ALL-TIME SBL CHAMPIONS
(5-Team League)
1983 - Gil Hulse
(6-team League)
1984 - Gil Hulse
1985 - Steve Dilbeck
(12-Team League, Division Play)
1986 - Mike Davis (defeated Gregg Patton)
1987 - Gregg Patton
1988 - Jeff Lane
1989 - Steve Dilbeck
1990 - Steve Dilbeck
1991 - Mike Davis (def. Steve Dilbeck, 14-12)
1992 - Vic West
1993 - Gregg Patton (def. Mike Davis, 18-8)
1994 - Dan Evans (def. Gregg Patton, 10-9; strike-shortened season)
1995 - Paul Oberjuerge (def. Steve Dilbeck, 14-9; strike-shortened season)
1996 - Mike Davis (def. Steve Dilbeck, 17-9)
1997 - Vic West d. Dan Evans, 13-13 (8-3 in tiebreaker)
1998 - Gregg Patton (def. Mike Davis, 14-12)
1999 - Mike Davis (def. Damian Secore, 16-10)
2000 - Brian Goff (def. Gregg Patton, 14-12)
2001 - Mike Davis (def. Gregg Patton, 17-9)
2002 - Brian Goff (def. Vic West, 14-12)
2003 - Dan Evans (def. Brian Goff, 15-11)
2004 - Vic West (def. Mike Davis, 14-12)
2005 - Brian Goff (def. Dan Evans, 17-9)
2006 - Brian Goff (def. Paul Oberjuerge, 17-9); Playoffs: Brian Goff d. Steve Dilbeck, 18-8; Paul Oberjuerge d. Vic West, 13-13 (7-4 in tiebreaker)
2007 - Mike Davis (def. Brian Goff, 15-11); Playoffs: Mike Davis d. Steve Dilbeck , 16-10; Brian Goff d. Dan Evans, 14-12
2008 - Mike Davis (def. Brian Goff, 18-8); Playoffs: Mike Davis d. Damian Secore, 20-6; Brian Goff d. Gregg Patton, 14-12
2009 - Paul Oberjuerge (def. Andy Baggerly, 14-12); Playoffs: Paul Oberjuerge d. JP Hoornstra, 20-6; Andy Baggerly d. Dan Evans, 15-11
2010 - Mike Davis (def. Damian Secore, 15-11); Playoffs: Mike Davis d. Gregg Patton, 17-9; Damian Secore d. Paul Oberjuerge, 13-13 (6-5 in tiebreaker)
Friday, October 8, 2010
SBL Series 2010
MOANERS 15, DAMIANUNITED 11
Week 1: Mike 7.5, Damian 3.5; Week 2: Mike 7, Damian 4; Week 3: Damian 6.5, Mike 4.5; Week 4: Mike 6.5, Damian 4.5; Week 5: Damian 6.5, Mike 4.5; Week 6: DAMIAN 5.5, Mike 5.5; Week 7: Mike 6, Damian 5; Week 8: Mike 7, Damian 4; Week 9: Damian 7, Mike 4; Week 10: DAMIAN 5.5, Mike 5.5; Week 11: Damian 7, Mike 4; Week 12: Damian 8.5, Mike 2.5; Week 13: Mike 8, Damian 3; Week 14: Mike 9.5, Damian 1.5; Week 15: Mike 6, Damian 5; Week 16: Damian 6, Mike 5; Week 17: Mike 8, Damian 3; Week 18: Mike 9, Damian 2; Week 19: Damian 6, Mike 5; Week 20: Mike 6, Damian 5; Week 21: Mike 7, Damian 4; Week 22: Mike 7, Damian 4; Week 23: Damian 6.5, Mike 4.5; Week 24: Damian 8, Mike 3l Week 25: Mike 6, Damian 5; Week 26: Mike 8.5, Damian 2.5.
Week 1: Mike 7.5, Damian 3.5; Week 2: Mike 7, Damian 4; Week 3: Damian 6.5, Mike 4.5; Week 4: Mike 6.5, Damian 4.5; Week 5: Damian 6.5, Mike 4.5; Week 6: DAMIAN 5.5, Mike 5.5; Week 7: Mike 6, Damian 5; Week 8: Mike 7, Damian 4; Week 9: Damian 7, Mike 4; Week 10: DAMIAN 5.5, Mike 5.5; Week 11: Damian 7, Mike 4; Week 12: Damian 8.5, Mike 2.5; Week 13: Mike 8, Damian 3; Week 14: Mike 9.5, Damian 1.5; Week 15: Mike 6, Damian 5; Week 16: Damian 6, Mike 5; Week 17: Mike 8, Damian 3; Week 18: Mike 9, Damian 2; Week 19: Damian 6, Mike 5; Week 20: Mike 6, Damian 5; Week 21: Mike 7, Damian 4; Week 22: Mike 7, Damian 4; Week 23: Damian 6.5, Mike 4.5; Week 24: Damian 8, Mike 3l Week 25: Mike 6, Damian 5; Week 26: Mike 8.5, Damian 2.5.
SBL Playoffs
MOANERS 17, INMATES 9
Week 1: Mike 6, Gregg 5; Week 2: Mike 6, Gregg 5; Week 3: Gregg 8, Mike 3; Week 4: Gregg 7, Mike 4; Week 5: Gregg 6, Mike 5; Week 6: Gregg 6.5, Mike 4.5; Week 7: Mike 6, Gregg 5; Week 8: Mike 8.5, Gregg 3.5; Week 9: Mike 8, Gregg 3; Week 10: Mike 7, Gregg 4; Week 11: Mike 7, Gregg 4; Week 12: Gregg 6, Mike 5; Week 13: Gregg 8, Mike 3; Week 14: Mike 9, Gregg 2; Week 15: Mike 10, Gregg 1; Week 16: Gregg 6, Mike 5; Week 17: Mike 8, Gregg 3; Week 18: Mike 9, Gregg 2; Week 19: Mike 6.5, Gregg 4.5; Week 20: Mike 7, Gregg 4; Week 21: Mike 8, Gregg 3; Week 22: Mike 8, Gregg 3; Week 23: Mike 8.5, Gregg 2.5; Week 24: Mike 6, Gregg 5; Week 25: Gregg 6, Mike 5; Week 26: Gregg 7.5, Mike 3.5.
DAMIANUNITED 13, ZERO'S 13 (DAM U. WINS TIEBREAKER, 6-5)
Week 1: Damian 10.5, Paul 0.5; Week 2: Damian 6, Paul 5; Week 3: Damian 8.5, Paul 2.5; Week 4: Paul 10, Damian 1; Week 5: Damian 6, Paul 5; Week 6: Paul 8, Damian 3; Week 7: Damian 6.5, Paul 4.5; Week 8: Paul 6.5, Damian 4.5; Week 9: Damian 7, Paul 4; Week 10: Paul 7, Damian 4; Week 11: Damian 6.5, Paul 4.5; Week 12: Paul 6, Damian 5; Week 13: Paul 7, Damian 4; Week 14: Damian 6, Paul 5; Week 15: Paul 8, Damian 3; Week 16: Paul 6, Damian 5; Week 17: Damian 6, Paul 5; Week 18: Paul 8, Damian 3; Week 19: Damian 6, Paul 5; Week 20: Paul 6, Damian 5; Week 21: Paul 7.5, Damian 3.5; Week 22: Paul 6, Damian 5; Week 23: Damian 8, Paul 3; Week 24: Damian 8, Paul 3; Week 25: DAMIAN 5.5, Paul 5.5; Week 26: Paul 6.5, Damian 4.5.
Week 1: Mike 6, Gregg 5; Week 2: Mike 6, Gregg 5; Week 3: Gregg 8, Mike 3; Week 4: Gregg 7, Mike 4; Week 5: Gregg 6, Mike 5; Week 6: Gregg 6.5, Mike 4.5; Week 7: Mike 6, Gregg 5; Week 8: Mike 8.5, Gregg 3.5; Week 9: Mike 8, Gregg 3; Week 10: Mike 7, Gregg 4; Week 11: Mike 7, Gregg 4; Week 12: Gregg 6, Mike 5; Week 13: Gregg 8, Mike 3; Week 14: Mike 9, Gregg 2; Week 15: Mike 10, Gregg 1; Week 16: Gregg 6, Mike 5; Week 17: Mike 8, Gregg 3; Week 18: Mike 9, Gregg 2; Week 19: Mike 6.5, Gregg 4.5; Week 20: Mike 7, Gregg 4; Week 21: Mike 8, Gregg 3; Week 22: Mike 8, Gregg 3; Week 23: Mike 8.5, Gregg 2.5; Week 24: Mike 6, Gregg 5; Week 25: Gregg 6, Mike 5; Week 26: Gregg 7.5, Mike 3.5.
DAMIANUNITED 13, ZERO'S 13 (DAM U. WINS TIEBREAKER, 6-5)
Week 1: Damian 10.5, Paul 0.5; Week 2: Damian 6, Paul 5; Week 3: Damian 8.5, Paul 2.5; Week 4: Paul 10, Damian 1; Week 5: Damian 6, Paul 5; Week 6: Paul 8, Damian 3; Week 7: Damian 6.5, Paul 4.5; Week 8: Paul 6.5, Damian 4.5; Week 9: Damian 7, Paul 4; Week 10: Paul 7, Damian 4; Week 11: Damian 6.5, Paul 4.5; Week 12: Paul 6, Damian 5; Week 13: Paul 7, Damian 4; Week 14: Damian 6, Paul 5; Week 15: Paul 8, Damian 3; Week 16: Paul 6, Damian 5; Week 17: Damian 6, Paul 5; Week 18: Paul 8, Damian 3; Week 19: Damian 6, Paul 5; Week 20: Paul 6, Damian 5; Week 21: Paul 7.5, Damian 3.5; Week 22: Paul 6, Damian 5; Week 23: Damian 8, Paul 3; Week 24: Damian 8, Paul 3; Week 25: DAMIAN 5.5, Paul 5.5; Week 26: Paul 6.5, Damian 4.5.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
SBL Notebook, Final
A tip o' the Sun Baseball cap to Mikee's Moaners, winners of the venerable rotisserie league's 2010 championship by virtue of a 15-11 verdict over DamianUnited in SBL Series XXVIII. The Ms went almost wire to wire, piling up an impressive 125 victories and spending 23 of the 26 weeks in first place. They were fixtures atop the American division standings from Week 5 on, won the division flag by 19 games over the formidable Paulo's Zero's, then handled the Patton Inmates, 17-9, in the wild-card round before winning the Series against National division champions DamU -- who made some history of their own by becoming the first NL team to win a playoff series in the five years since the league added the wild-card round, doubling the postseason field to four teams. ... This is, the franchise owner is almost embarrassed to report, the Moaners' eighth championship in the league's glorious 28-season history; it is also their third in the last four years, a short-term run of SBL success unmatched in any previous four-year stretch. Which sort of makes the Moaners the Yankees of this fantasy outfit -- a comparison that deeply pains the club owner, given his lifelong hatred of the actual Yankees, a pathological contempt for the Bronx Bombers almost certainly traceable to his allegiance to the Dodgers virtually from the moment of their arrival (when he was 5) in Los Angeles from Brooklyn, where Yankee-hating was a civic responsibility ... and possibly acquired genetically, or by osmosis, dating to his gestation, in 1952, in the womb of a New York-born mother raised by a domineering Yankee-hating father ... ah, but we digress.
Every season, every team and every championship is different, but for the Moaners, championship No. 8 was REALLY different. An owner whose longstanding and passionate loathing of pitchers is perhaps unrivaled in league history ... just won a title primarily BECAUSE of pitching. In a drafting strategy born of desperation (after drawing draft position No. 8, perhaps the worst starting spot on the board), and at least partly by accident, the Moaners used five of their first 10 draft-night selections on pitchers -- and, even more surprising, it actually worked out. It started in the second round, when the Ms’ brain trust, stumped and mildly panicked as the draft clock ticked, was unable to find a hitter it deemed worthy of the No. 21 overall selection, causing it to blurt out the name "Tim Lincecum" – shocking, given the owner's unshakable belief that pitchers are notoriously unpredictable creatures, more likely to harm than help, and thus best left to the nether regions of the draft. While the cognitive processes that led to this momentous act of seeming madness remain unclear in the owner's memory, it resulted in the extemporaneous formulation of a new draft strategy: Draft MORE pitchers, early and often, so as to not "waste" the Lincecum pick, and build around the two-time Cy Young winner a staff that could, it was hoped, make the Moaners reasonably competitive despite what was sure to be a grossly inadequate offense. And, somehow, the pieces fell together -- Adam Wainwright (No. 74 overall) won 20 games; Andrew Bailey (87) was mostly lights out (at least when not injured); Carlos Marmol (100), in his first full season as a closer, turned into a 38-save monster with an outrageous 138 Ks in 77.2 IP; and Johan Santana (113) pitched like the vintage Cy Young winner of old at least as often as not. Throw in David Price, a young 19-win ace snagged for a song (216th pick) as the Moaners' No. 5 starter, and you had a staff that, in a season widely dubbed the Year of the Pitcher, was the SBL’s best. The Ms posted a sub-3.00 ERA a remarkable 14 times in 26 weeks, en route to a sparkling season ERA of 3.21. Their K-rate, an astonishing 1.01, might be a league record (think about it -- in any given given week, a K-rate over 1.00 is a rare and precious thing, likely to win you the stat ... and the Moaners AVERAGED that over an entire season). Their 92-58 win-loss record (Wainwright-Price-Lincecum-Santana combined for 66 Ws) was the best in the biz. And their bullpen, rounded out by Leo Nunez (often shaky, but still a 30-save guy) and supplemental pickups Alfredo Simon and Koji Uehara, churned out 124 saves, second in the league and an average of 4.8 per week.
The Moaners also benefited from impeccable timing -- pitching carried them early, when their offense was indeed unimaginably feeble, and later, when the pitching developed a few cracks, the offense, partially refurbished through the supplemental draft, was there to pick up the slack. The Moaners were consistently strong in stolen bases and total bases (147 SBs, 5.7 per week; 773 TB, 29.7/week), and ample power was supplied by four 30-HR, 100-RBI producers: Carlos Gonzalez, Ryan Howard, David Ortiz and (gulp) a miracle named Jose Bautista. (No other SBL team had more than two 30-100 guys; there were only 15 in all of baseball this year.) Gonzalez, nabbed with the 152nd pick (quite the steal!), was the kind of six-category star every SBL owner dreams of -- 34 HRs, 117 BI, 111 runs, 34 doubles, nine triples, 26 SBs, .376 OBP. As for Bautista, what can we say except, simply, Best ... Supplemental Pick ... Ever. A 29-year-old journeyman with 59 career homers (no more than 16 in a season) before this year, Bautista bashed an out-of-nowhere 54 dingers for the Blue Jays, 12 more than the MLB runner-up, Albert Pujols. The Ms acquired him six weeks in, with the next-to-last pick in the third supplemental, and from that point forward he hit 44 round-trippers in Moaner togs -- still more than any other player in ball hit for the entire season. Oh, he also drove in 124 runs, scored 109, had 35 doubles and a .378 OBP, even swiped nine sacks -- and the fact that the Moaners were able to draft him as a 3B, enabling them to bury their biggest (literally) draft-night bust, Pablo Sandoval, on the bench, was just an added bonus. Bautista was, too, part of an unusually strong collection of supplemental picks who helped the Ms get better as the season went on -- a group that also included Uehara and Simon, SPs Brett Myers and Madison Bumgarner, OFs Angel Pagan and Jose Tabata and 2B Ty Wigginton. That's eight useful players in 12 drafts, a very good batting average in the supplementals, and all the more remarkable for the fact that the Ms picked last or next-to-last in every draft but one. And the Moaners certainly needed that supplemental help, in a season when their first six choices in the draft proper -- Howard, Lincecum, 2B Brandon Phillips, Sandoval, OFs Carlos Lee and Bobby Abreu -- came up short of expectations, in most cases well short of career norms.
And now, in the clumsiest of segues, we interrupt this self-indulgent, narcissistic diatribe to give it up for DamianUnited, one of the strongest entries the National division has produced in recent years. Damian had one of those magical drafts in which most of his picks met or exceeded expectations. His offense was prodigious, the best in the league, powered by MVP candidate Josh Hamilton (32-100 despite missing almost all of September), comeback-player-of-year favorite Vladimir Guerrero (29-115), ageless Paul Konerko (39-111, .393 ... from the 221st pick!), binge basher Troy Tulowitzki (27-95, .381 in only 479 ABs) and a host of others. And his starting rotation, topped by NL Cy Young favorite Roy Halladay, CY contender Josh Johnson and AL whiff king Jered Weaver, was as good as any this side of Moanerville. But there's also a strong what-might-have-been element to DamU's season -- how good would they have been had they not suffered so many injuries to key players? While the Moaners skated through the season largely unencumbered by significant injury issues, DamU not only lost Hamilton and Johnson for the crucial final month, they were without their first two draft picks, 2B Ian Kinsler and SS Tulowitzki, for a combined 3½ months -- Tulo for about six weeks in June and July, Kinsler for about nine weeks over two separate DL stints, in April and August. As it was, Tulowitzki had better numbers than any other shortstop in ball, but what would he have done in the 600 ABs a full season would've provided? We'll never know. ... Kudos, too, to the Zero's, who put together another power-packed offense, one of the league's two or three best, and masterfully massaged a suspect pitching staff to squeeze 106 wins out of a roster that, in the hands of a lesser manager or less attentive GM, might not have gotten to 90. The Z's also gave DamU all they could handle in the wild-card round -- in fact their regular-season head-to-head matchup resulted in a 13-13 tie, necessitating use of the overall-season-stats tiebreaker, which Damian won by the slimmest of margins, 6-5, with DamU's microscopic 237-235 edge in home runs ultimately turning the tide. ... For the second consecutive year, the competition for the NL wild-card spot turned out to be the most interesting of the four races. Last year, it was JP's Whiteskins going 5-1 in the final week to wipe out Vic's Godfathers' five-game edge, forge a second-place tie and prevail in a tiebreaker to make the playoffs. This year, it was the Inmates, having begun the final week four games out of a playoff spot, going 6-0 and leapfrogging the third-place Godfathers (who went 3-3) and second-place Derek's Derelicts (1-5) to nab the prized postseason berth. . . . And, last and least, condolences to Dan's Cherry Valley Bombers, the defending NL champions, who executed a first-to-worst swan dive to edge out the BGoff Bammers for the WTIB booby prize with a 53-109 record. Better luck next year.
Before we sign off for the season, we offer our heartfelt thanks, as always, to our statkeepers -- Paul Oberjuerge, Gregg Patton and newcomer Dan Evans -- for their dedicated (and punctual!) work all season, and to first-year draftmeister Derek Rich, who seamlessly assumed the supplemental draft mantle from Brian Goff and smoothly guided the biweekly free-agent grab bags with a veteran's aplomb. And, of course, thanks to all of you for playing, and helping to sustain the spirit and tradition of one of the nation's oldest continuing fantasy baseball enterprises -- and, in our humble opinion, the absolute best of them all! Have a great off-season, and we'll see you, in person or via Skype, in March for the 2011 SBL draft.
Every season, every team and every championship is different, but for the Moaners, championship No. 8 was REALLY different. An owner whose longstanding and passionate loathing of pitchers is perhaps unrivaled in league history ... just won a title primarily BECAUSE of pitching. In a drafting strategy born of desperation (after drawing draft position No. 8, perhaps the worst starting spot on the board), and at least partly by accident, the Moaners used five of their first 10 draft-night selections on pitchers -- and, even more surprising, it actually worked out. It started in the second round, when the Ms’ brain trust, stumped and mildly panicked as the draft clock ticked, was unable to find a hitter it deemed worthy of the No. 21 overall selection, causing it to blurt out the name "Tim Lincecum" – shocking, given the owner's unshakable belief that pitchers are notoriously unpredictable creatures, more likely to harm than help, and thus best left to the nether regions of the draft. While the cognitive processes that led to this momentous act of seeming madness remain unclear in the owner's memory, it resulted in the extemporaneous formulation of a new draft strategy: Draft MORE pitchers, early and often, so as to not "waste" the Lincecum pick, and build around the two-time Cy Young winner a staff that could, it was hoped, make the Moaners reasonably competitive despite what was sure to be a grossly inadequate offense. And, somehow, the pieces fell together -- Adam Wainwright (No. 74 overall) won 20 games; Andrew Bailey (87) was mostly lights out (at least when not injured); Carlos Marmol (100), in his first full season as a closer, turned into a 38-save monster with an outrageous 138 Ks in 77.2 IP; and Johan Santana (113) pitched like the vintage Cy Young winner of old at least as often as not. Throw in David Price, a young 19-win ace snagged for a song (216th pick) as the Moaners' No. 5 starter, and you had a staff that, in a season widely dubbed the Year of the Pitcher, was the SBL’s best. The Ms posted a sub-3.00 ERA a remarkable 14 times in 26 weeks, en route to a sparkling season ERA of 3.21. Their K-rate, an astonishing 1.01, might be a league record (think about it -- in any given given week, a K-rate over 1.00 is a rare and precious thing, likely to win you the stat ... and the Moaners AVERAGED that over an entire season). Their 92-58 win-loss record (Wainwright-Price-Lincecum-Santana combined for 66 Ws) was the best in the biz. And their bullpen, rounded out by Leo Nunez (often shaky, but still a 30-save guy) and supplemental pickups Alfredo Simon and Koji Uehara, churned out 124 saves, second in the league and an average of 4.8 per week.
The Moaners also benefited from impeccable timing -- pitching carried them early, when their offense was indeed unimaginably feeble, and later, when the pitching developed a few cracks, the offense, partially refurbished through the supplemental draft, was there to pick up the slack. The Moaners were consistently strong in stolen bases and total bases (147 SBs, 5.7 per week; 773 TB, 29.7/week), and ample power was supplied by four 30-HR, 100-RBI producers: Carlos Gonzalez, Ryan Howard, David Ortiz and (gulp) a miracle named Jose Bautista. (No other SBL team had more than two 30-100 guys; there were only 15 in all of baseball this year.) Gonzalez, nabbed with the 152nd pick (quite the steal!), was the kind of six-category star every SBL owner dreams of -- 34 HRs, 117 BI, 111 runs, 34 doubles, nine triples, 26 SBs, .376 OBP. As for Bautista, what can we say except, simply, Best ... Supplemental Pick ... Ever. A 29-year-old journeyman with 59 career homers (no more than 16 in a season) before this year, Bautista bashed an out-of-nowhere 54 dingers for the Blue Jays, 12 more than the MLB runner-up, Albert Pujols. The Ms acquired him six weeks in, with the next-to-last pick in the third supplemental, and from that point forward he hit 44 round-trippers in Moaner togs -- still more than any other player in ball hit for the entire season. Oh, he also drove in 124 runs, scored 109, had 35 doubles and a .378 OBP, even swiped nine sacks -- and the fact that the Moaners were able to draft him as a 3B, enabling them to bury their biggest (literally) draft-night bust, Pablo Sandoval, on the bench, was just an added bonus. Bautista was, too, part of an unusually strong collection of supplemental picks who helped the Ms get better as the season went on -- a group that also included Uehara and Simon, SPs Brett Myers and Madison Bumgarner, OFs Angel Pagan and Jose Tabata and 2B Ty Wigginton. That's eight useful players in 12 drafts, a very good batting average in the supplementals, and all the more remarkable for the fact that the Ms picked last or next-to-last in every draft but one. And the Moaners certainly needed that supplemental help, in a season when their first six choices in the draft proper -- Howard, Lincecum, 2B Brandon Phillips, Sandoval, OFs Carlos Lee and Bobby Abreu -- came up short of expectations, in most cases well short of career norms.
And now, in the clumsiest of segues, we interrupt this self-indulgent, narcissistic diatribe to give it up for DamianUnited, one of the strongest entries the National division has produced in recent years. Damian had one of those magical drafts in which most of his picks met or exceeded expectations. His offense was prodigious, the best in the league, powered by MVP candidate Josh Hamilton (32-100 despite missing almost all of September), comeback-player-of-year favorite Vladimir Guerrero (29-115), ageless Paul Konerko (39-111, .393 ... from the 221st pick!), binge basher Troy Tulowitzki (27-95, .381 in only 479 ABs) and a host of others. And his starting rotation, topped by NL Cy Young favorite Roy Halladay, CY contender Josh Johnson and AL whiff king Jered Weaver, was as good as any this side of Moanerville. But there's also a strong what-might-have-been element to DamU's season -- how good would they have been had they not suffered so many injuries to key players? While the Moaners skated through the season largely unencumbered by significant injury issues, DamU not only lost Hamilton and Johnson for the crucial final month, they were without their first two draft picks, 2B Ian Kinsler and SS Tulowitzki, for a combined 3½ months -- Tulo for about six weeks in June and July, Kinsler for about nine weeks over two separate DL stints, in April and August. As it was, Tulowitzki had better numbers than any other shortstop in ball, but what would he have done in the 600 ABs a full season would've provided? We'll never know. ... Kudos, too, to the Zero's, who put together another power-packed offense, one of the league's two or three best, and masterfully massaged a suspect pitching staff to squeeze 106 wins out of a roster that, in the hands of a lesser manager or less attentive GM, might not have gotten to 90. The Z's also gave DamU all they could handle in the wild-card round -- in fact their regular-season head-to-head matchup resulted in a 13-13 tie, necessitating use of the overall-season-stats tiebreaker, which Damian won by the slimmest of margins, 6-5, with DamU's microscopic 237-235 edge in home runs ultimately turning the tide. ... For the second consecutive year, the competition for the NL wild-card spot turned out to be the most interesting of the four races. Last year, it was JP's Whiteskins going 5-1 in the final week to wipe out Vic's Godfathers' five-game edge, forge a second-place tie and prevail in a tiebreaker to make the playoffs. This year, it was the Inmates, having begun the final week four games out of a playoff spot, going 6-0 and leapfrogging the third-place Godfathers (who went 3-3) and second-place Derek's Derelicts (1-5) to nab the prized postseason berth. . . . And, last and least, condolences to Dan's Cherry Valley Bombers, the defending NL champions, who executed a first-to-worst swan dive to edge out the BGoff Bammers for the WTIB booby prize with a 53-109 record. Better luck next year.
Before we sign off for the season, we offer our heartfelt thanks, as always, to our statkeepers -- Paul Oberjuerge, Gregg Patton and newcomer Dan Evans -- for their dedicated (and punctual!) work all season, and to first-year draftmeister Derek Rich, who seamlessly assumed the supplemental draft mantle from Brian Goff and smoothly guided the biweekly free-agent grab bags with a veteran's aplomb. And, of course, thanks to all of you for playing, and helping to sustain the spirit and tradition of one of the nation's oldest continuing fantasy baseball enterprises -- and, in our humble opinion, the absolute best of them all! Have a great off-season, and we'll see you, in person or via Skype, in March for the 2011 SBL draft.
Week 26 standings (Final)
AMERICAN
Team, LW.........W....L....PCT...GB
Mike (5-1)........125...37...772...--
Paul (1-5).........106...56...654...19
Andy (3-3)..........91...71...562...34
Dennis (3-3)........79...83...488...46
David (2-4).........68...94...420...57
Brian (5-1)..........56...106..346...69
NATIONAL
Team, LW.........W....L....PCT...GB
Damian (0-6)......93...69...574...--
Gregg (6-0)........78...84...481...15
Vic (3-3)............77...85...475...16
Derek (1-5)........77...85...475...16
JP (3-3)............69...93...426...24
Dan (4-2)..........53..109...327...40
Team, LW.........W....L....PCT...GB
Mike (5-1)........125...37...772...--
Paul (1-5).........106...56...654...19
Andy (3-3)..........91...71...562...34
Dennis (3-3)........79...83...488...46
David (2-4).........68...94...420...57
Brian (5-1)..........56...106..346...69
NATIONAL
Team, LW.........W....L....PCT...GB
Damian (0-6)......93...69...574...--
Gregg (6-0)........78...84...481...15
Vic (3-3)............77...85...475...16
Derek (1-5)........77...85...475...16
JP (3-3)............69...93...426...24
Dan (4-2)..........53..109...327...40
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