Fantasy Baseball Search Expert League Weekly Report Vol.1 Iss 1

Fantasy Baseball Search Expert League Weekly Report
Vol.1 Iss 1


Contributors:
Todd "The True GURU" Farino

This was a very exciting week in the FBSEL (Fantasy Baseball Search Expert League). Not only did we have our first trade in league history, but we had a very nice upset on one of the favorites to win it all. Add to that some nice comebacks for teams that started slow in week 1.

First Trade Between Melnick & Greco and Fantasy Baseball Geeks
Sean from Fantasy Baseball Geeks gave up Carlos Lee andChad Qualls for Melnick and Greco's Josh Hamilton and D. Matuzaka .

Notable Free Agent Pick Ups:
Players Added: Dana Eveland, Jason Kendell, Jorge Cantu, Matt Garza, Cliff Lee, Edgar Gonzalez, Wandy Rodirguez, Randy Wolf, Joe Crede Peter Moylan, Jonny Gomes, Joe Saunders, and Derrick Turnbow.

Players Dropped: Scott Rolen, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Gary Matthews, Ramon Hernandez, Austin Kearns, Justin Speiers, Kazuo Fukumori, Chris Snyder, Barry Bonds, and Andrew Miller.


Melnick And Greco 4
Stoney's Lounge 4
Melnick and Greco squared off against the hot Stoney's lounge. Both teams came in with big week 1 wins and they settled for a tie at 4 a piece. This match wasn't much for competition this week. To start the average category was won my Stoney's Lounge by less than .002 points, but sadly he won with a team batting average of .2265. That shows you how bad the teams performed at least from an offensive stand point when the team winning batting average is that low. Melnick and Greco's team despite a combined .225 average did pound out 8 home runs led by Bill Hall hitting 3 home runs out of the 4 hits he had. Chris Young and Brandan Phillips also added in solid performances. Stoney had a much better week from an offensive standpoint with great performances from Vernon Wells, Hideki Matsui, Derek Lee, but he also had some terrible plays like Freddy Sanchez batting .091, Alex Rodriguez .207, and Troy Tulowitzki .111. Since both teams had bad weeks offensively, the key offensive category in this game was stolen bases and Melnick and Greco took that easily 4 to 1 and with that outscored Stoney's 3-2 in the offensive categories. Pitching was much better for both these teams and much more even. Both team respectable WHIP's and ERA's, and strikeouts. Stoney's recorded an impressive 61 strikeouts this week to M&G's 45. Overall Stoney's took pitching 2-1 with ties in saves and wins. The key to Stoney's pitching wins were Cole Hamels, Derek Lowe, and Jason Isringhausen. M&G had solid success with its pitching with a great week from Brian Wilson, but his itching to grab new starting pitcher over and over again hurt him this week and cost him at least 1 loss.

A side note to this match up, Paul Greco trading Josh Hamilton and Daisuke Matsuzaka cost him 1 win and 1 tie this week. He was only without the players one day, but if he had kept them that one day instead of 4-4-2 he would have been 5-3-2.

Fantasy Baseball Search 6
Fantasy Baseball Geeks 3

This was a very tight match up and several categories went down to the wire including home runs, WHIP, and ERA. In a last ditch effort to garner some wins Fantasy Baseball Geeks (FBG) got a late home run from Garrett Atkins to pull a tie in that category, but newly acquired Daisuke Matsuzaka failed to lower his team WHIP or ERA and in the end went down 6-3-1. Fantasy Baseball Search (FBS) by the hot bat of James Loney and his .391 batting average and 2 home runs. Hanley Ramirez also broke out with an outstanding week. While Chipper Jones and Akinori Iwamura provided more offensive help several players did not including Kelly Johnson, Matt Diaz, and Carlos Beltran. Those performances made it possible for FBS to win batting average and runs. FBG's also had some outstanding offensive performances from Adrian Gonzalez, Jeremy Hermida, Nate McLouth, and Garret Atkins that led him to win RBI and Stolen bases. The end result was a 2-2-1 split on offense.

Pitching was a disaster for both teams across the board. FBS's bullpen was raped and the stand outs were Jose Valverde and Jeremy Accardo. On the flip-side FBG's lost KROD most of the week and his two appearances were forgettable. In the end The True GURU took pitching 4-1.

Mock Draft Central 7
Fantasy Baseball Generals 3

This was not only the best match up of the week, but it was also one of the most hotly contested. In the end Mock Draft Central (MDC) dominated Fantasy Baseball Generals (FBG) with a 7-3 win, but the inside story is what is interesting. The battle here was the top starting pitching staff in the league vs. the best bullpen. The winner this week was the starting staff of MDC. Jake Peavy and Brandon Webb led the way and carried the load for Johan Santana who had a tough week. He also recorded 5 saves with Joakim Soria, Eric Gagne, and Kevin Gregg. FBG's team did dominate ERA and WHIP as expected with a well pitched bullpen, but in the end no saves for Rivera, Soriano (15-DL) or Saito. The end result in pitching was a 3-2 win for MDC. On the offensive side the tough times continued for Patrick and the FBG's squad even know they performed well. He squad was led by Carlso Pena and 4 home runs. Aramis Ramirez and Mike Jacobs had good performances. In the end the offese belonged to MDC with Brain McCann, Paul Konerko, Aaron Hill, and our main man Chone Figgins with his 4 stolen bases. In the end MDC won offense 4-1. A great match up for the ages.

Fantasy Baseball Mafia 8
Fantasy Fanatics 2
Fantasy Baseball Mafia (FBM) did not disappoint after a tough week 1. Evan Dickens came out with guns blazin' in week two against the slow starting Fantasy Fanatics. The great thing about Evans dominating win this week was he did it with only 1 home run between Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder. The Brewer combo also combined for 5 hits in 48 at bats. Jason Bay had a breakout week with 3 home runs and a .381 average. Miguel Tejada got into the act as well for FBM with a .429 batting average and 5 RBI. FF tried to match up offensively with great performances from Eric Byrnes, Dan Uggla, and Manny Ramirez, but in the end FBM took offense 4-1 only losing average if you can believe it. Pitching was about the same and dominated by FBM. He recorded 5 saves and 5 wins nailing down those two categories. Joe Nathan, George Sherrill led the way on saves and Brain Bannister scored Evan 2 wins in one week. On the flip-side Dan got solid pitching out of Josh Beckett and Roy Halladay, but his weak bullpen caved in and only got him 3 saves, 2 from Trevor Hoffman. When the dust settled Fantasy Fanatics was only able to pull out WHIP and lose 4-1 in pitching.

Roto Authority 8
Junkyard Jake 2
Roto Authority just simply has a great team. He's in first place in the very tough East Division at 14-4-2. He easily dispatched Junkyard Jake's team and most likely would have any team he faced. With a team batting average of .3oo Tim's team pulled out 8 home runs, 43 runs, and 8 stolen bases. His only weakness on offense was RBI (28) and that was the category Junkyard Jake (JJ) was able to win. Roto Authority (RA) won thanks to Lance Berkman, David Wright, and Rafeal Furcal. RC is still reeling right now, but had outstanding performances from Matt Holiday and Nick Markakis. Grady Sizemore is coming around and when those three are hot together they can carry a offense. For this week, he lost 4-1. On the pitching side, same story for RA. He won every category, but WHIP and that was lost by only .03 points. He put together 8 wins and while only recording 3 saves it was enough. Greg Maddux and Javier Vasquez were great for him this week. For RC, not much to report on pitching Carlos Ambrano let him down along with the rest of his staff. Credit has to be given for the fact that is staff kept it close. This team could very well be a sleeping giant. WAKE UP ALREADY!

Rotodoc 8

Baseball Geeks 2

Rotodoc came back strong after a close loss lat week and laid into Rob over at Baseball Geeks. Rotodoc just exploded this week getting 9 of his 14 home runs (not a typo) from Pujols, Peralta and Burrell. Even Ricky Weeks added in 2 dingers. Baseball Geeks (BG) tried to keep up, but lost with 13 home runs! Mark Renyolds, Tori Hunter, and Orlando Hudson provided 7 of them. In the end FB was only able to win runs and lost 4-1 in the offensive categories. On the pitching side it was much tighter and almost unfair to Rob. Rotodoc had masterful performances from Dan Haren (2 wins), Ben Sheets, and 3 saves from Houston Street. Rob countered with John Smoltz and Aaron Harang, but in the end Chad Billingsley may have lost several categories for him going 0-2 with a 6+ ERA and a 1.9+ WHIP. That killed him. The end result, 4-1 win for Rotodoc with Rob winning only strikouts. That is a tough way to lose when his team played so well.