Tuesday, December 31, 2013

2012 DVs vs 2013 Warpigs

The last two NASOMA champions are squaring off in a best of 7 series via NetPlay. Games 1 and 2 took place last night. Here are the results...


Game 1 @ The BallPork - Warpigs win 4-2

Allan Craig opened the scoring with a solo homer off of Adam Wainwright in the top of the 1st, but a bases loaded walk to Yadier Molina off of Jered Weaver in the bottom of the inning tied the score.

Jesus Montero homered in the 4th on a 3-2 roll to give the DVs a lead, but the Pigs responded in the 5th with a 2-run homer by Edwin Encarnacion. Fernando Rodney then came on to start the 6th and shut down the DVs for the next 3 innings. Yoenis Cespedes hit a solo shot off of Drew Storen in the 8th to make the lead 4-2.

Three Warpig relievers got an out apiece in the 9th. J.J. Putz got the last one to earn the save.


Game 2 @ The BallPork - DVs win 7-4 in 13 innings

Opposing starters Alexi Ogando and Jordan Zimmermann got off to rough starts. The DVs scored 4 in the top of the 1st, but the Warpigs responded with 3 in their half and another run in the 2nd to tie the game. Both starters settled down and there was no more scoring until the 13th, when Jesus Montero (on ANOTHER 3-2 roll!) and Henry Blanco went back to back off of Casey Janssen.

The Warpigs, in a rare occurrence, used all 25 available players. The non-SPs, Adam Wainwright and Cliff Lee, both appeared as pinch hitters in the game; and the Pigs finished the game with no players left on the bench or in the bullpen (and no DH).

The rest of the series will (hopefully) be played later this week.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Least Likely to be Traded

Some teams trade all the time, and some rarely make a deal. Some players bounce around from team to team, and others are locked in. And it doesn't help that some teams (like the Fungoes) almost never make a trade. And Nad players become untouchable once somebody asks about them.

*Our beloved commissioner has agreed to award a demerit credit to any team who manages to trade for anybody on this list in the next 3 months AND to the team who trades them. So you'd both start the year with a negative 1 demerit. Trade them to the Buckeyes or the Warpigs and get FIVE demerit credits!

Anyway, to while away the winter, here is a list of the least likely players to be traded in NASOMA:

20. Andrelton Simmons, Killer Bees - He can't hit a lick, and he was recently traded TO the Bees... but he's a Brave and quite possibly the best defensive SS since Ozzie Smith. Oh, and he's a Brave.

19. Adam Jones, Inmates - He wasn't ALWAYS an Inmate or he'd be rated higher.

18. Yadier Molina, Warpigs - The Pigs trade as much or more than anybody, but this guy is a Cardinal, he's the best player at his position, and he was the main reason the Pigs won in 2013.

17. Jose Fernandez, Warpigs - Young and talented, with a great card. You'd have to be a fool to trade this guy. Oh wait, how'd I get him in the first place??? :o)

16. Yasiel Puig, Drillers - Might have been higher before he started getting arrested for driving 110 mph. Super talented, but there is some risk here, too.

15. Buster Posey, Drillers - It's hard to imagine that there are 14 guys less likely to move than this guy.

14. Carlos Gonzalez, Inmates - He can hit. He can run. He can field. He's not going anywhere. Like Charles Manson, he'll die an Inmate.

13. Matt Holliday, DVs - Holliday has played for the Rockies and Cardinals, the DVs' two favorite teams. Half of the DVs' wardrobe is made up of Holliday jerseys. Much to the consternation of Matt Holliday, he'll always be a DV.

12. Joe Mauer, Sidewinders - The Snakeman recently took his Joe Mauer SOM card collection to his priest and had them blessed.

11. Troy Tulowitzki, Rhinos - Other shortstops have and will come along thru the Rhino system, but Tulo is still there and still in charge. The Rhinos have occasionally made blockbuster deals, but don't expect Tulo to ever be part of one.

10. Dustin Pedroia, Wahoos - The Chief recently confessed that he has a Pedroia poster on the ceiling above his bed. Too much information, in my opinion.

9. Elvis Andrus, Mavs - He's a Ranger, he's good, and he's a good guy. Short of the Rangers trading him, he'll stay a Mav.

8. Miguel Cabrera, Zaps - He's the second best player in baseball. His move back to 1b is the only thing keeping him from being ranked in the top 3.

7. Joey Votto, Rhinos - More valuable to the Rhino front office than anybody else on the team, and why not? He is an onbase machine.

6. Yu Darvish, Goofs - The Goofboy is a huge fan of Ranger players, and Darvish has become the face of the franchise.

5. Clayton Kershaw, Fungoes - Actually, every player on the Fungo roster could make up the top 20, but there are 4 guys ranked ahead of this Kershaw despite the fact that he's the best pitcher in baseball and is still only 25 years old.

4. Mariano Rivera, FFTs - This year's card will be his last, and the good doctor is nothing if not loyal. I wouldn't be surprised if he used a reserve to keep him in 2015.

3. Andrew McCutchen, Zaps - They just don't get any better than McCutchen. The Zapper once traded Josh Hamilton after his best season, but that won't happen with McCutchen.

2. Shin-Soo Choo, Goofs - A few weeks ago, it might have been possible to get Choo from the Goofs, but now that he's a Ranger, he's locked in.

1. Mike Trout, Fungoes - The best player in baseball plays for the manager who makes the fewest trades. That's why he's #1 on this list.

* - This is a lie.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Buckeyes and FFTs trade

The Buckeyes traded Chris Capuano and pick 98 to the FFTs for Jeremy Guthrie and pick 80.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Trimming Rosters

I'm going to start cutting the dead weight off of our rosters. If you have any "for sure" cuts, send me an email. This is just for the guys you have no plans to keep, trade, or reserve. And you could always change your mind. Or at least up until the official cut down date (some time in March, I assume.)Thanks to the FFTs and Zaps for already sending me their lists.

I'll start by taking the names off the rosters page, but I guess I could delete them from the Winter Tracker as well.

Friday, December 13, 2013

Ratings Preview

You probably already know this, but SOM has released their range ratings preview for next year.

Here are the 1's:

C:  Wieters, Sal Perez, Russell Martin, Yadi
1B: Goldschmidt, Anthony Rizzo, Freeman, Adrian Gonzalez
2B: Galvis, Espinosa, Zobrist, Cano, Pedroia, Darwin Barney, Phillips
SS: JJ Hardy, Jose Iglesias, Alcides Escobar, Yunel Escobar, Elvis Andrus, Andrelton Simmons, Tulo, Hechavarria, Brendan Ryan, Gregorius
3B:  Machado, Longoria, Beltre, Arenado
LF:  Brandon Barnes, Trout, Starling Marte, Gerardo Parra, Sam Fuld, Gregor Blanco, Alex Gordon, Carlos Gonzalez
CF:   Brandon Barnes, McCutchen, Lorenzo Cain, Adam Jones, Ellsbury, Bourjos, Trout, Carlos Gomez, Denard Span
RF:  Victorino, Brandon Barnes, Josh Reddick, Parra, Heyward, Jay Bruce

Zaps and Buckeyes trade

The Zaps trade Jed Lowrie, Peter Bourjos, Wes Middlebrooks, Jonny Gomes, and Josh Johnson to the Buckeyes for Cole Hamels.     

Sunday, December 08, 2013

Pigs and Buckeyes trade

The Warpigs traded Justin Ruggiano to the Buckeyes for Adam Dunn.

Saturday, December 07, 2013

Winter State

With the weather keeping me inside for a few days, I thought I'd endeavor to place some sort of holistic ratings on the teams in NASOMA to get a handle on where we stand as we enter the 2014 season.

Please understand that the following rankings do not take into account any prospects for the future - it's just an idea of how good we'll be next year. I used the Winter Tracker, so if you own players who are NOT listed on there, they were not taken into consideration. And obviously there's nothing scientific about it. I simply rated all 16 teams in four categories: draft pick situation, hitters, starting rotation, and bullpen. So yes, pitching counts twice as much as hitting in this rather shoddy system, but there's some adage out there that supports that premise, I believe. I considered adding Intangibles as a 5th category, but that would have had to include such things as "The Buckeyes always win" and "The Rhinos always cave and draft for the future" and "The Drillers suck"... things like that. And it all seemed too obvious to mess with. Anyway, I assigned each group a score of 1-10, with this rubric:

10 - the best, hard to improve this area
7-8-9 - pretty dang good
6 - slightly above average
5 - average
4 - slightly below average
3-2-1 - in need of repair

There aren't too many surprises. There are four ratings of 10 - twice for rotations, once for lineup, and once for draft picks. There are two ratings of 1 - both for bullpen. The Fungoes are the obvious team to beat. The MFD will have quite the race, as will the AWD. The Tweener totals surprised me a little, but there's no denying that's a talented pitching staff. Even the BUD, winners of the last two Higdons, will have an interesting race for first, although the winner is due a #4 playoff seed and the 12th pick in next year's draft.

The keys will be the trades that happen between now and the draft, the draft itself, and then the watch to see which teams give up the ghost and take aim at 2015.

And here we go...

Warpigs
Draft: 4 - An early pick (#2) saves this from being even lower since they have no 2nd.
Lineup: 2 - Yadi and Prince. That's it. The cupboard is bare.
Rotation: 10 - Wainwright, JFernandez, Zimmermann, and Strasburg earn the first 10.
Bullpen: 1 - Only because the ratings don't go any lower.

Wahoos
Draft: 10 - And here's the second rating of 10. They have 6 of the first 19; 9 of the first 36.
Lineup: 4 - Pedroia is joined by new acquisitions VMart, Beltran, and Aoki. But not much else.
Rotation: 4 - Anibal is pretty good, but Verlander, Gee, and Buehrle will be very hittable.
Bullpen: 1 - Right now if you call the bullpen, no one will answer.

DVs
Draft: 5 - All their own picks. They pick 7th.
Lineup: 5 - Holliday, Craig, Stanton, ARam, Kinsler.
Rotation: 4 - Latos, Weaver, Lynn, Porcello... maybe 4.5
Bullpen: 4 - Clippard is good and Breslow helps.

FFTs
Draft: 4 - No 1st or 4th.
Lineup: 4 - HanRam, Napoli, and Pence, but a lot of holes.
Rotation: 5 - Kuroda, Samardzija, Liriano, Masterson, Leake
Bullpen: 3 - The last Mariano card(?), but it's pretty good.

Rhinos
Draft: 2 - One pick in the first 90, and it's #59. Hard to help your team like that.
Lineup: 8 - Maybe the 2nd best in the league going in: Votto, Cano, Tulo, Gomez, Myers...
Rotation: 3 - Hudson, Garza, CC. If not for Gerritt Cole, this is probably a 2.
Bullpen: 4 - Jansen and O'Day are stout, but nothing else.

Fungoes
Draft: 5 - Their own picks, and they pick 9th.
Lineup: 7 - Trout is awesome, but plenty of help coming from Carpenter, Hosmer, and Zimmerman.
Rotation: 10 - Another perfect 10. Kershaw, Price, Harvey, Medlen, and even D.Holland.
Bullpen: 7 - Papelbon, Perkins, Cishek, and Robertson allow the league's best drafter to draft bats.

Inmates
Draft: 5 - No first, but extra 3rd and 4th. They pick late in each round.
Lineup: 6 - Beltre, CarGo, AJones, Marte, Segura. Above average offense, but not great.
Rotation: 5 - Parker, Chacin, Straily, Stults. Injuries keeps this from being better.
Bullpen: 4 - Street, Grilli, D.Hernandez. Like everybody, will need to get better in the draft.

Nads
Draft: 5 - His own picks, starting at #6.
Lineup: 2 - AGonzalez... and then... okay, when Ben Revere is your 2nd best hitter, that ain't good.
Rotation: 4 - CJ, Fister, and Miley is the start of a decent nucleus.
Bullpen: 4 - Not great relievers, but a lot of them: Thayer, Albers, Balfour, LeCure, Blevins.

Drillers
Draft: 6 - Their own picks, but it starts at #1.
Lineup: 7 - Ellsbury, Longo, Posey, Puig, Bruce, Yelich. Even better when they add Donaldson.
Rotation: 5 - Shields, Minor, Corbin, Cobb. I rated this as average, but it might be better than that.
Bullpen: 4 - Nathan, Mujica, and Gregerson. Not a bad start.

Zaps
Draft: 5 - All their own picks, starting at #10.
Lineup: 10 - Holy cow. The AL MVP. The NL MVP. The NL MVP Runner Up. And there's lots more.
Rotation: 4 - Scherzer will dominate, and Greinke is fine; but there isn't much else.
Bullpen: 3 - Ziegler and Parnell will need some help.

Buckeyes
Draft: 4 - No 1st or 2nd, but an extra 3rd. And all the best cards are always still there when he picks.
Lineup: 3 - Ortiz and Cuddyer and probably a bunch of guys named Greg Pirkl.
Rotation: 4 - Hamels and Dickey. Miggy Gonzo too.
Bullpen: 5 - Uehara, and Alias Smith and Johnson.

Mavs
Draft: 5 - An extra 2nd, but thanks to his 100 wins last year, his picks are all pretty late.
Lineup: 7 - Chris Davis leads a salty group: Harper, the good Upton, Country Breakfast, Lucroy.
Rotation: 5 - Cain, Bailey, Buchholz, Gallardo. If Buchholz hadn't been hurt, this rating is higher.
Bullpen: 4 - Doolittle, GHolland, RRoss.

Sidewinders
Draft: 5 - No 1st but an extra 2nd.
Lineup: 5 - Mauer, Kipnis, Belt, Wright. A good nucleus. Depth needed.
Rotation: 6 - Sale, Lester, Moore, Peavy, Cueto. The Cueto injury hurt.
Bullpen: 6 - Kimbrel and Chapman. Best 1-2 punch in the league. That's all there is for now.

Killer Bees
Draft: 6 - No 3rd, but he has an extra 5th and his first pick is early (#4).
Lineup: 6 - Freeman, Encarnacion, Werth, CSantana. Pretty solid.
Rotation: 6 - CLee, Teheran, ESantana, Ubaldo, Lincecum.
Bullpen: 4 - Janssen, RSoriano, Peralta, Stammen. Not a great group, but a good start.

Tweeners
Draft: 6 - An extra 1st. He picks #5 and #13.
Lineup: 4 - Victorino, Zobrist, Sandoval, Rosario. Losing VMart hurt some.
Rotation: 8 - Deep and good: Iwakuma, Tillman, King Felix, MadBum, Shelby Miller, Gio.
Bullpen: 6 - Smyly, Avilan, Romo.

Goofs
Draft: 5 - His own picks, starting at #12.
Lineup: 4 - Ahh... Choo.
Rotation: 5 - Darvish, Griffin, Lohse
Bullpen: 3 - Benoit and Walden.

Totals by Division:

BUD
19 Wahoos
18 DVs
17 Warpigs
16 FFTs

HWD
29 Fungoes
20 Inmates
17 Rhinos
15 Nads

MFD
22 Drillers
22 Zaps
21 Mavs
16 Buckeyes

AWD
24 Tweeners
22 Sidewinders
22 Killer Bees
17 Goofs

Friday, December 06, 2013

Team Stats and League Leaders

Scroll down on the NASOMA home page to see a list of some of the league leaders in various categories. There are also links to take you to the team stats for both pitching and hitting.

Some highlights... The Zaps' Andrew McCutchen won the batting title, hitting .332 to finish just ahead of the unlikely runner up, Erick Aybar of the Nads. Josh Hamilton of the Goofs led the league in both home runs and RBI. Hamilton also led in slugging percentage. The Rhinos' Joey Votto won the onbase category, but numbers 2 and 3 were, again, Nads (Miguel Montero and Josh Willingham). Surprisingly, no players reached the 100-walk mark this year. Juan Pierre of the Drillers led in stolen bases with 53, and Adam Jones of the Inmates led with 60 doubles.

In pitching, Adam Wainwright of the Warpigs went 22-3. Kyle Lohse (20-7) of the Goofs was the only other 20-game winner. The ERA champion was Clayton Kershaw of the Fungoes (2.74). Kershaw (248) also led the league in strikeouts. The Pigs' Fernando Rodney led in saves with 45.

In the team categories, the Warpigs had the top batting average, onbase percentage, and slugging average. The Pigs also scored the most runs. The Zaps had the most home runs, and the Fungoes stole the most bases. The Goofs made the fewest errors in the league, and the Fungoes made the most.

The Mavs allowed the fewest runs and had the lowest ERA. The Fungoes had the most strikeouts, and the Goofs led the way in shutouts with 21. The Bees, for a record 15 years in a row, did not have an error by a pitcher. Now that's good coaching.

Soon you will be getting an All Star ballot from the DVs. Please take the time to vote.

Thursday, December 05, 2013

Updates

The Mavs have a new home address (the Midlothian Mavs?) and the Killer Bees have a new email address. Both have been updated on the address page.

Wahoos make 2 more trades

The Wahoos trade Jeff Samardzija and pick 83 to the FFTs for Craig Gentry, Garrett Jones, and pick 114.

The Wahoos trade Nolan Arenado and Chris Carter to the Tweeners for Victor Martinez and Nori Aoki.

Sunday, December 01, 2013

Inmates and Wahoos trade

The Wahoos traded Dan Straily and pick 51 to the Inmates for pick 15.