1. One Nut Wonders – In a battle of the top two, Jason narrowly beat out Casten in R, HR, and STL to take a 8-2 win and provide further proof of his ascension. Pitching was excellent with an incredible 2.16/1.05 line, which he’ll need this week going against Montezuma, which has nearly double the probable starts. Having Beckett and Weaver on the DL certainly makes the upcoming week a challenge, but both are expected back after their respective stints, with Weaver possibly back this weekend. The difference between the top six teams seems to get smaller and smaller each week.
2. Clayton & The King – Any week you go 0-3-2 in pitching is bad, but when you do so posting a line of 65/2.34/1.12/9, it is particularly painful. The offense wasn’t anywhere close to Dagan (18 rbis vs. 39), but Russ’ numbers were certainly at least worthy of a split. Instead, he fell 2-6-2 and dropped to fifth in the standings, but he moves up here due largely to the demise of Brandon’s pitching staff.
3. Grumpy Munchkins – Graveyard indeed. Really, this drop is just a reflection of the current state of his pitching staff. Casten’s team remains an offensive powerhouse, but he didn’t get a save last week and now has Garcia, Lilly, Beachy, Morrow, and Estrada on the DL, and Medlen in the bullpen (at least for now). That gives him six healthy starters and one of them is named Brad Lincoln. The Sabathia trade certainly helps (short term), especially since Norris is DL’d. Once some of these guys come back healthy, Brandon will move back up. But a lot of the injuries don’t have the greatest outlook, so it remains to be seen if this is a just the start of a hard fall or a blip.
4. Ring of Fire – For a week of bad offensive outputs, Dagan’s squad didn’t seem to notice with an incredible 35/17/39/.398 line lead by the almighty powerful Plouffe and his Reds boppers. Today’s trade gives him a rotation full of impressive names, albeit with middling results so far this season. If Lincecum can turn it around, the trade could be a game-changer but he’s shown no signs of pulling out of this spiral. The big production for the week pushes him up, but he'll need consistency to stay there.
5. Moose is Loose – Tough week for Moose, as the 21/3/19/5/.320 line was among the worst performing offenses for the week. Pitching was much improved with Vogelsong and Cahill yielding immediate dividends and posting a 3/62/3.28/1.09/7 line, which helped Brian take a 6-3 win over Pierce. Bring back a productive Tulo and Markakis and this offense is capable of competing with the top teams most weeks. If they were healthy, I’d put Brian above Casten at the moment.
6. Montezuma’s Revenge – Definitely wouldn’t have gotten a sweep against most teams this week, or even Troy’s team on a normal week, but sometimes you just get lucky. The pitching was more dominant than it shows on paper since I benched four starts (4 qs and 30 k) because I didn’t need them. I still like the names on offense, just need to production to come round (that means you, JUpton and Santana). The showdown with Jason will show if this team is ready to compete with the top tier.
7. Donkey Punchers – This seems to be the spot for Chris as his team has shown some resilience on a week-to-week basis, but areas of outperformance are limited, making it difficult to project this as a playoff team. Again, the pitching rates were stellar at 1.81/0.94, but the numbers game isn’t working with only 39 ks and 5 qs. A few more runs and a couple homers would’ve made this a better week than 5-4-1. The roster is still good, but there’s a clear top six in the standings and the power rankings, and Chris might need a few good trades to make it a seven-team tier.
8. Cowhide Joyride – It’s tough to rank Dave’s team week to week because the outputs vary so greatly. There wasn’t a lot to like this week, even though he eeked out a 6-4 win over Angry. He won four of five offensive categories with a depressing 23/4/23/6/.318 line and posted a 4.71 era and apparently is selling off his starters. I liked Dave’s team to start the season and while the keepers have underperformed (RWeeks, Lincecum, Andrus, Zimmerman particularly), there is still hope.
9. Keepin It Real – There was enough production to warrant something more than the 3-6-1 loss at the hands of Moose, but both teams only managed three homers and Pierce only had 3 qs. His OBP has been consistently excellent, but its only one category and the pitching rates were middle of the pack 4.42/1.24. I’m not convinced this team can’t make a run at it, especially if he gets healthy. He’ll need to load up on starters and ditch some of the bench bats, but there’s still promise here and plenty of weeks to go.
10. Prestige Worldwide – Another tough week for Lars as his DL list grew once again
with Stubbs. The problem with Lars is no one is getting healthy and he’s losing ground every week. Though he won saves handily (8 to nil) and tied Chris (shockingly) with 5 qs, that 4.18 era was not good and 18 rbis, 0 steals, and .316 obp just won’t cut it. He needs AGon to bounce back, and Asdrubal, Maybin, and Kendrick to party like its 2011 again. Otherwise, it may be over soon.
11. Urban Achievers – As Dan builds for the future, the present is bringing mixed results with league highs in runs (39) and steals (8), as well as the highest era and whip (5.28/1.55). He was able to stream his way to a 6-3-1 win against his fellow expansion team, but he won’t be able to keep that up with a 50 transaction limit. Whatever happens this year, at least Dan can look at that bright shiny glimmer of hope for the future in Bryce Harper.
12. The Angry Pirates – Tough week on offense with a dismal line of 18/5/22/0/.283, while pitching was pretty damn good with a record 88 ks for the week and 8 qs. The selloff continues to progress with the dealing of Buchholz and Bell and there’s plenty of parts left to deal. Of course, the number of sellers seems to be outnumbering the buyers quite a bit. That might be different if we still had eight playoff teams, but we’ll have to see how the market goes this year.
13. Anal Hershiser – The .376 obp was good, but Andrew was one of many teams that struggled to drive in runs this week (five teams had less than 20 RBI for the week). There’s just not much in the way of O here and the effective spare parts for contenders are only mildly appealing at this point. That said, he is in the best shape so far in terms of 2013 picks, with two firsts and two seconds, and he’s got Verlander and Strasburg to build around.
14. Billy Chapel – After an awesome offensive line of 31/10/37/3/.352 the week prior, the same offense could only must a 25/4/17/4/.268 line, which matched a lousy pitching line and helped Montezuma complete the sweep. There’sstill pieces to move here and there’s picks to be had, but Troy has yet to pickup a pick despite the numerous trades. Sitting 43 games out of first, with two closers, some effective starters and a few good power bats, its time to capitalize on the needs of others.
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