Connor is the King of the Mountain – BUT FOR HOW LONG?
– Well, I’m sorry people. It seems that in the wake of my incredibly busy life (laziness), I neglected to post a Power Rankings, as is my every-other week duty. This was a very regrettable thing, because I was really hoping to praise Connor and his Drakepuns for a very admirable few weeks ahead of our match-up, which I will not now because its fucking Thursday and we’re in a battle. So I digress, and will make a quick little Power Rankings for those of you who are just DESPERATE for rankings. I know I am:
The Contenders
Connor’s Drakepuns (3-1)
Rojo’s Resurgence (3-1)
Point Loma X-Rays (2-1-1)
What a weird and fascinating world we live in. It feels like only last year (it was) that these two were both on the bottom of the league, floundering along dreaming of success in 2016. Well, that dream has come true through the first month, as both teams put together very successful 3-1 records. Connor has a team name (which I will not speak of), and it’s based off maybe the best player that everyone’s tried to trade for like 100 times, Mr. Jose Juan Carlos Sergio Altuve. (Note: those middle names are made up). Rojo certainly has a resurgence going so far in 2016, and he’s done it with incredible balance. Seriously, look it up, because I’m not really going to expound on it much more than that. LOOK AT THOSE HOLDS, too. On the back end of this one is Mike Odom and his Lovely named Point Loma X-Rays. I love names that I could speak on and not get aggravated as hell. The X-Rays (See, its great) took a HUGE hit this week with Dee Gordon’s obvious steroid suspension, so we’ll see how losing your most important player will hamper his speed demon production. Also, I think ¾ of his team is hurt. Moving on…
The Middlers
Barnegat Banana Slugs (2-2)
Pine Lake People’s Champs (2-2)
Ocean Gate Fisherman Club (2-2)
Main Street Mooninitez (2-2)
River City Cuban Missiles (1-1-2)
There are really too many teams here for me to write about, and I promise in the future I will be more invested in the process but GEE GOLLY these are a lot of .500 teams. This league has gotten so confusing that you have no idea who’s gonna win one week to the next! Maybe you all think you do, but you don’t, so there. Quick highlights for each team over the course of the month? Slugs – Story of course. People’s Champs – He got some pitching. Fishing Club – Rizzo 😦 . Mooninitez – Velazquez is a nice story. Missiles – Harper always. GOOD SUMMARY.
The Losers
Springfield Isotopes (1-2-1)
Whitestone Bulldogs (0-4)
It gives me no pleasure to put these to nice guys in the bottom rung of the league, but lets face it, someone has to be there, right? There’s not a whole lot of nice things to say right now about the Isotopes, but things may be looking up after a very positive victory over the Slugs last week, and I think they’re winning this week so far so hey maybe he’s righted the ship. But currently The Topes are the 9th best team in the league. Cliff’s Bulldogs are maybe the most confusing team to figure out this year, as they’re incredibly balanced and frustrating to face, yet are 0-4. If I cared enough, I would investigate further. I’ll just note that he’s made 18 roster moves, which is maybe not enough to compete in this league.
I don’t know about you guys, but I feel there’s something really satisfying about a pitcher you have in your minor league system coming up and tossing a gem. Whether it be a speculative add after reading a Fangraphs article on upcoming promoted prospects or maybe just a guy you’ve followed from your favorite teams, the minor leagues are what makes our League much more interesting, and in my opinion separates itself from other fantasy baseball leagues (cue the T “THERE ARE NO OTHER LEAGUES”). In this instance, I agree.
Our system is easy (Note: Not always easy). A minor league bat could be a player at any position who accrues less than 130 (up from 100) at bats in his career. This falls in line now with the MLB’s designation for a rookie positional player in the voting for Rookie of the Year. Similarly,. the pitcher (reliever or starter) which accrues less than 50 IP will be considered a minor league arm. It’s a simple and easily follow-able system which has I think enhanced the leagues interest and complexity.
Now, I wouldn’t for a second say that what we have is a perfect system. We all have found ways to use the minors for a competitive advantage, with a minors eligible starter eligible holds guy reliever being the Holy motherfucking Grail of players. Its all sorts of weird, but its great. There are, however, some ways to make this whole Minors system even better, which I’ll illustrate in some long-winded explanations below:
The Proposal:
I propose that we evolve yet again in our quest to perfect the minors system by implementing a LOW minors in addition to what we have now (HIGH minors). The Low minors designation would create a spot for prospects who have ZERO IP/AB in the Major Leagues. We’ve created our Dynasty League, and I feel that this is essential to continuing the evolution of our League in general. Now, there are many ways this can be accomplished, which I’ll do my best to explain in some quick detail. PLEASE NOTE: This is not a completed, agreed upon, final decision of any kind. There will be a change in the Minor League system at some point in the near future, but there are no certainties yet as to just what we plan on doing.
Current Structure:
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
This is what we have currently. It speaks for itself. Here are some ideas for expanding the system:
Proposal 1: Doubling the System
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
Low Minors
NO Appearances
Low Minors
NO Appearances
Low Minors
NO Appearances
Low Minors
NO Appearances
Low Minors
NO Appearances
This structure doubles the amount of minor leaguer’s we have in our system, which I feel is probably excessive for what most of the league is into. I’m just trying to give a little more depth into what we could have, and actually I feel that there is more than enough minor league talent in the free agent list to accommodate this structure. The issue here would be interest, which I wholeheartedly understand.
Proposal 2: Bare Bones
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
Low Minors
NO Appearances
Low Minors
NO Appearances
Low Minors
NO Appearances
This one is basically a combination of the two systems, which doesn’t add ANY additional places for prospects, but implements the Low Minors spots in place of a few usable High Minors eligible players. This would be a pretty good system for some of the people who don’t make a crazy amount of moves, yet want to get the whole “I cultivate prospects” experience. To me, it doesn’t solve my whole “we need more spots for good prospects” issue, but there’s some merit to the idea of limiting the usable prospects.
Proposal 3: Happy Mediums?
LOW MINORS WEIGHTED
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
Low Minors
NO Appearances
Low Minors
NO Appearances
Low Minors
NO Appearances
Low Minors
NO Appearances
or
HIGH MINORS WEIGHTED
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
High Minors
130 AB / 50 IP
Low Minors
NO Appearances
Low Minors
NO Appearances
Low Minors
NO Appearances
One of these systems might be our very best happy medium, as it combines the Low and High minor leagues, while only adding 2 additional roster spots to the league. Now, its up to the group as to how they’d like to work this whole thing, but a combination of the two levels would look something like this.
There are some potential issues that could arise from this new system idea. I’m not going to pretend for a second that this won’t confuse and annoy some of the already confused and annoyed with our current structure. It’s very hard to police this minors thing, and until ESPN decides to put a minor league designation in their league database (Don’t gimme that bullshit that its never done, ESPN, because Yahoo and CBS both have it!), we have to do some policing on our own. Once we decide on a structure that is right for the league, we could determine a few things:
Why do we need this?
How we add the players?
Who picks first?
How will it all be tracked?
How many times will Cliff break the rules?
What are the penalties?
How many will be kept?
How many questions/complaints will Brian have?
So basically think about what you’d be most into here. As Minor League Coordinator and Media director, I’m going to strongly push to make this additional prospect thing happen by the ALL STAR BREAK 2016. You’ll all thank me for it in a few years, when SUPER-PROSPECT FUCKFACE GONZALEZ throws a 3 hit shutout off your High Minors spot in the Championship Week to lock up a title for you. That probably won’t happen, but you can dream!
There has been much conversation over the years about abandoning our single bracket standing system, which has been voted on (over and over again) in off-season referendum. I’m not 100% why we care so much, but the issue of divisions was recently brought up on our festering cesspool of a chat not too long ago, so I decided I would analyze some interesting ways we could split the teams up if we actually decided to create these divisions for the 2017 season.
Lets just get a little historical perspective for those of us who forgot what the long long ago past was (2013):
LAST DIVISIONS
AMERICAN
NATIONAL
TEAM
TEAM
Toms River 3peat OffendaZ
Angel in the TROUTfield
Scarlet Knights
River City Mashers
Barnegat Banana Slugs
WVU Bombers
Pine Lake Black Mambas
Whitestone Bulldogs
Orlando Stunnaz
Somerville Sluggers
Look at some of those teams… The good old days when we had MULTIPLE Tutoras, a suspected serial killer, Bombers and Mambas, an ACTUAL ANGEL in the TROUTFIELD, and a 3 time champ that just HAD to end their name with a Z. These placements in the divisions were from the original construction of the league (I believe), and had really no significance of any kind.
Here’s a few ideas I came up with while just sitting around, daydreaming of League Divisional construction. Yes, I actually gave this thought:
TR PRIDE MOTHERFUCKA
LOCATION BASED
TOMS RIVER
THE WORLD
TEAM
TEAM
River City Cuban Missiles
Springfield Isotopes
Pine Lake People’s Champs
Barnegat Banana Slugs
Rojo’s Resurgence
OG Trout Fishing Club
Main St Mooninitez
Dee-Generation X
Whitestone Bulldogs
Club Going Up on Altuve
OK, I mean this one doesn’t take much thought to comprehend. Seeing as how this league was created and constructed in Toms River, as well as most of the league originally living in Toms River, a natural divisional structure could easily be the CURRENT Toms River dwellers to basically wherever the fuck you others live (Classified as “The World“). This has been made much easier by the Mayflower Voyage that Dee-Generation X owner Mike Odom took out to the West Coast. Also, I think I heard T say that Connor lives in Jackson or something. Actually, even if he doesn’t and still lives in TR, guess what hes part of the world because I don’t care. From there you have MR NYC and the 2 South Jersey guys (NOTE: anything south of TR is SOUTH JERSEY. Deal with it) to round out the group. Fun fun everyone.
Now, if you follow the chat like the 4 of you do, you know that politics really is what we discuss the majority of the time. Whether you’re a Socialist piece of garbage (Smitty) or a Racist idiot (Greg), the political spectrum really does vary among the group. A veritable cornucopia of ranging opinions one might say. I took some liberties with affiliations, so maybe I’m wrong here, but here’s the POLITICS VERSION of the Backyard League:
Just make them all go away please…….
POLITICS
LEFTIES
RIGHTIES
TEAM
TEAM
River City Cuban Missiles
Springfield Isotopes
Main St Mooninitez
OG Trout Fishing Club
Dee-Generation X
Whitestone Bulldogs
Barnegat Banana Slugs
Rojo’s Resurgence
Club Going Up on Altuve
Pine Lake People’s Champs
On a quick look, the Lefties really spell themselves out there easily. You have 2 teachers, a black, a vegan, and for some reason little old me! Who’d of ever thought I would be considering myself a DEM-E-CRAT? Well I’m not really, but for the context of this and the chat, lets just let our imagination fly. The Righties division is really where I took some liberties here. Thanks to our chats and his rantings and ravings, we know how Mikey T feels about social and economical issues, as he aligns with his boy Rafael “TED” Cruz. Greg has come out to agree with T on some of these issues, but has taken a more, lets say, racist approach. Hes an obvious Trump supporter, so that’s another easy one here. From there, you have a guy in the financial world (Cliff), who I’m just placing in this division, and two guys that I have NO WORLDLY IDEA how they feel about anything regarding politics. I do feel that the Ryan’s are 2 incredibly decent human beings, so their views wont align with Greg’s or T’s, but in the Republican bracket you go because I just don’t..know……
Now, if you guys are still with me here (maybe one or two of you are), this is my favorite. We’ve spoke often enough about natural rivalries for trash talk purposes, and I feel that I have put together the most reasonable set of divisions based off of each team and a rival in my eyes. Some teams have MANY MANY rivals, but these pairings work the best:
Pictured: Lobman and T’s solid beard game
BIG RIVALRIES
AMERICAN
NATIONAL
TEAM
TEAM
River City Cuban Missiles
Springfield Isotopes
OG Trout Fishing Club
Barnegat Banana Slugs
Main St Mooninitez
Dee-Generation X
Rojo’s Resurgence
Pine Lake People’s Champs
Whitestone Bulldogs
Club Going Up on Altuve
The first pair is the BLOOD FEUD of the 2 league creators in Mikey T and myself. In reality, we are great friends and I love him like a brother, but get us onto the chat and in fantasy baseball circles and I hope all the bad things in life happen to him. Its really that simple. NEXT we have a pairing of a couple of South Jersey yokels. Greg and Brian have so many correlations, its almost hard to count at this point. You can use their vaunted trading habits, their complete contrast in the political spectrum, their differences in music, and I could go on and on but won’t go on. It just makes sense.
Next up are the former Co-champs (3 consecutive terrible years), and whether it makes DX owner Mike Odom sad or not they are DIRECT RIVALS. Other than that, they are uninteresting to me and I’ll move on. The Battle of the Ryans is next, which is location based, presence in the chat based, and basically that’s it so lets just call it the Battle of the Ryans and move on. Lastly, its the most obvious pairing in the league, which would be the Battle of the Faceless Men. This only works if you suspend your disbelief and believe that Connor is actually controlling his team, and not Mikey T, so let’s work off of that for these purposes. Despite the VERY WELCOMED appearance by our buddy Cliff at the draft, you just never really hear a lot from either of these guys during the season. It’s very hard to trade with either team, and neither one is lighting up the roster move wire, so couple that with the two guys having NO involvement with the chat, its the easiest pairing of teams to split.
So there, guys. I figured out a few really fun scenarios that we could use to split into the new divisions for the 2017 season, should The Commish decide to put it on the ballot for the 5th consecutive season. I hope everyone gets a lot out of my suggestions when it comes to voting time, or I convinced you all to just leave it the way it is. Maybe I’ll think of more when its on the ballot in 2018 AND BEYOND…..
Welcome to the page (Updated). Please feel free to write whatever you’d like. There is no censorship here, and ALL fun thoughts, insight, complaints, stories, and public trade offers are fair game.
This site is here to continue with the overwhelming information stream that we already have for our fantasy baseball page, and life in general. I’ve been thinking about making this for a while, mostly to track some of the happenings on the site, and really to give everyone a forum to post, well, anything they want really. Mainly we will focus this thing on the fantasy baseball page, but hey, go nuts with whatever you’d like.
Please note: This will be a good storage site for all of our favorite stories, rankings, T’d Up episodes, Trade Block discussions, etc.
There’s also an app, so maybe it’ll be good. I’ll check it out and let you know.
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