As we’ve gotten older, our set of priorities have slowly shifted. Throughout our lives we’ve focused and at times obsessed about certain things that we couldn’t care less about five years afterwards. Whether it be dinosaurs, Nintendo, fingerbanging, a scholarship, cheap whisky, a job, or a family, we’ve all focused our efforts in obtaining these items at one point in our lives before moving onto the next challenge . Same goes with fantasy sports. For some, this is a game that is fun to play alongside buddies with a championship reward that is quasi-enticing. For others, this game is a part of the daily routine, with roster moves and news searching throughout parts of each and every day. The good thing about us being in our thirties now is that we can all share different levels of commitment of this league and all be equally happy. I, for instance, do not have any kids to take away a large chunk of time, and therefore, I can sit on the computer and pluck the newly assigned closer before most others. For you, you might have a wife and child that could, and should, take up more of your time. I also sit in front of a computer most of the day while you might be working with your hands, talking on the phone, or driving parts of the day. Again, I have the advantage.
The truth is, I don’t have as many of the outside distractions as some of the others in this league and I am able to give more fucks towards this game. I’m sure I give too many fucks right now but in a few years when I have a family and maybe a different job, there will be less fucks to give towards fantasy baseball. As I see where our teams stack up in the early season and the roster moves that got us here, I’ll try to determine how many fucks we’re giving to our league at the moment. Fantasy baseball usually weeds out the weak which means the more fucks you give, the more chances you have at winning the whole damn thing. I’m not here to judge but I am here to offer up an outside perspective on the perspiration created by the owners in our league and how that might help each one rise up in the standings. As a group we probably give more fucks about fantasy baseball than the average Joe but within our league, it’s apparent that some players either can or will put forth more fucks than others.
Tenniballs to the Wall
New season, same position for our commish. Last year we played more than enough games to establish that Jerome very likely put together the best team in our league and the final result was proof. This year, you might see Romer up top and think he’s destined to repeat but a closer look will reveal that this ain’t true. Jerome is getting away with some lucky weeks as his team has played very average to date but has been blessed with some tight victories and lucky bounces. Jerome was ready to dominate from the mound but all of his starters seem to have at least one atomic meltdown in them and the streaming picks haven’t been great. The lineup has been a mixed bag as well with Ellsbury playing pretty great so far but guys like Prince, Seager, and Myers all getting off to slow starts. The good news is there are some big name guys on the DL that will help improve the stats on this team in a couple of weeks. You know the commish is going to give maximum fucks, which will help him throughout the year but you can probably predict a slight stumble in the standings if his great luck turns in May.
Fuck Yeah: Alexi Ramirex
Fuck Off: Prince Fielder
Fucks Given: 10 out of 10.
Fightin’ Buck Showalters
Season stats can be fun to predict this early in the season based off of the small amount of games we have have played. Allen Craig is probably not going to bat .207 all season just like Matt Wieters isn’t going to bat .337. Where it’s easy to predict a rise and fall for players that are playing outside of their standard historical numbers, it can be harder to predict what a group of players might do. Where you might want to predict that Granger is due to fall down the standings, a closer look at the stats would prove otherwise. This is a very good team with a majority of the players playing very good baseball right now. The aforementioned Matt Weiters is high on Jeff’s list of favorite humans right now because not only is he ripping the seams off the ball for his Orioles, he’s also pumping up Jeff’s fantasy stats. Chase Utley is turning back the clock, Freddie Freeman crushes when his vision is 20/20, and Kendrick, Brantley, and Bonifacio have been nice surprises. Meyer is finally getting some pitching to work as well with Greinke leading a solid bunch with Buerhle, Gio, and Teheran all chipping in every five days. Meyer’s a busy man in San Diego so he’s not allowed to give as many fucks as the rest of the league but he does enough to make sure his roster is respectable and once Miguel Cabrera starts knocking the fuck out of baseballs, Meyer should be cemented as a top five team this summer.
Fuck Yeah: Julio Teheran
Fuck Off: Allen Craig
Fucks Given: 7
Head First Dumb Fucks
J. Petty is another owner who racks up the fucks given throughout the year and the results of his hard work are already obvious. Bryce Harper can’t decide if he wants to not hustle enough or hustle too much and his crazy hustle into third base landed him on the DL in what is becoming an annoying trend for fantasy owners. Petty was so annoyed that he brought league wide attention to Bryce and his thumb with a new team name but the truth is that major league owners always want their players to hustle while fantasy owners wouldn’t mind if they dialed it down out there. It’s not like this team is missing Bryce’s bat or anything, though. These guys are all smacking the shit out of baseballs as this is far and away the best hitting team in our league. Tulo is such a goddamn great baseball player, it’s really fun to watch him hit when he’s healthy and J. Petty has made the early season brilliant move of the season by picking up Charlie Blackmon and his hot stick this month. Not to mention Nolan Arenado looks like he might be figuring out how to hit big league pitching. If the Rockies are scoring, it’s usually because of one of these three players and Jeff Petty has to be loving the production every time he turns on Root Sports. The pitching has been good enough with Scherzer calming any fluke fears and leading this pitching staff. This team is really good and could be our best rather easily and given Jeff’s history and consistent effort; I would be surprised if this team dips any lower than fourth at any point this season.
Fuck Yeah: Charlie Blackmon
Fuck Off: Jim Johnson
Fucks Given: 9.5
Piss On The Ball
POTB: An acronym used when a baseball team is excelling at making hard contact with a pitched baseball. That sentence above is the definition of Pissin’ On The Baseball, a definition we all aspire to use when describing our fantasy baseball team. Kevin Petty would like his fantasy team to ascribe to the POTB mantra but so far they have done anything but. If it weren’t for stolen bases, Kevin might have the weakest offense in our league so far. He can’t blame Dee Gordon who is playing about eight levels above what anyone thought he might as he’s been Kevin’s most productive hitter so far. Petty was already tired of penciling in Prince Fielder so he shipped his tubby butt over to DeFelice in exchange for Braun in a blockbuster early season trade. Braun has helped some but is currently on the DL and the rest of this lineup is Pissin’ On Their Legs when they see big league pitching. At a certain point Jason Heyward has to hit. He’s still young but he’s now had enough plate appearances to think this guy is nothing more than a .240/15/70 guy. An adjustment period was expected for Cano and so far he’s having problems hitting the ball with much power no matter what stadium he’s playing in. The pitching on this team is better than the hitting with Kevin unsurprisingly leading our saves category but surprisingly not picking up a ton of streaming pitchers. Burnett and Kazmir have been pretty good but Kevin is still waiting for a lot of his young starters to find a groove. Overall, Kevin sits in fourth place but even he can’t feel confident about his spot as he’s only three games ahead of our 10th place team and when you drill into the numbers more, you’ll see that Kevin should be at the bottom half of our standings. This team will likely play better in May but it’s not a given that they will be good enough to win without some wheeling and dealing from Kevin later on.
Fuck Yeah: Dee Gordon
Fuck Off: Zack Wheeler
Fucks Given: 9.5
Harry Doyle
It seems like no matter how Matt assembles his team, they just want to be an all-hit, no-pitch kind of squad. Matt went a little pitching heavy in the draft and was probably excited to finally have some ball throwing studs but a lot of early season injuries tempered the excitement and inflated the ERA in April. With Kershaw, Darvish, and Iwakuma missing most, if not all of April, Matt was forced to pick up some streamers and he was pretty awful at doing so. Seems like no matter who Matt picked up, no matter the matchup, that pitcher got his tits ripped. This led to some brutal numbers in the loss, ERA, and WHIP stats. Matty does have a nice foundation of young guys like Cole, Ventura, and Eovaldi so once his early round picks get healthy, this rotation could be a very good one. At least the sticks stayed healthy in April and no owner had such a nice 1B combo as M. Suer did with Pujols and Abreu. Albert is back to smash like it’s 2008 all over again and if he’s finally healthy, he’s going to be a great hitter this year. Jose Abreu was a bit of a wild card in the draft but this wild swinger is connecting on some big flies and pumping up Matt’s HR and RBI totals. The stats might suggest that Matt is a little lucky not to be further down the standings but I’d argue that his injury bad luck is weighing him down more than anything. M. Suer is starting to give more fucks about his roster every season and he’ll hope that he’ll have less crazy pitching coaching moves to make and more spectating to do in May.
Fuck Yeah: Albert Pujols
Fuck Off: Streaming pitchers
Fucks Given: 8
Dark Helmets
For what seems like the 10th consecutive month, Arch and Rickey are the best in ERA and WHIP. It’s nice in theory to aim for that but these two aim and execute this strategy seemingly every month of every year. With the usuals of Adam Wainwright, Jose Fernandez, Jordan Zimmerman, along with surprises like Alex Wood, Alfredo Simon, and Dillon Gee, you can see why a flatizza is the only thing flatter than the ERA and WHIP on this team. Unfortunately for these two, the bats are still asleep for most of this lineup who is batting .249 as a team, worst in our league. I’m still surprised these two are hanging onto Moustakas this far into the year and his .158 average is certainly not helping. Pablo Sandoval is proving that “best shape of his life” status doesn’t exactly translate to best numbers of his life because Pablo has a smaller waist size to go along with his shrinking offensive stats. Nelson Cruz is back on the juice, I mean, back to hitting balls out of orbit and Paul Goldschmidt is being his normal steady, stellar self. This pitching staff will probably frustrate batters no matter what month we’re in but the real question is if this frustrating lineup will start putting the ball in play a little more often. Arch is usually right on top of things so if there’s a helpful batter flailing around in the free agent pool, Arch will toss him a life preserver and help him over to his starting lineup.
Fuck Yeah: Jose Fernandez
Fuck Off: Pable Sandoval
Fucks Given: 9.5
Ninja Blacksox
Every spring Castillo will talk to us Shockers to make sure we have a full slow pitch softball roster this summer. It’s a tough job to be a rec team manager so I don’t envy Yo’s troubles of forming a team every summer but you’d think he’d have enough practice to fill out a complete fantasy roster in this league. Every year one of Castillo’s closers goes down and every year that spot remains blank. Go pick up a setup guy or a potential saves guy or a RP that gets some starts. Just give a fuck. Same goes with lapses in focus with his rotation. I happened to be relaxing on a Saturday afternoon watching two great pitching performances by Jon Lester and Masahiro Tanaka and decided to take a gander at our league scoreboard to see what lucky owner(s) had them. Both pitchers were dealing and both pitchers were on Castillo’s roster and both happened to be on Castillo’s bench. Castillo, I’m guessing you take a morning dump sometime around 9:45 every day. At the very least, get on your phone and make sure your best pitchers are actually in the starting lineup that day. Then wipe your ass and move on with your day. Aside from general lack of fucks, this team is still a pretty good one. Brian Dozier is not a household name but he’s been tremendous for Castillo and two first basemen left for dead (Teixeira and Morneau) have been great late round steals so far. The pitching is dragging behind but it’s not certain how much of that is due to poor performances on the mound or lack of players in the starting lineup. Either way, this team is going through a gamut of emotions, just ask Brian McCann.
Fuck Yeah: Masahiro Tanaka
Fuck Off: J.J. Hardy
Fucks Given: 4
Heads UP
We’ve covered a couple of teams that are outperforming their stats and now we’ve come to a team that is underperforming in the standings compared to their batting and pitching numbers. Downs has an average lineup and above average pitching staff and if he keeps this pace up, it should equate to more fantasy baseball victories. Garrett Richards might just become a great 2014 free agent find for Downs as he’s got some serious sauce on his pitches and looks like a potential all star. Samardzija and Cashner have always had wicked movement on their pitches and they have harnessed the accuracy of these, at least for now. This rotation has some real potential but with guys like Garza, Lackey, and Harang, the potential for blowup is always there. This team’s glaring weakness was power when we reviewed them after the draft and that’s exactly how it’s played out so far with their home run leader sitting at just five from Garrett Jones's bat. This team needs to win the other contact and speed categories to become a dominant team and right now they aren’t at all cooperating. Nobody is really having a great season so far outside of some nice games from Rajai Davis and Downs is going to need Martin Prado to pull his head out of whatever collective asshole the Diamondbacks are currently playing inside of. Downs vowed to give more fucks a couple of years ago and he has stayed true to his promise but I did catch Kolten Wong in his lineup a few days ago even though Kolten was sent down to AAA a week prior. A man with kids and a job at a restaurant is not a man that can commit a ton of time to fantasy baseball and while Tim has definitely gotten better, it’s players like Kolten Wong that remind us that it’s hard for some dudes to focus too many fucks towards fantasy sports no matter what.
Fuck Yeah: Rajai Davis
Fuck Off: Nick Swisher
Fucks Given: 4.5
Stroke My Shaft
Zach is one of, if not the tallest player in our league but he should be standing even taller in our standings. The middle of the pack is so tightly packed that it’s possible Zach could be in fourth place by the time you read this so all it could take is a couple smart pickups here and there before Z. Suer is where he belongs. He doesn’t belong at the top, though because guys like CC Sabathia, Jason Grilli, Dexter Fowler, and Austin Jackson have had too many horrific games. Generally, the hitting on this team is pretty steady as Zach did a nice job of drafting Miguel Montero, Josh Donaldson, Neil Walker, and Michael Morse, who are playing great. This team hits for power and will hit for some more when Zimmerman and Trumbo return from the DL. The pitching staff has been maddening to watch. Price, Shields, Sabathia, and Strasburg all have incredible ability but they’ve been prone to far too many bad innings so far this year. If and when they settle down, so should Zach’s pitching numbers. We knew this would be a volatile team as soon as Zach drafted a lot of his volatile players which is why we will probably watch Zach’s heart rate and place in the standings bounce up and down all year.
Fuck Yeah: Michael Morse
Fuck Off: CC Sabathia
Fucks Given: 8
Dew Crew
This team looks old and slow on paper and they’ve been old and slow on dirt and grass so far this year. This team is starting off the season like Maydew does on an early Friday morning after closing down In The Zone. Slow, sluggish, and reeking of regret. Nobody has been worse than Will Venable so far and even though he’s on Dew’s bench, it might be time to give up on him. Santana, Hosmer, Phillips, Beltre, Jeter, Kemp, and Adam Jones have all been all starts at one point and they alone could make up the 2014 falling stars roster. Some of these guys are too good for this to continue but some of these guys are also too old and too broken down for Dew to completely ignore the possibility that these guys are finished. The pitching has held on to a certain extent, which has helped Maydew avoid the cellar. Tim Hudson was holding onto his MLB life after a pretty bad 2013 season but he looks like the Tenacious Tim of old for the Giants so far. Gallardo, C.J. Wilson, Hammel, and Peavy have been good enough but they are prone to gopher balls and this bullpen scares the crap out of me. I have to admit that it’s not looking real promising for Maydew out of the gates but if you trust veterans to figure it out, you can expect this team to improve. Maydew is a veteran owner so it’ll be interesting to see if he trusts the players he drafted or if his patience starts to wear down like a Matt Kemp ligament.
Fuck Yeah: Tim Hudson
Fuck Off: Carlos Santana
Fucks Given: 6
Bullpen Sausage
Richard’s Achilles heel last year was his pitching and once again, he’s getting a snapping feeling in his Achilles when he puts this team in motion. Richard knew he might be in trouble when the autodraft ignored pitching and that’s come to fruition already as he ranks last in quality starts, saves, and WHIP. What’s pretty amazing is that Rich’s team is actually the third best in ERA so you could argue that he’s getting lucky that all these hits and walks aren’t coming around to score...yet. Rich has been out of the country for a decent chunk of the month, which is probably why we’ve seen some awful pitchers out there and some start/sit mistakes but there’s no doubt Witholder is going to have to start giving some good old American fucks if he wants to avoid being laughed at all year. The good news is that Giancarlo Stanton is finally healthy and he’s sending baseballs to places that few others imagined so far this year with some absolute bombs. Carlos Gomez might deserve a solid punch to the teeth every now and then but he’s probably reached star status and looks like a real hitting threat to go along with his undeniably great glove. Edwin Encarnacion’s wrist was a concern coming into the year and that concern has been realized with some bad at bats so far this year. Dustin Pedrioa is also fighting a wrist issue and if his power is sapped this year, it’s going to be a major damper for Rich’s chances. Danny Salazar can’t pitch much worse than he has already and if he can get right, he’ll be a nice strikeout option for a team that needs one. Jesse Chavez is an example of a nice pickup that Rich will have to make more of and giving some more fucks will give this team a chance as we settle into the season.
Fuck Yeah: Giancarlo Stanton
Fuck Off: Danny Salazar
Fucks Given: 3.5
Jose Can You See
Lance must despise turning on the TV when only baseball is on. Not only are his Astros making a mockery of the sport of baseball when they’re out there, Lance is getting that sinking feeling that maybe he’s the guy who has become the Astros of the Shocker Fantasy Baseball league. Even when there is hope that George Springer, Houston’s wonderboy might help save the Astros and Lance’s season, he looks just as overmatched as the rest of the gang. It’s not like the non-Astros are helping much either. Jose Reyes is back to being injured an ineffective, Matt Adams isn’t doing much in St. Louis, David Wright has slumped most of the year, and Dom Brown ain’t good. The pitching does offer some hope, though, especially Johnny Cueto who has been arguably the best pitcher in the game so far this season. Lance is getting nice work from his bullpen and also from guys like Haren, Weaver, Lyles, and Martin Perez, which helps him boast the second best pitching staff in our league so far. Outside of Trout and Jose Bautista, this team is going to have to start hitting the ball or Lance is going to have to start replacing these players with the threat of turning into anything but baseball when he powers on the television.
Fuck Yeah: Johnny Cueto
Fuck Off: Chris Johnson
Fucks Given: 4.5
In what seems to be a useful and fun evaluation, I’m continuing the roto standings portion of this recap for yet another season. These tables help strip away any matchup luck and let us know where we’d fall in the standings if it were based solely on the stats we accrued to date.
A couple of housekeeping items before I leave you alone. Based on the poll results, it looks like we’ll up the buy in next year to the $60-$80 range. I’ll try to gauge people’s preference before next season starts and we’ll land on a solid number sometime before next draft. Just wanted to give you a head’s up that it will increase a little. Also, we split the vote on our championship trophy poll so I’ll see if I can find any trophies that are cheap and worth it and if I can’t, I’ll come up with a t-shirt design for our champion. Any suggestions are welcome. Alright, I hope you guys have no problems locating the boxscorebrothers site and I hope you gave at least 5 fucks towards this April recap. I’ll send you off with a manager that certainly gives a fuck about saying the word fuck. Fucking fuck.