Welcome to our weekly round-up of the BaseballGB Fantasy League competition. This is a mixed Head-2-Head league involving BGB writers and readers.
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CHAMPIONSHIP PLAYOFFS:
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| Â | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OPS | W | SV | K | HLD | ERA | WHIP | Score |
| Weston-Super-Sox | 42 | 8 | 34 | 0 | 0.327 | 0.921 | 5 | 1 | 40 | 4 | 2.63 | 1.11 | 9 |
| Beck ‘Nams (GB) | 33 | 7 | 22 | 6 | 0.278 | 0.856 | 4 | 6 | 53 | 0 | 3.19 | 1.14 | 3 |
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The red-hot Sox are through to the final, knocking out the top seed, JJ’s Beck ‘Nams, 9-3. The Sox had a very impressive week with the bats, with Mauer, Butler, Tejada, Beltre and CarGo all big contributors, with Wolf and Dempster each pitching gems.
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JJ was handcuffed by Toronto’s decision to shut Brandon Morrow down recently, and another blow was ace Josh Johnson’s back injury. Despite this, the pitching staff still put up good numbers, thanks to a pair of wins from Arroyo and gems from Daniel Hudson and Verlander, as well as six saves. Despite efforts from Cruz, Guttierrez and Ruiz, the Beck ‘Nams bats just couldn’t out-hit the Sox.
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| Â | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OPS | W | SV | K | HLD | ERA | WHIP | Score |
| Orpington Isotopes | 32 | 14 | 39 | 2 | 0.25 | 0.836 | 5 | 3 | 80 | 1 | 2.74 | 1.11 | 5 |
| Pretzel Vendors | 33 | 10 | 39 | 7 | 0.342 | 0.974 | 3 | 6 | 39 | 1 | 4.64 | 1.3 | 5 |
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My Isotopes made it through to the final, but only just. This closely-fought matchup with the Vendors ended in a 5-5 tie, with the Isotopes advancing due to having the better regular season record between the two teams. There’s no question who my star players were, as Troy Tulotwitzki’s monster week (6 HR, 17 RBI, 9 R) was vital, as was a big Sunday from Jayson Werth.
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With the matchup so finely posed, I kept an eye on it during Sunday evening, and could see the key categories were going to be R, RBI and HLD.
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The Vendord had a grand slam from Derrek Lee and a two-run blast from Braun, but another big hit from Tulo and Werth’s walkoff two-run homer proved vital for my Isotopes.
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There was another key turning point in the Reds/Astros game. Houston were 3-0 up after the top of the 6th, with Lindstrom warming up to come in for a chance of a HLD for the Vendors. With Boston thumping Toronto, I knew Bard, my only source of HLDs, was not going to get one, so I either needed Houston to score again before Lindstrom came in, or hope Lindstrom coughed up the lead. Fortunately, Chris Johnson homered in the bottom of the 6th to give Houston a 4-0 lead, ending Lindstrom’s chance of a HLD.
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Braun, Choo and Holliday were outstanding for the Vendors, who also picked up an impressive six saves, but a stingy week from my pitching staff, added to Tulo and Werth, helped make the difference.
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| Â | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OPS | W | SV | K | HLD | ERA | WHIP | Score |
| Iron Men | 21 | 7 | 24 | 2 | 0.245 | 0.744 | 3 | 3 | 40 | 0 | 3.3 | 1.17 | 4 |
| The Wright Stuff | 24 | 10 | 26 | 5 | 0.266 | 0.797 | 4 | 2 | 39 | 1 | 6.03 | 1.53 | 8 |
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The Stuff rebounded from a heartbreaking tiebreak loss last week to take fifth place with an 8-4 win over Iron Men in a very tight matchup, as more than half of the categories easily could have gone the other way. The Stuff’s hitters managed a sweep of offensive categories, with the Astro duo of Johnson and Lee providing power and Hamels leading a pitching staff which was otherwise hit hard.
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Uggla and A-Rod were Iron Men’s top hitters, while Wainwright and Sabathia each had excellent weeks, but in the end it was Johnson’s homer and Austn Jackson’s 2 RBIs on Sunday which helped the Stuff win.
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CONSOLATION PLAYOFFS:
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| Â | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OPS | W | SV | K | HLD | ERA | WHIP | Score |
| stevenston angels | 20 | 4 | 31 | 5 | 0.278 | 0.739 | 5 | 0 | 42 | 2 | 3.41 | 1 | 3 |
| SWAT* | 33 | 9 | 22 | 6 | 0.294 | 0.877 | 2 | 4 | 34 | 3 | 2.45 | 0.79 | 9 |
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SWAT came out on top in the battle against the Angels, winning 9-3 with Rasmus and Utley providing the offense. SWAT’s bullpen got the job done, with a pair of saves for Soria and Capps, with Betancourt collecting three holds. Bruce, Molina, Lowe and Sanchez were the Angels’ top players.
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| Â | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OPS | W | SV | K | HLD | ERA | WHIP | Score |
| The Cheddar Chasers | 23 | 8 | 28 | 8 | 0.266 | 0.787 | 2 | 0 | 22 | 4 | 6.48 | 1.68 | 6 |
| Boston Rogue Waves | 23 | 7 | 23 | 3 | 0.265 | 0.797 | 3 | 4 | 17 | 2 | 3.18 | 1.41 | 5 |
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The Chasers squeezed past the Waves 6-5 in another close matchup. McCutchen, Adrian Gonzalez and Reyes helped the hitters take four categories. The Waves pitched well, taking four categories thanks to Lester and Chris Perez, while David Murphy drove in seven runs. McCutchen’s homer on Sunday was the turning point, although I’m sure the Waves will have been frustrated to see Ramon Hernandez’s homer on Sunday go to waste on the bench.
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| Â | R | HR | RBI | SB | AVG | OPS | W | SV | K | HLD | ERA | WHIP | Score |
| New Spaniards | 24 | 4 | 20 | 4 | 0.313 | 0.863 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 1 | 5.04 | 1.09 | 12 |
| Grip it n Rip It | 18 | 3 | 11 | 2 | 0.238 | 0.705 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 1.64 | 1.18 | 0 |
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We end with a 12-0 clean sweep for the Spaniards, as Rip It failed to pitch 20 innings in the 11th place playoff. Cano and Ibanez had big weeks for the Spaniards, while Bobby Abreu was the pick of an inury-riddled Rip It side.
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This week’s fixtures
CHAMPIONSHIP:
Final: Sox v Isotopes
Third place: Beck ‘Nams v Vendors
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CONSOLATION:
Final: Chasers v SWAT
Ninth place: Angels v Waves
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Each of these matchups will last for TWO WEEKS (September 20 until October 3), so for the next roundup I’ll be writing up how the teams are doing at the halfway stage.
The BaseballGB fantasy league’s final is now under way, with four teams doing battle for the championship and consolation titles. But which teams made it through from the semi-finals?Â
Glad to have made the consolation final, although it was a very close-run thing. After the disappointment of my final regular season week collapse, maybe my fantasy year will have a happy ending. We’ll see over the next two weeks!
Good luck to all involved
Wow. Still in a state of shock can’t believe I’ve made the final! I remember way back when I asked if I could take part saying I just hoped I wouldn’t embarras myself as I’d never some anything like this before.. Well I guess I can comfortably say I’ve done much better than I expected! Commiserations jj and good luck for the final mark don’t know if my nerves can stand another nail-biter! I work nites and find myself constantly checking the scores through the nite… Far more than is probably healthy! This season has been amazing as a relative baseball newbie my knowledge of the sport has increased exponentially! I urge anyone to give this a go next season,having enough teams for more than one division would be cool as promotion & relegation increase tension even more! The enjoyment I’ve had has been incredible…but be warned it takes over your life!!! Gud luck again mark hope the final is a classic!
Glad I made it through to the final, but only just! Kev, your Sox have been in excellent form recently – when it really matters – so it’s going to be a great matchup to end the season. May the best team win!
I’m glad fantasy baseball has helped you broaden your knowledge of the sport and as you know, it can be really good fun too.
Hopefully the visitors to the site will be inspired to join in next year – the more, the merrier.