Week 11 down, with only 2 more weeks left in the regular season. Only 1 team is guaranteed a playoff spot at this point. And I haven't really done the math, nor looked in depth at the remaining schedule, but I can't quite tell or not if any team is technically "eliminated" from playoff contention. But nonetheless, there will be a lot of action here in these past two weeks. Let's look at the season stats:
Joe still has found a way to stay in first place in our projected league standings. He's 3rd in the league in terms of points scored, but seems to have put up good points on a more consistent basis. But we've covered this issue in far too much detail in the past. You all can look at the table and come up with the proper conclusions.
Primus Inter Pares and Deep Throw It are duking it out for the Armchair regular season title. (BTW, will the winner of the regular season be receiving any monetary awards?) Dave and I are both about a win ahead of where we should be, which isn't overly lucky, but nonetheless it's helping us separate ourselves from the pack.
The Bulldogs, who are even worse than TEAM RIHANNA in my standings, are the most lucky team in the league. This could be a monumental event where the team that SHOULD be in 1st place won't make the playoffs, while the team that SHOULD be in last place makes the playoffs.
With that said, what are our thoughts on this? It's clear as day just how much luck plays a role in winning a fantasy football league. More specifically, how much scheduling plays a part. Are we upset about this? I can see where fantasy managers that pay more attention would be upset about it and more casual managers would be amused by this. Maybe that's why so many people love fantasy football. They don't need to pay much attention to it, and can still (perhaps) win their league. As a longtime fantasy manager, this is a large reason why I am not as much of a fan of fantasy football as I am about other fantasy sports. I can try my hardest and I could be much better than my fantasy counterparts, but I still have a good chance of losing. It's frustrating, especially if it's a serious league with money on the line. If it's all for fun and games, then I can understand why it's so enjoyable. Every manager can tell a pity story to a friend or a co-worker about how he got screwed the week before. Don't get me wrong though, my autumn would be dull without fantasy football, and it has it's own distinctness that I treasure.
Ok back to the numbers. Let's look at which teams are peaking at the right time. Numbers from the past 3 weeks:
The Moops are coming in hot. They may be the team that emerges from that middle pack.
Also, Duke Football are not helping their cause and have lost some steam as we approach playoff runs.
Let's look to the future then. Based on the season's numbers, where can we expect people to end up?
1) Primus Inter Pares - 8.7 Projected Points
2) Deep Throw It - 8.1
3) Super Consistency - 7.1
4) Boston TD Party - 6.6
5) The Moops - 6.5
6) Duke Football 6.4
On the Bubble:
TEAM CHRIS BROWN - 6.0
And let's look at next weeks matchups:
Primus Inter Pares has gone 5-4-2 vs Boston TD Party
Super Consistency has gone 6-5-0 vs The Moops
TEAM CHRIS BROWN has gone 9-2-0 vs Bulldogs
The Renaissance has gone 7-4-0 vs TEAM RIHANNA
Deep Throw It has gone 7-4-0 vs Duke Football
MEDIAAA
Dude can hit.
And as for this gem, continue watching even when you think you can't. Even when you think it's all done, it is not. WARNING: I would recommend not watching this before a meal.
That's all for this week. I wish you all a very Happy Armchair Thanksgiving. And enjoy your NFL tripleheader on Thursday!
P.S. League members, what are our thoughts on Tom's post? I would hope those sort of comments merit a wrist-slap of sorts.
Well now that all parties have been heard from, except for Tmac of course, for which all hope has been lost. The only things I will say in regards to my State of the League post is that Jack, I'm mildy surprised at home tame you were in your reply. I definitely thought I would get the caliber of backlash from you like I got from Mike. Also, I agree with Jack that we should meet over winter break to create league by-laws. Toni Olson may be willing to host it, so that way we can have the customary meatballs, chicken wings, and chips and salsa that are a staple when guests are at the Olson's. There will be no changing of any scoring settings during the season, as that could affect our standings with the ties we have already.
Some questions have also been asked by members about tiebreakers in the playoffs. Now, I have spent about a half hour trying to find out how Yahoo! decides these ties, and have yet to find anything the explicitly says anything about playoff ties. So this is what I came up with, and it's just an idea, but it's something concrete we can go off of for the playoffs. Although I don't have the ability to set the tiebreaker setting, I do have the ability to alter team's points scored for a given week. With that in mind, I think, at least for these playoffs, that each team designates two "tiebreaker" players on their bench. These two players will be used to break ties. If two teams are tied, then whoever has scored more points among the teams' designated "#1 tiebreaker" wins, and I will adjust the score so that team wins. If it's still tied after the first tiebreaker, then it moves to the "#2 tiebreaker". If it's still tied after that, I say we flip a coin because who knows what to do after that? I know it's not ideal, but it's just an idea and it would solve the problem for this year at the least. Let me know what you all think.
Now onto the recap...probably going to be a little on the short side but I am going to add a predictions segment for the hell of it.
Deep Throw It 74 Bulldogs 33
What a world of difference it makes when your receivers actually do something. Doesn't hurt when the team your playing only has one player who scores over 5 points.
Duke Football 57 Team Rihanna 20
Well I thought football was going to be different, but Tony McDonald has officially checked out fellas. Three guys in your starting lineup on a bye? Really Tmac?!? Meanwhile Luke's win was hardly the highlight of his week, considering he now owns the best running back and best quarterback in fantasy (and real) football, courtesy of Michelangelo.
The Moops 63 Team Chris Brown 54
Despite a big week from Randy Moss, Caff couldn't take down a relatively consistent team effort from The Moops. Sidney Rice might have been the best draft pick this year, despite the fact that Schneider dropped him earlier in the year.
Primus Inter Pares 75 The Renaissance 69
All I have to say is Joe, stop your whining, your abroad while we're all stuck here. You have had enough dominance of our leagues that it's time for an off year
Boston TD Party 63 Super Consistency 58
Thank you Cleveland Browns, for being a completely inept offense, and handing me sole possession of 2nd place.
Now time for me to try out my hand at predicting the future.
Here are Da Commish's Picks of the Week
Deep Throw It over Rihanna (Hard not to after I already have a 33 point lead)
Boston TD Party over The Moops
Super Consistency over Duke Football
Team Chris Brown over Primus Inter Pares (I can hope can't I?)
Bulldogs over La Renaissance
Here's the Hot Clicks of the Week
You would have thought this was an SEC football game...absolutely terrible call
Nothing been class here. Would expect nothing less from a Badgers fan.
Nothing but pure vengeance here
Not a bad week for Zach Greinke. A Cy Young and he is marrying this.
If only every coach answered questions as truthfully as Charlie Coles, head coach at Miami of Ohio.
Well I think that should tide everyone over, so here's a song of the week to wrap it up. Just because of the new album, here's Who Says by John Mayer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZwVjys2bQI
I am not going to try not to include the responses of others, however similar or dissimilar they may be. Starting from the top of his post, I took out the pieces I would like to address and put my comments below. Onward we go.
Jack gave me "a week or two", so I'm still within his timeline, and have not been ignoring him, just formulating my thoughts.
It would have been good to know that you weren’t ignoring us. Even after we accused you of ignoring us, you still said nothing. Also, it’s not good to bottle up everything and explode it onto one post. There are a lot of sub-issues that are going to take some discussion and if we were to begin to cover them when they arose, this process would have been much less messy to deal with. Just take it as a note.
1. Stopped doing weekly reviews.
I fully acknowledge I have not done the week in reviews in many weeks. I do want to say however, that since when has this become a duty of the commissioner? This has always been Jack's thing that he does, and this summer I decided to try my hand at it since I was bored.
If we wish “to go there”, I do recall that these reviews started with you (and you obliged to continue every so often, by my requests). You did them off and on for awhile, and I liked the idea so much I tried my hand at it, albeit more regularly. Then this past summer it seemed to me that you were a regular contributor, which also carried over to this fall. It’s most certainly not the duty of the commissioner (Joe/Luke never did weekly recaps, and I’ve never been commissioner).
HOWEVER, as the commissioner, the members like to know that you’ve got control of things and are involved in the league. When you stopped doing weekly reviews, we could have figured maybe your desire for this league left you. Heck, T-Mac could have been the commissioner those 5 or so weeks before your State of the League, and the only difference would have been that you updated your team and he didn’t. And we also figured if you’re going to check your team, why not write some responses or at least say you need time, but will eventually respond to us.
But our curiosity about why you hadn’t written for the majority of this year could almost be taken as a compliment rather than negativity. We ENJOY having your recaps around and we WANT you to write them. We’re all busy in college, so we know this. And it’s not as if anyone’s going to be at another’s throat if a weekly blog gets published on a Thursday or something. Heck, this past summer I stopped doing it entirely after a certain point because I couldn’t get ASS 2.0 to work. But I was still active on the message boards and told people why I was done.
2. Not answering the questions in the reviews.
Here is my answer finally. And half the time, they're not questions. They're just constant insults directed towards me.
The only questions that I have seen on the message board or posted on the blog regarded the lack of a response to the following questions:
1) Fantasy baseball money (Me, Back on Oct 5)
2) Your opposition to fractional points (Me, Sept 29)
3) Why you haven’t been writing (Mike, Oct 21)
3. Mishandling of money.
It would be virtually impossible to collect league fees when we don't all meet at one time, especially when people were leaving so early, and in some cases going abroad. I recognize I still owe money to some members, and I will make sure to get that money to them.
I understand the difficulty of collecting money when we’re not around (Plus, no one likes to be that guy that asks for money). I also understand the difficulty of money distribution when people aren’t around. But are you aware of who still needs to receive what? Or who needs to pay what? Do you have a piece of paper with a distribution list on it or an excel file? Could you tell me how much the wagers were for our past 3 Armchair seasons? Do we need an Armchair accountant?
Some of the above questions were rhetorical, so if you are going to provide a response to this post, don’t answer all of them individually. But they are things to consider. Things are going to get a little uneasy if you say “yeah I got it covered” without anything more.
4. "Un-Goodell like" ruling
This really doesn’t concern me. Though, it would be nice to know what the rules state. No cursing? What constitutes a curse word? No attack other peoples mothers? (Or is just Joba Chamberlain’s mother fair game?) Also, what kind of penalties do we have in place? Should we sign something at the beginning of each season? Again, they’re just rhetorical questions that we can consider.
5. The Request of a New Commissioner
Joe was the commissioner for baseball two years ago, and although there were no speedbumps, it had to be one of the most boring season of all our fantasy leagues. There was no interaction with the commissioner, no week recaps, no debates over what stats should and shouldn't be included, etc.
Dave, if you are referring to the 2008 baseball season when Joe was the commissioner, we had 114 message posts compared to 156 from the 2009 season. On the message board list here, from the 2008 season, it seems to me that Joe was an active participant on there, contradicting your claim that there was a lack of interaction with him. Also, that was the year I did the weekly RPI recaps from Week 1, so the weekly recaps were also very present. And you claim there weren’t any debates about what stats to include/exclude, but wouldn’t that mean that we were content for the most part with which ones were in place? I personally enjoyed this season particularly, because I won both regular season and playoffs.
Luke had attempted to organize a fantasy basketball league if I am not mistaken, and that had not gone so well.
I also enjoyed this league, and not just because I was in the championship. It’s a bit less demanding than baseball, but more than football (And a bit less luck involved). I’d be game for a hockey or basketball or premier league winter fantasy league if anyone wishes. You name it, I’ll play it.
Jack is the only candidate who has yet to have the post, but if i had to guess I don't think he would enjoy it as much, because he would not have a higher power to constantly gripe about and argue with.
Let’s not put words in other people’s mouths. Just because Mike proposed three candidates, doesn’t mean you need to put up (untrue) criticism toward each of them. Though, you have a great skill-set to be a politician …
Now onto Mr. Ries's litany of inquiries:
About these 6 or so stances I laid out, they weren’t necessarily a compilation of everything you were doing wrong they were just a bunch of satirical hot button issues if we were to hold upcoming elections (Which was also a satirical proposal). There were only a few things that I had inquired about to you personally, which were on that list. But there were also things on that list that didn’t pertain to things you did that I did not dislike.
For these next stances, I’m not going to comment on them all. For the most part, the following things in my opinion should be decided by a) Discussion or perhaps voting by league members and then b) Action by the commissioner. Just my opinion.
1. Which stats to incorporate in non-Football (meaning baseball) leagues:
2. How much each football stat is worth (leaving the big one until the end)
3. How to order the draft and keeper leagues
In the future, I would like to expand to three or possibly four keepers, as it brings more strategy into play when making trades both in and out of season.
4. Stance on which managers to allow in/out of leagues.
5. Health Care (I mean fractional points)
Who knew this would be such a controversial topic. Before I address my objections for fractional points, I do want to state the fact that I did allow a vote on this premise for this season, not enough votes were cast, and thus it was not allowed. I refuse to change things when we don't get at least 8 votes cast out of the 10 members of the league. I don't think that's too much to ask. Now, my objections to fractional points are as follows:
I guess that’s your own opinion about how many votes need to be cast. But what about if 7/7 people don’t like an idea, hypothetically? It can’t pass legislature? Or how about we wait until everyone can vote? Via texting, calling, etc.
a) It ruins part of the fun-Part of the fun of fantasy football is sitting there watching a game and yelling and screaming for your running back to get five more yards so you get that one extra point. Fractional points completely ruin this aspect of fantasy football (which I believe is why fantasy football is so addicting).
To paraphrase Step Brothers:
“[I] literally have never done any of those things.”
Am I less enthusiastic about fantasy football than the next guy because I’ve never yelled for a guy to get 5 more yards to round out a fantasy point? Fantasy football would still be addicting if fractional points were implemented. That, you cannot refute. If they ruined fun, why do many leagues use them?
b) It ruins the ease of scoring- I enjoy being able to hear a guy's stats and being able to calculate his fantasy score on the spot. If someone has 92 yards rushing, I like being able to know he scored 4 points, not 4.6 points and trying to integrate that into my team's points for the week.
I just use my computer, where we have free stat updates. Maybe this will help you brush up on your math skills. But also you can make a very educated guess knowing that if a guy has 92 yards rushing, he has at least 4 points plus 12/20 of a point. Especially if we keep 20 as a denominator we just say every additional yard is .5 of a point. I mean yes, it is additional work if you’re ever stranded without a computer and simply cannot wait to know a player’s score. But other than that, it’s all taken care of on Yahoo!
c) There are not fractional points in any other league-you don't get half a run if a guy reaches second base, or gets two thirds of a strikeout anytime a pitcher gets two strikes on a batter.
Fantasy football is different. No other fantasy sport is like football. Other leagues we have category wins. Football, we do not. You’re almost comparing apples to oranges. One could argue that for how many categories we have in other sports, a player is being assessed by an assortment of things he does. If a guy steals a base, it counts. If a guy gets an additional RBI, it counts. So here, if a RB gets an extra 15 yards, I think it should always count.
d) Ties are a part of football- The NFL has ties, and since fantasy football is supposed to (somewhat) imitate real-life football, why can't there be ties in our league? If there were someway to pick two players from your bench as tiebreakers, I would be all for that method, but Yahoo! doesn't allow for that. Fact is, ties happen, and it's part of sports.
Yes, the NFL has ties. Where you’re wrong is that Fractional points also allow for ties. And if we want fantasy to imitate the NFL, we need to cut back on the number of ties we’ve had this season. There have been a total of 17 NFL ties since 1974. (it even has its own Wikipedia page)
Let’s just consider the seasons 2002-2008 (the last year of new franchises up until last season). So there have been 32 teams * 16 games per team / 2 teams per game * 7 full seasons = 1792 regular season games. Over that time there were 2 ties. 2/1792 = 0.1% of all games that end in a tie. For our league, we’ve had (through week 10) three total tie games. We’ve also had 10 teams * 10 games per team / 2 teams per game = 50 games. 3/50 = 6.0% of all games that end in a tie. We’ve played 97% less games than they have, yet have had 50% more ties. Hardly imitators of the NFL.
e) We have already voted on it as a league- As I have already stated earlier in this column, we voted on it as a league, and not enough votes were cast. It's funny I get tarred and feathered for a taking a couple of weeks off of participating in this league, yet we couldn't even get 80% of our members to vote on something that some think is so crucial it needs to dethrone the leadership of the league. What is this, the French Revolution?
Just for a reference, when was this vote? I’m not saying it never happened. But I vaguely recall it.
Anyway, that’s all I have to say for now. This took for too long to cover. Dave, the biggest favor you could do right now is to not sulk or say something like “Fine since you all have so many problems I’ll just give up and you guys can do whatever you want” or something along those lines. I’m not saying that’s what you’ll do or would have done necessarily, but you ARE the commissioner of this league right now. You also clearly wanted to have that title. So, in conclusion, listen to your members when necessary and state true, clear facts always about why you feel the way you feel. I’m all for listening to your reasons for not wanting fractional points. Hey, it might help everyone to hear both sides of this debate if we were to vote on this again. I’m not saying you’re not fit to have your role, but you’ve made statements that I hold different stances on and I’ve laid them out above. Haha maybe we should have a roundtable meeting over Xmas or Turkey break to straighten anything out since it’s tough via message board. But what do I know? You’re Da Commish.
‘I see great things in [the Armchair League], It will [keep] our people [in]doors, fill them with oxygen , give them a larger physical stoicism, tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set, repair those losses and be a blessing to us.”
-Walt Whitman … mostly
With only three weeks to go, no team is safe to make the playoffs (except one). Even the teams intertwined in the 4-way tie for last place all have a legitimate chance at the playoffs. It's going to be an exciting couple of remaining weeks to see who fills out where. On to the season's cumulative numbers:
Strangely, (sadly?) Joe is still both in first place and the most unlucky. He had the 3rd best score from this past week and happened to be playing the team with the best score. It's quite a spectacle to watch this. Is it possible that he could get so unlucky that he would miss the playoffs? That would show just how lucky Fantasy Football is. We know baseball's grueling season has enough outcomes to put teams closer to where they should be. I've argued that I enjoy those longer seasoned sports because luck is less involved (though it's still there). But it would be a monumental occurrence if Joe's team does not place in the top 6, even though he'd most likely be in 1st place if we had a different schedule. Joe is there some bad karma you're now on the receiving end of? He should have almost 3 wins more at this point ...
Joe has the fewest wins in the league for pete's sake! AND he is on a 5 game losing streak! He should have won 48.8% of his games over that time, instead it's 0. That's a swing of 2.4 wins alone. You're lucky I'm here to show the world how unlucky you've been, otherwise we'd be laughing at you for having the least wins in the league.
My boys in 2nd place are still creeping up on Joe (or is it that Joe's numbers are descending toward mine?) and I'm trying to justify my 1st place in the league by having the best ProjW%. I am still the most lucky team, though I've been improving that number by putting up back-to-back-to-back best scores of the week.
Boston TD Party and Super Consistency are forces to be reckoned with in these upcoming weeks and come playoff time. They've got good numbers either way you look at it.
Deep Throw It has quietly sneaked into 2nd place, despite his projected rank of 5th in the league. His luck came from those first few weeks, but other than that, his W-L-T is consistent with where he should be.
As for the projected seeds, losses by Super Consistency, The Renaissance, and TEAM CHRIS BROWN sure hurt their chances. Here's what I've got:
1) Primus Inter Pares - 9.4 Projected Pts
2) Deep Throw It - 7.5
3) Boston TD Party - 7.3
4) Duke Football - 7.0
5) Super Consistency - 6.6
and this last spot is quite the toss-up
6a) The Renaissance - 5.98
6b) The Moops - 5.95
Should be fun to watch.
Let's look at the matchups for this upcoming week based on how each team would have fared had they only played their Week 11 opponent the whole year:
Primus Inter Pares has gone 6-4-0 vs TEAM CHRIS BROWN in these last 10 weeks. Not as safe a bet as I would have hoped.
Boston TD Party has gone 5-4-1 against The Moops this year.
Super Consistency has also gone 6-4-0 against Duke Football
This might be the safe bet of the week. The Renaissance has gone 8-2-0 against the Bulldogs this year. It's funny because as I have said a) They are both tied for last place and b) The Bulldogs have more wins than The Renaissance
Deep Throw it has gone 7-3-0 against TEAM RIHANNA. Seeing as how TMac doesn't care to check his team much anymore, I'd expect this to be more than a 70% chance of a win for Dave.
Well there you have it. I've crunched the numbers of the past, and used those numbers to help guide us toward being more informative about what can happen in the future.
MEDIA
Here's a trippy video about Dock Ellis's no-hitter in 1970, whilst under the influence of LSD. Here's a prologue for ya'll to get up to speed.
And then we've got this nutjob from Georgia. I don't know if he was under the influence of something, or he just never wanted to leave character. You decide:
Take care kids. Turkey day's coming up soon. It's going to be a much needed break for us all. And what our thoughts on the Twins' new unis?
Sorry for the delay people. I had a presentation Tuesday and a Math test Wednesday to deal with. So now I'm back.
Clearly, there's been a lot going on around the league. I will not cover any external issues in this post, but hopefully at some point I'll get around to it. It will probably be something along the format of Mike's post since The State of the League was a large document and I may have hangups about specific parts of it.
But let's also welcome Dave back to our league after his haitus. It's good to know there's still a captain driving the ship that is our league. (Even if the crew seems uneasy about it).
Alas, I'm getting ahead of myself. On to the numbers!
It's evident that the Greek gods are on the decline. Their ProjW% has fallen almost week by week except for a few exceptions, but their league ranking is even worse. Based on their past numbers, they should be in 1st place. However, they sit on top of a 4-way tie for 6th place. Yes, they've been the most unlucky team this year. They should have won almost 2 more games in these past 9 weeks. I guess that's why we play the game.
Boston TD Party has quietly turned into an elite fantasy football squad. Their 2nd place ProjW% ranking and 4th place league ranking almost assure these guys a playoff spot. They also happen to be the 2nd most unlucky team behind Greek gods.
Primus Inter Pares has been blessed. My team has surfaced themselves from the clump in the middle. Yes, we're the most lucky/overrated team. But I've put up some big points these last couple weeks to help justify my high ranking in the league.
As for the clump in the middle, our playoff format says 6 teams make the playoffs, and my numbers tell me that if your team wants a bye in the playoffs, you're going to have to secure yourself 7 points (1 pt Win, .5 pt Tie) or a .538 W%. If you want a playoff spot. You're going to have to reach the all important benchmark of 6 points (.462 W%), but perhaps more depending on how clumped we all are. Here's how my projected seeds look:
1) Primus Inter Pares 8.8 Projected final pts
2) Super Consistency 7.2
3) Deep Throw It 6.9
4) Boston TD Party 6.9
5) Greek gods 6.6
6) Duke Football 6.5
On the bubble: TEAM CHRIS BROWN 6.0
This list may change rapidly from week to week since each win is such a huge swing and we've only played 9 weeks.
Let's also take a look at how teams have fared these last 3 weeks:
Some things that stick out:
1) Greek gods should have won about 1.6, instead they won 0 when every other team had at least one win ... epically unlucky
2) Bulldogs won a game when they should have won practically 0. They had the lowest score in Weeks 7 and 8, and in Week 9 they had the second lowest behind TEAM RIHANNA. And who did they play that week? TEAM RIHANNA. They had an 88% chance of going 0-3 and they defied those odds ... lucky.
3) The Bulldogs had more wins this past week than Greek gods ... [shiver]
MEDIA
Just a precursor to the video: This song has been in my head for 4 straight days and the only reason I'm upset about that fact is because I'm scared I'll start to get sick of it and despise it. But alas, I love it. The video actually premiered Tuesday and it already has already almost 3,000,000 views. Enjoy.
Well that should do it for this week. I don't know when I'll get a response out to the public. In the meantime, I urge everyone of you to voice your opinion on these matters at hand. All of these issues concern each and everyone one of you. So make yourself heard.
Funny how I post something that so many people demanded, and there has yet to be any kind of response to it...and I'm the one who isn't involved enough in the league. Sticking to my word, here is the Week 9 Recap, Twitter-style edition. Each matchup in 140 characters or less...
Primus Inter Pares 71, Deep Throw It 45
Jack 1, Dave 0....anytime you have a guy on your bench who scores 21 points, it's a good bet you will lose that week.
Boston TD Party 71, Duke Football 47
No AP=No victory. Solid performance from everyone on JP's team minus McGahee
Super Consistency 71, Team Chris Brown 65
71 was the magic number this week...TCB is Mr. Ries's unlucky team of the week despite Kurt Warner's 25 points.
The Moops 61, Greek gods 57
How the mighty have fallen...this might be Joe's lowest standing in Armchair Fantasy sports history
Bulldogs 40, Team Rihanna 38
Might as well call this one battle of the futile ones. It's feast or famine for Tmac...gotta have WR's score in order to win.
Not going to bother with rankings this week, instead I'll leave that to our resident statistician. On to the links!!
Da Commish's Hot Clicks of the Week
If you haven't seen this kid yet, you must have been living in a hole for like a month (or you might just be in Europe).
I plan on making my kids memorize famous speeches and post them on YouTube to gain instant celebrity.
The all-important Evil Eye
Sammy Sosa's Halloween costume was Michael Jackson.
Just scary.
Here's the real reason they want health care reform...
Who said girls sports aren't high contact?
Well I think that's enough for now, so until next time here's Da Commish approved song of the week (Two of them to make up for lost time)
Yes it's Miley Cyrus, with a Lil Weezy thrown in
I know Jack will like this one....Your New Man by Mason Jennings
It has come to my attention that is a limited uprising in our league at the moment. It amazes me how everyone thinks they can do a better job than the guy who is already in the position of power. I had every intention of writing this before, but I sprained my ankle this week and so my attention has been elsewhere as my ankle started to look like that guys face at the end of Green Street Hooligans. This post will be to address the haters, questions, and concern of the members in our league.
Also, Jack gave me "a week or two", so I'm still within his timeline, and have not been ignoring him, just formulating my thoughts.
First off, I want to apologize for not posting Week Recaps for the majority of this season. Things have been busier than expected, but I will do my best to update you all every week from now on.
In reply to Mike's quest for current rebellion, here are the arguments you lay forth (some worthy, others not so much), and here are my rebuttals:
1. Stopped doing weekly reviews.
I fully acknowledge I have not done the week in reviews in many weeks. I do want to say however, that since when has this become a duty of the commissioner? This has always been Jack's thing that he does, and this summer I decided to try my hand at it since I was bored. Furthermore, everyone has the ability to write week in reviews, not just me and Jack. If you did them yourselves you would know how much time and effort it actually takes to write quality posts for this blog.
2. Not answering the questions in the reviews.
Here is my answer finally. And half the time, they're not questions. They're just constant insults directed towards me.
3. Mishandling of money.
Yes, the distribution of winnings has been a little rocky, but I have covered that with those who have won money in this league. Second, I had every intention of charging 20 dollars for the league this year, but that was when we were going to have an actual live draft. I see four of the member of the league frequently, and the others at random times. It would be virtually impossible to collect league fees when we don't all meet at one time, especially when people were leaving so early, and in some cases going abroad. I recognize I still owe money to some members, and I will make sure to get that money to them.
4. "Un-Goodell like" ruling
Mike, before you accused me of being too lenient and undecisive. Then I start making more strict rulings and everyone is up in arms about it. What do you want? You can't have it both ways.
5. The Request of a New Commissioner
Here's the deal: although I will step down if that's what the league decides, I do want to make the point that two of your nominations have already had the position of commissioner. Joe was the commissioner for baseball two years ago, and although there were no speedbumps, it had to be one of the most boring season of all our fantasy leagues. There was no interaction with the commissioner, no week recaps, no debates over what stats should and shouldn't be included, etc. Joe constantly changes the stats to whichever ones he wants, as is evidenced by his request every year to change the scoring for fantasy football (EVERY YEAR). Luke had attempted to organize a fantasy basketball league if I am not mistaken, and that had not gone so well. Jack is the only candidate who has yet to have the post, but if i had to guess I don't think he would enjoy it as much, because he would not have a higher power to constantly gripe about and argue with.
Now onto Mr. Ries's litany of inquiries:
1. Which stats to incorporate in non-Football (meaning baseball) leagues:
I have tried to comply with everyone's desires when it comes to stats in fantasy baseball. Admittedly, there have been some categories that should not be included (fielding percentage in particular), and I am of the opinion that less stats are better. If we include every statistic that everyone (by everyone I mean Joe) wants, than it tends to get ridiculous when it comes to trying to score matchups and such. Though I do appreciate that holds have put more emphasis on middle relievers, the holds stat is so fluky, it is virtually impossible to predict. Check the holds leaders for each year, they're never even close to the same guys. I have listened to and respected requests for the additions and subtractions of different categories, but most these requests come after we have already drafted or I have not had any input from others. I cannot add and subtract stats after the draft because that may completely change how some people draft.
2. How much each football stat is worth (leaving the big one until the end)
I have met Joe's EVERY request when it comes to changing how many points each stat gets. I am a man of the people in that regard (except for fractional points, which I will get to later). Joe has been the only one who has ever come to me to change the points system (minus Jack and fractional points), and I have changed them as requested.
3. How to order the draft and keeper leagues
I combined these two topics because they are similar in nature. Everyone agreed this year to a keeper league, and in my opinion I think it went very well and increased interest for the entire year, and allows us to make draft day trades (in which I was a part of). Also, in the case of keeper leagues, I think the system of having the draft order be the reverse of the final standings worked very well, as there has never been more parity in our league before. In the future, I would like to expand to three or possibly four keepers, as it brings more strategy into play when making trades both in and out of season.
4. Stance on which managers to allow in/out of leagues.
This issue actually came into play this year when Joe took it upon himself to give the league ID and password to Grimmer without my approval. Although it ended up working out OK because Danny was one of the more active members of the league, I do not think this can continue. I believe we have a strong core of guys to continue in this league, and any additions that might be made should be with a guy everyone is familiar with. The league is not as fun when there is someone we don't all know (for instance, the year we brought in the St. John's baseball player, Skluzchek or however you spell his name). I do think those that are in the league have an obligation to continue to check their lineups, unless you are Tony McDonald, because we all know we need one guy we can rip for being so inattentive that Chin-Ming Wang is still in his starting lineup.
5. Health Care (I mean fractional points)
Who knew this would be such a controversial topic. Before I address my objections for fractional points, I do want to state the fact that I did allow a vote on this premise for this season, not enough votes were cast, and thus it was not allowed. I refuse to change things when we don't get at least 8 votes cast out of the 10 members of the league. I don't think that's too much to ask. Now, my objections to fractional points are as follows:
a) It ruins part of the fun-Part of the fun of fantasy football is sitting there watching a game and yelling and screaming for your running back to get five more yards so you get that one extra point. Fractional points completely ruin this aspect of fantasy football (which I believe is why fantasy football is so addicting).
b) It ruins the ease of scoring- I enjoy being able to hear a guy's stats and being able to calculate his fantasy score on the spot. If someone has 92 yards rushing, I like being able to know he scored 4 points, not 4.6 points and trying to integrate that into my team's points for the week.
c) There are not fractional points in any other league-you don't get half a run if a guy reaches second base, or gets two thirds of a strikeout anytime a pitcher gets two strikes on a batter.
d) Ties are a part of football- The NFL has ties, and since fantasy football is supposed to (somewhat) imitate real-life football, why can't there be ties in our league? If there were someway to pick two players from your bench as tiebreakers, I would be all for that method, but Yahoo! doesn't allow for that. Fact is, ties happen, and it's part of sports.
e) We have already voted on it as a league- As I have already stated earlier in this column, we voted on it as a league, and not enough votes were cast. It's funny I get tarred and feathered for a taking a couple of weeks off of participating in this league, yet we couldn't even get 80% of our members to vote on something that some think is so crucial it needs to dethrone the leadership of the league. What is this, the French Revolution?
Well I think that is enough to chew on right now. I won't leave any media in this post, but I will make sure to do a Week Recap and post my thoughts and links for the week.
Until then, Viva la Armchair!!
I'm busy and I'm lazy. And I have nothing to argue with Dave about. So here are the stats:
Greek gods still hold the top spot despite being on a 3 game losing streak in the league standings. Again, these ratings are all in hindsight. So is Joe's team going to be the best for the rest of the season? Who knows? But all we know is that he should be in 1st place based on his past numbers.
Who's the most unlucky? Well that award goes to the Greek gods as well. Some crummy luck early on has hindered them, so I would expect his place in the league standings to rise. For instance, this past week he had the 3rd best score in the league but played the team who put up the 2nd best score. He would have beat 77% of all other teams but instead got 0 points in the standings. Behind Greek gods, The Moops are about a full win behind where they should be. They sit last in the league. No, they haven't put up great numbers but luck still hasn't help then with their schedule.
Who's the most lucky? That award still has my name on it. (Hey, at least I'm willing to admit it.) I'm in 1st in the league, riding a 3 game win streak, but have gotten lucky. Luckily, I put up the highest score this past week to help propel me higher in my Projected W%, but I'm still a little more than a win ahead of where I should be. Deep Throw It have improved their Projected W%, but are still riding the wave of their early season luck. They're about a win ahead of where they should be.
There's still quite a bit of parity in our league. I don't think we've really been able to separate the "bad" teams from the "good" teams yet.
MEDIA!
Who doesn't love themselves some Christopher Walken?:
And all I can say is FAIL to this guy: