http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glii-kazad8

- Somehow I managed to NOT make a post about Anderson Silva’s miracle triangle armbar a week ago. The dude is fucking amazing. Just like seemingly everyone else, when Silva was taken down in the 5th round I thought the match was over, but he had enough strength left after getting punched more than in his entire UFC career to pull that shit off. Wow. GSP-Silva needs to happen ASAP.

- It’s amazing how It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is now AT BEST the third-best half-hour of television on FX. Archer and Louie have had amazing first seasons, while Sunny is in decline. Shit, The League had a fantastic first season, too.

- My ability to not buy shit has increased tenfold. The Bourne Trilogy on Blu-ray for 35 bucks? Months ago, I would’ve jumped on that like Tiger on a blonde cocktail waitress, but now I just want to sell more things. I apologize for the Rick Reilly/Jay Leno-esque joke.

- It always feels good watching guys who make a living playing golf miss 5-foot putts. Then I remember they make hundred of thousands, if not millions, of dollars playing golf.

- I need to play a roto fantasy league for money next year. And a keeper league. Maybe combine the two for ultimate fantasy baseball action.

- I don’t touch upon controversial subjects on here much, especially not legitimately important controversial subjects, but the Ground Zero Mosque bullshit is ridiculous. I won’t dedicate a full post to it because it’s too fucking simple. It’s a goddamn community center two blocks away, not even within view of Ground Zero; it’s not the 100-foot-tall minaret-topped building most people envision when they think of mosques. I understand the outrage of some relatives of victims, but some people in that group didn’t want any reconstruction at the WTC site at all. Sorry, but fuck them. I totally empathize with their grief, but life needs to go on. Republicans meanwhile, politicize a building that SHOULDN’T BE A FUCKING ISSUE, but vote against a bill that would actually help people directly affected by 9/11.

- Girls grow up way too soon. I’m going to stop checking out hot girls in the mall, because I’m sure they are all 16 years old.

- I’m not surprised at Scott Pilgrim vs. The World totally bombing, losing to Inception‘s 5th weekend. If it weren’t for Edgar Wright’s involvement, I would think the movie looks incredibly awful. Since I doubt most people care about that fact — if they were even aware in the first place — $10 million sounds about right. But I’ll still go see it; I don’t want to risk Speed Racer-like regret.

- David Wright is now officially having the worst offensive season of his career. It’s cool how Wright and Jose Reyes have declined right when most players hit their prime. Really. Fucking. Cool.

I got invited into a league at the eleventh hour, and once I heard that there were seven Yankee fans among the twelve managers, I knew I had to fuck with them. Having the first nomination of the draft fall into my lap provided the perfect opportunity to kick off the festivities perfectly. But before I go into a short narrative of the draft, I guess I’ll do some explaining.

For the uninitiated, a normal fantasy draft takes the 12 (or 14 or whatever) managers and plops them in a random order, and flips the drafting order each round, e.g., whoever picks second in the 1st round picks second to LAST in the 2nd round. This goes for however many rounds as there are player slots designated for each team. But I’m sure anyone bothering to read this post already knew this.

Now, the auction draft — like all other fantasy drafts I’ve taken part in — was on Yahoo!, so I don’t know if the exact rules apply, but I’m sure that even within Yahoo! (yes, I’m totally gonna keep adding the exclamation point) there are plenty of options to fiddle around with, so not every fantasy draft is the same anyhow. But for my draft, each team was provided with $260 monopoly dollars to fill 21 slots (C,1B,2B,SS,3B,OF,OF,OF,Util,SP,SP,RP,RP,P,P,P,BN,BN,BN,BN,BN). Feel free to ask if you’re clueless and actually interested in knowing what those stand for. From there, the managers are put in a random order just like a normal draft, but in this case, each manager nominates a player instead of drafting him. This means that the manager effectively bids $1 for this player and from then on anyone can bid up to whatever they want, short of bankrupting themselves from filling all their slots — meaning $1 is left for each empty slot no matter what, limiting the maximum bid by a few dollars. For every player nominated, the projected and average draft values are displayed, so there is at least some sort of benchmark to which even the most clueless manager can refer.

Yet when I nominated Phil Hughes — whose average draft value couldn’t have been more than two — the Yankee fans fell over themselves and hilariously bid him up to $7. By comparison, Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman also went for $7 later in the draft. Sadly, I think that obscene bidding war might have been the high point of the draft. But the sprawling length of the draft did provide for many other moments, like when the lone Braves fan bid $20 for Mariano Rivera, assuming at least one of the Yankee fans would bite. They didn’t. I guess they had learned their lesson with Hughes. Or when the same Braves fan kept bidding up the price for Santana just to annoy me –even after joking for weeks about how his elbow is going to explode — and I finally conceded, much to his dismay. Or when one of the Yankee fans tried to bait me in particular by nominating John Maine. He ended up spending his first dollar and roster spot on John Maine. Awesome.

The high point of my draft personally had to be snatching Roy Halladay for $35. Not a huge bargain, but considering Tim Lincecum went for $47, and C.C. Sabathia and Zack Greinke for $39, I think I made out alright. He will totally decimate the NL, especially when you consider that he won’t be facing the best offense in the league. Oh, and somehow Chris Carpenter went for $37 AFTER I picked up Halladay, but that was someone who missed the draft having the computer draft for them. And that’s why you always make auction drafts.

So if you’re ever a manager of a fantasy league, make sure everyone can make the draft, and then set up an auction draft. It’s the American way.

I can’t believe this freakish-looking piece of skinny garbage. He just choked in the fantasy equivalent of Game 7 of the World Series (not to mention the real-life implications). I WAS WINNING ALL WEEK AND YOU BLEW IT. Since the Mets didn’t provide me with a last-day collapse for the third straight year, I guess my fantasy team had to fill in.

I went into the day leading 5-4 in my Head-to-Head league in the matchup for the championship. With extremely modest leads in R, HR, and RBI, I figured I couldn’t count on winning those categories, so I needed to start Scott Baker, even if he hurt my ERA lead. I figured he would give me some strikeouts and possibly a win — the category that was tied going into the day. I wasn’t even concerned about Lincecum. I figured he would give me a bunch of Ks, help my ERA, and also possibly give me a win. The only starter going for my opponent? Ubaldo Jimenez. A decent pitcher, actually, but I didn’t think he’d end up with as many Ks as Baker and Lincecum combined. Or end up with a win while neither of my starters did. HOW THE FUCK DID THAT HAPPEN?!?!

Why did you have to destroy my fantasy life, Timmy? After Baker put up a shitty performance, I still wasn’t worried, since I figured you’d at the very least give me the win for Ks. But no, you had to pitch 4 innings, let up 5 ER, and only notch THREE measly fucking strikeouts. Baker had five! And I didn’t even end up losing the ERA battle by much — 3.69 to 3.81. IF ONLY YOU SUCKED MARGINALLY LESS I HAD THE CHAMPIONSHIP LOCKED UP!! Fuck this shit, give the Cy Young to Adam Wainwright or Chris Carpenter. Just drop it in the Cardinals’ clubhouse and let them have a ping-pong tournament for it or something. Wainwright just had 10 Ks tonight. That’s a Cy Young award winner, asshole. I can’t believe I voted for you in my poll.

And anyone who wants to criticize me for starting Baker: Fuck you. I explained my reasoning, and besides — if I left him on the bench and he had an awesome start, and I had lost one or two of those aforementioned offensive categories resulting in an overall loss, I would’ve been kicking myself right now. It’s much more fun ripping apart Lincecum for the stupidest reason ever. What a fucking loser. HAVE FUN MAKING COMMERCIALS DURING THE PLAYOFFS, DICKWAD.

I can’t think a better way to waste four hours of a weekend than totally fucking up two fantasy baseball drafts. One head-to-head and one roto. In the post-draft assessment, I think I’d be better off if I could switch the two teams around. I really should just wave the white flag in the roto league. I had no idea about the 1250 innings limit until someone brought it up in the draft chat, and by then I had already shoved a multitude of starting pitchers up my ass — something I should have done in the head-to-head league. So basically, I read up on some fantasy baseball strategy over at The Hardball Times, and then proceeded to apply it to the wrong league. I am awesome.

You’re only going to want to read on if you want a round-by-round breakdown of my failure.

The format:

[Round]: [H2H Draft (draft #)] vs. [Roto Draft (draft #)]

Round 1: David Wright (5) vs. David Wright (4)

I actually missed the first four rounds of my roto draft due to Verizon DSL being total shit, so I was pretty happy to see I still ended up with my mancrush. Three fantasy drafts in two years, and David Wright has been my first pick every time. I very much doubt he will let me down.

Round 2: Tim Lincecum (20) vs. Lance Berkman (21)

This is where I already started ignoring the advice of The Hardball Times. Although, it’s tough to get mad at picking the amazing manchild that is Lincecum. I can’t say I’m disappointed with the auto-pick of Fat Elvis, either.

Round 3: C.C. Sabathia (29) vs. Dustin Pedroia (28)

I am a fucking moron. Taking SPs with two of my first three picks? Good way to guarantee that my offense will be comparatively anemic. I bet Fatty gets hurt this year, considering a person with the build of pregnant Octomom isn’t supposed to throw 250 IP each season. Once again, auto-pick proves to be smarter than me.

Round 4: Russell Martin (44) vs. Matt Kemp (45)

I have no problem with either of these Dodgers.

Round 5: Shane Victorino (53) vs. Dan Haren (52)

How I allowed the round timer to run out and auto-pick, I will never know. Victorino is the baseball equivalent of herpes. Goes without saying that Haren is better. It’s not like he’s AIDS or anything. Here’s hoping my proposed trade for Ellsbury is accepted.

Round 6: Adam Dunn (68) vs. J.J. Hardy (69)

Another round for which I have no pertinent entertaining commentary. I just guess I’m happy defense doesn’t matter for either of them.

Round 7: Robinson Cano (77) vs. Ervin Santana (76)

Needless to say, I am hoping Cano bounces back this year. And by bounce back, I mean I hope his BABIP isn’t historically awful.

Round 8: Derek Jeter (92) vs. Bobby Abreu (93)

Two old dudes that could possibly suck this year. Sweet.

Round 9: Joakim Soria (101) vs. Ryan Doumit (100)

The first reliever appears! I didn’t even know this Doumit guy, but it looked like he had decent stats for a catcher. Too bad I should have once again drafted a reliever at this point. Like Soria…

Round 10: Vernon Wells (116) vs. B.J. Ryan (117)

…since Soria was selected right before Ryan in the Roto draft. Fuck me.

Round 11: Joey Votto (125) vs. Francisco Cordero (124)

Votto was a good pick, but once again, a reliever I wanted was selected right before Cordero. Whatever, he’ll give me some saves.

Round 12: Brian Fuentes (140) vs. Raul Ibanez (141)

Fuentes is probably better than Cordero (and shit, even Ryan), which shows how much quicker relievers were going in the roto draft. Ibanez served me well last year, so I had to pick him up again. Of course, he only serves well in fantasy.

Round 13: Chris Young (149) vs. Mark DeRosa (148)

Not that happy with this round. I guess Young is OK, but I think I selected DeRosa only because he was eligible for so many positions. But that’s good for a BENCH player, not utility. I should have just selected JI. JIM THOME.

Round 14: Scott Baker (164) vs. Scott Baker (165)

I think I’m going to call this a push.

Round 15: Jered Weaver (173) vs. Erik Bedard (172)

Pretty sure this is where my roto draft fell off a cliff. Yep.

Round 16: Justin Upton (188) vs. Jered Weaver (189)

I really let these Hardball Times rankings get into my head. I never would’ve drafted a Weaver once, nevermind twice, otherwise.

Round 17: Mike Pelfrey (197) vs. Jair Jurrjens (196)

Goddamn it.

Round 18: John Maine (212) vs. Mike Pelfrey (213)

Homerism at its worst.

Round 19: Joey Devine (221) vs. John Smoltz (220)

Devine was selected 70 spots before this in the roto league. An even better example of how terrible my strategy was in the roto draft. The Smoltz pick occurred right after I found out about the innings limit. My despondence led me to pick for spite. The Braves fan in the league voiced his displeasure.

Round 20: Hong-Chih Kuo (236) vs. Hong-Chih Kuo (237)

I am very happy with this pick in both leagues, amazingly.

Round 21: Grant Balfour (245) vs. Chris Perez (244)

It should have been Balfour in the roto draft, not the H2H. Luckily, he was still available after the roto draft, so I immediately dropped Perez to pick him up.

FINAL JUDGMENT: I think I picked worse in both leagues than I did last year. I took too many non-save accumulating relievers at the end of the H2H draft, and took too few of them in the roto draft. Fortunately, my offenses are decent and balanced — the roto league moreso. Maybe I should wake up more than 10 minutes before the draft and come up with some definite strategies next year. And then stick to them, instead of giving in and drafting sexy starters. Sexy in the stats sense only, obviously.

Which probably worked out better for me, since two nights ago I had my GAF Yahoo Fantasy Baseball draft I did this:

(1) David Wright

I couldn’t let any other team have him. Just watch! A-Rod will get hurt this year, and I’ll look like a genius! (Pujols, Hanley and Reyes will also need to get hurt).

This IRC chat log sums it up:

WasabiKing: who was your first pick?
CajoleJuice: david wright
CajoleJuice: he’s my boy
WasabiKing: and like I always say, NEVER pick with your heart
WasabiKing: oh man you are fucked