Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Nets

The 09'-10'Nets are not the worst team in NBA history.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Fantasy Baseball

Fantasy baseball drafts are exhilarating. Between the sleeper picks, the keeper leagues, the depth charts, the players who come back from injuries, the potential production in a new team--it's all incredibly analytical. I ended up with a pretty solid team in a twelve-man keeper league draft last night--my results were:
Round Pick Player Position
1. (4) Chase Utley 2B
2. (21) Jimmy Rollins SS
3. (28) CC Sabathia SP
4. (45) Derrek Lee 1B
5. (52) Johan Santana SP
6. (69) Matt Wieters C
7. (76) Chone Figgins 3B
8. (93) Carlos Peña 1B
9. (100) Francisco Rodríguez RP
10. (117) José Valverde RP
11. (124) James Shields SP
12. (141) Ryan Ludwick OF
13. (148) Brandon Webb SP
14. (165) Nate McLouth OF
15. (172) Ben Sheets SP
16. (189) Chris Coghlan OF
17. (196) Justin Duchscherer SP
18. (213) Ryan Rowland-Smith SP
19. (220) Joba Chamberlain SP
20. (237) Ted Lilly SP
21. (244) Russell Branyan 1B
22. (261) Ken Griffey Jr. OF

The main thing that worked well for me is stalling on the OF. I ended up picking an OF in my twelfth round in picking Ryan Ludwick. Of course I followed up two rounds later and picked Nate McLouth who was ranked about 70 something in Yahoo and is a great player--but by the time that teams get to him, they already have a filled up OF crew. This is where the key picks come in where you snag a really good player late in the draft.

Another good thing to keep in mind is the power hitters that are not ranked high. Carlos Pena isn't among the top picks but certainly is home run hitting beast who has a pretty good on base percentage. A valued pick late in the draft to secure the RBI's and Homers.

Take risks with pitchers. You will probably end up dropping and adding a lot of different pitchers because a bad start completely turns you off from certain pitchers. What I say is pick up those once amazing starters like Brandon Webb and
Justin Duchscherer and Ben Sheets (sure he got bombed in Spring training but he's an Ace of the squad for a reason).

And of course I did something similar by taking Ken Griffey Jr. He is my favorite player to ever play the game and just having him on my team makes me feel like this is going to be a good year. Who knows, maybe with the new Mariners--he can produce something? I don't know--but take the change.

The Mariners have one of the best defenses in the league and have a good line-up with a solid 1 and 2. I picked up their number 3 because I think he'll have a great deal of success; Rowland-Smith has potential and I say look out for him.

The countdown begins.

Madness... Just Madness

Alright, so we have March Madness, which is absolutely ridiculous right now. I wouldn't be surprised of any upsets anymore--the tournament is up for grabs in my opinion. When you have the number one overall dropping out when the President chose them--we got a crisis. Put that alert on red because somethings going down; we might have the apocalypse soon or multiple eclipses consecutively.

Cornell beating Temple and Wisconsin and then St. Mary's pounding away against Richmond and Villanova--brackets all over the world or destroyed. Nostradamus himself, couldn't have predicted this.

Where do we go from here though? What team will eventually win it? Well I can see Northern Iowa beating Michigan St. just because Michigan's top player got injured last game and well Northern Iowa is capable of anything after that second round win over Kansas.

Cornell was able to eliminate the tougher five seed that definitely should have been ranked a four seed in Temple, and then ultimately beat Wisconsin might be able to George Mason their way in a bit further into the elite eight.

Honestly, the tournament is up in the air to me and since there has been so many changes in the top seed--I don't know if there's a fair way to predict the champs. I'm going to put my money on Kentucky just because they produced the most amount of points in the tournament. They obliterated both the teams they faced by 29 and 30 points--and they averaged 95 points per game.

Or maybe UNI could pull out another few upsets and be the first team to be seeded over 8 to win the championship? Could the George Mason upset reference be changed to the University of Northern Iowa?

Monday, March 8, 2010

Barnes and Kobe

The rematch of last years finals and the Lakers did not pull out with a win. The game was tightly contested throughout the entire game and unfortunately Bryant was not able to pull three-straight Kobe-clutch shots. The Lakers fell short with one field goal.

The Lakers have gone on a three-game slide, but that doesn't matter because they are still regarded as one of the top 4 teams (in terms of power rankings). To me, the greater thing to look at from the game is Matt Barnes.

Barnes averages 8.7 points, 1.7 assists, 5.6 rebounds and .7 steals along with .4 blocks per game. His numbers are as surprising as Brett Favre coming back coming out of retirement to play yet another season. But what is impressing, is the defense and mental energy he exerted on irritating Kobe.

As you may know, I don't see the Magic going deep in the play-offs and I will stick with my predictions--except if Barnes can play that kind of defense on the top player of every team, I might predict otherwise.

The Magic have solid players all around, and their defense is the third best in the league (only behind the Lakers and Celtics). But what becomes important in the play-offs is to have a Bruce Bowen or Tayshaun Prince--that's what the two teams had over any other playoff contender; the had lock-down players.

Bowen could shoot, but I could think of five or even six players that could shoot better than him on that team. Prince is a great all-around player but Rip, Chauncey, Rasheed were the scorers (Prince scored around 13 per game). But if you would ask me what was it about those two teams that put them over the Lakers and even the Nets in the beginning of the decade, it would be their defensive stoppers.

Prince's crazy block over Ray Allen, Bowen's defensive lock-down on Kobe. If a player on your roster is used specifically to irritate and stop a scorer from scoring 15 in the 4th quarter and 30 in a game--you're team elevates to a new platform.

I haven't seen much of Barnes, but if he could play that defense on Kobe--he can play that defense on anyone (except I feel LeBron would physically overpower him), then the Magic have a much better shot. But again, since LeBron is a beast--I think he will end up winning this year.

Congratulations to the Magic and good luck having Barnes on LeBron.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Spring Training Tension

The Yankees versed the the Phillies yesterday in Spring training, but the world series tension was muted (obviously, it's the Pre-season). But the bad blood between Fielder and the Giants pitching staff was very much alive.

Last year, the Giants lost to the Brewers after Fielder hit a walk off-homer to destroy the Giants' potential of going into the post-season. When Fielder came home, he jumped on the plate and created an earthquake-like effect on the rest of the team as they all fell collapsed--it was one of the best celebrations I have ever seen.

Unfortunately, the Giants were severely angered by the celebration and made a remark of impending doom; one of the players said that the homerun would not be forgotten.

Well, I forgot about it and I assumed everyone else did too--but the Giants pitching staff did not. In the first inning, Fielder was beamed in the middle of his back. He walked towards first and threw the ball back towards Zito and started clapping his hands as if to say "Good for you--you got me back... in a pre-season game, congrats."

What is the point of such a play? Why would Zito retaliate in a pre-season game? More than 4 months have passed--could the Giants really still be that mad?

I think it was a poor decision and if there is any form of revenge--it should take place during the season. The blue behind the plate did not issue any warnings of any sort--but I think MLB should take some sort of action on this matter. If a team shows that they have a pre-meditated retaliation, why let this matter go?

Monday, March 1, 2010

Fantasy Baseball Draft Tips



Alright, let's talk about some fantasy baseball tips this year. I will have my own couple of fantasy teams in several different leagues and I was trying to figure out where there are major drop-offs and key elements to keep in mind.

Top-tier in each positions:
1B: Pujols, Tex, Howard, Fielder
2B: Utley, Kinsler, Uggla, Pedroia
3B: A-rod, Wright, Longoria
C: Mauer
SS: Ramirez, Rollins, Reyes, Tulowitzki, (maybe Jeter)
OF: Braun, Crawford, Kemp, Holliday, Sizemore
SP: Lincecum, Sabathia, Felix, Holladay, Santana, Greinke, Haren
CP: Broxton, Papelbon, Nathan, Rivera, K-rod, Soria

There are a bulk of 1B to choose from and I'd say it's even more important to snatch the top-tier ones. So with that being said, who are the top-tier 1B? Pujols, Teixeira, Howard and Fielder. Then there is a slight drop off with the next several top 1B like Morneau, Gonzalez, V. Martinez, Berkman, or Youkilis. The top 4 1B are going to go within the first two rounds of the draft and about seven of the top ten homerun hitters will be a first basemen this year, which makes it essential to have one of the top 1B to solidify your line-up.

Mauer, the one catcher that you might want to get will go the first round but I don't know if he will make that big of an impact as a first rounder than the others--but he does fill up the one position that no other batters are amazing at.

The top 3B will be going soon (I know I did not keep Reynolds as a top-tier batter but his average is too low for my liking). It's important to get the strong corner-infielders early because homeruns effect statistics more than anything! By getting a homerun; runs, hits, rbi's and average/slug./ob% all increase (obviously, but by understanding that possibly 4 categories increase--homeruns become one of the main focus for a team).

The top SS will be picked within the top four rounds, so you might have some more cushion to pick a good SS on the 3rd or 4th round--like get Jeter down there. But I'd say having a strong 2B is even more important because the top 2B seem to be better bats than the top SS.

I draft OF towards the bottom of the draft because there are so many more sleeper picks when it comes to OF. You could get a solid OF even up to the 9th or 10th round!

Getting a one of the top-tier pitchers above is essential to get within the first four rounds as well because having a guaranteed 7 K, 7 IP, and > 3.5 ERA performer is a good fall back. While getting a top closer can wait until at least round 7.

So with all that being said--this is the order of position I'd go for in a draft:
1. IF (1b or 3b primarily but any IF is good enough)
2. IF (one more to solidify that power hitting or great all around player)
3. SP (grab one of those top pitchers because you will need one to rely on)
4. 2B or SS (preferably one with speed and contact)
5. SP (especially if any of those top ones are left!)
6. C, 3B (Mauer will be gone so snag McCann!)
7. CP (Grab Broxton if no one has yet!)
8. P (You might want to get another top closer or solid pitcher--but do not go for another position because the drop offs of each position have struck already)
9. OF (It's about time to get one of those now--you'll see that you still have some pretty good bats in the field, grab the top one... or look to see if you have much speed and get an OF that could provide some stolen bases or one that purely gets runs)
10. C (If you weren't able to grab McCann or Mauer--get Doumit, Sotom Posada, Posey or Martin now)

From 11 onwards, it depends on the strong pitchers and which outfielders are left to choose from. Either way--you'll probably have your personal sleeper picks to choose from or have players you're not confident in and will probably drop once the season starts. In the past, I've dropped my entire outfield and picked up early solid hitters like McLouth, Ludwick and Quentin (all in one season). So again, don't worry about the OF!

Hopefully this was helpful--feel free to ask me any questions and good luck!