Fantasy Baseball-- Week 11

Both teams advanced to over 90 points this week. The graph indicates personal Week 10 bests in both leagues. Both are close races though. Ballywood, at 93.5, leads the league by a mere two points. Asakusabashi, at 90.5 points, trails by four.

Asakusabashi had a power explosion. Friday, six different players hit homeruns. Prince Fielder (10-20, 0.500 BA, 6 HR, 13 RBI, 7 R) on the week is the likely player of the month for June. Granderson, A-Rod and Stanton added 3 HR. Kemp hit 4 HR. 23 homeruns on the week is an unsustainable pace that might demoralize others in the league. 143 HR total this year, an average of 14.3 per week, is 23 HR ahead of second place. If power was not so fickle, I would be jumping at trade opportunities. (I might still jump, if offered aces.) Likewise, team batting average is .280 vs. second place of .269. Going into the season, power was expected, but not batting average. Being ahead in average is dumb luck that the team can not expect to sustain. Reyes at .346 and Kemp at .331 have certainly performed, so far. Given the above, it is not surprising that the team leads in RBI, by 10 and in R, by 26. In recent weeks, with the addition of Dee Gordon and Andres Torres, there is an attempt to steal more bases. Those two players stole 3 of the 5 SB for the team last week. The team is in sixth place, trailing first place by 11 SB. Jed Lowrie (wrist), Mitch Moreland (inter-league) and Dee Gordon (new to role) are risks to miss some playing this week, but I see no better options. This week, the lineup is a pat hand, with no adds.

Francisco Liriano had a huge two-start week (1 W, 0.69 ERA, 0.62 WHIP,16 K) with a fantasy perfect game through 7IP yesterday. (An error does not affect fantasy.) Roy Halladay (1W, 0 ER, 0.86 WHIP, 9K) was as advertised. Alexi Ogando (1, 1.17, 7 K, 1.04) was also outstanding. Farnsworth picked up three saves. One terrible Brandon Morrow game at Boston (9er, 13br, 4K, 4 1/3 ip) after a good performance at KC (0er, 5br, 5K, 6ip) kept the week from being remarkable instead of merely outstanding. Next week, I am too fearful to use Ogando at the Yankees despite his record and his two start week. Garcia, Kuroda and Nolasco are two-starters. Halladay and Liriano have one start each.


Ballywood pitched a huge number of innings and is now 60 IP above pace. With King Felix, Liriano, Pineda, Carpenter, Bedard, Bumgarner, J. Zimmermann and D. Hudson, 1400 IP will approach quickly. WHIP at 10th place is not competitive yet, but starting to edge the right way. With twice the pitchers required, the team trades if there is value in return and dumps if 4-8 hit the DL. Full throttle until about 1050 IP will open up roster space for position players and closers in the second half. Zimmermann (W,0.64,0.79,13K/14ip), D. Hudson (W, 1.38, 1.15, 14/13) and Bumgarner (W, 1.29, 1.14, 7/7) were almost equal to Liriano. Hernandez, Pineda and Carpenter had (for them) sub-par weeks. Bedard (3.60, 1.20, 6K/5ip) still seems dominate enough. Pagan was added for E. Young, who has not played much, in an attempt to improve BA. A newly hot Posada replaces Napoli, who goes to the DL. Ryan Zimmerman should come off the DL Tuesday. Quentin had another nice week with 3HR.