Opening the Flood Gates

The people's thirst for fantasy and baseball chatter and news was great, but the Commish's vast oceans of baseball knowledge and time was not enough to satisfy. So he chose to open the flood gates, let us peons loose, and give us the power to write blogs.

Here I go then, while in the past I have relied purely on the incomparable Doug Mirabelli for almost all of my baseball humor and blog posts, I thought I would start some sort of weekly Top 5 list. While not the most original idea of all time I know I can stick to this for a weekly blog.

In this weeks addition I am going to list the Top 5 Ways to Make Baseball More Watchable:

Travers, Pflanz Discuss Blockbuster Trade

???/

We've seen a lot of big trades in April, could another early deal go down?

Week 5 Power Rankings

This week we saw 5 three-game streaks come to an end. Brad, Pflanz, and Dan had their 3 winning streaks snapped while Andy and Perka notched their first wins of the season, breaking up their 3 game losing streaks. There is still a clear separation between the top 5 teams in this league and the rest of the field, but the gap has closed slightly due to some impressive (and record breaking) week 4 showings. Biggest jumps this week were Russ from 5th to 2nd and Keeves from 10th to 7th, biggest drops were Bryan from 7th to 10th and Richie from 9th to 12th, and with Dan's loss there is a new #1...

Top Performers and Scapegoats

Week 3 MVP: Carlos Gonzalez!!!!!

Worst of Week 3: Josh Hamilton

Click through for the rest of the best and worst of week 3...

Week 4 Power Rankings

It was a good week for competition as four of the six matchups this week were decided by 2 points or less. Dan continues his reign as number 1, and while the next 4 names stayed the same, their order has changed. Right now the top 5 teams are looking miles ahead of the rest of the league, but it's a long season as we know. Biggest jump this week was John from 9th to 6th, biggest drop was Russ from 2nd to 5th.

Matchup of the Week

A 2011 Championship rematch takes center stage as this week's MoW

Top Performers and Scapegoats

Week 2 MVP: Prince Fielder

Worst of Week 2: Jonathan Broxton

Click through for the rest of the best and worst of week 2...

Week 3 Power Rankings

The closest finish this week was 7-3, so there were a lot of blowouts, but surprisingly, the power rankings didn't shift too much. Dan and Russ remain at #1 and #2 respectively, and there was only 1 new member of the top 5. Biggest jump this week was Pflanz from 9th to 5th, biggest drop was Bryan from 3rd to 6th.

Matchup of the Week

It's the favorite vs. the rookie on Master's weekend

Top Performers & Scapegoats

Week 1 MVP: Chris Davis

Worst of Week 1: Adam LaRoche

Click through for the best and worst of week 1...

Week 2 Power Rankings

Early season power rankings are going to change a lot, so be prepared for some big jumps or big drops in these first few weeks. Number 1 will stay number 1 as Dan got the win over Greg this week. However, the rest of the top 5 has changed significantly. The biggest jump this week was Richie (12th to 6th), and the biggest drop was Keeves (6th to 11th). Click through for the full rankings...

The Mega Season Preview

I won't bore you guys with a long intro, I stuck to the same basic formula of years past: ranking every team by giving report card grades for each category, then writing a summary where usually I'll make you feel really good and then really bad within the same paragraph.

What makes this preview different is that I took some of my favorite quotes from baseball movies and gave one to each team. Some of them fit really well, others don't but I kinda sorta made it work. It's a pretty lengthy read so you may want to wait 'til you're punishing some porcelain to dive in, and possibly bring a snack.

Click through to see your fate...

John's Wicked Biased Pre-Season Rankings

by John “Johnny Champion” DeMovellan

The 2013 baseball season is finally upon us!  Thank you Andy for the best draft location around and to Keeves for all the pizza.  The draft went extremely well (except for Eddie taking forever), the weather was beautiful, and everyone was actually there. As for improvements to the league I suggest we get a wicked awesome trophy, preferably, something like the Stanley Cup so I can obnoxiously drink out of it whenever around league members.  Before I continue with my pre-season rankings I will say that this year was more difficult than usual as pretty much everyone has a legitimate chance in making the playoffs (we all know its luck from there).  Anyway, welcome Richie and Bryan to the Franchise and just so you have some background as to what has happened in the past…here is a brief recap (sorry Russ).

CHAMPIONSHIPS/REGULAR SEASON WINNERS

2008-Mark beat Russ 7-3 in championship…Russ had 1^st seed with 132-79-9 record.

2009-Mark beats Zack 10-0…Russ had 1^st seed with 140-72-8 record.

2010-Mark beats Russ with use of a questionable tiebreaker…John had 1^st seed with a 128-84-8 record.

2011-Dan beats Russ 6-4…John had 1^st seed with 139-71-10 record.

2012-John beats Zhou 6-4…John had 1^st seed with 124-84-12 record.

PFLANZ TRADES-See Russell’s post “Some Keeper Facts” for other keeper trades

(2008) Pflanz trades Albert Pujols* and Tom Gorzelanny to Russell for Corey Hart and Nick Swisher…                                                        *Russ has kept Pujols since

(2008) Pflanz trades Ryan Braun* to Mark for Carlos Beltran…

*Mark has kept Braun since

(2008) Planz trades Cliff Lee* to Eddie for James Loney…

*Cliff Lee won AL Cy Young that year going 22-3

(2008) Pflanz trades Hideki Matsui and Nick Swisher to Matt Pru for CC Sabathia!*…

            *Pflanz has kept CC since

(2009) Pflanz trades Rickie Weeks and Zack Greinke to Mark for Mike Aviles and Jonathan Sanchez   …*Greinke won Cy Young that year with a 2.16 ERA

 Ranks after the jump...

Matchup of the Week

MoW is back! This year on Tuesdays! Plenty of tantalizing opening round match-ups to choose from this week, but there can only be one MoW. First a few matchups that are intruiging, but didn't quite peak my interest enough:

• Bryan vs. Andy - The rookie tries to take down a seasoned veteran for his first win.
• Russ vs. Mark - The league's best rivalry hasn't been what it used to be in the last couple of years.
• Perka vs. Pflanz - The  "homeroom rivalry" is always good for providing message board fodder.

But there can only be one, so week one's MoW is...

Monday Power Rankings

From now on, I'm going to stick to a weekly format for the blog, with something to put up each day. I'll try to stay on top of it, but that's always easy to say in the first week of the season. I'd like to do weekly segments like add of the week, who's hot/not, matchup of the week, etc.

Monday is going to be power rankings day. These are based off of last year's finish and general feeling of the league after the draft, these are not my pre-season predictions, which will be posted here on Friday (column day). Click through for week 1 Power Rankings...