Thursday gets the Liam Neeson treatment

So, I finally got tired of waiting for Bob's broke ass to finish answering the questions I sent to him for a second time 3 weeks ago (the first time was basically during the Byzantine Empire), so yesterday afternoon I redirected and shot some questions over to bald headed half of the Fastenal Ambiguously Gay Duo (not sure who is Ace and who is Gary...my guess is John is Gary, Tom is Ace) and Tom turned them around super quickly.  So a BIG thanks to Tom, we will get to his answers in a bit.  First, there have been some things going on in MLB that are worth a mention (and some light ribbing).  I'll use the bullet point method because it suits me and I dont need another reason.

 

There is so much going on here.  The hat...the eyebrows...the
beard that makes it look like hair completely encircles his face.

- Not only was Yanger recalled from the minors, but a major league team actually thought enough to trade FOR him.  Granted, it was the Padres and a smallish monkey would be an upgrade over everyone they have not named Seth Smith, but still.  Not only that...the Padres gave up a player who is only a year and a half removed from a 286/376/498 31 HR 115 RBI 17 SB season (its been a ROUGH year and a half).  It is hard to believe that anyone was willing to take a trip to the Yanger Zone, but a lineup that features a starting infield (when healthy) of Yonder Alonso, Jedd Jerko, Everth Cabrera and Yanger might be the best/most depressing collection of horse shit ever collected.  Long live the Padres. -- New just broke today that CF Cameron Maybin has been suspended 25 games for using amphetamines (greenies)...he is hitting 238/292/319.  If that is him on something performance enchancing, I dont want to see him without it.  It makes me sad to think that I just picked up another Padre starting pitcher and have seriously contemplated picking up Odrisamer Despaigne, if for no other reason than to have someone named Odrisamer.

 

- The prospect love that Uncle Jimmy and I showed Mookie Betts may have been a bit premature...may have been.  The Mookster was sent back to Pawtuckett after playing in 10 less than inspiring games and hitting 235/278/382 with 1 HR and 1 SB.  So much for that $16 waiver add Uncle Jim.  Really though, I find it hard to blame Mookie for his struggles.  In his 10 games, he never played more than 4 in a row and was often in the lineup for a couple of games, then out for a couple.  I would say that he was never able to get into a rhythm at the plate, and it is really understated how important that is.  In my younger playing days, I would go through streaks where the ball looked like it was moving in slow motion and I felt like no matter what I did, I was going to hit a liner that would find some green space.  I also went through spots where it felt like there were 10 guys playing in the infield and that the infield was 190 feet deep.  The first ones were when I was in rhythm, the second ones were like when I try to dance (its not pretty).  Being jerked in and out of the lineup doesnt let a hitter get comfortable, which is huge when you are a rookie playing under the biggest microscope imaginable a few dozen miles from the head quarters of the world's largest sports media outlet and in front of some of the craziest and most unreasonable fans that have every existed. 
Mookie can thank the Sawks manager.  I still think that he will be exciting long term, but I am interested to see what Uncle Jimmy does with him seeing as how Kris Bryant and Javy Baez are currently parked in his NA spots.  Jimmy continues to assure me that Baez is close to coming up to the big squad even though he recently moved to second base in AAA and the Cubs are playing with their shiny new toy at 2b, Arismendy Alcantara (though Alcantara did play CF last night with Emilio! getting the start at the keystone sack).  Jimmy...you can always trade Kris Bryant to me...I will make him feel welcome and give him a good home.

- George Springer hit the DL yesterday (#SpringerDinged) and I cried a little.  He isnt in my starting lineup this week, so he wont be in the ass hDLes section tomorrow (homie dont play that game), but I needed to share my pain.

 And with that...on to TOM!

1) Who is Tom? What are your hopes, your dreams? If you were filling out a Match.com dating profile, what would it say? What's the deal with "Lester the Molester"? It is an old relative that constantly sat in the corner at parties and gave all the children creepy smiles?

Well, my name is Tom and I work in the IT department at Fastenal. I sit directly next to John and we like to bet on everything. I have a shaved head and a mustache and i have been called a creeper from time to time so when I picked up Jon Lester i figured the perfect name would be Lester the Molesters.

Ed note: Sometime tells me that if you put "I have been called a creeper from time to time" into a Match.com profile, you wouldnt be getting too many replies.  And the ones you would get would not be from the type of folk youd want to be associating with.

2) Whats the goal for Les Moles this year? How do you get there? How realistic is the acheivement of that goal?

I hope to make the playoffs this year and my other big goal is to beat John. He doesnt think that I will be able to win with my team so that make winning a playoff spot all the better to know that I made it and he didnt. It's going to be interesting the rest of the year to see who can lock up that last playoff spot considering five teams are really close to each other in the standings. I really didnt know what I was doing in the draft or for the first few weeks which really hurt my season because I fell to last place and it was hard to get out. But I think i can try to be Worst to First.

Ed. note- Here is what I heard.  I want to beat John. And if that doesnt work, I want to beat John.  My other goal is to beat John.  The playoffs are cool.                                               

3) You havent started Dallas Keuchel in several weeks. How close is he to the chopping block? Have you enjoyed the Keuchel coaster as much as I have?

I know. He was in a little bit of a slump before the All Star break and I just didnt feel comfortable starting him. It looks like he is getting back to being a good pitcher again so I will hang on to Dallas "Diamond Page" Keuchel and you will probably see him in my starting line up in the next week or two.

Ed note - Dallas Diamond Page is such a genious nickname that I am embarrased that I never even contemplated it.  Bravo Tom...Bravo.

4) How many times a day do you and John get into arguments about fantasy baseball? What are they usually about and who ususally wins them?

We usually dont get into arguments about Fantasy Baseball too much. We just argue about everything else and no one really wins. It always ends with the people around us shaking their heads because our arguments are usually stupid and pointless.

5) Do you have a player on your team who you didnt know much about but you are now secretly (or not so secretly) obsessed with? Have you started looking at keepers for next season? Whats it going to take for a player to continue being a Molester next season?

I would have to say I am pretty obsessed with Andrew McCutchen just because he has put up pretty good numbers this season. This is my first baseball league, keeper league, and my first auction league so it will definitely be interesting to see how it goes after this season.

6) If you were marooned on an island and you could bring 3 not-related-to-you people, 1 food and 1 drink (that you would have enough of to survive indefinitely) and 2 board games, where would the island be, who are the people and what food/drink/games would you bring?

I would like to be marooned on a tropical island somewhere with warm weather, beaches, and plenty of trees to make a Swiss Family Robinson style tree house. I would want to be stranded with Burt Reynolds, Bear Grylls, and Will Ferrell becasue I think they would be fun and Bear Grylls would help survive. Monoply would be a good game to bring because its an easy game to play that will help pass the time. Also, I would like to bring a deck of cards instead of a board game because I am a fan of Euchre and Hearts. Beer and beef jerky would be the foods I would want to be stranded with in this fictitious, hypothetical scenario.
Ed Note- No women?  Does it get lonely on that isle?  and are we talking Burt Reynolds from Smokey and the Bandit II: Smokey is the Bandit or Burt Reynolds from the Adam Sandler version of "The Longest Yard"?

7) If you were a MLBer, would you have more or less than 12 RBIs in 338 official at bats?

Why are you afraid, bat?

Basically, do you feel like you would be a better man to have hitting in an RBI situation than Ben Revere?

I didnt play baseball in school but I did enjoy playing some pickup games with some friends and I think pretty anyone has a better chance of getting more RBIs than Ben Revere.

Friday Hodgepodge

t looks like everyone made it through the All Star game unscathed (except maybe Adam Wainwright?), and with no games this week, there are no ass hDLes to talk about.  I was hoping that Bob would cancel the apocolypse by sending me the long awaited answers to the questions I sent him, but he hasnt yet (even though he swears he is half way through them...show me the answers Bob).  So that means I get to let my mind wander.
First, the Wainwright thing.  If you havent heard (and the only reasons you would not have would be because you have been living under a rock or because you couldnt afford to pay your cable or internet bills), Wainwright said that he purposely threw a couple of balls straight down the shitter for Derek Jeter in the at bat that lead off the All Star Game (Jeter doubled to rightfield) so that Jeter could have his moment in his last ASG...and he said this in an interview DURING THE GAME.  People got a bit uppity about that, but really whats the biggie?  Wainwright obviously has a lot of respect for Jeter and wanted to see him go out on a high note in his last ASG.  The ASG has a long history of random things (Ripken hitting a homer in his last ASG on a pitch that could not have been placed anymore in the kill zone than if it was placed on a tee) because the players know, at its core, the ASG is still mostly an exhibition that they play in for fun and for the fans.  Jeter has been the face of baseball for the better part of 15 years, and like him or dislike him (is there anyone that really hates him?) he is still a class act whose career achievements deserve to be celebrated (and I am one of those that think he should have moved to 3b for ARod, not the other way around, and that he hasnt been an adequate defensive SS for nearly 10 years). 
And why not celebrate them at the games gathering of stars?  So I have no problem with Wainwright throwing Jeter a cookie.  Should he have said anything about it?  Hmm...probably not so much, but it is what it is.  I will admit, I am an unabashed Wainwright homer.  That 12-6 curveball is a thing of beauty and I may or may not have contemplated writing a 3 act play called Wainwright's Duece that would star, of course, Josh Duhammel...because everything should star Josh Duhammel (I love that Las Vegas and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton) and Justin Timberlake.  But I dont think that makes my opinion any less valid. I am not going to dwell on it...it'll blow over soon enough.
A few weeks ago I threw out the LoudAA stats, but I have been thinking about them over the past week or so and decided that they didnt say what I really wanted them to say.  In that forumla, I had taken the entire season's worth of data and tried to quantify worth, but really, many of the players on that list hadnt been used in lineups very much, if at all.  I wanted a stat that told me how useful players were when they were used and how much they helped or hurt the team they were on.  So...luckily Yahoo! tracks the stats for players that have been used by each team for the games they were active.  So I took those for each team and the concept and the forumlas from the LoudAAs and came up with something useful (at least to me).  I am still working on the pitching side, though I had a mini break through today playing around with standard deviations and stats.  I ran the STD deviation idea through my LoudAA stats and came up with something that has players very nearly in order according to their OWAR on BR.com...so that makes me both happy that I was able to come up with something that was valid and sad that I spent a lot of time basically recreating the wheel.  But dammit, I am going to run with it anyways.  Remember, this is only for the time they have actually been in the lineup.  There have been 145 players used by the 10 teams this year, with the fewest being the Dust Bunnies (the same 8 all season, even if they have been on the DL...fuckin Dusty) and the most the Hitless Bastards (17).  Most teams have used between 14 and 16 players.  In the below charts, pace means the expected score if that player reached exactly 600 ABs.  "Points" are based on the relationship to the current league average (252/315/390 65R 62RBI 9 SB in 600 AB) in each of the 6 scoring categories.
The top 5:

 

Name	Team	GP	600 AB Pace	Current Score	$
Mike Trout	Dust Bun	90	246.89	141.96	89
Troy Tulowitzki	Dust Bun	89	266.25	137.56	52
Andrew McCutchen	LesMole	93	218.11	128.32	78
Paul Goldschmidt	MBHB	95	201.14	119.68	60
Giancarlo Stanton	UCCMA	94	186.86	109.94	34

Not really much surprise here.  These are the top players in fantasy regardless of what metric you are using.  They were some of the most expensive players and have been in lineups for every game this season.

The bottom 5.  You will notice here that the 600 AB pace doesnt match the current.  That is because the 600 AB pace column looks at what a player would score if he continued on that pace for 600 ABs.  Because many of the players who are on the bottom of the list had low ABs, their pace score is much higher.

Name	Team	GP	600 AB Pace	Current Score	$
Jean Segura	UCCMA	84	-37.13	-19.80	37
Xander Bogaerts	MBHB	23	-151.38	-20.69	6
Kendrys Morales	UCCMA	27	-123.79	-21.87	5
Carlos Santana	MTMTAS	24	-168.95	-23.09	21
Everth Cabrera	BySs	74	-89.39	-44.25	9

The Most Harmful Fantasy Player so far this year.

Bogaerts (159/266/232 7R 5RBI 1SB in 82 ABs), Morales (198/216/292 6R 14RBI in 106 ABs) and Santana (122/301/195 9R 3RBI in 82 PAs) are tough to stomach (I have Bogaerts and I just picked up Santana, YAY!), but at least they were only harmful for twenty-some games before their owner removed them.  Cabrera was such a throrn in Kyler's side that he has started trying to acquire every other MLB shortstop to compensate.  And while Cabrera (222/261/300 28R 14RBI 13SB in 297 ABs) was the single most harmful player used in the league this year because of how bad he was for such a large number of at bats, he at least didnt cost much to get.  The real painful one here is Segura.  Jimmy paid a premium for Segura at the auction ($37) and was repaid with the 5th worst output (234/270/319 41R 23RBI 15SB in 320 ABs)...and he rode it for 84 games.  The only player, other than Everth, who was close to as bad for as long was Allen Craig (MTMTAS) who put up a 241/290/352 34R 43RBI 1 SB line over 349 ABs for a -17.10 current score (-29.40 600 AB Pace).

A couple of things that may interest only me before moving on:
- Drafted players had much better success rate than waiver pick ups, though the return on the investment was exponentially higher on waiver players than drafted ones (likely bouyed by a couple outliers).  Basically, people know who to pay for in the draft, but waivers are a crap shoot.
- The highest scoring waiver pick up was Anthony Rendon, who at 18th overall, fell right between Jayson Werth and Nelson Cruz.

-Carlos Gomez is 9th, between Robinson Cano and Jose Bautista...for John and Kyler from the other day
-14 players have lower scores than Mike Moustakas, who put up a 000/118/000 1R 1RBI line in 15 ABs for UCCMA.  He has by far the highest per 600 AB score (-378.00) but because the damage was limited to 15 ABs, it didnt hurt Jimmy as bad.
-There are way way way way more players who are 6 category assests (or, more accurately, not a huge liability in any one category) than I ever would have imagined.  I started listing them off because I thought it would be a fairly short list and before I knew it I had 3 typed lines full of names and wasnt through the list yet.

I could seriously include nothing but Evan Gattis/Bear pictures
and I would be a happy man.

-There are only 5 players who have been well above league average in all 6 categories - Andrew McCutchen (353 AB), Carlos Gomez (349 AB), Hanley Ramirez (169 AB), Coco Crisp (in 201 ABs on Tom's team...and then he traded him for John Lackey) and Charlie Mars Blackmon (in 44 AB on John's team after the trade with Kyler).  Blackmon is a small sample size and HanRam's isnt the biggest (but its still impressive). 
-Coco was by FAR the best value - 51.72 pts for $1.  El Oso Blanco, Evan Gattis (29.36 for $1), and Jose Abreu (37.26 for $2) were next.
- Michael Brantley (1.42) and Victor Martinez (1.45) are the 3rd and 4th highest pts/game played.  And both were waiver wire pick ups.

Highest current score by position (600 AB projection):
C- Jonathan Lucroy 67.35 (118.85)
1b- Paul Goldschmidt 119.68 (201.14)
2b- Robby Cano 92.56 (157.32)
3b- Edwin Encarnacion 103.44 (189.23)
SS- Troy Tulowitzki 137.56 (266.25)
OF- Mike Trout 141.96 (246.89)
OF- Andrew McCutchen 128.32 (218.11)
OF- Giancarlo Stanton 109.94 (186.86)

I dont know why I find stats so interesting, but I always have.  When I was younger I used to buy Baseball Weekly (which has since changed to Sports Weekly...for shame) at the gas station and read it cover to cover.  But I always spent the most time pouring over the stats.  That newspaper printed all of the stats for every team (like a weekly snapshot of BaseballReference before the interweb was really popular) and I would go through and make fake lineups from players from the NL and AL and then play an All Star Game in my head (I have said before that I am a nerd...more proof).  When I was in college, I didnt use it for that anymore (I had found Whatifsports.com by then and it more than compensates for all of my fake sports needs) but I still bought it every week in the summer, read it cover to cover more than once and played the crossword puzzle which was mostly baseball trivia related.  My work truck used to have 4 or 5 weeks worth of BW at any given time.

Anyways, I promised that I would give my division predictions, so here they are:
NL East- Washington
NL Central- St. Louis
NL West- LA Dodgers
WC1- San Francisco
WC2- Milwaukee

Atlanta's string of injuries and their insistence on continuing to use BJ Upton and his .277 OBP in the leadoff spot with Andrelton Simmons and his .309 OBP in the 2 hole finally catch up with them.

AL East- Baltimore
AL Central- Detroit
AL West- LA Angels of Disneyland
WC1- Oakland A's
WC2- Kansas City (I think they make a big trade at the deadline to acquire another pitcher and their hitters start hitting like they are capable of hitting)

Toronto's pitching finally comes back to reality (Mark Buehrle - We're looking at you) and the injured hitters (Lind, Lawrie, Encarnacion and something is coming for Joey Bats...it always comes for Joey Bats) are out just long enough for the team to dig themselves a hole they cant get out of.

NL WC - SF over Mil
AL WC - Oak over KC

Both SF and Oak will be cofortably in the WC spots and will be able to set their rotation to get the best matchup possible for the single elimination WC game.  SF sends a rejuvenated Matt Cain against Willy Peralta for the Brew.  Oakland can set up Kazmir to start while KC has to counter with Shields or the pitcher they are going to get on short rest or Jeremy Guthrie.

NL Division Series - LA over SF
NL Division Series - Wash over SL

LA and Washington are simply the 2 best teams in the NL right now.  With Cain used in the WC game, the Giants are left with Bumgarner, Lincecum and Tim Hudson to start the first 3 games against the $234 billion Dodger lineup.  In the other matchup, StL's pitching woes prove too much to overcome against Strats, Zimmerman, Gio and Fister.

AL Division Series - Oak over Balt
AL Division Series - Det over LAA

This Baltimore team gets into the playoffs by not being terrible and then meets a team that is much better than them, even with Oak having to win a WC game to get into the series.  In the other matchup, Cabrera gets tired of hearing everyone talk about how much better Trout is and goes on a 1 man barrage (a la David Ortiz last year) and carries the Tigers to the series win.

NLCS - Wash over LA
ALCS - Oak over Det

The Nats pitching might be the only staff in the NL that can hold the Dodgers down over a 7 game series.  LA has a nice staff in their own right, but the 3/4 of Ryu and Beckett cant keep up with Gio and Fister.  BTW - this would be a spectacular NLCS to watch.  If this ends up being the matchup, I anticpate my wife being unpleased with the amount of baseball I want to watch that week.

Oak realizes that they can pitch around Miggy and keep him from beating them.  He hits 3 HRs on intential walk pitches anyways.  But no one else on the Tigers can solve Samardzija, Kazmir, or Sonny Gray and the the Tigers are going to be counting on Rick Porcello and Justin Verlander's ghost to throw meaningful innings.

World Series - Oak over Wash
"Moneyball" finally wins a championship...except that it isnt Moneyball because such a thing never really existed in the first place.  The theory Michael Lewis wrote about in Moneyball was about exploiting market inefficiencies and not giving away something that it a finite resource (outs) when you dont have to.  Those older A's teams exploited that teams were not paying for players who were not great at hitting but were great at not making outs.  Now everyone does that, so the market for those players is no longer efficient.  Now the A's are simply doing a better job of scouting other teams and identifying players that are undervalued.  The A's have exactly 3 players on their active roster (Sean Doolittle, Sonny Gray and YoAnus) who never spent time with another organization.  That number jumps to 4 if you include players in the DL (AJ Griffin).  And YoAnus didnt come through their system, he was signed out of Cuba and immediately hit the Big League roster.  I like Oakland to win in a great series and then Samardzija to hold up the Commissioner's Trophy on National TV and taunt the Cub front office mercilessly.

AL MVP- Mike Trout, Pretzel Pusher and Subway Dealer
NL MVP- Tulo -- I am tempted to put Carlos Gomez here because I think he and Puig will have the best numbers for a team in the playoffs...and I dont think the media like Puig much.  The Rockies are already out of it, but Tulo is having such a transcendant year, that it might not matter how the Rockies are doing.
AL CY - Felix Hernandez
NL CY-Clayton Kershaw
AL ROY- Jose Abreu
NL ROY-Billy Hamilton

Happy 238th America.

Happy Birthday America.

Every year when this day comes, I think about all the things about the American Revolution that I have learned in my 33 years and how muh courage, strength of conviction and big ole harry cajones each and every one of the Colonists who decided to fight against their British colonizers must have had (I know women fought too...but cajones doesnt actually refer to body parts, its a state of mind).  I often wonder what those men and women would think of the country today (with the technology advances and population boom notwithstanding).  Would they be amazed that what they started has stood up for 238 years and counting and that they are looked upon as being some of the greatest leaders the world has ever known?  Or would they be appalled that we have not taken it upon ourselves to use their ideas as a basis to form something better and that we have not "refreshed the tree of liberty?"  Thomas Jefferson wrote, "What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure."  I dont think that means that we should start a revolution or anything because Jefferson was living in a very different time and a very different historical place.  The late 1700s is not somewhere that I would particularly care to visit if I had the choice. But it does inform my opinion about whether the Founding Fathers would be proud that their ideas had held up or incensed that we had allowed their work to stagnate.  You can probably tell which side of the answer I usually come to. 

Most people celebrate the 4th by going to a carnival or watching fireworks and drinking/grilling/beaching.  This tradition goes all the back to the very 1st Independance Day celebration in 1777 in Philadelphia (the nacient country's first Capitol) where they blew off rudimentary fireworks in an attempt to raise the morale of the people as the Revolutionary War raged on.  The event was such a success that it quickly caught on in other cities.  John Adams, future second President of the US (not to be confused with his son, John Quincy Adams, who would be the 6th President) wrote, "I am apt to believe that [July 4] will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.  It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."  Boy was he ever right.  I tend to shy away from those traditional celebrations in favor of lesser crazed ones like sitting in the backyard with my family and watching baseball on the tele.  Today I am going to pre-game (slightly different than the pre-gaming I used to do in college...that usually involved a couple of shot glasses, Tequila and some Old Style...what was I doing with my life?) in two different ways.

First, the whole not wanting to go to the late 1700s made me think about the places I would want to go had I a Terminator style time machine and the cajones to use it.  So I am going to give a quick top 3 rundown (the Rock is not involved in this Rundown, not is Stiffler).  Feel free to skip to he next part should you be so inclined (this will likely be asked as part of Taking Back Thursday in the future because it is interesting to think about..at least for me).
3) The original building of Stonehenge, whenever that happened to be.  I mean really...wtf is its purpose and how the hell did they lift those gigantic rocks into place on top of those other gigantic rocks.  I need answers and Giorgio screaming "Aliens" every chance he gets just doesnt cut it for me.
2) London, 1599 - The Globe Theater - I would love to know what seeing a play would have been like at the Hub of the theater universe in the setting that the play was written to be presented in.  Added bonus, asking people if Will had actually written the plays or if he had merely been in the right place at the right time.
1) Illinois, early 1970s - I never met either of my grandfathers, they both died in the 1970s.  I would love to have been able to meet them, even if it were just once, and know what they were like.

That was weird, I got all emotionally and stuffs.  Enough of that.

The second way I am pregaming?  A schmorgasbord of stats...June has come to an end and it's time to take stock on the last 30 days and glimpse at the year to date leaderboards.  I pulled these yesterday (7/2) so the Johnny Cueto stats are before the worst offense in the last decade beat him with a 3 run SINGLE by catcher Rene Rivera in the first inning.  I havent seen the play, but something funky must have happened for Rivera to only advance to first, but not so fleet of foot Tommy Medica (he of the 5 career minor league stolen bases...in 324 games) score all the way from first.  Just so they could make sure they were still the Padres, a 4th run was voided when Irving Falu decided that actually stepping on 3rd base while trying to score from second was optional and he was called out when the Reds appealed the play.

As always, the left table is the year to date, the right is the last 30 days.

Player	Team	R	$		Player	Team	R	$
Tulo	Dust Bunnies	65	$52		Todd Frazier	UCCMA	22	$3 (6/17)
Hunter Pence	MTMTAS	60	$23		Kold Calhoun		21
Paul Goldschmidt	MBHB	60	$60		Mike Trout	Dust Bunnies	21	$89
Brian Dozier	MBHB	60	$8 (5/20)		Anthony Rizzo	Bobs Aters	21	$20
TMGS	UCCMA	59	$34

The year to date leader board doesnt yield too many surprises as the only change is TMGS jumping to 5th and Josh Donaldson dropping from second to "I have no idea because I didnt look outside the top 5."  The last 30 days board, though...that is surprising.  Todd Frazier has been a machine and Uncle Jimmy was wise to grab him when he did and Mike Trout is Mike Trout.  Anthony Rizzo has turned into one of the better 1b in the National League (when he isnt swinging at pitches that hit him in the knee), but Kold Calhoun?  WTF is going on with the world?  WTF is going on with the Angels?  Are they scoring that many runs?  Is the Kold one going to be part of our lives again shortly?  Am I on fire?

Player	Team	RBI	$		Player	Team	RBI	$
Jose Abreu	Bobs Aters	67	$2		Jose Abreu	Bobs Aters	25	$2
Nelson Cruz	Zattack	67	$8		Kyle Seager	MTMTAS	25	$8
Edwin Encarnacion	Bobs Aters	66	$27		Mike Trout	Dust Bunnies	24	$89
Miguel Cabrera	Dust Bunnies	65	$76		Andrew McCutchen	Les Moles	24	$78
Mike Trout	Dust Bunnies	62	$89		Justin Morneau	BySs	24	$1 (7/1)

Dont you just love that the combined salary of the top 2 guys on each list is $10?  We all totally know what we are doing...right?  Jose Abreu has nearly 50 fewer plate appearances than Cruz due to his stint on the DL, but Abreu is even with him as he continues to crush baseballs beyond the expectations of even the biggest ChiSox homer (Hawk Harrelson...god I dislike that man as an announcer).  Kyle Seager has been largely unnoticed this season (and really...over the past 2 as well) but he has been the best 3rd baseman in the AL this year not named Yangervis Solarte Adrian Beltre.

Player	Team	SB	$		Player	Team	SB	$
Dee Gordon	Bobs Aters	40	$3 (4/22)		Jose Altuve	Zattack	17	$20
Jose Altuve	Zattack	37	$20		Billy Hamilton	Bobs Aters	15	$30
Billy Hamilton	Bobs Aters	35	$30		James Jones		11
Ben Revere	Les Moles	23	$1
Tacoby Bellsbury	MWP	23	$50

Dee Gordon continues to lead this parade and we already covered How Many Altuve's monster 10 SB week that vaulted him into second place on the YTD leader board.  The monthly Billy Hamilton check shows him holding steady in the SB department, but he has been getting on base nearly 1/3rd of the time in the last month...a HUGE leap forward for him that portends even greater results in the SB category.  The new name on the list is James Jones (not the GB wide receiver).  The Mariners' rookie CF has swiped 17 bags in 18 attempts and is hitting a respectable .293.  He has no power, strikes out 4 times for every walk and has only 8 RBI in 217 plate appearances...but man can he run.

Player	Team	AVG (225+ ab)	$		Player	Team	AVG (65+ ab)	$
Tulo	Dust Bunnies	0.353	$52		Jose Altuve	Zattack	0.421	$20
Jose Altuve	Zattack	0.347	$20		Adrian Beltre	Huckleberries	0.402	$41
Lonnie Chisenhall	BySs	0.344	$2 (6/17)		Scooter Gennett		0.377
Adrian Beltre	Huckleberries	0.332	$41
Jonathon Lucroy	BySs	0.331	$9

The reason that Altuve was able to steal so many bases in the last 30 days?  He was on almost constantly.  He has been a one man wrecking crew atop the Astros lineup.  I cheated a little to get the Chis onto the board as he was 1 AB short of the requirement.  He has been so good that I couldnt leave him off.  How many of you would have guessed Lucroy (other than Kyler) was in the top 5 in the Bigs in batting?  He has been by far the #1 catcher in the fantasy game this year and it isnt just a good stretch of games for him.  He has flashed these elite offensive skills since 2012.  With catcher being such a weak position across the board, Kyler has a real leg up with Lucroy.  There's another Brewer in the 30 day leader board, Scooter Gennett.  Gennett really only plays against righties (because he can really only hit righties...career 143/167/157 against south paws) but thats the good side of the platoon.  Scoots was never really a top prospect, but he did hit nearly .300 at every stop in the minors (spent 1 season at each level...which strangely doesnt happen much anymore) before hitting .324 in a call up last season.  I am not sure that he can keep it up, but hes a fun guy to root for (he's 5"10 170 lbs..aka a real human being...and his name is fricken Scooter).

Player	Team	OBP (225+ ab)	$		Player	Team	OBP (65+ ab)	$
Tulo	Dust Bunnies	0.445	$52		Paul Goldschmidt	MBHB	0.477	$60
Jose Bautista	Dust Bunnies	0.430	$29		Mike Trout	Dust Bunnies	0.473	$89
Andrew McCutchen	Les Moles	0.416	$78		Jose Altuve	Zattack	0.456	$20
TMGS	UCCMA	0.414	$34
Adam LaRoche		0.412

Another category...another Tulo sighting on top of the YTD leader board.  Nothing to see here.  Wait...Adam LaRoche has the 5th highest on base % in the Bigs?  We've never met this LaRoche before.  His K rate is down, his walk rate is up and his line drive rate is way way up (34% this year vs 21% career average), but his BABIP doesnt seem too far out of line from his career norms.  This is a player who has hit 20+ HRs in every season of his career where he has had more than 500 PA (8 times).  If he has truely turned a corner at age 34 (its a bit IF), then hes a player who belongs in the second tier of 1b along with Morneau, Rizzo and Freddie Freeman.

Player	Team	SLG (225+ ab)	$		Player	Team	SLG (65+ ab)	$
Jose Abreu	Bobs Aters	0.627	$2		Mike Trout	Dust Bunnies	0.769	$89
Tulo	Dust Bunnies	0.618	$52		JD Martinez		0.739
Mike Trout	Dust Bunnies	0.617	$89		Steve Pearce		0.693
Edwin Encarnacion	Bobs Aters	0.595	$27
TMGS	UCCMA	0.591	$34

Another category...another Tulo...wait...Jose Abreu?  Opponents Cuban Missle Crisis?  Abreu has been off this list before for one reason...he didnt have enough at bats to qualify due to his early season injury.  I am not sure that he would have been ahead of Tulo all season, but he has been close.  JD Martinez and Steve Pearce are good stories of veteran players getting a new leash on baseball life in new cities by doing things like...playing in games regularly instead of not regularly.  Martinez was yanked around by the Astros (of all teams) before being released and immediately scooped up by Detroit and almost immediately inserted into the lineup.  Pearce was let go by Pittsburgh, and then Houston...and then the Skankees.. and landed in Baltimore last season.  This year they have needed a left fielder and part time 1b with Chris Davis missing time this season and Pearce has been up to the task.

This is the point where I make reference to the fact that Mike Trout is finally doing things that made him cost $89 at auction.  Over the past 28 days per BR, Trout is hitting 348/464/730 with 20R 23RBI 10 2b 8 HR 5 SB (0 CS).  Somehow, Trout is improving on both his first and second Big league seasons.  This is a 22 year old kid playing better than almost anyone has in the history of MLB.  I am pretty sure that Mike Trout is a baseball cyborg wrapped in human tissue (T-MR3000?  Oh Bernie Mac) and that one day he is going to hold his arm up and cut the skin off to reveal a metal skeleton underneath.

Player	Team	W	$		Player	Team	W	$
Rick Porcello		11			Clayton Kershaw	Zattack	6	$70
Kamakaze Tanaka	MWP	11	$10		Garrett Richards	MBHB	5	$4 (6/10)
Felix Hernandez	MBHB	10	$44		Willy Peralta		5
Adam Wainwright	Bobs Aters	10	$42
Alfredo Simon	BySs	10	$1 (5/27)

So the MLB co-leader in wins is unowned in our fantasy league.  It isnt hard to see why, as Porcello has struck out 62 in 106 innings and doesnt offer other great ratios, but it is still surprising that no one has even kicked the tires on him. 

Player	Team	K	$		Player	Team	K	$
David Price	Les Moles	153	$36		David Price	Les Moles	63	$36
Felix Hernandez	MBHB	137	$44		Clayton Kershaw	Zattack	61	$70
Max Scherzer	UCCMA	132	$39		Felix Hernandez	MBHB	54	$44
Stephen Strasburg	MTMTAS	131	$35
Yu Darvish	BySs	128	$48

Here's a Whose Who of MLB pitchers right now...3 Cy Young winners sitting on top the YTD board, 3 Cy Young winners sitting on top the 30 day board.  Kershaw missed a mess of time or he would be on the YTD board as well, but even though he isnt, check out the k/9 rate: Price - 10.5, Felix - 9.6, Scherzer - 10.7, Stras - 10.5, Darvish - 11.0, Kershaw - 12.1.  We will visit with Mr. Kershaw more in a bit.

Player	Team	ERA (90 ip)	$		Player	Team	ERA (30 ip)	$
Johnny Cueto	MWO	1.88	$10		Clayton Kershaw	Zattack	0.82	$70
Adam Wainwright	Bobs Aters	2.01	$42		Jake Arrieta	Les Moles	0.92	$3 (6/24)
Felix Hernandez	MBHB	2.10	$44		Adam Wainwright	Bobs Aters	1.16	$42
Kamakaze Tanaka	MWP	2.10	$10
Henderson Alvarez	BySs	2.33	$1 (6/24)

The usual suspects again, with a couple of exceptions.  Henderson Alvarez?  Alvarez came to MIA in the Jose Reyes/Mark Buherle trade and has been decent so far.  But his WHIP, hit rate and K rate do not suggest that he will be staying in this company for much longer.  Jake Arrieta on the other hand, might be.  In his last 5 starts he is 4-0 with 5 QS.  He has thrown 34 2/3 innings, allowed 14 hits, 3 runs, walked 6 and struck out 46...and he has taken a perfect game into the 7th inning and in his next start, a no hitter into the 8th.  I think the Cubs won the Arrieta/Strop for Clevenger/Feldman trade last year by a smidge.

Player	Team	WHIP (90 ip)	$		Player	Team	WHIP (30 ip)	$
Johnny Cueto	MWO	0.84	$10		Clayton Kershaw	Zattack	0.68	$70
Adam Wainwright	Bobs Aters	0.90	$42		Jake Arrieta	Les Moles	0.69	$3 (6/24)
Felix Hernandez	MBHB	0.92	$44		Felix Hernandez	MBHB	0.72	$44
Julio Teheran	MTMTAS	0.95	$15
Kamakaze Tanaka	MWP	0.95	$10

Every time I do this monthly stat recap, I am always surprised that Kamakaze Tanaka is still hanging on in the top 5 in one or more categories.  I shouldnt be...I mean his splitter is legitmately one of the best 5 pitches in all of Major League baseball.  Its like Trevor Hoffman's change up or Mariano Rivera's cutter...everyone knows that it is coming, yet no one can do a damn thing about it.  The Cubs have got to be kicking themselves for not trying to top the Yankees (even though it seemed insane at the time).  A top 3 of Samardzija, Arrieta and Tanaka with Edwin Jackson and Travis Wood rounding out the rotation would have put the Cubs on track to the playoffs much sooner than the 2017 or 2018 they are currently shooting for and there wouldnt be the talk of dumping Shark for parts.

Player	Team	QS	$		Player	Team	QS	$
Felix Hernandez	MBHB	16	$44		David Price	Les Moles	6	$36
Kamakaze Tanaka	MWP	16	$10		Felix Hernandez	MBHB	6	$44
Johnny Cueto	MWP	15	$10		Jordan Zimmerman	Bobs Aters	6	$26
Julio Teheran	MTMTAS	15	$15		Garrett Richards	MBHB	6	$4 (6/10)
Aaron Harangatang	Les Moles	14	$1 (5/6)
Alfredo Simon	BySs	14	$1 (5/27)

There's my on again off again boyfriend, Garrett Richards.  Richards was spectacular of the last 30 days, finishing 5-0 (6 QS) with 44 K in 42 1/3 innings and a 1.49 ERA/0.83 WHIP...that was all not quite good enough to get him on monthly leaderboards anywhere but W and QS, but his month was too good for me not to mention.  And I am trying to make up for dropping him for a week and doing things like sending flowers and teddy bears hasnt been working.  You have got to love that the Harangatang somehow has 14 QS in 17 GS despite having a 1.4 WHIP.  This is what we like to call smoke and mirrors...or the Wish and a Prayer pitching method.  

Player	Team	SV/H	$		Player	Team	SV/H	$
Mark Melanson	Huckleberries	29	$1		Craig Kimbrel	BySs	11	$29
K Rod	MWP	27	$2 (4/15)		K Rod	MWP	10	$2 (4/15)
Craig Kimbrel	BySs	26	$29		Rob Wooten		9
Kenley Jansen	MWP	25	$28
Trevor Rosenthal	Huckleberries	24	$16

Let me introduce all non Brewer fans to Rob Wooten.  I had never heard of him, so I found my company's resident Brewer fan and asked him.  He told me, "Hes been around for a couple years, kinda up and down to AAA.  He pretty much sucks."  Yet, here he is on the 30 day leaderboard with 9 holds on the path to K Rod.  His other numbers though...not so great.  Those 9 saves come with a 9.00 ERA and a 2.22 WHIP over the past month.  Basically, he is coming in with a 3 run lead, giving up a run and 2 baserunners each time, but still handing the game off with a lead...thus a hold.  Aren't stats the best?

Anyways...there will be no ass hDLes this week as I will be doing things that arent located near a computer.  We will pick back up again on Monday with the recaps.

Enjoy the birthday parties...and dont blow your fingers off.  Also, dont miss the Uncle Jimmy post.  This monstrosity might have pushed it to the next page.