Power Rankings

Power Rankings
1. Mike Gallagher: While you can argue my team isn’t mowing them down like I didn’t back in 2010, I’m still the class of the division.
2. Max Rosenberg: After getting his ass handed to him in November, Max is on the prowl and has the inside track to become a playoff team. He went eight weeks before Arnie spanked him 6-1-1 last week.
3. Arnie Moulton: Arnie’s team has been on a tear lately thanks to the likes of Ramon Sessions, Amir Johnson, DeJuan Blair, Arron Afflalo and Roy Hibbert heating up his team quickly like microwave. Kevin Love, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Z-Bo, are probably the best big trio in the league. If The Blair Switch project keeps on truckin, Arnie should have no problem taking the bad division down.
4. Justin Schultz: Things are starting to fall apart for the team without name. Jrue Holiday, Nick Young, Darko, DeMarcus Cousins, and Tony Parker are crashing back to Earth. On the other hand, things are looking up for John Salmons and David Lee. He just needs a little more effort to hold his current 6.5-game lead.
5. Kyle Moulton: It seems silly, but Chuck Hayes has helped turned Kyle’s team around. That’s really a bit of a microcosm of his season. Guys like T-Mac, Landry Fields, Hedo Turkoglu, Diaw, and Hinrich have quietly made an impact for him. He was ranked second in my head just a couple weeks ago, but his team is getting worse while most of the teams above are on the upswing.
6. Matt Gallagher: Matt’s team on paper is so stacked. He has two of the top-three point guards (D-Will and Westy), solid bigs (Nene, Scola, Chandler, and Emeka), and a plethora of shooters. Matt has been hamstrung by the injury bug and his team has a near insurmountable lead. He has the ability to get hot and sneak in for the four seed, he just has to do it.
7. Islam Elnaggar: Islam shook things up right away by going for Amare. It was actually a solid trade for him, but the jury will be out on that one until if we see that his knee can hold up the the rigors of NBA hoops. He has a huge lack of depth, but acquiring some through the trade market or the wire will move him up to the top three in no time.
8. Jamaal Gilbert: Brook Lopez and Baron Davis to the rescue! Jamaal’s team has got hot quick and he has more than cut his deficit in half as of late. Jamaal has a lot of pieces that will hypothetically lose value in just a week, so if he is able to reload on the wire, we could see one of the better comebacks in this league’s history.
9. Dwayne Ward: Dwayne’s team has as many studs as even my team with Dwight, Gay, Tyreke, J-, Smoove, Manu, Poster Child, and Wall, so you’d think he’d be in the top three or four. The underlying theme here is depth, or in Dwayne’s case, lack of depth. He has 10 guys that are basically add-drops currently on his roster. That’s too much! (That’s what she said). He needs to fill half of those spots with 2-for-1 deals or adding Blatche and Collison like he did last year. He’s far from out of it since he is in the Bad (or good in his case) Division.
10. Mike Carroll: When you’re on a six-week losing streak, you get the dubious distinction of being rated last. Carroll has been shaking up his team a ton, so for all week know, he could be in the 5-to-7 range. The only players he’s owned all season include CP3 and Ibaka. Nuts. I know he’s got a lot going on upstairs, but his team will have to put a win on the board to take home one of the wild cards.

Recap

Well last week was a turbulent ride to say the least. It’s over and done with and I’m looking forward to seeing how things play out for the final six match-ups of the regular season.

Max shocked the world by not only handing me my first week with less than two losses, but he was actually able to beat me 5-3. Of course this really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise since I am in full blown stash mode. I’m hiding players on my roster so much that I was about to pick up Anne Frank last week. Max had 18 more games played than I did and I was actually surprised he was unable to beat me at least 6-2. Max takes the active lead by not losing in eight weeks and it looks like his team is poised to take over the three seed.
Jamaal totally jacked Islam’s name and destroyed Dwayne 6-2 last week. That is not exactly poetic justice. After not getting more than four wins against anyone besides Shane, Jamaal is now on a two-week winning streak. He is apparently better at improving his team than naming it. As for Dwayne, he has not lost three in a row and the last two have been 6-2 drubbings. He’d better turn things around before he winds up in the burn ward.
Mr. Carroll has now lost 3-5 in all of his last five weeks. Yikes. His stock is falling fast and as weird as it sounds, he gets to play me this week. This is a huge advantage since I am stashing even more guys than last week. I’ll take it a step further and say this is almost a must-win week for him.
Kyle now has a win streak going and currently holds the third seed over Max by a game.

The two new guys took on each other and Justin was victorious by the slimmest of margins with a 4-3-1 win. Justin still hasn’t come up with a name and anything would be an improvement from his name in the auction league. “Dawan Make My Day?” Still not sure you got the quote right on that one. There are a couple of good players with potential naming possibilities. You can do it!
Islam’s team has a shot to unseat Justin’s in the Bad Division by being just nine games behind. He’ll need Eric Gordon and some more depth in order to do that though.
My bro and Arnie tied 4-4. Ties get no love in the recap, folks.
Thanks for reading and good luck to all this week!

Everyone please update their trade block!

From Recap To Repeat

General League Rules
This league is a head-to-head 10-cat league. Those 10 categories are runs, RBI, steals, home runs, batting average, wins, saves, strikeouts, ERA, and WHIP. Each week has 10 potential wins or losses (for each category). Unlike some leagues where a 6-4 win is the same as a 10-0 win, this league will depend heavily on the severity of an owner's win or loss. Ties count as ties in standings, so tiebreakers aren't an issue for the regular season (playoffs defined below).
There are no maximums in this league, so every owner is welcome to have as many starts as he pleases. If an owner wanted to add a player for the day, it would have to be done before the first day of the day began. If it wasn't done in time, then the move would be for the following day. ESPN will let you know when you add a player because when you click the players tab to add a player it will either say "today's games" or "tomorrow's games."
The only minimum is there has to be at least one AB for the hitting categories and more than one pitch thrown by the pitchers. That means if for some reason you don't play a pitcher for the whole week, your opponent could conceivably beat you in ERA with a 300 ERA for the week.

Trades
Everyone loves to trade and everyone likes to assess the winners and losers of each trade. There is really only one rule this league will live by with regards to trades: Collusion is the only reason for a veto.
It's really the only fair way to do it for many reasons.
First and foremost, it minimizes the gray area for bias and having everyone treated fairly.
Secondly, nobody has a crystal ball. There been several trades where it might seem lopsided, but it turned out the trade was advantageous for the perceived loser, or the trade was a wash. For example in one of my baseball leagues someone traded Derek Lee for Cliff Lee. This trade was early on in the 2008 year (Lee's Cy Young year) and a lot of people were up in arms because Derek Lee's former owner was just buying high on Lee and the majority of the league thought it was unfair. Obviously, Cliff clearly outperformed Derek, so it proved that there's no way anyone can predict they trade winners until the season is over.
Thirdly, if collusion is suspected the fate of the trade will go to a vote. The two teams involved in the trade and the commissioner will not be involved in the voting process. Obviously, the two teams can't vote and since the commissioner will be already moving it to a vote, he won't be able to participate either. There has to be at least a 2/3 vote in favor of the veto by eligible parties. Just to clarify, if it is a 10-team league, the commissioner and the two teams involved wouldn't be voting, so there would have to be at least five(5) votes in favor to stop the trade.
There has been other shady business in fantasy leagues, so if you trade away a player then you can't acquire him back for two scoring periods. This will prevent owners from trying to exploit matchups and just trade back after the matchup occurs.
Furthermore, the same can be said for accidentally hitting accept on a trade or putting in the wrong players for the deal. If an owner makes a mistake in a trade it will go to a vote in the same manner as a collusion-related trade.
Finally, if an owner repeatedly has suspected collusion-related trades vetoed he is subject to expulsion from the league. If an owner has three trades vetoed in a two-year span, he will be expelled from the league. This isn't to decrease the amount of trading or anything, and as long as your intentions are good, then there's no reason to worry.

Mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes. Unfortunately, most mistakes come with consequences and this league will be no different. I'm sure most of you have been in a league where someone meant to drop a player (we'll say Aaron Heilman), but they mistakenly selected a great player to drop (we'll say David Wright). The person with the number one waiver would obviously be all over that and the owner that meant to drop a horrible pitcher is now out likely their best player. If someone drops someone that isn't on the Can't Cut List by mistake there is nothing that can be done.
ESPN does have provide a Can't Cut List, so obviously those players can't be cut from rosters. The Commissioner will also provide a list of 50 players (including the ESPN can't cut players) that will allow the owner to have his player back provided he is currently on the list.
On the other hand, this only happens about once a season, so each owner will only get one (1) free pass. If an owner does drop two players on the Can't Cut List by mistake, the second player mistakenly dropped will remain on waivers. Meaning if the second player dropped is valued less than the first by the owner, it doesn't matter and he can't say he'd rather drop the first player.
The Can't Cut List will be turned off during the final week. This is to allow the maximum amount of moves for the finalists and third place game contestants. If anyone is mistakenly dropped during said period, then nothing will happen.
There really shouldn't be any other significant mistakes made and under no circumstance will the commissioner change any roster spot that is locked.

Waivers
The league will be set for the waiver period to be one day. That means if you cut him on Tuesday (no matter what the time is), the player will remain on waivers for Wednesday and will come off waivers Thursday morning.
The original order will be inverse of the draft order (last pick is first waiver priority and first pick is last priority).
Once Minor League players that were not taken in our fantasy draft are promoted to the Majors, they will be played on waivers for one day.
If a player is owned for less than one day, then he will be a free agent and will not be placed on waivers.

Etiquette
Quite frankly, there really is no etiquette for this mother fucker! Trash talking is encouraged and don't talk trash unless you can back it up (or you'll likely be ripped by majority of the owners). We are all adults, so we should try to keep it related to fantasy and try not to take any trash talking to a personal level. I'm pleased to announce that the Finks are permanently expelled from fantasy leagues, so it should be a lot easier to keep it civil.
If you do have an issue with another owner, I'd suggest emailing each other and/or let the commissioner know so we can resolve the issue.
There is no etiquette with regards to adding and dropping players. You can make as many moves as you like and there is no penalty for being too active.

Inactivity
Every year it seems like a team falls out of it and stops caring about his fantasy team. If this sounds like you, then maybe this isn't the league for you. Although stuff can happen and people's lives get busy.
If an owner becomes inactive for a period longer than one week, the commissioner will attempt to contact the owner to advise him to set his lineup. If he still isn't active after the second week, then the commissioner will set his roster and won't be adding or dropping any players until the owner returns to activtiy.
Once the commissioner has taken charge of the team, said team is up for sale. Any current owner could seek out a potential owner that is befitting of our league. The league fees should have been collected, so the new owner wouldn't have to pay for that year. Obviously, they would need to pay for the following years.
In the unlikely circumstance where a playoff team is inactive at the time of the playoffs, that team would be forfeited and the next best team would slide into his spot.

Potential Playoff Issues
This league is a 10-cat league, so there's a decent chance that there is a tie in the playoffs. The tie goes to the higher seed. Even if the three seed has a better record than the two seed, the two seed would be declared the winner in the event of a tie.
As it stands right now, four teams will make the playoffs. In the event that two or more teams have the same winning percentage at the conclusion of the Regular Season, and have played the same number of Head-to-Head games between them, the following tie-breaking system determines the seed:
1 - Overall record
2 - Head-to-head record
3 - Division record
4 - Total Number of Runs, Steals, HR, RBI, K, Saves, and Wins.
5 - Coin Flip

Payouts
The payouts will be as follows:
60 percent of the pot to the winner
30 percent of the pot to second place
10 percent of the pot to third place
Posted by Michael Gallagher at 7:38 PM 0 comments