Fantasy Football: It’s not about the Fantasy nor is it about the Football

Thanksgiving to December 25^th – Holiday Shopping Season

January – April 15^th – Tax Season

June 1^st to November 1^st – Hurricane Season

Mid-August to NFL Kickoff – Fantasy Football Season

It’s that time a year ago when 30 million + Americans (Roughly 24 million of them being of the male species) put lives hold, ignore our spouses and become a lot less productive at work. That is because of one very important cause, fantasy football. We bask in the glory of a pretend professional draft, we begin the ancient ritual of poking fun of a friend because they have a lame team nickname or because they unknowingly fake drafted a player who is not expected to play for 4 weeks because of a torn MCL. That fact that we even know that a torn MCL is not as bad as a torn ACL has shown how far we’ve come in the journey of life…but we subject ourselves to these trivialities anyway. Not because we really want Eli Manning to throw for 300 yards with 3 Touchdown passes and no interceptions (30 points) it’s because there is a value to fantasy football that almost nobody understands unless it’s become a part of your annual rite of passage.

At this juncture, most humans understand the general concept of fantasy football. Each team selects real life football athletes (no team can own the same individual). Then each week your chosen players stats are measured against your opponents chosen players and a scoring system determines who has the biggest scrotum…or least that’s how our league works.

The league I play in began somewhere in the mid 90’s. My best guess is 1995 or 1996. The history is a bit murky but it was organized by camp friends. To make the league more interesting and special, it held its first draft in the final days of camp that summer in a dining hall where the chartered members of this league eat together over many summers. The original league had 10 teams but roughly 14-15 players (some of who co-owned teams together).

Our league began with a very simple scoring concept. Each week your team was measured on Pass Yards, Pass TDS, Pass %, RB Yards, RB TDS, WR Yards, WR Receptions, WR TDS, Defensive Takeaways. Out of those 9 categories, your team would need to outduel your opponent in at least 5 of them to get a Win. As the season comes to an end, the teams with the best records go head to head in a playoff and in the end someone gets to brag about how awesome they are for an entire year while someone always gets defensive and says “I would have won if Joe Running Back didn’t get turf toe.” It began with an ancient writing utensil they refer to as a pencil and this system in which people corresponded, called postal mail. It was such a simpler time.

What I described in the preceding paragraphs is only about 5% of what happens in our league. To us, the draft has become a ritual, the league has became a brotherhood and our scoring system has had minor tweaks to ensure the deck gets stacked up against those who take the game way too serious. For us, the league of 10 teams and 14-15 guys has become a very comfortable league of 12 teams with 12 single owners. In the last 17 years or so, we have only replaced 1 owner (more on that in a bit). Like Philadelphia Eagles Season tickets, we can easily count 10-15 people in the camp circle who would love to be in our league. But as morbid as it may sound, only death breeds team vacancies.

At the time our league began, we were in the age ranges of 16-22 years old. None of us were married, most of us were in college and nearly all of us had a full head of hair. The annual draft nights would be filled with fart jokes, cheap beer and bragging on who was the most recent guy to get laid…For the record, it was never me. In just a matter of a few years, the draft has gotten progressively more mature. We are home owners, husbands, fathers, some have been divorced, many of us have gone on to graduate from multiple colleges. Most of us have gotten fatter, some balder and others have a few strands of gray. But the one thing that has not changed is our connection to each other and that’s ultimately my point of Fantasy Football.

To me it’s a metaphor of life. It’s like the kid who wants to have a catch with his father not because he likes tossing a ball around but because he wants to spend time with his father. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the competition of Fantasy Football but what I enjoy most is the one time of the year that I get to see friends who live busy lives and otherwise would find it difficult to carve out the time. It’s a mini-reunion. It’s the opportunity to not rag about who got Adrian Peterson but to brag about who has aged more gracefully.

Then there are times, when life interrupts this fanciful empire we have built for ourselves. In June, 2005, one of our team owners suddenly passed away. Albeit the friend was the older of the bunch, mid-50’s but he was a beloved friend and a passionate guy who spent years as the official patriarch of the group, which is why we name our championship trophy “The Asherman” in his honor. It has been the only time we had a team opening. It was a wakeup call because the reality is one day, hopefully many years down the road this league will be a legacy from most of us. It will likely be torched on to our kids and hopefully their kids too. In a way we have become a business owned by 12 buddies who would like nothing more then to hand down our gift to our offspring as if it was the world’s greatest trust fund minus the money and multiply the fun.

To me, Fantasy Football is a brotherhood, a way for me to celebrate Labor Day with others, a way for me to laugh with others and is often the case, laugh at myself. It’s a way to give a ribbing and take a ribbing. It’s the connection that was made many years ago at a camp with men that I am proud to know. It’s a celebration of friendship and gift that we hope to pass on for generations. It’s an escape of the everyday world of diapering, nagging and paying the bills. It’s also a challenge, amusement and way to measure greatness among a circle of friends. It’s an amazement of stat evolution. We use to get our handwritten stats in the mail each week. Now we know the scores at every second thanks to modern technology.

So to you Mike Noble, Lance Noble, Adam Kramaroff, Brandon Rubenstein, Aaron Sachs, Mike Demar, Mike Staff, Jarad Benn, Sean Banks, Mike Kramer and Eric Price, I say good luck to all. Lets play fair…and I can’t wait to kick your assess…I mean have funJ to my 2013 SFFL (Slipper Fantasy Football League) friends. One last thing, I aged the best.

So About The Phillies... The 1/3 Season Report

The season is now 1/3 over and the team is 26-28. Perhaps their record is the only thing that realist fans and faux fans can each agree is about right for this time of year. 

Faux fans believe that this number over the course of another 2/3 of season will translate to a roughly .500 record. Logically that would make sense…The team is on pace for roughly 78 wins. 

There are a small minority of fans, myself included, that can look at this 26-28 record and say, Wow, not bad for a team with a history of being a stronger 2^nd half team. Truthfully, I personally expected they would be right at .500 at this juncture. I believe they will be around 5 games above .500 at the halfway point, 8 or 9 above .500 by Sept 1^st and 14 games above .500 at seasons end. Hence my prediction of 88 overall wins, which I am boldly sticking with.

Before we evaluate what has gone right and wrong thus far, we must quickly review our season expectations.

Ruben Amaro Jr is / was a forever will be a terrible MLB GM. This is a factual observation based on many observations but for sake of emperical evidence, I will give you, the reader, two concrete facts.

A.      1. The team has declined every year since he took over as GM. (Lost WS, Lost NLCS, Lost NDS, Missed Playoffs).

B.     2. The Phillies have the third highest payroll in all of professional sports and just about everyone agrees that this time as currently constructed is not strong enough to win a championship anytime soon. Which means RAJ has overpaid on the wrong players.

Its important to know these facts because when everyone said our outfield stinks its not because RAJ belived in these guys, its simply because he ran out of money to fix this issue. He had to fill out a rotation, get a 3B and find a good setup guy. He knows his outfield stinks but he has money tied up in to many other misappropriated places.

My personal expectations of this years team is 88 wins and a wild card berth…Nothing more nothing less. I am banking on a manger, who may come across as a country bumpkin, but winning a World Series and having a .558 win percentage in his 9 years of Philadelphia makes me believe more in him then the current GM.

With that being said let’s review what has going right and what has going wrong.

WHAT HAS GONE RIGHT THUS FAR

1.       The Phillies have 3 legitimate All-Stars and 2 guys who on the cusp of being All-Stars

Highly Likely – Papelbon – Perfect in saves thus far with an era in the low 1’s

Highly Likely – Lee – Our best starter with an ERA in the 2’s

Highly Likely – Brown – Top 3 in MLB in HRs and on pace for nearly 100 RBIS. Plus his average is now rising.

Likely – Bastardo – Quietly have a solid year as the 7^th inning guys. ERA in low 2’s

Likely – Kendrick – Needs a few more good starts to get back into the discussion but is posting good numbers

2.       7^th and 8^th inning guys have been pulling their weight. It’s the crappy clean-up guys who are getting badly exposed in the bullpen. The Phils front of the bullpen has not been good but they aren't suppose to be good. If they were, they'd be starters or closers. Right?

3.       Delmon Young and Dom Brown have not completely sucked in their defensive OF positions, which is the best compliment I can give that defense

4.       Pettibone has been a pretty nice surprise in the rotation thus far

5.       The pitch Hitting is been surprisingly clutch

WHAT HAS GONE WRONG THUS FAR

1.       Forget about Reveres bat. That’ll come around and he’ll get to where he was last year roughly .290 batting average. What I am more concerned about is his defense. He has been completely brutal. Sure he has made a few web gem catches but he has run terrible routes and misplayed many routine balls. Even worse is his pathetic arm. It is literally the weakest arm I’ve ever seen in the majors...Ever. Really it is outrageously bad. Most OF can throw from the OF to homeplate on a bounce. Revere can barely throw from the OF to 2B on a bounce.

2.       Chad Durbin is bad. I made a mistake on his assessment and thought he’d repeat his 2008 performance. Clearly I was wrong and he has nothing left in the tank.

3.       Run Scoring – This stat, which is obviously the single most important one in determining W/L’s shows that the Phils are 3 worst in the NL. Despite what some believe and read this is not due to poor hitting.

Phils are middle of the pack in batting average

Phils are also middle of the pack in terms of HR

The lack of run scoring is due to two vital stats.

A.      Phils rarely walk, which negatively effects their OBP

B.      Phils have hit into 41 double plays. This is one of the worst in the league. As a matter of fact, Michael Young leads the league in this stat and Ben Revere is not far behind. The irony is that Ben Reveres speed is what allows him to leg out hits. His speed makes him very difficult to double up, which makes his GIDP even more frustrating.

Don’t believe what you read, Phils do have a nice chunk of HR’s but many are solo shots. This is because of items “A” and “B”

4.       The Phillies are really falling behind in the Wild Card Race. Even if the Phils finish at 88-74 like I predicted, they may still end short of the playoffs.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE

It’s very simple math

The Phillies Win percentage from May 31^st to the end of season over the last 5 years is .574

This season they have 108 games remaining. If they win .574 of those games that means they would finish the season with 87.99 games…right where I predicted they would land.

BOTTOMLINE:

Yes, like many other MLB teams the Phils have been hit with injuries (Chooch, Hallladay, Lannan, etc). Yes, the Phils middle relief stinks but that’s because…

A.      The guys in the 5^th and 6^th innings are not as important as the back-end guys. If you are counting on guys like Horst and BJ Rosenberg to carry this team that means they are in the game early, which means your starters let us down.

Yes, the GM depleted our minor leagues when he traded for Lee….twice and other brilliant moves but experience is what helps teams like the Phils excel in the 2^nd half.

Things look bleak but that’s because Phillie fans over react to everything as usual. If history, good coaching and past trends hold to true, then the

Phils will win 88 games this year, which puts them in a wild card mix.

Why The Phils Are Better Then You Think - 2013 Season Preview

I have been watching baseball a long time and generally I have a pretty good pulse on what’s happening in the game. Since I read the book, “MoneyBall” I have begun to look at baseball through a  different set of lens. My old prescription said, “Who cares about the money, just go out and get the damn player.” Now I have adapted a more realist vision of “The cost of the player must be economical enough to sustain a winning product.”

In the last 20 years, the model of the Yankees was to throw money at any position and outspend the competition. I am not going to lie but that does work to a certain degree but then again if I asked 100 girls in high school to go on a date with me, I’m sure one probably would have said yes. Unfortunately for me, I gave up after 80. Anyway, history proves that most teams can’t compete with Yankee money and more sustainable teams are built with deeper teams with a diverse group of 5 tool players. 

In other words, you can spend $120 million dollars on the preeminent stud starting pitcher with a workhorse pedigree that will almost guarantee your team a victory every five days + it’ll create a buzz in the city as said pitcher may have a perfect game and a no-hitter in the playoffs. But in the end, what good will this do for any championship run if you have no money left for reliable hitters or better yet, you completely forget about building a bullpen that will subsequently save said stud starters excellent pitching performances.

This is preceding paragraph is an example of how Ruben Amaro Jr once viewed his Philadelphia Phillie's Squad. His strategy was to do some shock and awe with our 4 Aces + Blanton rotation and everything else will come into focus. That strategy saw a world series team that he inherited get progressively worse each year of his reign. For those who didn’t notice

·         Lost in World Series in 2009,

·         Lost in NL Championship in 2010

·         Lost in Wild Card in 2011

and

·         Missed playoffs in 2012.

This year his strategy fundamentally changed. 

As I see his moves this past off-season, I have two absolute certainties. The team is too fractured to win a World Series this year but the team composition approach is so vastly different then it’s been since 2008 that it is hard for me not to see the Phillie's back in the playoffs this season. Here is why....

Let me first put out some general thoughts on this year’s team makeup.

First some bad news

1.    I don’t see any starting pitcher on this team winning any more then 15 games and you know what? Who gives a darn. Really? I don’t care how many wins my starting pitcher gets, I’m more interested in how many wins my team gets. I see the Phillies playing a lot of close games in which our older collection of pitchers only go 6-7 innings consistently. That means a lot of W/L’s will go squarely on the shoulders of our bullpen. More on them in a bit.

2.    I see Roy Halladay as a guy who will pitch 26-28 games, Strike out 170 plus batters and have an ERA of around a 3.60. Once again, I don’t see this as an issue either. He is nearly 36-years-old and has a lot of innings under his belt. He is a bit past his prime but not yet completely washed up. He is in the last year of a long contract and is no longer needed to be “The Ace.” That’s why we have Hamel’s. If Roy can be an efficient 3^rd starter in this rotation in 2013 then the team can survive. Otherwise, we will need to trade, beg, borrow or deal because Kendrick and Lannan are prototypical viable back of rotation guys and nothing more.

3.    The Phillies will have the worst defensive in baseball. It’s that simple. There were too many roster holes to be filled and very little money to fill them. If the Phillies are any better then last place in fielding errors this season then we are in the bonus. Every MLB team has a flaw. This is by far the Phillies biggest and we should just be prepared for terrible play particularly from the corner positions.

4.    The Phillies do not have a very good hitting bench. Let’s not misconstrue. The Phillies have some nice speed and defense on their bench (namely Galvis and Mayberry) but it lacks any potential late inning power threat. Laynce Nix is not Matt Stairs. My thought is that if the Phil’s are contending in July, the GM can rectify this issue…Calling Jim Thome!!!

5.    The Phillies are old. This statement is true but other then the whispers of Roy Halladays quick decline, no one is saying anything about Utley, Howard and Rollins being unable to keep up with a fastball. If anything, it appears as though age helps in experience and sometimes you need smart veterans to make good decisions at the plate and in the field. Sure a hammy may pop here and there but I wouldn’t put too much stock in our teams age.

LETS MOVE ON TO GOOD THINGS

1.    The Phillies will have one of the top 5 bullpens in baseball. There I said it…now it’s published on my website and I can either brag about this statement or crow about it come September. The truth is that the Phillies had one of the worst bullpens in baseball last year. RAJ paid a lot for a closer but overlooked the fact that you can’t get to a closer when your 8^th inning guys blow the lead. There are now defined roles in our pen. Papelbon gets the 9^th, Adams gets the 8^th, Durbin gets the righties in the 7^th and Bastardo gets the lefties in the 7^th. Horst comes in key 7^th or 8^th innings when above mentioned guys are unavailable. Some combination of Aumont/ Stutes are the long relievers and Valdes is a 3^rd lefty option. It’s a very formidable bullpen who will each rack up a lot wins in close late inning situations. Phillies lost 18 games in the 8^th inning last year. The Phillies missed the playoffs by 7 games. That math is hard to avoid.

2.    154. If I said that the Phillies had a guy play 154 out of 162 games last year, you would say that’s a nice, healthy durable player. What if I said that that was the amount of games played by an entire side of the infield combined last year (Howard and Utley). Together they combined for 154 games. I am not here to profess that either guy is super durable this season. I actually believe each of them will spend time on the DL this year. It’s a long season. But if the two of them can somehow combine for 225 combined games this year that would be drastically better then 225 games of Galvis / Mayberry.

3.    Hamels, Lee, Kendrick, Lannan and a questionable Halladay is still stronger than most NL rotations. Let’s compare our guys to those vicious Nationals. Strasburg vs Hamels. Ok, Strasburg may be the 2^nd best starter (Kershaw being number 1) in the entire NL and Hamels may be the 3rd best, so we are splitting heirs but one thing I know for sure, our management will not shut down our star in August. Gio Gonzalez vs Cliff Lee. Lee had a better ERA and way more K’s last season. Zimmerman vs Halladay. This year it will be push in terms of output. But in a big game situation, I’ll take Halladay 99 out of 100 times, Haren vs Kendrick. Haren wins this one. Haren can be a viable 3 on any MLB club. Kendrick is happy to be a 4. Detwiler vs Lannan. Here’s the big secret on Lannan. He has a 4.30 career era but that number drops to 3.80 when you take out games versus the Phillies. Normally I don’t manipulate numbers like that except the guy no longer has to face the Phillies. I would take him over Detwiler any day of the week. Every rotation in baseball is better than The Marlins. Without RA Dickey, the Phils are marginally better then the Mets. As far as Atlanta. No one scares me on that pitching squad other then Medlan. SO yea pitching shouldn't be an issue...unless of course Halladay is completely cooked.

4.    Speed Kills: One of the most underrated moves made by RAJ this off-season is Ben Revere. The centerfielder was extremely under the radar. When other teams went out and overpaid for sexy names like Upton, Pagan, Ross and Hamilton, the Phillies underpaid on Revere. Now to say that the guys I mentioned in this list aren't more talented then Revere would be a very untruthful statement. They are all bonifide guys who can alter a game with a swing but my question, are these guys 10-15-20 million a year better then Revere?

Revere is a blooming gold glove outfielder. He is young, energetic and hits for contact. He will NOT hit a homerun…probably ever. But that’s not his skill-set. Just like Ryan Howard was not hired to hit for .300. Revere was acquired for $500,000, which is the equivalent of like $7 an hour in normal human pay.

5.    Fill in Some Holes: Lastly, RAJ couldn’t afford to blow his wad on one big free agent because he needed a CF, a 3B and rebuilt Bullpen and rotation guy. So RAJS diversified. You need depth for a long season. Remember, the 2008 Phils got role players like Dobbs, Bruntlett, Jenkins, Eyre and Werth. We see how that all turned out.

To state the obvious, Phillies need to stay relatively healthy. Noticed I didn’t say completely healthy. It’s a long season, guys will get hurt, players will be called up from the minors (Hello Darren Ruf) and there will be pleasant surprises and utter disappointments. There are ebbs and flows. There will be an everyday guy who will bat .209 like Pat Burrell did in 2003. Then we will have a guy that will hit close to. 300 with 30 Hrs and 94 RBIS like Jimmy Rollins did unexpectedly in 2007. Overall when it evens out, I can realistically see this year’s team have a net game win total of +7 over last year.

That’s puts us at 88-74. In what I consider to be one of the best 2-3 divisions in baseball That record can solidify a playoff berth of some sort. The Division? That’s a Stretch. A Wild Card? More than Likely.

Here is my general prediction of the standings

Nationals – 92-70

Phillies – 88 – 74

Braves – 85 -77

Mets -80 – 82

Marlins - 70 - 92

 When all else fails do not worry. Our biggest pickup this year was reacquiring Ed Wade as our Special Consultant. I guess that means we can't steal anymore players from the Astros anymore?