Shake and Bake

What a difference a week makes.  With only 3 weeks left until the playoffs, not a single playoff berth has been clinched (though we might see our first one clinched this week) and there was more movement from this past week than there has been in any one week that I can remember.  This week featured 1 close matchup, 1 pretty decent beatdown, and 3 seriously lopsided ass kickings, each one worse than the last.  The result? Chaos in the standings.  Bob's ATers and MBHB stayed at the top of the ledger and though Bob increased his lead in both the Bone Thugs division and overall.  He is now 22 games ahead of the 7th position and will very likely solidify his playoff spot this week as he takes on 10th place KIODL.  MBHB stays in second place and is the only other team that is safe from a 1 week colossal meltdown like the one suffered by Kyler's crew this week.  UCCMA, the distributor of that beatdown, jumps up from the 6th place playoff bubble to 3rd overall (4th seed), but is far from safe.  BySs dropped from 3rd overall to 4th (still 2nd seed because of division lead), but is not only 0.5 games ahead of both LesMoles and ZAttack for the division lead and the auto bye that comes with it.  Tom jumped from 7th to 5th and Zack fell from 5th to 6th.  Dusty, who seemed like a virtual lock to make the playoffs only a month ago, fell from 4th to 7th and is now chasing 1.5 games to get back into the playoff picture.  Dusty gets Huckleberries, MTMTAS and MBHB to round out the season.  MTMTAS is in 8th, 5 games out of a playoff spot, Kevin's Huckleberries is in 9th, 10.5 games behind Zack and Tom, and right now, John is buying the beer for next year's draft as he is chasing 11.5 games for a playoff spot.  Dear John, you dont have to be fancy. Sincerely, everyone.  Here is a look at the standings:

	Team	Record	W%	Div GB	OA GB	Playoff
1	Bob's Aters	127-85-16	0.592	-		+22
3	MBHB	119-98-11	0.546	10.5	10.5	+13.5
4	UCCMA	112-105-11	0.515	17.5	17.5	+6
2	BySs	105-106-17	0.498	-	21.5	+2
5	LesMoles	110-112-6	0.496	0.5	22	+1.5
6	Zattack	108-110-10	0.496	0.5	22	+1.5
	Dust Bunnies	106-111-11	0.489	23.5	23.5	-1.5
	MTMTAS	100-112-16	0.474	5.5	27	-5
	Huckleberries	96-119-13	0.450	32.5	32.5	-10.5
	KIODL	98-123-7	0.445	12	33.5	-11.5

 

 A couple of other things before I go headfirst into the recaps:

1) Best stat of the week - I know he is supposed to be dead to me, but this one is just too good to pass up. Jedd Jerko hit his 8th HR of the season over the weekend (to go with his .199 batting average), which along with his 23 from last year, gives him 31 career HRs while playing 2b.  This most recent HR set the San Diego Padre career record for HRs by a second baseman...thats right...at 31. CAREER.  Here is a list of 2b who have hit 31+ HR in a single season...Davey Johnson (43), Rogers Hornsby (42, 39, 39), Ryne Sandberg (40), Alfonso Soriano (39, 38, 36), Jay Freaking Bell (38), Brett Boone (37, 35), Jeff Kent (37, 33, 31), Aaron Hill (36), Dan Uggla (36, 33, 32, 31, 31), Robinson Cano (33), Chase Utley (33, 32, 31), Joe Gordon (32), and Ian Kinsler (32, 31).    It isnt a huge list by any means, it is actually much smaller than I thought I would find.  And who would have ever guessed that Dan Ugglaswing would have the most 30+ HR seasons (and I did look at 30+ HR seasons, there are only 5 more and only Sandberg and Gordon add another) with 5?  The Padres have had exactly 7 second basemen who have hit double digit HRs in a single season in the 45 year history of their franchise (Jedd will likely make 8 this year) and only Jedd's 23 last year topped 20.  In this history of MLB, there have been 134 seasons of a player who has played most of his games at 2b hitting over 20 bombs, and the Padres have had exactly 1 of those.  Jedd's mom must be so proud.

This guy has the most career seasons with more than 30HRs as second baseman...

 

2) We are coming up on the end of the regular season (thanks Capt. Obvious).  Right now, the league is set up so that, once the playoffs start, teams who are eliminated are unable to make roster transactions.  That means, for the 4 teams not in the playoffs, you will no longer be able to drop or add anyone...or trade anyone.  If you want to make any last minute drops/adds for prospects, you will have to do it during the regular season.  For teams that make the playoffs, you will still be able to function as we have been, until you are eliminated.  On the Monday morning (at like 12:30 am) that the week's results become final, losing teams will have their rosters locked.  This is the Yahoo default to keep teams from flooding the waiver wire with their best players and completely changing the course of the playoffs.  To go along with that, if you do not use your allotted $100 FAAB budget, you lose it.  It does not carry over into next year for either the draft or the regular season.  Every team will start with $400 minus keeper salaries in the draft and $100 in FAAB.

 

If there are any questions on this, let me know either bby posting here or texting me directly (or for those of you who know me indirectly through someone else, tell them and have them ask me)