Playoffs - Semi Finals - Two for the Show

And then there were two....  After 24 weeks (Jesus...does it feel like it has been nearly that long?), 8 of the 10 teams have been eliminated and all we are left with are Tom and Zach.  What is crazy about these two teams being the ones in the finals is that they were largely near the bottom of the league for long periods of time, and that they are both from what was, all season long, the weaker of the two divisions.  As late as the 8th week of the season, Zach's team was lingering at 42-49-5.  In each of the first two Goulet's, Zach was one of the bottom two teams, as his roto style record was even worse than his head to head one.  But it slowly started turning around and Zach earned himself first place in the Harmony division when his team whopped the MBHB's collective asses in the penultimate week of the fantasy regular season.  Even more impressive than Zach's run has been Tom's run.  In week 12, Les Moles were sitting at 58-81-5, in 9th place overall and looked to be playing to avoid the bottom spot.  The underlying numbers were spectacular (as I mentioned in the Goulets, Tom's team was one of the best all around teams in the league, top 2 according to the roto style stats) but it hadnt translated to actual success at that point...boy did it ever over the last 10 weeks of the league as Tom went 71-43-6. 
In the Battle for the Crispy Crown, Zach had better hope that his hitters step up big time, as Tom's SP heavy strategy will get a further advantage in the pitching categories with ZAttack pitcher Mike Minor likely having thrown his last pitch of the season and Zach not having a replacement on the bench to put into the lineup.  Zach's pitchers are scheduled to get 6 starts this week - Tom's are set to get 11.  Tom can thank the SP/RP guys for that massive advantage.  Anything can happen in any week of the season, but my prediction is that Tom's Lester's Molesters will take home the very first Crispy Crown.

With that...on to the recaps:

ZAttack - 8
UCCMA - 4

When Jim texted me on Saturday afternoon and asked me if I had sent his hitters some of the tips from the Mark Baker Hitless Bastard playbook, I figured that his hitters were in some trouble.  When I looked and saw that, as a team, they had 4 RBI through 5 full days worth of games, I realized just how much trouble they were in.  Michael Brantley (419/455/645 4R 3RBI 1SB) was the only one who played like the championship berth was on the line (because you KNOW that he plays fantasy baseball and has himself on his team...also, wouldnt it be awesome if you could own yourself in a fantasy sport.  What would you do if you were in a slump?  Could you bench yourself?)  Freddie Freeman (150/261/150), Javier Baez (138/219/138), Todd Frazier (176/263/353), Erick Aybar (118/250/118) and Carlos Gomez's gold painted balls (160/276/160) all failed to hit their weight this week.  When 5 of 8 starters cant break the Mendoza line, good things probably arent happening to your team that week. 
<<Side note on Carlos Gomez's gold painted balls -- As Kyler mentioned, he, John and I were golfing this weekend with another friend, Mark.  John has not hidden his distaste for the one time Twin, now Brewer.  I think at least part of the hatred is that Gomez came to the Twins in return for Johan Santana (who qualifies for Sainthood in MN) and then spent a few seasons completely dogging it before moving on to the MIL where he has turned into a borderline superstar -- he is a star, but hes not at superstar status just yet.  Anyways, I wont play amateur psychologist anymore (LIES!)....   We were on one of the tee boxes and John mentioned something about Carlos Gomez would be a terrible golfer because of how hard he swings (or something like that) and we all came to the conclusion that Carlos Gomez does not seem like the golfing kind of fellow, but that it would be spectacular to think about what it would be like if Carlos Gomez, as we see him on the TV during baseball games, was to play golf.  General awesomeness ensued in coming up with ideas, leading us to decide that he would definitely have some kind of bling and that gold balls were the most likely thing to fill that role.  Well...when you mention gold painted balls...people think gold plated balls (we had not yet started drinking at this point) and much of the rest of the day, Carlos Gomez's gold painted balls were mentioned in casual conversation involving people who were not golfing with us.  As you can imagine, it was a very eventful and fruitful Saturday morning golf round...end side note>>.

For Zach, basically only 3 players needed to show up this week.  Matt Kemp (333/344/633) singlehandedly tied UCCMA with 10 RBI, and he added 7 runs.  Jose Altuve (467/484/633) added 5 runs, 4 RBI and a pair of steals and David Ortiz (308/308/1000) put in 3 runs and 5 RBI.  The 3 of them were able to off set Jean Segura's 143/143/143 with 0R 0RBI and 0SB; Segura's terribleness at baseball continues to make me want to call the Brewers and ask their management if they realize that he is one of the worst everyday players of the last 15 years (if you combine his Aug and Sept to date, his slash line doesnt make orphans want to cry, but he does have exactly 2 extra base hits in 127 trips to the plate.  Instead of crying that he is almost singlehandedly submarining the Brewers playoff chances, the orphans are now dreaming of growing up to play SS for the Brew Crew because apparently they dont have any standards and anyone can do it.  Jean Segura...motivational player!
On the hill, Zach's advantage was less than in hitting, but a couple of relief wins (one each from Hector Rondon and Sergio Romo) combined with Lance Lynn (14K 2.77/0.92) throwing a pair of quality starts for Jim but coming away winless, led to Zach earning a split in the pitching categories and taking the matchup.  Clayton Kershaw had a blip (1W 9K 5.40/2.00) on his way to the Cy and quite possibly MVP, but Jeff Samardzija (10K 0.00/0.50 1QS) and Zach (!) Wheeler (1W 7K 0.00/1.17 1QS) more than made up for it for Zach.  Tanner Roark (1W 4K 0.00/0.71 1QS) continued his breakout campaign for Jim, but Tyson Ross missed another start with elbow discomfort, leaving Jim a start short.  Joe Smith and Huston Street (SMITH STREET!) both threw in 3 games this week, but only were able to record 1 SV/H between them and Koji Uehara only threw in 1 non save/non hold game, allowing Zach to take that category.


Les Moles 7
Bob's ATers 5

Last night I was getting ready for bed (at a bit before 9pm no less...we live the exciting life in the STC), when I checked the scores for the playoff matchups to get a feeling for what I was going to write about in the recaps.  I had checked them on Friday night or Saturday morning or sometime earlier in the weekend, and Bob was pretty much sticking it to Tom (I think the score was somewhere around 8-4).  So when I checked in last night and it was 6-6, I started doing a little freak out because I have no idea what the tiebreaker is in the event that it would have ended 6-6 (for the record, Yahoo uses head to head record in the regular season as the first tie breaker and playoff seed as the second one...in this case Bob would have had the tie breaker thanks to his 15-8-1 record against Tom this season).  After I got over that, I checked to see who, if anyone, each still had playing and how they could impact the final result.  Tom had Devin Mesohornyraco.  Tom had Billy Hamilton and Aroldis Chapman...and the Reds were up 3-1 at the time.  There were 3 categories that could reasonably be turned - Tom held the BA lead by percentage points, Bob led OBP by .331-.330 and Tom led WHIP 1.12-1.17 (it turns out that I was wrong about WHIP.  Chapman did come into the game and recorded 3 outs without allowing a base runner and Bob's WHIP dropped only to 1.15).  The game was in the 6th inning at the time, Hamilton was 0-2 with a walk and Meso was 0-3.  Hamilton grounded out to end the 7th inning, which left them in a virtual tie in both BA and OBP. 
In the 8th inning, Meso hit a 3 run bomb, nudging Tom in front, but the more important things (for our matchup), were the Jay Bruce HR two batters after Meso and the walk to Yorman Rodriguez (who the F?).  The walk ensured that Hamilton would come up again in the 9th inning, where a hit or walk would likely leave the score tied at 6 and let Bob advance.  Unfortunately for Bob, Hamilton grounded out weakly to the pitcher, someone named Nick Greenwood (I am convinced that this is a fake name being used by the ghost of Rick Ankiel), to end the 9th...and this matchup.  Hamilton wasnt just Bob's tormentor in this game, he managed to hit 059/238/059 with 0R 0RBI and 0SB for the week (WORSE THAN JEAN SEGURA!)  Bob got Escalator Club weeks from Edwin Encarnacion (357/400/536 2R 6RBI) and Jorge Soler (316/409/632 3R 5RBI) and a great week from Dee Gordon (323/323/387 6R 2RBI 3SB) but he still only managed to win 2 of the 6 categories.  Tom got a solid, abbreviated, week from Andrew McCutchen (313/522/500 2R 0RBI), but it was Ian Desmond (316/350/684 5R 3RBI 1SB) and Adrian Gonzalez (333/375/633 6R 9RBI) who were the real stars of the week for Les Moles. 

On the pitching side, each time had aces who struggled (Zach Greinke 5K 7.20/2.00 and David Price 5K 7.94/1.94 for Tom; Chris Sale 6K 9.00/2.20 and Marcus aStroman 10K 5.25/1.58 for Bob), but each also got strong starts from other members of the rotation.  For Tom, Jake Arrieta (1W 13K 0.00/0.22 1 QS) and Carlos Carrasco (1W 12K 0.00/0.33 1QS) offset the struggling aces, while Jordan Zimmerman (1W 4K 1.50/0.83 1 QS) and Yordano Ventura (1W 7K 1.29/0.71 1 QS) were strong for Bob.