Thursday, April 26, 2012

Bullets Blog Fantasy NBA

As you may have expected, we decided to turn the NBA playoffs into a fantasy contest. A quick overview of the rules:

  • Each team drafts 16 players (6 guards, 6 forwards, 4 centers)
  • Each team must draft exactly one player from each team
  • The following categories are equally weighted as fantasy points: points, rebounds, assists
  • As the playoffs progress, players will be eliminated until the Finals, when each fantasy team will be left with one player from each division champion
We drafted over the course of the past two days. The results:

Monday, April 16, 2012

I Hate Sidney Crosby

If you watch sports with me or follow me on Twitter (@jaylike), you know that I have strong preferences when it comes to sports and I (usually) have good reasoning to back them up. You also know that my sports allegiances lie with Philadelphia (and Ricky Rubio). I'll admit that I watched maybe half a dozen Flyers games this season - maybe. I didn't know a whole lot about the team, but I definitely knew as much as a casual hockey fan should know.

Enter the NHL Playoffs. Three games in and I'm about as big a Flyer fan as I've ever been (and I used to be a pretty big one, back in the days of Eric Lindros and Keith Primeau and Mark Recchi and Chris Therien and Dan McGillis and Robert Esche). I've watched every minute of games 1 and 3 and I followed game 2 on twitter and the ESPN app because I was at the Phillies game (fuck the Mets, by the way).

And I have two takeaways from the series thus far:

  1. Playoff hockey is fucking great, especially when two teams legitimately hate each other.
  2. Sidney Crosby is the biggest bitch in professional sports (European soccer included).

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

What Happened To The Phillies?

Let me preface this blog by telling you that this is not a reaction to the Phils' 1-3 start or their 2 losses to the Pirates. This is just how I feel about my favorite sports team (by far).

The Phillies are sell-outs.

And not in the sense of selling out every home game (which they normally do, but probably won't this season). Sell-outs in the sense that they had a great plan for short-term and long-term success and they traded it in for the Yankees-esque model of paying top dollar for other teams' best players.

Don't get me wrong: Roy Halladay is the most solid anchor in any rotation and Cliff Lee is among my favorite Phillies. And even Hunter Pence is growing on me to the point that I have one of his tee shirt jerseys. I just long for a team like the 2008 Phillies - not because they were World Fuckin' Champions, but because they were the most entertaining baseball team to watch and the consistently put up more runs than anyone else. A quick look at that roster:

  • Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins (all in prime form), and Pedro Feliz across the infield
  • Pat Burrell, Shane Victorino, Jayson Werth in the outfield
  • Carlos Ruiz
  • Brett Myers, Cole Hamels, Joe Blanton, JA Happ, Jamie Moyer, Kyle Kendrick starting
  • Ryan Madson and Brad Lidge in relief
It should be noted that this was the season that Cole Hamels became World Series MVP Cole Hamels (he didn't even start on Opening Day). 

One of the reasons I loved this team: Howard, Utley, Rollins, Burrell, Victorino, Werth, Ruiz, Hamels, Happ, and Madson were all home-grown talent. If they weren't drafted by Philly, they rose to prominence as members of the Phils. It was a great team all around. 

And then Ruben Amaro happened.

Monday, April 9, 2012

BB Fantasy Master's Recap

Let me start by saying that this was a big hit and we're going to do it for (probably) every major from now until forever. With that, here's how we finished:

6th Place - Team Toph (+20)
Well, Jason Day withdrawing seven holes into his second round knocked him out of contention. And not having any golfers under par for the tournament didn't help. He finished with the lowest stroke total (because Day withdrew) but he combined for a +20. The breakdown:

  • Luke Donald, England (+3)
  • Jason Day, Australia (+5)(Withdrew)
  • Henrik Stenson, Sweden (+5)
  • Steve Stricker, United States (+7)
5th Place - Team Brandon (+9)
Another missed cut, although he did significantly better than Toph. 
  • Keegan Bradley, United States (+2)
  • Martin Kaymer, Germany (+6)
  • KJ Choi (+9)(Missed Cut)
  • Peter Hanson, Sweden (-8)
4th Place - Team Marin (-5)
I really though Dave was going to lose the whole thing, but he won the losers bracket (the 3 teams with golfers to miss the cut) and actually finished with a lower score to par than Team Trova. Had he not taken Ishikawa (who missed the cut), he would have been in contention for the virtual green cyberjacket. 
  • Phil Mickelson, United States (-8)
  • Adam Scott, Australia (-4)
  • Ryo Ishikawa, Japan (+9)(Missed Cut)
  • Sergio Garcia, Spain (-2)
And now, onto the teams that all made the cut:

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Jae's MLB Season Preview

I don't even want to write an intro. I'm just gonna jump headfirst into it:

American League East
1. Yankees
2. Red Sox
3. Rays
4. Jays
5. Orioles
Is this the order every season? I think New York is going to run away (4-5 games) with the division and the next three teams are going to battle it out for the second seed. Don't be surprised if both Wild Card teams come out of the East - because there's two Wild Cards now. If it comes down to Boston vs. Tampa in a one-game play-in game, I'm taking Boston 4 times out of 5. 


American League Central
1. Tigers
2. Indians
3. Twins
4. Royals
5. White Sox
I don't know why, but I really like Minnesota. It probably stems from the fact that their farm team was the local baseball team when I lived in Rochester. I feel like Mauer/Morneau/... wow, they really don't have a great team. But Detroit and Cleveland are primed to be very solid teams. Good hitting, good pitching. But at the end of the day, Cleveland is Cleveland (which gets narrowly edged out by Detroit). 


American League West
1. Rangers
2. Angels
3. Mariners
4. A's
I hope Pujols works out in Los Angeles, but I just have a feeling that they're going to regret paying him that much money - the only question is if they're going to regret it sooner or later. I just like Texas all around - solid infield, solid outfield, solid starting pitching, solid closer. 

(Note: I was going to just do the AL in this post, but here's the other half):

National League East
1. Phillies
2. Marlins
3. Nationals
4. Braves
5. Mets
It's a crapshoot for the top four teams in the division. I'm picking the Phillies because I like them. That's it. I wouldn't be surprised if Miami got off to a really invigorated start and blew everyone away. I wouldn't be surprised if Washington clicked as a team and won the division. What would surprise me is if the Mets are in contention at any point of the season besides opening weekend. 

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Bullets Blog Fantasy Master's

We really have no limits when it comes to turning sports (or anything else) into a fantasy contest. Next up: The Master's.



Here's a brief run-down of the rules (don't worry, they didn't get weird like BBFMM):

  • Each player drafts four players
  • All four players must be from four different countries
  • Lowest total strokes wins
  • If any of your golfers misses the cut, you lose
    • Unless everyone has a player that misses the cut. In which case it just continues normally. 
We did a 6-team snake draft and here's who we ended up with:

Team Jay - "The GayMen Corner"
Rory McIlroy, Northern Ireland
Hunter Mahan, United States
Justin Rose, England
Louis Oosthuizen (Mr. Irrelevant), South Africa

Team Trova - "The Fore Horsemen of the Apocalypse"
Tiger Woods, United States
Graeme McDowell, Northern Ireland
Trevor Immelman, South Africa
Francesco Molinari, Italy

Team Marin - "Amy Mickelson"
Phil Mickelson, United States
Adam Scott, Australia
Ryo Ishikawa, Japan
Sergio Gargia, Spain

Team Toph
Luke Donald, England
Jason Day, Australia
Henrik Stenson, Sweden
Steve Stricker, United States

Team Brandon - "Tiger's Wood"
Keegan Bradley, United States
Martin Kaymer, Germany
KJ Choi, South Korea
Peter Hanson, Sweden

Team Alex
Lee Westwood, England
Charl Schwartzel, South Africa
Bubba Watson, United States
Geoff Ogilvy, Australia

The only question I have is who is more likely to miss the cut and screw over his team: Sergio or Henrik? 
(Not to hate on Sergio, though. I really wanted him as my last pick.)

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

BBFMM Recap

I think I can speak for everyone involved when I say that BBFMM was a hit. It made the tournament more exciting than ever before - because let's be honest, everyone knew deep down that Kentucky was going to win it all.

Team Jay: 983 points
Team Toph: 978 points


Notable Individual Players - Team Jay

  • Tyshawn Taylor: 6 games, 149 points, 24.8 avg
  • Draymond Green: 3 games, 120 points, 40.0 avg
  • Jared Sullinger: 5 games, 155 points, 31.0 avg
  • Harrison Barnes: 4 games, 94 points, 23.5 avg
  • Brandon Davies: 2 games, 78 points, 39.0 avg
  • Jeffrey Taylor: 2 games, 31 points, 15.5 avg
Team Toph
  • Anthony Davis: 6 games, 216 points, 36.0 avg
  • Thomas Robinson: 6 games, 196 points, 32.7 avg
  • Tyler Zeller: 4 games, 129 points, 32.2 avg
  • Russ Smith: 1 game, 15 points
  • Garrett Stutz: 1 game, 14 points
Now on to the Master's. 

Sunday, April 1, 2012

BBFMM Update

If you need a recap of how Bullets Blog Fantasy March Madness works, you can find a link here. Originally, our plan was to post updates after every round. But that would have been far too many posts (and neither of us really wanted to do that) so I'll just summarize the contest so far in the post before the Championship Game.

Every round has been close except for the First Four (when I had 2 BYU players, who won, and Toph had 1 Iona player, who lost). Except for that, every round has been within 20 points.

There's something to be said for the fact that I've used 3 less players than Toph and my players have still played 3 more games. But at the same time, I only have 1 of my original drafted players left (Tyshawn Taylor) and Toph has 2 (Thomas Robinson & Anthony Davis).

Anthony Davis (Toph) leads all players that have been used with 179 fantasy points. The list:

  • Davis (T): 179
  • Thomas Robinson (T): 160
  • Jared Sullinger (J): 155
  • Tyler Zeller (T): 129
  • Tyshawn Taylor (J): 122
  • Draymond Green (J): 120
  • Harrison Barnes (J): 94
Sure, Toph has the two highest-scoring players on the board. But my players have played an average of 2.27 games and Toph's have played 1.72. I think if we are going to boil BBFMM down to two stats, the first one is Average Games Played and the second one is Average Points Per Player (61.13 to 49.17 in favor of Team Jay). Maybe Points Per Game Played is more relevant than Points Per Player, in which case Team Toph holds a 28.55 - 26.97 advantage. 

Any way you want to break it down, Team Jay currently holds a 917-885 edge over Team Toph. Both teams will have three players playing in the Final. 
  • Team Jay: Terrence Jones (F, UK) & Tyshawn Taylor (G, KU) & Jeff Withey (C, KU)
  • Team Toph: Anthony Davis (F, UK) & Thomas Robinson (F, KU) & Michael Kidd-Gilchrist (F, UK)
Davis and Robinson are going to be the two highest-scoring players in the game. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous.