Astrology Baseball Championship Preview

What an exciting September this has been! No divisional leader in the AL has a lead of more than two games. Six teams separated by less than five games in the NL Wild Card, including two surprise contenders who were both on the wrong side of big sales at the trade deadline. And the best team in baseball shut down their best pitcher for the remainder of the season. But perhaps the most exciting event that's been going on is the PLAYOFFS FOR MY ASTROLOGY BASEBALL FANTASY LEAGUE!!! GET EXCITED!!1~

For the last two weeks, the first round (also the semifinals) has been taking place. The two interdivisional matchups were the Capricorn Sea-Goats (#1 seed, Negative division) vs. the Libra Scales (#4, Positive) and the Aries Rams (#2, Positive) vs. the Cancer Crabs (#3, Negative). Below is a position by position analysis of the teams. The point totals date back to the start of the playoffs, and the winner at each position is highlighted in bold:

You'll notice right away that we have two battles of pitching vs. batting. Check out these comparisons:

- Capricorn leads Libra in all batting positions but two.

- Aries leads Cancer in all batting positions but two.

- Libra leads Capricorn in ALL pitching positions.

- Cancer leads Aries in all pitching positions but two.

In the latter case, it would turn out to be those two that made all the difference. You always hear that good pitching wins championships. In fantasy (at least the system that I use, which is also the most similar to the system used in fantasy football), the most points wins championships. Now it stands to reason that, since there are more spots for hitters than pitchers, your lineup would be a higher priority than your pitching staff. But pitchers have much higher points per game averages, so they're very important, especially in the short term (cf. Kris Medlen, below). It's a complex situation, but if it weren't complex, it wouldn't hold the interest of thousands of fans each year.

These astrology-based teams, of course, didn't get a chance to pick their players in a draft - the players were assigned based on their cosmic personalities / choices made by their parents of a conceptual (i.e. when to conceive) nature. And yet the teams in these two matchups embody two very different conceptual (i.e. the concept of team strategy) choices - whether to focus on pitching or hitting.

In Libra's case, their pitching-heavy approach is working well: they're leading a very comfortable 2,468 to 1,621 as of this writing, with only one day to go in the two-week long matchup. But there's also something very special happening with this pitching staff. Not only do they have owner of a 2012 perfect game Matt Cain, former Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke, former Cy Young Award runner-up Jered Weaver, and the breakout pitching story of the year in free agent-to-be Kyle Lohse, but one of the hottest starters right now, Kris Medlen, is currently eligible to pitch out of an RP slot. He's currently filling in as RP2, since Kenley Jansen is on the shelf for the Dodgers until at least Tuesday. Medlen's three starts accounted for 359 points, the most of any player over the same time period. When the best competition Capricorn can send against these powerhouses is Cole Hamels followed by a steep dropoff, they're gonna be in some trouble.

On the offensive side, Robinson Cano and Andrew McCutchen are no slouches, especially at key positions on the diamond. But it's impressive that Libra could hold off Capricorn's onslaught by the likes of Albert Pujols, Edwin Encarnacion, Matt Holliday, and even the underrated Hanley Ramirez. All the more so considering Libra had nothing more than backup John McDonald to subsist on at SS (he's played in just seven games out of the last 13). Their regular star at the position (and #5 average draft pick) Troy Tulowitzki has been out since late May with a groin injury, and it's doubtful he'll return this year. Also on the injury front: dual-eligible 3B/OF Jose Bautista (#4 average draft pick) has seen his last action of 2012. Luckily two strong rookies - Yoenis Cespedes and Bryce Harper - have been able to pick up the slack in that department. 1B is also weak, with Michael Young their only eligible player there, but C got a shot in the arm when Kurt Suzuki was traded to the Nationals and regained a starting spot.

The Aries offense is not only staggeringly talented, it's also staggeringly deep, helping them to a lead of 2,383 to 1,382. Just take a look at this team's BENCH options: Joe Mauer, Hunter Pence, Jason Kipnis, and Mark Teixeira (once he returns from his calf issue). If you were going to search for cosmic patterns or tendencies regarding players born under specific signs, it would have to start with Aries, because this veritable army of fantasy stalwarts is just unfair. Aside from two legitimate MVP candidates in Miguel Cabrera and Buster Posey, Aries also boasts the top 3B who actually plays 3B Adrian Beltre, 8th ranked OF Jay Bruce, and up-and-coming star SS Starlin Castro. Derek Jeter is showing his agelessness for Cancer and Brandon Phillips and Yadier Molina are some of the game's best at weak positions, but overall the offenses don't compare.

And while Cancer's pitching staff has the depth and bullpen strength, very few can compare to Aries' 1-2 punch of Felix Hernandez (another perfect gamer this year) and Chris Sale (who's eligible to pitch as an RP, but it's actually more strategic to pitch him out of an SP slot). And even though Aries' SP3 (Mark Buehrle) scored less points on the year than Cancer's SP5 (Paul Maholm), and despite the fact that Cancer has the RP depth to keep two legitimate closers on its bench (Jason Motte and Ernesto Frieri), the loss of Stephen Strasburg was too much to overcome. I guess the Aries team proves that a couple of star pitchers coupled with an out-of-this-world impressive offense is the clear strategy to winning. Now the only issue for the rest of us is how to draft that type of team...

I'll leave you with another graphic, this one showing the two teams now almost certain to face off in the finals, along with current stats, and (because ESPN also calculates these) most recent stats:

The final playoff matchup of the fantasy season also signals the final two weeks of actual baseball's regular season (barring all the very scary and very real tiebreaker scenarios). It's been, and continues to be, a fun and awesome season, and it's been an honor to be a part of it, if only through the blogosphere.