Fantasy Baseball-- Weeks 18 and 19

As I awake from my vacation, I find Ballywood back in first place, after a break, at 92 points. Asakusabashi fell to 86 points and third place after an extended run in second place. Second place through fourth place is 87, 86 and 85 points.

The weekend was full of injuries-- Jose Reyes, Brandon Phillips, Corey Hart, Dee Gordon. This is a much better situation than a Monday full of injuries as the week still accumulated stats. Brett Lawrie is active now. I'm putting him at 3B replacing Eduardo Nunez, whose excellent run as A-Rod's replacement is soon coming to an end. I also add Eric Young, who seems to be the regular LF, and Jed Lowrie, off the DL. Both are are favorites and they will cover for Reyes and Phillips. (Dee Gordon seems likely to start tonight after a day off. Corey Hart seems probable for tomorrow.) Update: As Dee Gordon did not start, I benched him for Brandon Phillips, whose injury I saw live. Brandon Phillips stayed in the game after the injury and it did not appear that arms or legs were affected. He pinch hit a homerun and Dee Gordon batted twice, so maybe they were two good choices. Nonetheless, I dropped Gordon at 5:40 for Aaron Harang's two start week 20.

During my vacation week, I added two- starter Javier Vazquez for two-starter Rubby De la Rosa (W, 3.600 ERA, 11 K, 1.6000 WHIP). I streamed Vazquez (3.462, 8, 1.0769) this week for two-starter Tim Stauffer. Nolasco (2W, 2.189, 8, 1.4595) was a double winner in week 17. Brandon Morrow (W, 6.968, 16, 1.7419) had a challenging week 17. Jamie Garcia (4.500, 11, 1.9000) had a challenging week 18. Kuroda (W, 0.000,8, 0.8571) and Morrow (3.522, 6, 0.6522) were good week 18 one start pitchers and Halladay was good for a win (W, 5.143, 7, 1.2857). Halladay (W, 0.000, 5, 0.1429)won more impressively in week 17. Garcia (6.000, 3,1.6667) was less impressive. Closers have not been closing. Feliz has 2 saves , Perez one and Farnsworth one, over the last two weeks. Lidge also had a save, but not while active. Mujica was dropped as the trade deadline passed and Leo Nunez is still the Florida closer.


Pitching: K ERA WHIP W SV
16 Week Total 720 3.424 1.2619 53 76
7th (+1) 5th 8th (-1) 5th 3rd(-1)
Week 17 48 3.930 1.4430 5 2
Week 18 48 3.724 1.1552 3 2
Pace 45 ---- ----- 3.4 5
Total 816 3.470 1.2654 61 80
7th 6th(-1) 9th(-1) 5th 5th(-2)

Hitting kept up pace, even though two hitting points were lost. Matt Kemp (week 17: 0.4167, 2HR, 3R, 9RBI, SB and week 18: 0.3043,3R, 2RBI), Prince Fielder (week 17:0.4500, 2HR, 6R, 3RBI and week 18: 0.4545, 2HR, 9R, 9RBI), Corey Hart (week 17:0.3750, HR, 2R, 3RBI and week 18:0.3478, 2HR, 6R, 5RBI, SB) and Curtis Granderson (week 17:0.3333, HR 6R, 4RBI, SB and week 18: 0.3333, 6R, 8RBI, 3SB) top the leaderboard.

Hitting: BA HR RBI R SB
16 Week Total 0.2682 195 675 722 127
4th(-1) 1st(+1) 2nd 1st 2nd
Week 17 0.3092 12 51 42 4
Week 18 0.2774 11 45 49 10
Pace 12 43 45 8
Total 0.2710 218 771 813 141
4th 2nd(-1) 2nd 1st 3rd(-1)


Ballywood dropped some pitchers, including Liriano and Jordon Zimmermann-- who is reaching his own innings limit-- as the team is 80 IP above the innings limit pace. Lawrie, Lowrie and Eric Young are part of the expanded hitting rosters, which have some GP to be made up at most positions.