World Series Results / Season Wrap

4-GAME SHOCKER: I don’t think anyone would have predicted a 4-game Mariners’ sweep….but the pitching of Carrasco, Quintana, and Iwakuma kept the mighty Giant bats quiet for for the first 3 games, limiting them to 1 run apiece….the Giants got to Gio Gonzales in the 4th game but scored 6 off of Verlander to take the series…Carlos Beltran had 3 hits in the deciding game.

I’ve burned out my superlatives for Rick Wynne at the end of last season, but let’s just say he’s never had a negative WOR, he hasn’t had a losing season since taking on a truly dismal Pirate team in 1995, is a three-time champion, and this is his 6th World Series appearance.  And, he’s always the first to notice anomalies in the game and the most gracious about pointing them out.  This completes his 22nd ASFBL season, and he posted a personal-best regular season record this year.  Amongst his other accomplishments, that’s saying something.

It’s hard to believe this is true, but this is Adam Symonds’ first World Series ring, and in fact was his first LCS appearance….this is the 7th time he’s placed in the top-5 WOR spots since 2008, but all that pales to the fact that this year, he’s the champ.  Congrats!

That’s a season  wrap — thanks again to all of you for making this a really enjoyable experience…having fun watching all those Mets I traded away on route to my -14 WOR prove what a dunderhead I was…and wondering why they keep pitching to Murphy.  Leo will be in touch with the prize winners, and I’ll see you all again in Spring Training!

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Newsletter for the LCS

Both series go 7 games!

NATIONAL LEAGUE: The Giants took the first two games by a collective score of 15-4 before the Nationals won three straight…the first 2 National wins were 1-run games before three pitchers combined for a 3-0 shutout…the won despite being out-hit 11-3…Strasburg and Bumganer then locked up in a 2-1 affair, with the Giants Scoring 2 in the top of the 9th off of Strasburg and Watson…Osich gave a run back in the bottom of the 9th but held on…the decisive 7th game was a slugfest…Below gave up 8 in only 2 innings, but the Giants pieced together 10 runs off of Scherzer and the Giant bullpen turned in 7 scoreless innings to seal the deal.

Andy has been a force in the league since his arrival in 2010…he’s made the playoffs every single year….finished +34 WOR in 2011…and won back to back championships in 2013 and 2014….and every email I get from him is pleasant and moves the league forward….great competitor, and a good guy to boot.  Great season, Andy!

AMERICAN LEAGUE: After four games, the Royals led the series 3-1, including a 16-7 drubbing in game 1 and a convincing 7-2 mark in game 4….Seattle powered back 8-5 in game 5 and won a 1-0 nail-biter in game 6….Quintana out-dueled Patton…Zych pitched 2 innings for the save…Carlos Beltran knocked in Franklin Gutierrez for the only run…KC took an early 1-0 lead in the first of the game 7, Seattle jumped out 3-1 by the 5th, and by the 7th the game went to Zych and Madson, who locked everything down for the last 2 innings…Beltran added a 2-run knock, but it was Brad Miller, batting 9th, with the decisive RBI in the 5th.

Josh Clark literally saved the league by stepping in to do lineup management in the pre-internet days of 2001…he has stood up to take some teams nobody else wanted (the 94-loss ’03 Indians, 93 loss ’03 Pirates), and always looks to make both teams better in his deals….this is his first playoff appearance, he won his first series, and he took the team with the best AL record to the limit.

ASFBL WORLD SERIES, 2015

After all the dust has settled, the team with the best NL record is matched up against the team with the best AL record…I’ll ask Rick and Adam to enter their lineups by tomorrow night, and we’ll run the games Thursday.

Personal note: It’s my own fault for trading both Tejada and Flores, but I spent most of my year wondering why the Mets didn’t have any AAA shortstops, and I ended up starting some guy named Matt Reynolds who looked more like a random PCL middle infielder than a shortstop prospect.  I now take some relief in noting that I wasn’t missing anything, and the Mets have Mr. Reynolds backing up the ailing Wilmer Flores…if he gets in the game, he’ll be only the second major league player in history to appear in the playoffs without every having appeared in a MLB regular-season game.

DCS Updates:

From Rick Wynne:

(1) In Game 3, with the chance to send the Cards out to a 3 games to none lead, Wainwright had a perfect game going into the 10th before issuing a one-out walk to Cutch. After getting Belt out, Kemp broke up his no-hitter with an RBI double to break the scoreless tie. Then after Wainwright was lifted, Refsnyder, who had 3 of the Giants 8 hits in the 1st two games, hit a 2-run HR. The game was not over at that point though, as Blackburn allowed two baserunners with one out in the bottom of the 10th to put the tying run at the plate twice but Osich got out of the jam with 6 pitches.

(2) In Game 6, Refsnyder was again the hero as the Giants were down to their last 3 outs down 1-0 after 8 and the Cards, already up 3 games to 2. Belt got to Jaime Garcia with a double and Refsnyder tied the game with an RBI single. Then in the 11th, Refsnyder hit a 2-run HR (his 3rd HR of the series) to extend the series to a 7th game.

(3) In Game 7, Kemp and Refsnyder again teamed up with late inning heroics. Cleanup hitter Kemp led off the 10th inning of a scoreless game with a single off Garcia which caused his exit from the mound. Reliever Socolovich then gave up a double to Refsnyder which provided not only the GWRBI but the series winning RBI.

(4) About Refsnyder: He was not originally going to be a part of my trade with the Yanks. Mark had offered me Stephen Drew as part of that package which I accepted. He then had to revise the offer because he had forgotten that he had placed Drew on waivers. I wasn’t excited about the change as I was looking forward to the power of Drew at a position that had little power at the time. But I reluctantly accepted Refsnyder as the replacement. As late as mid September, Refsnyder was hitting .167 and was unusable for me. Then he became part of a platoon with Ackley for the real Yanks and had a great last couple of weeks.

DCS results

Seattle over Baltimore — The Orioles took at 2-1 series lead at home behind a 3-2 victory that had homers by Schoop and Pearche…but Seattle ran the next 3 — all of them 1-game victories…they were trailing 2-0 going into the 9th before Beltran and Seager knocked in 3 runs off of Darren O’Day…Mark Lowe closed it out for the save.

Mark Chen has been sending me hysterical email for the last 6 weeks, and has really brought an awesome sense of humor and fun to the game…He’s a Baltimore loyalist and has held the team every year since 2002…This is his 3rd consecutive playoff appearance and 7th overall…his best year may have been ’05 when he had 94 wins and +20 WOR.

Kansas City takes Toronto in 4: After a 10-7 opening affair, both teams settled down and the Jays were held to 1 run over 18 innings…not going quietly, they saved their best play for the elimination game and took a 3-0 lead before KC scratched 4 runs over the last 6 innings to earn the sweep…Mike Trout was 3-3 in the clincher game and Trevor Gott got the win.

This is Hugh Brown’s 5 playoff appearance since entering the league in ’06…he’s managed both Arizona and the Blue Jays…he finished 2nd in WOR as recently as 2013…He’s only had 1 losing year…and he won the division with the most drama the year, making his way with 6 well-considered trades.  He’s a good baseball guy and I’m glad to have him in the league.

Washington over Cincinnati in 6: After trading wins in 2 low-scoring affairs, the bats erupted and Washington won game 3 12-1 before Cincinnati took game 4 13-10….Washington took the lead with a 9-3 slugfest victory before the series was finally clinched 5-4…The Reds took a 3-0 lead but the Nationals scored 5 runs in the 6th and 7th on HR from Marte and Desmond…it was kind of heartwarming to see Cecil get the save.

The very first trade these teams had this year was with each other…Raphael Malveax has been in the league since 2005 and has taken the Reds every single year…This is his 5th playoff appearance in those 10 years and he’s finished in positive WOR territory 8 times, winning 98 games in 2012 and making it to the LCS…he made only 4 trades on the year, but wasn’t shy about shipping big names as he sent out both Votto and Frazier…in a decade I’ve never heart him issue a complaint, and his teams are always competitive.

SERIES OF THE WEEK — Giants hang on by the tips of their fingernails: St. Louis got off to a 2-0 lead by holding the mighty Giant bats to 1 run in 18 innings…both starters were still in a scoreless tie in the 10th inning of game 3 before Refsnyder settled things with a homer, for only the second score the Giants had had in over 27 innings…the bats opened up in game 4 and the Giants tied the series while scoring 9 runs…Cardinal bats returned the favor and scored 8 to tie the series at 3….Verlander and Garcia squared off and each allowed 1 run in 9 innings…Refsnyder was again the hero, knocking in all 3 Giant runs.  Doesn’t get much more fun than having the whole series come down to extra innings in a game 7.

Jeremy Moore’s time in the league goes all the way back to 1998 and this is his 8th different team…and has stepped up more than once to take on a team other owners weren’t exactly clamoring for…he did his damage this year without making a single trade…his 93 wins this year are second only to his 95 in 2013…and managed to take the 112-win Giants to the very limit this year.

NEXT UP:

Royals at the Mariners, Nationals at the Giants.  The file with the scheduled games on it has been posted; we and hope to get the lineups in by later that day so we can run the games Tuesday morning.  I’ll ask the remaining owners to email me when their lineups are in.  Remember that you need to click the modify rotation link and that the schedule will only appear on the rotation page.

Wildcard results

BALTIMORE IN 4: Pedro Beato pitched a shutout and 9th-place hitter DeAza went 2-4 with a homer — one of four the Orioles cashed in on — to take game one.  Not to go quietly, Adam Warren out-dueled Collin McHugh 3-2 in the second game with Andrew Miller recording the save.  The Orioles pounded out 12 runs in game 2 back at home, with Matt Wieters going 4-for-5 and knocking in 4….the final game had the Yankees tie the game at 2 in the top of the 8th before scoring off of Chasen Shreve to take the series in 4.

Mark Yee has been in the league off and on since 1992 and this is his third stint with the Yankees….he won it all in 1996 and has been in the playoffs now three times since 2008…and he leads the league in run-ins with Tony LaRussa to discuss fantasy baseball.  He’s a great guy to have in the league, made a great run to snag the wildcard spot, and had a great season.

CARDINALS SWEEP: The birds averaged only 4 runs per game, but they got impressive pitching out of Kiekhefer, Jaime Garcia, and Adan Wainwright.  Carlos Gonzales hit in every game for the Rocks, but in the end St. Louis scored on a Mark Reynolds homer in game three to advance.

What can you say about Leo?  He’s been in the playoffs every year since 2004…has had a positive WOR in every year of the same span….won it all in 2008…has twice had the best WOR in the ASFBL, and missed it by 1 game this year…and mostly, he keeps everything running on time and smoothly, and is a good friend and confidant.

NEXT UP:

Kansas City at Toronto (based on regular-season head-to-head tiebreaker), Baltimore at Seattle.

St. Louis at San Francisco, Washington at Cincinnati.

We are now playing 7-game series; the DCS round will have fantasy play being on 10/12, but I’ll ask the 8 owners to submit their lineups by Saturday night so I can run the games Sunday morning.

End of season addendum

These two emails were so good I thought I needed to post them on the site to archive them.

From Chuck Ballingall:

“The Dodgers went into the week .5 games back for the 2nd Wild Card. 2 Dodgers losses and 2 Cardinals wins left us 2.5 back with 5 games left. Then we won 3 and the Cards lost 2 (plus an off day), and we were tied with 2 games left. Just as he did in real life, Kershaw started the next to last game and won; instead of clinching home field in the Wild Card, though, it just left both teams tied going into the final game. With both the Dodgers-Padres and Cardinals-Braves starting at the same time, the Cardinals were very happy after just a few minutes, taking a 3-0 lead in the top of the first while the Padres also jumped out to a 3-0 lead in LA. After 4 innings, the Cardinals were 11 runs to the good, leading 4-0 themselves while the Padres were leading 7-0 against 12 game winner Brett Anderson. An exciting end to a fun season… does Clayton Kershaw deserve to win the ASFBL NL Cy Young given that he struck out nearly 100 more batters than the next highest finisher, and, unlike in real life, managed to win 20 games?? I think he does.”

From Andy Somers:

“I rested Bryce Harper this week an an attempt to clinch a triple crown in the NL.  Comfortably leading in HR and RBI categories, Harper entered the week .0035 points ahead of Dee Gordon in batting average.  Not needing to pad the HR and RBI numbers, I elected to sit him comparing the BA projections/adjustments between him and Gordon, and figured that he almost certainly would fall behind Gordon if both played in all 6 of their games.

Harper came in sporadically during the week, going 0-for-4 off the bench mostly as a pinch hitter.  Gordon’s average dropped through the week, as was predicted, until he sat at 0.3313 at the end of 10/2 with 2 games to go.  Harper stood at 0.3376, better than 6 points ahead in average.  It would seem the batting title (of both leagues), and the NL Triple Crown was in the bag.  However, with pride to play for it would seem, Gordon goes 3-for-5 in the next to last game, and 4-for-5 in the final game, to pull his average to 0.3368.  Harper, meanwhile goes 0-for-1 in each of the last two games, pulling his average to 0.3364, to give away the Triple Crown and batting title by .0004.

Of final drama, the race came down to, literally, the final AB for both players.  Harper in the final game pinch hit in the eventh inning and was struck out by Matt Harvey.  Had he not appeared, he would have won the batting title by about .0002 and NL triple crown, even with Gordon’s final day performance of an incredible 4-for-5.  Gordon has Matt Harvey to thank for the strikeout of Mr. Harper!”

I want to congratulate Ben Leckie on a great season and pennant race that had me looking over my shoulder the entirety of September.  I watched a double digit lead evaporate and am lucky to have pulled out the division and great 14 WOR!  Great season!

Newsletter for games through 10-4-2015: End of regular season

NATIONAL LEAGUE: The Cards picked up a game but the Reds hung on to win the NL Central by a single game….Washington opened the door with a 1-5 week but rode a strong regular season to catch the NL East title….just like the actual NL East champs…Rick Wynne pointed out that his previous ASFBL high win total was 111 (Cleveland, 2001), not the 108 I’d been babbling about…both are academic now, as he had a new high of 112 wins this year to capture the home field advantage throughout the playoffs…the wildcard spots go to Colorado (#4) and St. Louis (#5)…and kudos to Chuck Ballingall and the Dodgers, who’s 92 wins (same as Don Mattingly) would have won 3 divisions but only bought you 3rd place in a brutal NL West…Chuck has been in the league since 2004 and his 92 wins are his second-best ever…the last time he had this many wins (93 in ’09) he made it to the World Series….and a round of applause for Miami with 85 wins and +14 WOR, and Milwuakee with 83 wins at +15 WOR…

AMERICAN LEAGUE: So this is crazy, but all three division winners — Toronto, Kansas City, and Seattle — had losing weeks…which would have been lethal except no second place team had a winning week either….and all three third-place teams had 5 wins…when the dust settled, the Tigers picked up 3 games but couldn’t catch the Royals, the Mariner’s coasted on their double-digit lead, and the Yankees picked up 1 game but needed three to give the Jays the AL East crown…but the third-place team that could was the Orioles, who snuck into the last wild-card spot with 87 wins…nudging the Tigers and Astros who each had 86…congrats to Gordie of the Tigers, who has 11 playoff appearances to his name and finished +11.5 WOR (tops in the division)…a great year by a great owner…Trader Jim Casey did everything the actual Astros did (dead even WOR) but they didn’t have to compete with Adam Symonds and his Mariners….Jim has been in the league since 1995, and has both a World Series and WOR title to his name….congratulations are also in order for Oakland, who finished in the black and +15 WOR…John Weerts is finishing his 6th year and the +15 WOR is his lifetime high…

NEXT STEPS:  I’ll post the wildcard schedule later today and we’ll ask the owners to submit their lineups by Friday morning.  Games later that day or early Saturday.  Best of luck to the Cards, Rockies, Yankees, and Orioles!

FEATS AND FAILURES:

Clayton Kershaw of LAD had 15 strikeouts against SFG on 9/28/2015
Brandon Belt of SFG struck out 5 times against LAD on 9/28/2015
Steven Souza of SFG struck out 4 times against LAD on 9/28/2015
Blake Swihart of BOS struck out 4 times against NYY on 9/29/2015
Matt Carpenter of STL hit 3 home runs against PIT on 9/29/2015
Matt Carpenter of STL had 8 RBI against PIT on 9/29/2015
Matt Harvey of NYM had 11 strikeouts against PHI on 9/29/2015
Jake Arrieta of CHC had 12 strikeouts against CIN on 9/30/2015
Jacob deGrom of NYM had 11 strikeouts against PHI on 9/30/2015
Corey Dickerson of NYM had 6 RBI against PHI on 9/30/2015
Jake Lamb of ARI robbed 3 hits against COL on 9/30/2015
Enrique Hernandez of LAD robbed 3 hits against SFG on 9/30/2015
Justin Bour of MIA struck out 4 times against TBR on 10/1/2015
Eduardo Rodriguez of BOS had 10 strikeouts against CLE on 10/2/2015
Erasmo Ramirez of OAK had 12 strikeouts against SEA on 10/2/2015
Jacoby Ellsbury of NYY struck out 4 times against BAL on 10/2/2015
Chris Dominguez of CIN struck out 5 times against PIT on 10/2/2015
Clayton Kershaw of LAD had 10 strikeouts against SDP on 10/3/2015
Jorge Soler of CHC struck out 4 times against MIL on 10/3/2015
Chris Sale of BOS had 10 strikeouts against CLE on 10/4/2015
Ryan Howard of PHI robbed 3 hits against MIA on 10/4/2015
Adam Lind of MIL robbed 3 hits against CHC on 10/4/2015
Chris Dominguez of CIN struck out 5 times against PIT on 10/4/2015
Jake Odorizzi of SDP struck out 4 times against LAD on 10/4/2015
Tyler Duffey of MIN had 12 strikeouts against KCR on 10/4/2015