italstallianion

Son of a gun, I thought by posting in this thread when I did that I'd get a spot in the league. I didn't know that I had to log in through the message you sent me (in order to be considered a part of the league). I was one of the earliest members to indicate interest as well. F***.

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.

I agree, but if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle. In any event, it really doesn't matter since JBay (who has Kinsler) faced my team in the semis and (somehow) Ytrb's team in the finals, and our teams have Chase Utley and Robinson Cano respectively. So he could have thrown virtually anyone out there at 2B and he was going to lose that matchup.

I agree with you here. I built my team based on a lot of 2008/2009 stats. I think that ignoring 2008 and 2009 stats is just as bad as ignoring benches or dismissing discrepancies between 4-5 starters. A bad bench is a bad bench. Nobody should have a bad bench in a 10 team redraft league where 2 of the teams quit. There are players that weren't drafted that would make better benches than some of the benches on a few teams.

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

I agree, and a lot of owners (posters) didn't pay attention to that. With that said, even considering that, I don't think that helps you that much.

For the record, I reread the rules on this draft, and I don't think Ytrb said anything about this being a palkyoff series draft. He said that there would be a playoff tournament, but said nothing about whether or not the teams would face in the regular season or post season. If this were a postseason only draft, then we wouldn't have needed to have made 25 selections. I know Jbay voted a lot based on this being a playoff series rather than an overall regular season matchup. It doesn't really matter here, but it would have been good to have established that last round, although I still think I would have been f***** in the end.

I find it funny that Suns went on a rampage for being shafted before I go to. I don't know about Suns, but I get absolutely f***** in this thing. I'm still pissed off, hell, I'm not even sure if I'm going to do the hot girl draft anymore. Judging by how bad some of the voting has been here, I can only imagine what s***** voting will go down in that tournament. By my luck, my team will lose to a team with Sarah Jessica Parker on it because a few teenagers misunderstood the voting requirements. And for the record, congratulations Ytrb. I think you should have won the tournament all along, although you should have beaten me in the finals.

To be more specific on the rotation, Javier Vasquez has been horrible this year, and didn't have a good 2008 either. He'll get k's, but I think that those are one of the more overrated numbers (apart from wins). His ERA's were 4.67, 2.87, and 4.89. Andy Pettitte, his 3 starter, while he is having a fine year, had a 4.16 ERA last year and a 4.54 ERA the previous year. Strasburg has a high cieling, but is unpredictable and unestablished at this point, and can't be chosen over a an established starter with consistently good numbers. I think that Strasburg hasn't played enough yet to put him as a #2 starter in this type of draft, especially with previous years being worth consideration. Garza and Sabathia are legit picks though. I'd give him Sabathia over Greinke and I think that I'd take all of the other SP matchups, many of which by a large margin. I also think that having AJ Burnett on the roster is a big poison pill.

To specify my vote, I think I have a noticeably better rotation (Divinity hurt himself by drafting a lot of Yankee Starters that either aren't doing well this year, or had bad years past. I think that my bullpen is better, and that the lineups are very close. (I think that Ytrb, Divinity and I, in no order, had the best 3 lineups in the league.) The only real disagreement I have with Divinity's lineup comparisons is that I think that Hunter is better than Kemp because Hunter is one of the best defensive CF's and that Kemp is one of the absolute worst CF defenders, and that Kemp is having an uncharacteristically bad year thus far. That would make our lineups tied at 4-4-1.

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.

To substantiate my vote, and so it isn't completely out of disgust or revenge. Ytrb, in my opinion, has the only team that I think could beat my team. (Divinity's is close). They were the 3 clear best teams in the tournament. Ytrb has the best 1-5 pitching staff of all 10 teams, and has a top 3 lineup besides mine and Divinity. The bullpen's are close, but JBay has a really weak bench as well. This isn't even a contest. It's like a heavyweight AL East team playing against a dainty NL team in the World Series, where a bunch of other AL East teams would have won the finals as well. This is a horrible championship round. As far as I'm concerned, I lost to Ytrb in the finals. The right team won it all, although under the wrong circumstances.

I think that Ytrb beats the living s*** out of Jbay's team. Then again, JBay's team should have lost to WhiskeyBreath in the first round, should have been destroyed by my team in the 2nd round, and should lose here in the finals. There was a reason why Ytrb had the #2 power ranked team (while mine was #1) and why JBay was only #5. His team isn't that good. Heck, of the 4 final teams, 3 of them voted for my team to beat his. The teams that voted for JBay (JBay, Youker, Bsox) all had bad teams themselves, which shows that they are also bad judges.

I have to vote for my team. I will get more details when I come back from vacation.

I don't have the time to do a position by position analysis, as I'm on vacation in NH and have very limited computer access, but right now I'd have to go with Ytrb's team. (I'll do a position by position analysis when I get back next week if anyone is still interested) In any event, the offense and bullpen are reasonably close, with Ytrb taking the bullpen and Divinity taking the offense. The difference is the rotation, where it seems like Divinity's Yankee bias led him to overdraft a lot of Yankee starters, which worked heavily towards his demise. Ytrb (in my opinion) has the best 1-5 rotation in the entire league, and sweeps Divinity's rotation 1-5, which would earn him my vote. With that said, I think we should do a 3rd place match, just because a lot of these semifinal matchups are extremely close.

If there are spots available, I'll gladly take one. Everyone in the TS baseball league can attest to my activity.

Hell yeah. Way to go Sox.

I have him on both of my fantasy teams. Believe me, I've noticed.

Offense: Brian Mccann > Miguel Olivo Justin Morneau Chase Utley > Ian Kinsler Ryan Zimmerman > Placido Polanco Rafael Furcal > Marco Scutaro Shin Soo Choo Torii Hunter > Andrew McCutchen Carl Crawford > Nick Markakis Manny Ramirez Offense: Erin Andrews Likes It Raw 6, JBay 3 Starting Pitching: Zack Greinke Roy Oswalt Jeff Niemann Ryan Dempster > Shaun Marcum Hiroki Kuroda > Anibal Sanchez Rotation: Erin Andrews Likes It Raw 2, JBay 3 Bullpen: JA Happ 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 Carlos Marmol 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 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.

In all fairness, the bench can also play in a lot of games. They can also help if players get injured, and can help in righty vs. lefty matchups. I agree that in THIS scoring system, equating the bench as equal to the other parts is flawed, but in another scoring system, it may be right.