pitch yet!

I think I am going to take a nap. A 3 day nap. Somebody wake me when they throw out the 1st pitch. I hate to wait!!

Randy