Fantasy Baseball-- Week 13

Asakusabashi, with 89 points, has been stable at second place since the third week of the season. Ballywood, at 90 points, has been in first place in weekly standings since May 30.

The top performance of the week was a Felix Hernandez start-- W, 0er, 4br, 10K/8ip. An Erik Bedard start was almost as good-- 5br, 0er, 10K/6ip. Completing the Seattle shutout was Micheal Pineda-- 5br, 0er, 10K/7ip. So, Ballywood had good pitching even with an excellent Chris Carpenter start-- 6br, 1er, 7K/7ip invalid due to his benching. Liriano and Melancon threw bad weeks. Brian Wilson picked up three saves. Brandon Phillips was the top hitter in a week when hitting stats lost some ground.



For Asakusabashi, the strategy question is whether to replace Andres Torres-- 3/13, HR, R, 3RBI and/or Dee Gordon-- 1/18, SB, R, RBI last week and/or Brett Lawrie-- DL. Dee Gordon appears to be active for another week, as Furcal is still injured, though he will now bat ninth instead of leadoff. Dee is 2 for 6 in bunt hits, but not doing well at hitting fastballs. Another strong week for steals brought the team to first place in that category, and brings the team 59/60 total hitting points-- first in everything but RBI. Matt Kemp with 4 SB, Curtis Granderson with 2SB and Jose Reyes with 2SB led a week with 11 SB total. Gordon and Torres will stay active as steals is the most competitive category.

Kemp is the top hitter overall per CBS fantasy performance, Reyes ranks second, A-Gon (now gone) ranks third, Granderson seventh, Fielder eleventh. A-Rod ranks as the 20th hitting performer of the season, Phillips as 56th, Mike Stanton 70th, Mitch Moreland 90th. Matt Kemp (0.3158, 3HR, 3RBI), Brandon Phillips (0.4444,HR, 6RBI, 5 R), Jose Reyes (0.3448, 7R, 3RBI) A-Rod (0.4444, 2R, 8RBI), Prince Fielder (0.368, HR, 4RBI, 7R) and Mike Stanton (0.400, 2R, 3RBI, SB) led a solid hitting team for Week 12.

Hitting: BA HR RBI R SB
Week 12: 0.3019 8 39 52 11
Total: 0.2774 154 543 575 96
Place: 1st 1st 2nd 1st 1st
Second Place: 0.2765 141 569/488 542 94

Roy Halladay (W, 1.20 ERA, 9K, 0.9333 WHIP) gained the first win for Asakusabashi in two weeks with yesterday's performance. In his first outing of the week, he was lifted early for a pinch-hitter/pinch-out-maker. Brandon Morrow was solid (3.857 ERA, 9K, 0.8571 WHIP) and will be counted on more for the strikeouts. Jamie Garcia (1.286, 4, 1.2857) and Kuroda (3.600, 2, 0.8000) also looked good and had wins except for the rest of their team. Francisco Liriano (5er, 10br, 3.7ip, 3 K) broke a string of five solid outings at Milwaukee with the stinker of the week. Koji Uehara with 7Ks was nearly as helpful as the three closers (2S, 7Ks). Nolasco pitched okay on the bench. Ogando, also benched, pitched poorly and may be turning into a pumpkin. There are plenty of points to be made up in pitching, with each win being particularly valuable right now.

Pitching: K ERA WHIP W SV
Week 12: 41 3.484 1.1613 1 2
Total: 535 3.522 1.2842 37 59
Place: 9th 7th 8th 8th 3rd
5th Place: 564 3.306 1.2046 38 56

Brad Lidge has been sitting on the DL. Lidge is needed if Asakusabashi is not going to lose further ground in saves. Or, Uehara could displace Kevin Gregg and become a closer.

To make up K points, Halladay, Liriano and Morrow need innings. Getting K's will be tough, short-term, as there are no attractive two-starters this week. Sixth place in WHIP (1.254) is an attainable target, as fifth place looks distant right now. Rich Harden, if the stars align, is a two-starter in Week 14 coming off the DL. He could certainly help K's and ratios if he reverts to previous Oakland A form. Trading hitting for pitching obviously makes sense right now-- elite pitching could certainly help the team, and elite hitting is present in excess.