Newsletter for games through 7/26/2010

Reminders: Our trade deadline will be 8/3, the day lineups are due.  Trades after that need to be emailed to me and must pass through waivers.  Please review the rules page if you want to make trades after that deadline.  While we expect a flurry of trades, and a valid strategy is to change over your roster entirely to try to mix things up, there are obvious problems if two owners agree to send all the good players to one team (like the 1899 Cleveland Spiders did), especially with prize money up for grabs.  So, just make sure that the trade is defensible and the players are of roughly equal value.

Comments: The Angels refuse to let Seattle run away with the AL West, even if they are going to run away with the WOR title…The Mariners were 5-2, but the Angels were 5-1…Atlanta and Washington crept up on the Marlins, and the Mets valiantly move toward .500…The NL central is a race for the ages, with 4 teams within 1 game of each other…Mark Teixeira of STL hit 4 home runs against PHI on 7/19/2010…Ryan Howard of ATL had 7 RBI against SDP on 7/22/2010…Cliff Lee of SFG had 13 strikeouts against ARI on 7/25/2010Angel Pagan of LAA robbed 3 hits against NYY on 7/20/2010…Rickie Weeks of MIL hit 3 home runs against PIT on 7/22/2010…Ramon Santiago of DET robbed 3 hits against TOR on 7/24/2010…Ryan Howard had an obscene 16 RBI last week…Prince Fielder had 13…Josh Johnson logged 21 strikeouts; Gallardo had 19…Felix Hernandez pitched 2 CG shutouts…Joey Votto hit .536…The power ratings are imperfect measured, but the Dodgers are interesting sleepers down the stretch, and are in the top-7 in all real power ratings stats…

Another active week, with 10 trades coming in at the lineup deadline…thanks to all for one of the most engaged seasons in recent memory!

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Newsletter for games through 7-18

Welcome Brent Bracamontes to the league; he’ll be handling duties for the Rangers for the rest of the year.  He’s now listed on the owners page, where you can find his email. Brent is a grad student at CSU, Fullerton, his Dad is a former minor-league pitcher you can find on baseball-reference.com, and Brent is an all-around good guy who knows some baseball.

Trade deadline:   Trades accepted through August 2, which will nicely cover games through 7/31.  After that, the waiver trade rules apply.  I’ll review those rules when the deadline gets here, but the trades can be blocked by any of your opponents and there’s a 2-week turnaround, so any major moves are best made before 8/2.

Comments (will be brief due to a time crunch today): Congrats to the Cubs, who turned a 4-0 week into first place in the central…Jeanine Congalton will NOT retire from ASFBL next year…Houston was also 3-0, and is lurking at 4th place in WOR…There were 8 trades last week….Travis Snider of HOU was easily the player of the week, hitting .583 with 9 RBI in those 3 games…Atlanta is 2 games under .500, but their real numbers put them in the top of the power ratings…it adds up to a team that can make a serious second-half run…Felix Hernandez (SEA), CC Sabathia (NYY), and Edison Volquez (CIN) each had 12-K games….Strasburg shamed them with a 15-K game…Scott Podsednik of KCR robbed 3 hits against OAK on 7/16/2010…Jimmy Rollins of PHI robbed 3 hits against CHC on 7/18/2010…take a moment to check out your weekly stats pages, and maybe the players of the week….

Newsletter for game through 7-11-2010

As you probably noticed, the left-sidebar of the main page has been updated.  The main change is that the login page appears, saving you one more click…

Watch out for Houston; they have completed re-tooled, are already +6 WOR, and are only a game and a half out in the NL Central…good first half work by Jeanine Congalton, who has the ASFBL Cubs 3 games ahead of their actual counterpart…The best work in the first half has to go to Adam of Seattle, +15 WOR and in first place in the AL West…The Dodgers put together the only undefeated week, while Milwaukee made a move in the NL central…David Price (still of TB) and Vicente Padilla (still of the LAD) each had 14-strikeout games, a feat that would have seemed even more impressive had Strasburg not done it twice…Adrian Gonzalez did it with the glove as well as the stick this week, robbing 3 hits against Washington on 7/7…Josh Hamilton and Kevin Youkilis (now of SEA) each had 6-RBI games this week…Jose Guillen of KCR had 5 hits against SEA on 7/7/2010…Carlos Gonzales (ATL) had 5 HR and 11 RBI…Shelley Duncan (CLE) wins the Rob Deer Memorial award for the week, hitting 5 HR but only for 7 RBI while striking out 11 times..Jimenez had a 10:1 strikeout to walk ratio last week…In his post game interview at the All-Star game Jimenez said that he felt nervous; how do you think the batters felt?…The AL East is the powerhouse division, but the Twins and Tigers are 1st and 3rd in runs scored…Atlanta has the best team real-ERA…

Being from Southern California and not an especially active baseball fan, my wife thought that the fighter-jet flyover at Anaheim Stadium was an earthquake…it certainly was loud.

We’ll do the regular schedule for Monday, and just play the short week next week…

Thanks to all for a terrific first half – as Johnny Mac pointed out, we’ve passed 100 trades (and might be gaining momentum) and never get fewer than 26 lineups a week!

Jon

ASFBL Home Run Derby

Played only 4 miles down the 57 freeway from Anaheim stadium, the ASFBL HR derby featured the top 8 fantasy HR leaders against the 4 pitchers who have allowed the most fantasy HR.  Batters got 100 hits per round.

ROUND 1: John Buck pulls off the only lower-seed victory against Robinson Cano, who was obviously struggling with his rib injury

Paul Konerko (SF) 36, Miguel Cabrera (DET) 33 off of Matt Torra

Mark Reynolds (NYM) 42, Alex Gonzalez (TOR) 33 off Nate Bump

John Buck (TOR) 13, Robinson Cano (NYY) 7 off David Huff

Ty Wiggington (BAL) 22, Adrian Gonzalez 17 off Cole Hamels

ROUND 2:Both lower seeds advance (4th and 6th) and totals rise as David Huff is removed from the pitching equation

Reynolds 35, Konerko 24 off Torra

Buck 26, Wiggington 20 off Bump

ROUND 3: Torra, who hadn’t allowed fewer than 24 HR in the first 2 rounds, held Reynolds to 21 and JOHN BUCK emerged as the champion.  The ASFBL donated the entire 543 cent prize money to the Boys and Girls club.

Buck 24, Reynolds 21 off Torra

Newsletter for games of 7-4-2010

If you are a religious person, pray for the soul of Gordon Leckie who has clearly sold his to the devil for ASFBL success…at least he got a good return, going on an incredible 26-0 run between 5/30 and 6/29, which of course is almost an entire month without a loss…6 of those wins were 1-run victories…the Twins finally snapped the streak by scoring 17 runs on the 29th…Toronto and Houston refused to say “die” and both posted 6-1 weeks, making a push to get back into the thick of the race by the all-star break…Florida turned in a perfect 6-0 week, the only perfect record in the league, to move 2.5 games up in the NL East…Nobody in the AL West had a losing week…Robinson Cano leads Josh Hamilton by .007 batting average points in the ASFBL batting title…The Minnesota/Detroit series was no place for timid pitchers; the Twins lead the ASFBL in runs and the Tigers lead it in hits…The Yankee roster has the most real HR (109) but is behind Boston in the ASFBL.

Feats and failures: Shelly Duncan had two 4-strikeout games this week, both against Toronto…Jonathan Niese struck out 12 batters against Florida…Strasburg, Mariano Gomez (ATL), Gabino (BAL), and Lester (BOS) also had 10+ strikeout games…Corey Hart (MIL) and Podsednik (KC) each had 5-hit games…Koyie Hill robbed 3 hits against PIT on 6/30.

More tidbits can be found by clicking on the “player(s) of the week” button on the stats page…Brian McCann almost single-handedly explains Houston’s success last week…Josh Johnson threw 17 scoreless innings…David Wright (now of SF) scored 12 runs.

Enjoy the run up to the break!

Jon