Midseason Draft Semis: #1 italstallion vs #5 jasonbay44

[yrtb]

Italstallion

C: Brian McCann
1B: Justin Morneau
2B: Chase Utley
SS: Rafael Furcal
3B: Ryan Zimmerman
LF: Carl Crawford
CF: Torii Hunter
RF: Shin Soo Choo
DH: Manny Ramirez


Lineup

1. Carl Crawford (L)
2. Chase Utley (L)
3. Ryan Zimmerman (R)
4. Justin Morneau (L)
5. Manny Ramirez (R)
6. Brian McCann (L)
7. Torii Hunter (R)
8. Shin Soo Choo (L)
9. Rafael Furcal (S)

Bench

BE: Geovany Soto C (R)
BE: Yunel Escobar SS (R)
BE: Lance Berkman 1B/RF (S)
BE: Rickie Weeks 2B (R)
BE: Jorge Cantu 3B (R)

Rotation

SP: Zack Greinke (R)
SP: Roy Oswalt (R)
SP: Jeff Niemann (R)
SP: Ryan Dempster (R)
SP: Hiroki Kuroda (R)

Bullpen

LR: JA Happ (L)
MR: Tim Stauffer (R)
MR: Darren Oliver (L)
SU: Neftali Feliz (R)
SU: Carlos Marmol (R)
CL: Billy Wagner (L)

Jasonbay44

C: Miguel Olivo
1B: Albert Pujols
2B: Ian Kinsler
3B: Placido Polanco
SS: Marco Scutaro
RF: Jayson Werth
CF: Andrew McCutchen
LF Nick Markakis
DH Nick Swisher

Bench:
3B/1B: Pedro Alvarez
C: Jose Molina
OF: Andres Torres


Lineup

1. Andrew McCutchen
2. Nick Swisher
3. Ian Kinsler
4. Albert Pujols
5. Jayson Werth
6. Nick Markakis
7. Miguel Olivo
8. Placido Polanco
9. Marco Scutaro

Rotation

1. Felix Hernandez
2. Johan Santana
3. Clayton Kershaw
4. Shaun Marcum
5. Anibal Sanchez

Bullpen

LR: CJ Wilson
MR: Kyle McClellan
MR: Darren O'Day
SU: Matt Thornton
SU Daniel Bard
CL Jonathan Broxton

Breakdown or explanation mandatory for this matchup, bench counts as 0-2 points, whichever suits you best

[Divinity]

Italstallion gets my vote, more potent lineup, though I liked jbay's rotation more.

[yrtb]

C: Brian McCann > Miguel Olivo
1B: Justin Morneau < Albert Pujols
2B: Chase Utley > Ian Kinsler
SS: Rafael Furcal push Marco Scutaro
3B: Ryan Zimmerman > Placido Polanco
LF: Carl Crawford > Nick Markakis
CF: Torii Hunter > Andrew McCutchen
RF: Shin Soo Choo < Jayson Werth
DH: Manny Ramirez < Nick Swisher 5-3 ital

SP: Zack Greinke (R) < Felix Hernandez
SP: Roy Oswalt (R) < Johan Santana
SP: Jeff Niemann (R) push Clayton Kershaw
SP: Ryan Dempster (R) > Shaun Marcum
SP: Hiroki Kuroda (R) > Anibal Sanchez 7-5 ital

LR: JA Happ (L) < CJ Wilson
MR: Tim Stauffer (R) push Kyle McClellan
MR: Darren Oliver (L) push Darren O'Day
SU: Neftali Feliz (R) < Matt Thornton
SU: Carlos Marmol (R) push Daniel Bard
CL: Billy Wagner (L) > Jon Broxton 8-7 ital

BE: Geovany Soto C (R) push Jose Molina (a backup catcher's primary job is to play good defense, and Jose Molina does that, even though he isn't a great hitter)
BE: Yunel Escobar SS (R) push Erick Aybar
BE: Lance Berkman 1B/RF (S) < Andres Torres
BE: Rickie Weeks 2B (R) > Omar Infante
BE: Jorge Cantu 3B (R) push Pedro Alvarez

A tie for the bench

I give italstallion a very small edge, on the basis that the bullpen and rotation is basically a push and he has a slightly better lineup

[italstallianion]

Offense:

Brian Mccann > Miguel Olivo
Justin Morneau < Albert Pujols
Chase Utley > Ian Kinsler
Ryan Zimmerman > Placido Polanco
Rafael Furcal > Marco Scutaro
Shin Soo Choo < Jayson Werth
Torii Hunter > Andrew McCutchen
Carl Crawford > Nick Markakis
Manny Ramirez < Nick Swisher (almost a push in my opinion)

Offense: Erin Andrews Likes It Raw 6, JBay 3


Starting Pitching:

Zack Greinke < Felix Hernandez
Roy Oswalt < Johan Santana
Jeff Niemann < Clayton Kershaw
Ryan Dempster > Shaun Marcum
Hiroki Kuroda > Anibal Sanchez

Rotation: Erin Andrews Likes It Raw 2, JBay 3


Bullpen:

JA Happ < CJ Wilson (although I think it's closer than people think)
Tim Stauffer > Kyle McClellan
Darren Oliver = Darren O'Day (he pitches more innings, and Darren O'Day's 4.57 ERA in 2008 counts)
Neftali Feliz < Matt Thornton
Carlos Marmol < Dan Bard
Billy Wagner > Jon Broxton

Bullpen: Erin Andrews Likes It Raw 2, JBay 3

Bench:

C: Geovany Soto > Jose Molina
3B: Jorge Cantu > Pedro Alvarez
OF: Lance Berkman < Andres Torres
SS: Yunel Escobar > Erik Aybar
2B: Rickie Weeks = Omar Infante (Weeks has a s***load more power, and can steal more bases, but Infante has a higher Average and can play more positions)

Bench: Erin Andrews Likes It Raw 3, JBay 1


Total: Erin Andrews Likes It Raw 13, JBay 10


Summary: This is a pretty close match, as a lot of the players are pretty similar and unfortunately some have to lose matchups. In any event, JBay nickels and dimes a bit with many small wins. He has a very good rotation and a bullpen, but he wins those categories narrowly, while my offense is miles ahead of his. My Bench is also better although that's icing on the cake. My pitching is still very good (although admittedly, I'd lose many 1 vs. 1 matchups), but my pitching is good enough to stay in the game while my offense beats the living s*** out of teams. Not to mention that I have a very good defense as well.


Edit: I didn't see Erik Aybar or Omar Infante on JBay's bench, so I had to add them.

[yrtb]

italstallion needs one more vote to advance

[bsox0407]

JBay gets my vote. Rotation and Bullpen overtake the slight edge i gave Ital lineup.

[Jasonbay44]

I go with my team.. Although ill give him the lineup advantage, I believe my pitching staff more then makes up the difference, but not only that, its not like my offense wont be able to score runs. And once again, I don't think bench should matter much, I am treating this like a playoff matchup and my bench wouldn't see much time. As I said before, only guys who would see team would be Jose Molina and Aybar. Aybar would be used for pinch running and Molina would be used as a defensive replacement.

[Youker20]

To me it goes like this.
Rotation: BAY
bullpen: BAY
Offense; ITALIANSTALLION
Bench: ITALIANSTALLION

But if i remember correctly pitching wins championships so i go with BAY.

[yrtb]

3-3, next vote wins

[Flynnatic10]

Rotation: JBAY
bullpen: JBAY
Lineup: Erin Andrews likes it raw
Bench: Erin Andrews like it raw

Overall: JBAY, slightly

[yrtb]

jasonbay44 advances to the finals

[italstallianion]

Interesting stat. Teams power ranked #1, #2, and #3 voted for my team, while teams power ranked #5, #6, #8, and an incomplete but unanimously last place team voted for JBay. Considering the lack drafting ability in the teams that voted against me, I'm glad that those bad teams voted for JBay, since that means that I had the better team.

[italstallianion]

I guess that the 2000/2004 elections weren't the only examples of people not knowing how to vote.

[bsox0407]

I guess that the 2008 elections weren't the only examples of people not knowing how to vote.

Fixed.

[italstallianion]

I had a conversation with a friend of mine who's also into baseball, and I asked him to power rank the 7 complete teams (without telling him which team was mine) and he ranked them as follows.

1. Divinity
2. Italstallianion
3. Ytrb

(Huge Gap)

4. WhiskeyBreath
5. Suns
6. Bsox
7. JBay

Followed by descriptions

Ytrb - Love Team 1s rotation(of course, pre-2010 is a different story), like the power of the lineup, not in love with avg/obp, hate the bullpen.

JBay - Team 2: Reasonably decent lineup, good rotation, bullpen could've been drafted better, only one or two useful arms and the rest are solid/ok

WhiskeyBreath (who my friend thought was my team) - Think the lineup could be better constructed to utilize speed/power. But good overall potential there. Hard-throwing rotation, but extremely injury prone/inconsistent. Bullpen is pretty solid, some nice arms in Soriano, Mo, and Nunez. 2009-Wandy would've been a steal.

Bsox - ok power, reasonably good average, bench is kinda useless outside of Pence, like the 1-2-3 of the rotation but hate the rest of it, and i hate that bullpen

Suns - Not in love with the power with the lineup, and this lineup isn't fast enough in my opinion to make up for the power, rotation is excellent, but the bullpen is full of risky names

Italstallianion - My favorite lineup so far, good balance of speed,avg, and power, rotation scares me in how unpredictable it can be, bullpen is pretty good(how Darren Oliver is still in the league is beyond me, but that's a different topic)

Divinity - I like the potential of the lineup, but injuries are a big risk. Rotation is good until you reach Vasquez(who needs to go on the DL in the worst way), but I love the bullpen.


I then asked him why he put JBay's team last, and he said the following:

I chose team 2 last because their was only two big power bats(Albert and Werth), two decent power hitters(Kinsler, Swisher and maybe Markakis) and the rest were very light-hitting. And what worries me about the light-hitters is that they're very weak OBP which means fewer stolen base opportunities/opportunities to cause some problems on the base path. That said, defense is decent/pretty good for this team(although this doesn't mean as much). This owner tried to go for balance but did a terrible job of it.

The pitching concerns me a lot. Felix is Felix, but Johan has been maddeningly inconsistent the past 3 years, Kershaw's numbers are good, but he's not a solid ace-type(in a league filled with them) and the rest of the rotation of Marcum and Sanchez both have middle names of "inconsistent". The bullpen has some serious injury concerns, but could be very solid with Bard and Broxton in the back-end and Thornton has some good numbers, and CJ Wilson could be a useful long-reliever but I'm not convinced yet by Darren O'Day and Kyle McClellen.

Out of a league filled with elite/star players, this is a team filled with a lot of decent players, add in the fact that there's a huge injury risk, and I think this team is going to have an uphill climb from day 1.


And then my friend yelled at me for wasting his time when I told him that my team somehow lost to JBay's team.