Fantasy Astrology 2015: Rebalancing for May

I'm reading a book about personal finances and investing right now, and one of the principles for maintaining a healthy portfolio is regular rebalancing. For example, if you start out with 60% of your investment capital in stocks and 40% in bonds, but one of your stocks has a dramatic rise in value, in addition to having more total money, your percentage will be more heavily weighted towards stocks. Thus you have to "rebalance" your portfolio by selling some of your stocks and buying some more bonds, so that you don't expose yourself to excessive risk.

I've taken a similar approach with the 12 rosters in my Fantasy Astrology project, making sure each roster has the best players in the starting lineup and adding hot performers from the waiver wire. Experts say that you should rebalance your financial portfolio on a quarterly or even yearly basis, but since keeping up with fantasy astrology stats is also beneficial for my personal fantasy team, I've decided to rebalance the astrology lineups on a monthly basis.

Below is a link to each astrology team's roster page - because they are apparently viewable to the public - along with some top performers on each team and a summary of any notable changes made since the beginning of the season. Since it's too early for the standings to mean much, I'm sorting the teams by the mysterious "Points For" category from ESPN's fantasy client.

1. Aries Rams

Offensive leader Miguel Cabrera is going to be the top performer on most of the fantasy teams that he's on, but Lorenzo Cain deserves honorable mention for already putting up more than 300 fantasy points and taking the charge of the hot-starting Royals. Felix Hernandez is the number two pitcher in the sport, trailing only Dallas Keuchel in total points, but this team has had rockstar pitching performances from Matt Harvey, Jake Odorizzi, and Anthony DeSclafani, the latter of whom wasn't even on the roster to start the year.

Odorizzi and DeSclafani replace the injured Hisashi Iwakuma and the surprisingly disappointing Chris Sale (who might be feeling some effects from his offseason foot injury) in the rotation. Defending AL Cy Young winner Corey Kluber has also been struggling, but he keeps his spot for now. With Koji Uehara returning from the DL, he replaces pirates closer Mark Melancon next to David Robertson in the bullpen. It also might be time for third baseman Adrian Beltre to officially pass the torch to Nolan Arenado.

2. Virgo Maidens

Virgo has three All-Star caliber first basemen on their roster: Paul Goldschmidt is a no brainer, but I ended up making the wrong decision for the DH slot, starting Freddie Freeman over Joey Votto to start the year. I also made the wrong decision in center field, but the rankings overwhelmingly supported Jacoby Ellsbury over Billy Hamilton, so I don't blame myself much. Backup catcher Nick Hundley is getting playing time with John Jaso hitting the DL early. And the last change I made was replacing struggling shortstop Ian Desmond with Marcus Semien, who is quietly becoming the most effective healthy shortstop in the AL

Gerrit Cole has been the leader in the pitching department, showing that he might be ready to reach his number one overall pick potential. Adan Wainwright's injury is definitely a blow to this pitching staff, but luckily they had his Cardinals teammate Carlos Martinez waiting on the bench. The bullpen also got a boost since Wade Davis is picking up saves for Kansas City with Derek Holland hurt.

3. Leo Lions

Mike Trout and Adam Jones are a beastly outfield combo, and there's a good chance that pair will be starting alongside either Nelson Cruz or Hanley Ramirez in this year's All-Star Game. Alex Rodriguez's resurgence has earned him a lineup spot, especially given Jason Heyward's struggles. Wilmer Flores isn't a big upgrade over Chris Owings, but I figured I'd let the young kid have his shot.

The top pitching performer on this team has actually been closer Huston Street, although Max Scherzer would likely claim that title if he had been able to make his scheduled start before getting injured while swinging his "wet newspaper" at the plate. There was a lot of turnover in this pitching staff as unforseeable circumstances caused Joaquin Benoit to become obsolete, and the strong early performances of Brandon Morrow, Jesse Hahn, and Nick Martinez (a waiver wire addition) easily eclipsed Clay Buchholz, Taijuan Walker, and Drew Hutchison.


4. Aquarius Water Carriers

In a surprising role reversal, an Aquarius team that has never before been close to contention finds themselves in the thick of it, thanks to Todd Frazier's hot bat and Johnny Cueto's incredible pitching abilities. I mean, Jose Abreu and Scott Kazmir have helped, and when top prospect Addison Russell gains eligibility at 2B, this lineup will start looking a little stronger. The bullpen is still a mess with fill-in A's closer Tyler Clippard only saving one game so far. Changes in the starting rotation: Ubaldo Jimenez and Travis Wood take the spots of struggling Doug Fister and Julio Teheran, for this month at least.

5. Capricorn Goats

This year I'm enacting a Tampa Bay style of this team's name, dropping the "Sea" and having them known only as the Goats. Cuz I've heard of a Mountain Goat and a Billy Goat, but what is a "Sea Goat" anyway? The point is, Hanley Ramirez's power surge leads the team on the offensive side, but I actually moved him out of the shortstop slot due to the emergence of Jose Iglesias. All three 1B/DH types on this roster are struggling, but you have to believe that at least two of the trio of Edwin Encarnacion, Victor Martinez, and Albert Pujols will heat up eventually, provided they can avoid the DL.

Perhaps no player has had more of a hand in the Astros' hot start than Dallas Keuchel, who has evolved into a true ace of a team that is surprisingly relevant. Also Trevor Bauer and Danny Salazar have worked their way into a very strong rotation, although after today's performance, I wish I hadn't given up on Jon Lester so soon. We'll see if he can keep up the pace against a non-Brewers team in his next start.

6. Scorpio Scorpions

Giancarlo Stanton has lived up to expectations as Miami's offensive leader and Sonny Gray is developing into a solid ace in Oakland (with great taste in socks). Two surprise offensive stars are catcher Stephen Vogt, who really deserves some All-Star consideration even in the early going, and second baseman Alex Guerrero, who only made the Dodgers' roster due to a technicality. Greg Holland's injury is softened by Jason Grilli taking over from Craig Kimbrel as the Braves' stopper, but there's still the disappointment that is Cody Allen. The hot starts of Shane Greene and Mike Leake will help make up for Masahiro Tanaka's predictable injury.


7. Libra Scales

Matt Kemp and Bryce Harper lead the offensive attack, and the hot starts of Jose Bautista and Starling Marte have pushed such potential stars Andrew McCutchen and Yoenis Cespedes to the bench. Ryan Zimmerman's eligibility at first base fills the only major hole in the lineup. Then of course there's just Troy Tulowitzki, Robinson Cano, and Evan Longoria holding it down in the infield. You know, just some pretty OK players. On the pitching side Chris Archer and Zack Greinke headline a strong but shallow location, and Jeurys Familia is doing a great job filling in for the suspended Jenrry Mejia.


8. Taurus Bulls

Sometimes even having the best offensive performer in the sport (Adrian Gonzalez) isn't enough to land in the top half of team ranks. Not even when that player is supported by top tier second baseman Jose Altuve and star closer Joakim Soria. But the cold hard truth is that a team needs pitching to win as well, and the team's top starters - Aaron Harang and Alfredo Simon - weren't in the rotation to start the year. (Again, I'm a slave to the rankings, who could blame me!?)






9. Cancer Crabs

For this team, it's Nelson Cruz and pray for rain. Sure, there are a couple of solid infielders (Manny Machado, Ian Kinsler, and Howie Kendrick are holding it down) and the duo of Michael Wacha and Edinson Volquez (when the latter gets back from his suspension) are looking very impressive. But there are no save opportunities to speak of, they don't have a shortstop to replace Derek Jeter, and the rest of the roster is just plain mediocre.




10. Pisces Fish

Rookie Devon Travis has been a nice surprise for the Blue Jays after he was acquired in a one-for-one swap over the offseason and Denard Span and Josh Reddick have both impressed since coming off the DL. But not even three All-Star closers (Aroldis Chapman, Glen Perkins, and Fernando Rodney) can stem the tide of mediocrity that this roster provides. Now to test your predictive skills: raise your hand if you thought Jake Arrieta would have more fantasy points than Clayton Kershaw a month into the season...

11. Gemini Twins

No team has been so badly decimated by injuries as Gemini. They lost a pitcher (Jake Peavy), two catchers (Jonathan Lucroy and Devin Mesoraco), their second baseman (Ben Zobrist), and their shortstop (Jose Reyes), and that's not even counting Anthony Rendon, Josh Hamilton, Matt Wieters, and Matt Moore, none of whom have played yet this season. This leaves Royals DH Kendrys Morales as their top offensive performer. In the pleasant surprise department, Andrew Miller has taken over the closer's role for the Yankees and Bartolo Colon has shined for the red hot Mets.


12. Sagittarius Archers

Josh Donaldson and Wil Myers have been raking with their new teams, but neither of them compares to what Matt Carpenter is doing for his astrology team's last place effort. This team has also seen a lot of its stars head to the DL: Carlos Gomez, Yasiel Puig, David Wright, Christian Yelich all went down, although I'm leaving Gomez in the starting lineup because he's slated to return to the field this weekend. James Shields is the most solid starter, with Hector Santiago's surprisingly good start not doing enough to mitigate the negative point totals put up so far from Mat Latos and Ian Kennedy.


All this work might eventually be moot, because very well might use a "best case scenario" version of each team to determine playoff seeding. But keeping the teams somewhat up to date will give my loyal blog readers something to look at!

Basic Lands of Los Angeles

When building a Magic: The Gathering deck, the number one consideration is which creatures and spells to include in order to give you the best chance of winning the game. The next thing to consider is mana base: what colors of mana do you need to cast said creatures and spells, how much of it should you put in your deck, and in what ratio? After the completion of these two steps (which can consist of nearly innumerable substeps), the rest of the deckbuilding process is mostly mechanical. You grab the desired creatures/spells/nonbasic lands from your collection (or acquire them from your local card shop or the Internet) and populate the remaining slots with whatever basic lands you happen to have lying around.

It's in this last part that I personally differ from most of the Magic players I know. As I've written before, I put a lot of thought into basic lands, especially the art. In fact, I make it a point of pride not to include more than one basic land type with the same art from the same set in my decks (unless it's a limited event and I'm under a time crunch to finish my decklist, but even then I'll still take some time for aesthetic tinkering). Maybe it's this obsession with aspects of the game that have nothing to do with the actual gameplay that make me a less effective Magic player than most people I play with. But then again, that only makes me a MORE effective Magic aficionado.

Another thing I appreciate about basic lands is that since they describe common geographical features, their art could come from pretty much anywhere. Which Magic player among you hasn't come across a particularly breathtaking vista, looked through your thumbs and forefingers at right angles, and thought, "That sure would go great on a Plains/Island/Swamp/Mountain/Forest card!" I know Magic artists must have those thoughts, or else it's the world's biggest coincidence that Theros Island #237 looks exactly like an iconic beach in Baja, Mexico (see above).

I've certainly had those thoughts, especially as I travel throughout my hometown of Los Angeles, CA (hence the Hometown tag on this post, which was previously reserved for a baseball related project). Thanks to the magic of smartphones (pun most definitely intended), I was able to capture five images that I think epitomize the five basic land types in Magic, as they are found in LA. And thanks to the magic of MTG Cardsmith, I was able to plug those images into a realistic Magic card frame to see what an LA-based set might actually look like. Here are the five cards:

This is a picture of Janice's Green Valley, a section of the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area (notice how it's very clearly not referred to as a "Park"). There's a bit of a disconnect here, since there is a lot of green in this card - both in the name of the location and the color scheme of the image itself - while Plains tap for white mana. But it is also very clearly a picture of a plains, and it wouldn't be the first card of its type to be dominated by a grassy field.

I took this picture while standing on a cliff somewhere in Malibu, in the northwestern part of Los Angeles County. It was surprisingly difficult to find a stretch of coastline in LA that wasn't dominated by tourists on the beach, oceanfront property, or the Pacific Coast Highway. You can still see some of these elements in the background, but the focus is clearly on the crashing waves and the majestic cliffs. That's not to say that I feel architecture should be wholly absent from basic land art, but I wanted to focus on the geography in this first set of images.

I stumbled upon this marshy tract of land in Franklin Canyon, a hidden hiking oasis in the heart of Beverly Hills, and I have yet to come across anywhere else in the LA area that looks quite as likely to produce black mana. California is in a drought of epic proportions, after all, and without water, a swamp is really just a patch of dirt. I'm pretty sure this area also has some green mana, since soon after taking this picture, I was chased from the scene by the unmistakable sounds of a nearby Hornet Nest.

This was actually the hardest clean image for me to find. While LA is a decidedly mountainous environment, most of the ones you see are of the shrub-covered, rolling hills variety, rather than the stark jagged peaks preferred by Magic artists. And even if you find one that is appropriately majestic, there's usually a freeway or a bunch of power lines or an upscale neighborhood in the way. This particular outcropping can be found on the Solstice Canyon trail, just miles from the ruins of an abandoned mansion that would make a pretty sweet nonbasic land in its own right... but that's a project for another time.

Unlike my search for an adequate mountain, it was pretty easy to find a grouping of trees that could pass for a forest. This wealth of options allowed me to get picky about such aspects as lighting, and it was the mint lens flare that put this image over the top for me. These trees are also in the Kenneth Hahn Area, right before the main entrance. (If you look really hard at the bottom right corner, you can see the chain link fence that marks the border of the not-park.)


Maybe these examples will get you thinking about how normal everyday sights can form the basis of a fantasy setting. Or maybe they just gave you an increased appreciation for the existing art on basic lands. Or maybe not on both counts. Either way, I hope you enjoyed this tour around my hometown, seen through the lens of Magic's most common card type.

A's vs. Royals 2015

I'll update this post with more thoughts about the epic rivalry that has been sparked between the A's and the Royals this season, but let's start things off with a picture that adequately describes the most recent dust-up.

UPDATE: A five game suspension and a couple of undisclosed fines. That's how chapter one of the great A's vs. Royals unwritten rules-a-thon 2015 officially ends. Yordano Ventura gets one of the fines for beaning Brett Lawrie (pictured, right) in response to a "good hard slide" that ended up injuring Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar. Meanwhile, Kelvin Herrera (pictured, left) gets the suspension and the other fine for throwing behind Lawrie's head, even after it appeared that all the on-field retaliation was finished.

The tensions between these two clubs date back to last year's Wild Card game, a brutal extra-innings affair, where Kansas City simultaneously put a pin in Oakland's late season collapse, and exposed Jon Lester's issues with the running game for all the world to see. Actually, the tensions can be traced all the way back to the 60's when the Athletics franchise left Kansas City for Oakland. But the funny part about these particular tensions is that the player whose actions sparked this little fracas wasn't even with the A's last October, let alone in 1967.

Brett Lawrie has a bit of a reputation as a badass - just look at his arm tats and warrior eye black - so maybe some preconceived notions had something to do with the Royals getting all bent out of shape. But judging by how calmly Lawrie reacted after getting hit by Yordano Ventura, it's clear that he has an understanding of baseball's unwritten rules. If something you did on the field is perceived as dirty or unnecessarily rough, you can expect some retaliation. Lawrie clearly expected the plunking and he silently walked to first base, even as Ventura gave him the stink-eye the whole way (a look he usually reserves for Mike Trout). It wasn't until after a 100-mph fastball from Herrera came whizzing behind Lawrie's head that he started showing some emotion, and with good cause.

This week in the fantasy baseball league of which I'm the commissioner, I posted the poll pictured at right. Take a moment to mull over the choices and sound off in the comments or on Twitter (@Hunter_S_Batman) with your opinion. However, after reviewing the facts, I realize there's one other option that I didn't include. Remember that Ventura's beaning of Lawrie and Herrera's rogue suspension-inducing pitch took place in two different games and were separated by one very important hit batter: Lorenzo Cain was hit in the foot by A's starter Scott Kazmir on a pitch that appeared to be unintentional. Or at least it appeared so to the umpires, because no punishment was issued. That is, until Royals manager Ned Yost stormed out of the dugout, ran his mouth, and was immediately tossed from the game. Yost clearly was under the impression that the A's wanted to continue the beef, and his ejection likely put that thought in the minds of some of his players, one of whom nearly took an opposing player's head clean off.

So I don't know if two-thirds of the fines/suspensions that were issued by MLB due to this mess would have gone away if Ned Yost had just turned around and walked back down the dugout steps after Cain's HBP. But it's worth considering another option to add to the poll above: Ned Yost is an unapolagetic hothead who let all that bunting affect his judgment. We'll see what happens when these two teams square off again in late June, but unless Kelvin Herrera waits until then to serve his suspension, I can't see how tempers aren't gonna flare...

Thoughts (and Charts!) About Opening Day Rosters 2015

I haven't written any blog posts recently because I've been spending these last few weeks creating content for other corners of the interweb. (Forget for a moment that these corners are both owned by the same giant corporation.) That's right, the ryskmonger42 channel is finally getting some love, at least from its creator - the subscriptions stopped coming in when my Batman Power Hour got blocked (password is batman). And then while I haven't been recording myself playing video games or editing that gameplay footage or messing around with musical mashups, I've been putting the finishing touches on my 40 Man Rosters document.

Now that I've got all the info entered as of opening day, I've started drawing some broad strokes conclusions about the state of MLB's rosters. The first thing I looked at was the distribution of pitchers and position players on each active roster. When I watch games with the uninitiated, one of the most frequent questions I get is about roster construction and the pitcher-to-batter ratio. I say that for the majority of teams it's 12 pitchers and 13 batters, and the research I did into this year's crop of opening day rosters confirms this: 23 teams or 77% follow this model, as you can see in the chart below. The other two permutations we see - one with an extra pitcher, one with an extra batter - are so infrequent that it's worth just listing the outliers. The five teams carrying an eight-man bullpen are the Orioles, Blue Jays, Indians, Mets, and defending World Champion Giants. The two teams with an extra piece of bench depth are the White Sox and Dodgers.

The next factor I examined was the number of rookies each team has on its active roster. I prepared a chart for this too, and if you skip ahead you'll see that there's a big cluster of teams with either one or two rookies, no team had more than six (which comes out to nearly a quarter of the big league roster), and only one team had no rookies in the big league dugout on opening day (the Miami Marlins). Looking at the two teams with six, it's clear that clubs can stockpile rookies for very different strategic reasons: the Braves are in a self-professed rebuilding period and are breaking in some future regulars, while the Blue Jays want to contend and are looking to capture some lightning in a bottle from their talented youngsters. Keep in mind that I'm relying on Baseball-Reference.com's rookie status calculations, as I wouldn't want to determine how many days each 2014 first year player had on his team's active roster.

Usually I would do a tally of how many new acquisitions are on each team's active roster, but I feel like I've done enough showcasing of newly acquiried talent for one offseason. This next list is a little more targeted and less broadly indicative of MLB trends as the previous two, but since I went to all the trouble of including Cot's Baseball Contracts info into my document, I made a list of each team's highest-paid player going into the season. In the notes section, I pointed out which contracts were newly signed for 2015 and whether the initial contract was signed by a different team than a player's current team. I also added an extra player in the notes section for two teams, the Tigers and the Giants, both of whose highest salaried players quickly went on the disabled list to start the season. Not mentioned in the notes section are players whose salaries are being partially paid for by the teams that traded them, such as Matt Kemp, Trevor Cahill, and Prince Fielder starting in 2016.

As a bonus addendum to the above lists and charts, I want to share some observations I had when going through the minor league affiliates for 2015. As you may know, there are six levels of the minor leagues. Every team has an affiliate of the four highest skill levels: AAA (Triple A), AA (Double A), A+ (Class A Advanced), and A (Class A). All but eight teams have an A- (Short Season A) affiliate, and all but two teams have a Rookie level affiliate in either the Gulf Coast League or the Arizona League. Also, 17 teams have affiliates in one of the other two Rookie leagues, and it's one exception to this rule that brings me to my first observation:

- The Royals are the only team to have an affiliate in both of these aforementioned non-Florida-or-Arizona Rookie leagues: the Appalachian League and the Frontier League.

- Minor league teams are often named after their parent club. The teams whose name appears on the most affiliates (not counting GCL and AZL) are as follows: Braves (4), Cardinals, Yankees, and Mets (3), Red Sox, Cubs, and Blue Jays (2).

- There are two affiliates who share the name of a major league team with which they are not affiliated: the Indianapolis Indians (PIT AAA) and the Spokane Indians (TEX A-).

- The Angels are the only team to have two affiliates with the same name that is NOT the name of the parent club: the AAA Salt Lake Bees and the Class A Burlington Bees. I think it's safe to say, AAAAAUUUUGGGGHHH!!! NOT THE BEES!!!

Broke Ass Game Show: Big Ass Pinata

Wow, did any of you see Episode 3 of Broke Ass Game Show on MTV? The one that ended with the Big Ass Pinata game? What a way to get excited about the baseball season, right? Here's some screenshots I pulled from MTV's website while watching. Pretty cool, huh?!

All-Acquired 2015 Series Simulation Videos!

You've read about the All-Acquired teams for each league, you've perused the charts, you've imagined what might happen if they played against each other, but now, for the first time ever, you can actually see the games unfold! Using my copy of MLB 14: The Show on my PS3, I've built rosters for the AL and NL All-Acquired teams and started a mock World Series between them. And now, thanks to the incomparable Elgato Game Capture HD, I can publish recaps of the game on the Internet, complete with my super-insightful commentary! Check out Game 1 below, or on YouTube, and stay tuned for future updates!

And here's Game 2:

Game 3:

And Game 4:

I've added Game 5:

Look! Game 6:

The final game, Game 7:

All-Acquired Teams 2015

A writer named Susan Orlean once opined that (and I paraphrase) people care passionately about things because it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. Or at least her character said something like that in the movie Adaptation. Either way, I've always felt that way about my relationship with the sport of baseball. Also the relationships with, you know, my family and loved ones and all that. But baseball in particular as it affects this post. Then a music teacher I recently met suggested you should always make time to do the things you love. Again excluding family, one thing I love to do is construct fantasy MLB lineups/rosters out of players who have changed teams during the offseason.

In order to make the best of all possible versions of these rosters, I maintain a database with information on the stats of a great deal of baseball players. I won't say it includes every player who will make a meaningful contribution in 2015. But I will say that it's anyone who made a statistical contribution in 2014, anyone on a team's current 40-man roster, and anyone on a team's current list of non-roster invitees. Also any players caught in "DFA Limbo" at the time of the last update, which for the numbers I'm using now will be 2/18/15, the first day pitchers and catchers started reporting.

These particular rosters - let's call them the AL and NL All-Acquired 2015 Teams - take the form of 25-man (or Active) rosters, because that's how many players are on a baseball team. I created them by organizing all 550+ players who changed teams so far by league, position, and MLB.com fantasy rank, and picked what I thought would be the most effective lineups. A big part of this database is how it's color-coded, and my favorite color to see on these types of documents at this time of the year is yellow. That's because on my lists, a yellow highlight on a player's name means that player changed teams during the most recent/current offseason. By their natures, these rosters will be comprised only of "yellow" players.

But the first and last name of a player are only two of the 20+ columns on my list (only a sample of which are presented below). Seeing as it was built using the incomparable Microsoft Excel, making an abundance of sortable columns is pretty darn easy. You'll see them spelled out at the top of the screengrab below, and I'll say a little more about some of them after the list itself. Let me just say here, so you don't have to figure it out while reading, that the first chunk of players is a projected lineup, the second is starting rotation, the third is bullpen, and the fourth is bench (or offensive bullpen, as I might start calling it). AL on top, NL on bottom, arbitrarily.

For the first time, I've decided to try and color-code column number 1 - the text of which shows to which team and organizational level the player belongs. What you see is a work in progress, but the idea was to give each position its own color profile. I have starting pitchers (or SP or 1) in red with relief ptichers (RP, 1.2 in my terminology) in orange, keeping pitchers in hot colors and position players in earth tones - blue for catcher, green for infield, brown for outfield. It might need a little tweaking before it can be useful for fantasy evaluation.

There's another color not pictured above: a dark sad gray for DH, but primary DH's without a secondary position are rare. Even Nelson Cruz and Billy Butler qualify for OF and IF, respectively, because they each managed at least 20 games in the field last year. Another thing to keep in mind for these lineups: I'm building them as I would a fantasy lineup, so if I were handed the reins to this AL team, I would tell Evan Gattis to polish up his catching gear and Hanley Ramirez (pictured above) to find some stronger rubber bands to hold his body together, because to maximize fantasy value, you have to take advantage of positional eligibility.

The reason Ramirez and Gattis are ranked so high relative to their actual hard cold hard 2014 statistics - which are represented in the Points column - is because they will have the opportunity to hit like left fielders but occupy the roster spots of SS and C, respectively. The idea being that they are both packed with offensive talent, but their defensive limitations could have been holding them back. Maybe the reason MLB.com is particularly high on Ramirez - he was the highest ranked player to change teams so far, according to column #2 - is because they remember the out-of-this-world success by another famous Boston outfielder named Ramirez...

The next-highest ranked player to change teams was the recipient of one of the most ludicrous contracts given out this winter. I say "one of" the most ludicrous, because even though payment on Max Scherzer's seven year deal will be going on for twice the length of the actual contract, the Marlins might STILL control Giancarlo Stanton after the Nats are done paying Scherzer. Incidentally, that seven year deal is abbreviated 7yr deal in my Contract column, which keeps track of what kind of and how long of a deal to which each player is currently signed. Stanton's contract would say 13*^yr ext, the symbols representing two different wrinkles in an out-of-the-ordinary option structure, and the ext short for extension, signifying that he shouldn't be shaded yellow this year.

The heterochromatic wonder was just one of three top-100 fantasy starters signed by NL teams this winter, joining Jon Lester and James Shields. By contrast, Jeff Samardzija was the only double-digit-ranked starter to change teams in the AL, but the junior circuit did add a top-100 reliever in David Robertson. Interestingly enough, both pitchers landed with the White Sox, who are most certainly making a push for the AL Central crown. Meanwhile, two of the NL All-Acquired starters will pitch for the Cubs (Jason Hammel joins Lester), who are making a similar push across town.

Shields joins a group of new Padres acquisitions that could fill an entire outfield. Matt Kemp's presence in CF is clearly fantasy motivated. Justin Upton will play with a new team, but unlike his brother Melvin (nee B.J.), he won't be playing under a new name. Those two could have been joined by Wil Myers if Jason Heyward wasn't projected to hit more like he was projected to hit last year - yet he didn't hit well last year and my fantasy bench was the thinner for it. However, if Myers ends up spending significant time at first base, he would definitely join the lineup over the current Michael Morse/Adam Lind situation. 2014 All-Star catcher Derek Norris is also in town, proving that Padres GM A.J. "This Is Madness, This Is" Preller is giving new meaning to the word "push" (as in for the NL West title).

Another significant acquisition in San Diego is actually the NL team's top-ranked relief pitcher, even though Brandon Morrow has a good shot at making the starting rotation if healthy. The fact that he's the top RP is a glaring reminder that no NL club signed a player who has an inside track to racking up saves in 2015. This could change, since Francisco Rodriguez and Rafael Soriano are still unsigned as of this writing, and in any case, it doesn't really matter except in the fantasy world that's based on categories. But in the fantasy world that's based on POINTS, it's important to remember that that even mediocre starters stand to be more effective than most middle relievers, so it's always good to pay attention to utility pitchers (what I sometimes refer to as P) like Morrow and Anthony DeSclafani and noted Cancerian Marco Estrada. If I ever take a stab at altering the point system that I've used for a decade and a half, I would consider knocking down the value of wins, losses, and saves while also potentially adding holds to celebrate more types of pitchers. I would also try to separate RBI and Runs scored on the offensive side, because it feels like we're counting the same thing twice, but that's another story.

Most of the above analysis will have been done in the Pos(ition) and Points columns on the left hand side, but as we (fashion) move to the right, we get some trivia and more color-coding. The Free Agency column predictably shows when a player is scheduled to hit the open market. Only cases that will be resolved after the current season have a color. Every group in the Sign column has a color, one of 12 distinct astrological possibilities. This and Birthdate exist only to feed my astrology baseball project, whereas the next two went into a Hometown project I attempted at the midseason mark last year. In the document I work from, I usually put the Contract column next to Free Agency - there's also a Salary column that hasn't been updated yet, which will be a mirror image of Cot's Baseball Contracts. The Notes column is a reminder of any roster-altering moves in which the player was involved between the end of the last World Series and the present, with info gathered primarily from official transactions pages and MLB Trade Rumors.

So there you have it: my strategy for getting the most enjoyment/information that I possibly can out of  the sport of baseball. I might try to plug these lineups into MLB 2014: The Show and play a mock World Series between the two leagues, since this is really the last year where the players in that particular game will be relevant. Maybe if I scrimp and save enough cash for an Elgato gaming capture device, I could post a highlight reel on the Internet. Or I could just go back to burying my face in my database until Opening Day.

Baseball Begins: Fantasy Rankings 2015

I have a confession to make: I don't understand MLB prospect rankings. I mean, I get the general principle that the lower the ranking, the better the player. But there's enough ambiguity that I'm not sure whether the top ranked prospects are the ones with the most impressive overall talent levels or the ones who are more likely to have great major league careers. For example, does Mark Appel (30) have worse stuff than Nationals farmhand Lucas Giolito (6), or are there questions about Houston's former #1 pick's ability to maintain his form in the long term? And because of the unique amount of time it takes for an amateur baseball player to make the leap to the majors, there is almost no correlation between a player's prospect ranking and that player's potential impact in the coming season. Another example, Jorge Soler (22) mashed the ball to the tune of a .903 OPS in a cup of coffee last year and is slated to be the Cubs' everyday right fielder, but he's ranked significantly lower than guys like Addison Russell (5) and Cory Seager (7), who have no clear path to the majors in 2015.

Don't get me wrong, I still keep up to date on MLB's prospect watch and dutifully enter the rankings in my 40-Man Roster Excel spreadsheets. But they don't provide nearly as much insight about what might actually happen in 2015 as the fantasy player rankings. I like using MLB.com's rating system not because I've done any extensive research to show that they're the most accurate, but I know they're kept up to date through Opening Day, they're easily sortable, and they come with nice visuals. I spent the last couple of days updating my above-mentioned document with all 830 players ranked by MLB.com, just in time for the first pitchers and catchers to report to Spring Training. It's at this point in the baseball season that I like to first take stock of how every team is doing - hence all the document updating. Using this document, I plotted out each team's projected starting lineup and rotation, based on MLB's fantasy rankings, with an eye towards determining both the raw talent level of each team and also the average strength of each position.

Basically, for each team, I took the top five ranked starting pitchers, the top two ranked relief pitchers, and the highest ranked player from each position and added their ranks together. I then divided that total by the number of players on the team to get a per player average. I used this number to sort the table at left, which also mitigates the unfair advantage that NL teams receive due to the lack of the DH spot in their lineups. As you can see, both the total and the average measurements identify the Washington Nationals as the best team in baseball - not surprising given their three aces on the pitching staff and above average position players across the board. St. Louis is the only other team with an average player rank of less than 200, a level of excellence we should be used to from an organization that has won four straight division titles (and five of the last six). With the type of payroll the Dodgers have, it would be sad if they weren't among the top five teams, and Toronto has made enough high profile moves to look super impressive on paper. But I was really surprised by the presence of the Cleveland Indians, a team that finished above .500 last year but missed out on a wild card spot by four games. Maybe it wasn't such a stretch when David Schoenfield ranked the Tribe fourth in his offseason power rankings last week.

In addition to finding out average player rankings by team, the work I did also allows me to arrange the rankings by position. This amounts to a slightly more targeted version of a project I did last year, where I simply took the top 30 players in each position rather than fleshing out actual projected lineups. And because it's more targeted, perhaps the following analysis will say more about the status of each team's regular players. But first, let's take a look at just the average ranking broken down by position, in both list and graph form!

As was the case last year, good outfielders are the top players in the sport in terms of fantasy value. This is likely due to the fact that there are three times as many outfield spots as there are other spots on the diamond, so there's a wider net of players to choose from. Plus the lesser athletic necessity of playing the corner outfield spots compared to other positions, yadda yadda. Which brings up the point that these three outfield spots don't take into account center fielders, but I would chalk that up more to my lack of predictive ability than my willingness to lump the three positions together. Speaking of not lumping positions together, I separated the five starting pitchers in a way that I think makes sense, but we'll see shortly when I go position by position.


Starting Pitcher 1
Average: 105.6 (Alex Wood)
Median: 77 (Tyson Ross)
Range: 5 (Clayton Kershaw) - 429 (Jorge De La Rosa)

I put example players next to each rank for reference purposes. So even though Alex Wood is technically Atlanta's #2 SP, he still exemplifies the skill level of the average staff ace. Julio Teheran, also of the Braves, comes in right below this position's median (65), so the moral of the story is that Atlanta's pitching staff is pretty mediocre overall. Speaking of the median, it's interesting that Tyson Ross ranks above San Diego's highest profile offseason acquisition even though it will likely be James Shields pitching on opening day. One person whose opening day status won't be in doubt for a long time to come is Clayton Kershaw, the only pitcher in the top 10 and deservedly so. On the other side of the range, the fact that Jorge De La Rosa is ranked 150 spots below the next staff ace (Josh Collmenter of the Diamondbacks) is evidence how little the Rockies have prioritized the pitching side of their game.


Starting Pitcher 2
Average: 174.2 (Drew Hutchison)
Median: 164 (Homer Bailey)
Range: 27 (Stephen Strasburg) - 488 (Jhoulys Chacin)

We see the continuation of a trend here as Hutchison is #3 on the Blue Jays rotational depth chart but he has the profile of a typical SP2. Speaking of continuing the trend, Jhoulys Chacin, also a Rockie, clocks in 185 ranks below the next competitor - Jeremy Hellickson, also of the Diamondbacks. As is evident from his super high rank, Stephen Strasburg would be an ace on all but five major league teams. It'll be interesting to see how he fares on the open market in a couple years, because with the presence of Max Scherzer, Tanner Roark, and some top shelf prospects in Washington, he doesn't seem to be part of their long term plans.


Starting Pitcher 3
Average: 254.6 (Justin Verlander / Jose Fernandez)
Median: 242 (Wei-Yin Chen)
Range: 49 (Jordan Zimmermann) - 566 (Jordan Lyles)

Maybe it's because the SP3 spot is the middle of the positional triangle, but the two average SP3's are actually their team's third ranked starters. Although in Fernandez's case, his ranking (and thus his placement) is deceptive because he will likely assume the role of ace for the Marlins whenever he's able to return from last year's Tommy John surgery. Some trends remain in place, however, namely the excellence and terribleness of Washington's and Colorado's rotation, respectively, only this time Lyles finished a full 150 spots behind Ricky Nolasco of the Twins. It's also worth noting that both the previous two Nationals pitchers finished in front of Zack Greinke (48) and Hyun-Jin Ryu (100) of the Dodgers.


Starting Pitcher 4
Average: 320.1 (Kyle Hendricks / Yovani Gallardo)
Median: 301 (J.A. Happ)
Range: 85 (Gio Gonzalez) - 572 (Kyle Kendrick)

Things are starting to even out here as Hendricks is #4 on a deep Cubs staff while Gallardo is slated to be #3 on a Rangers staff that is in a state of flux. This Washington rotation is so unfair that I feel like I need to mention that John Lackey (170) was next in line and more representative of the average team's fourth starter. Likewise, Colorado's pitching staff is so bad that David Buchanan of the Phillies deserves a dishonorable mention here as the next-to-worst SP4 in the league.


Starting Pitcher 5
Average: 434.0 (Travis Wood)
Median: 421 (Tsuyoshi Wada)
Range: 159 (Doug Fister) - 613 (Mike Foltynewicz) or 624 (Eric Stults)

It's interesting that the two pitchers that best exemplify the fifth starter spot are the two pitchers who will be battling it out to be the actual fifth starter for the Cubs. Of course Felix Doubront, Edwin Jackson, and Jacob Turner will be around as well, and it wouldn't be a surprise if one of these arms finds themselves dealt before the start of the season, but Wood and Wada definitely have the inside track. Again with this Washington rotation so let's give a shout out to Jon Niese of the Mets (305). For once, Colorado does not find itself on the low end of the range, and the reason for two potential Braves SP5's is that I'm not sure whether top prospect (and the fruit of the Evan Gattis trade) Mike Foltynewicz will be deployed in the bullpen as he was last year or whether Eric Stults will make the team out of Spring Training.

Relief Pitcher 1
Average: 173.8 (Jonathan Papelbon)
Median: 149 (Joaquin Benoit)
Range: 46 (Aroldis Chapman) - 369 (Jenrry Mejia)

Papelbon's placement on this list ensures that roughly half the general managers in the sport are closely monitoring his situation with a trade in mind. Well, actually slightly less than half, as Benoit's median ranking proves. I don't want to surmise, but I wonder if Aroldis Chapman's comeback from a horrific line drive to the face last spring cemented his spot 10 places above other elite closers Craig Kimbrel (56) and Greg Holland (57).


Relief Pitcher 2
Average: 420.2 (Chad Qualls)
Median: 434 (Kevin Quackenbush)
Range: 204 (Andrew Miller) - 626 (Sam LeCure)

The real reason that RP2 is important in fantasy is for depth reasons - they usually don't come into play unless a closer gets injured and saves are up for grabs. I like keeping track of the top setup men because the deeper bullpen pieces play an important part over the course of a long season, but then again I have been known to be obsessive about certain baseball related facts. It makes sense that an established lefty like Andrew Miller would be at the top of the range here, not necessarily because he'll justify his historic four-year deal, but because he's coming to a storied franchise that's trying to break in a new closer. It also makes sense that the team with the top ranked reliever in baseball would also have the lowest-ranked second stringer.

Catcher
Average: 266.3 (Miguel Montero)
Median: 292 (Wilin Rosario)
Range: 23 (Buster Posey) - 532 (Tuffy Gosewisch)

It appears that league average catchers are hot commodities this year, given the trade rumors swirling around Colorado's Wilin Rosario and the fact that Miguel Montero was already acquired by the Cubs. It's interesting that both these players will contribute to their clubs in virtually opposite ways: Rosario's defensive limitations are well documented but he still swings a big stick, while Montero's above average pitch framing skills make up for his declining bat. Given the defensive necessity of this position, it's rare to find an offensive powerhouse such as Buster Posey who ranks more than 30 spots above his nearest competitor - Milwaukee's Jonathan Lucroy - although it's all but certain he will finish his career at first base. Arizona's lack of a viable major league catching option to replace Montero is well documented, and if they don't make a trade for someone like Toronto's Dioner Navarro, we could see a lot of replacement level at bats from the likes of Gerald Laird, Jordan Pacheco, and Rule 5 pick Oscar Hernandez.

First Base
Average: 201.2 (Lucas Duda / Eric Hosmer)
Median: 189 (Brandon Belt)
Range: 4 (Paul Goldschmidt) - 646 (Jon Singleton)

First base is a classic power position with the strongest high end except the outfield (three of the top 10 ranked players) and very solid fantasy contributors most of the way through. Looking at the top of the spectrum, I'd say it's about time that someone unseated Miguel Cabrera as the top infielder in the sport. He lost third base eligibility last year, and while he's still in his prime (just 31 years old), he's a full three years older than Arizona's star slugger. True, they both had 2014's marred by injury, but while Goldy's was a fluke hit-by-pitch that broke his hand and ended his season on August 1, Cabrera played through his ankle issues that eventually required offseason surgery. Don't get me wrong, the difference between #4 and #6 is basically nonexistent in the fantasy world and either one would be a blockbuster first pick, but it's a symbolic changing of the guard for sure. Also of note is how dejectedly low MLB is on former Astros 1B prospect Jon Singleton who's a full 200 ranks lower than the next first sacker: Oakland's Ike Davis. He could be an intriguing buy low candidate, especially since Chris Carter no longer has 1B eligibility.


Second Base
Average: 218.9 (Omar Infante)
Median: 203 (Jedd Gyorko)
Range: 9 (Jose Altuve) - 526 (Alberto Callaspo)

Looking at the above graph, you'll see a steady decline from the four infield positions starting at first base, so that means the top ranked infielders are extremely high value picks, but they drop off as you get towards the middle of the pack. We've got a changing of the guard at second base too with MLB banking on Jose Altuve building his breakout season rather than Robinson Cano continuing his quiet consistency. Personally I would go for a player with more than a one-year track record of excellence, but then again I wouldn't draft a second baseman in the first or second round anyway.


Third Base
Average: 242.8 (Brett Lawrie)
Median: 223 (Kris Bryant)
Range: 24 (Anthony Rendon) - 540 (Luis Valbuena)

There are a lot of interesting names in this blurb, whether because of their top prospect status, multi-positional eligibility, or the offseason transactions in which they were involved. Kris Bryant, baseball's consensus #2 prospect behind Byron Buxton, represents by far the highest rank for someone not currently on a 40-man roster. It's super impressive that a first year player is projected to step in and immediately perform at a league average clip. With the presence of Bryant, the Cubs were able to trade Luis Valbuena to the Astros, who now have the lowest ranked projected corner infielders. It's almost certain that Anthony Rendon will man the hot corner for the Nationals, but if he plays second base (where he's also eligible), then Josh Donaldson (31) and Adrian Beltre (32) would battle as the top third baseman in the league. Looking at these numbers only makes it even more depressing that the A's only received a league average talent in return for one of the best.


Shortstop
Average: 246.0 (Danny Santana / Javier Baez)
Median: 236 (Jed Lowrie)
Range: 15 (Troy Tulowitzki) - 599 (Freddy Galvis)

Interestingly enough, neither of the two shortstop-eligible players closest to the average shortstop rank spent significant times at positions other than shortstop last season. Javier Baez will play second base for the Cubs with Starlin Castro firmly entrenched at short and it's unclear whether Danny Santana will remain at center field until Buxton is ready for Minnesota. Troy Tulowitzki once again takes home the top prize, injury history be damned. On the low end of the range, Philadelphia fell into the same trap as Arizona in that they traded away a big league regular with no viable replacement - Freddy Galvis is more than 160 ranks below the next closest competitor (Adeiny Hechavarria at 436).

Outfield 1
Average: 84.3 (J.D. Martinez)
Median: 41 (Billy Hamilton)
Range: 1 (Mike Trout) - 342 (Nick Markakis)

No group of players is so top heavy as first outfielders (five of the top 10 and 20 of the top 100), but that's mostly because we're basically picking from a group three times the size of any other position. The fact that the average is more than twice the median shows that there's quite a drop off in the later teams who don't prioritize having an offensive outfield. Mike Trout is obviously at the top of his game (and at the top of everyone's game), but almost as impressive are the guys right behind him: Giancarlo Stanton and Andrew McCutchen. I was also happy to see Adam Jones round out the top ten, who also serves as a sobering reminder of the Braves' situation, since his former teammate Nick Markakis was much more attractive as a number two or three outfielder.


Outfield 2
Average: 168.2 (Austin Jackson)
Median: 143 (Mookie Betts)
Range: 26 (Starling Marte) - 426 (B.J. Upton)

This group is similar to what we saw with SP3 where the average lines up almost exactly with the median - Austin Jackson, Seattle's #2 outfielder, since I'm counting Nelson Cruz as an outfielder even though he'll likely DH most of the time, is the next player down from Mookie Betts. Call me crazy, and I mean no disrespect to Pittsburgh since I like the Pirates a lot, but I think 26 is way to high a rank for Starling Marte. He's got a lot of talent, but to put him ahead of such proven superstars as Ryan Braun or even catcher-eligible outfielder Evan Gattis seems totally wrongheaded to me. I will still probably draft him super early because I'm a self-professed slave to the rankings, but I won't be happy about it...


Outfield 3
Average: 294.9 (Rajai Davis)
Median: 293 (Colby Rasmus)
Range: 104 (Charlie Blackmon) - 568 (Eric Young Jr.)

These, on the other hand, are rankings I can totally get behind. The median/mean guys profile basically the same: they're both center field eligible, neither will light up the leaderboards, but neither will they embarrass you in a fantasy setting. Last year I rode Charlie Blackmon to a great fantasy first half but then used him to acquire a more consistent player at the deadline (I used him as part of a package to acquire Sonny Gray), so it's clear that I see him as a regression candidate. We're seeing a definite trend with the sad state of the Braves outfield, and what's really scary is that it could be even worse if Eric Young Jr. doesn't win the third outfield spot out of spring training - Zoilo Almonte or Jonny Gomes would be next on the depth chart at 606 and 639, respectively.


Designated Hitter
Average: 293.6 (Rajai Davis)
Median: 285 (Kendrys Morales)
Range: 91 (David Ortiz) - 448 (Garrett Jones)

Do me a favor and scroll back up to the graph near the top of this post. Do you see how the average DH is almost exactly on par with the average third outfielder? I know there's a smaller sample size for these players, but I still find it fascinating how much the DH spot correlates to just being able to play an extra outfielder (even though most DH's really profile as first basemen).


Wow, that was a lot of information, but that's just how excited I get when it's time for Spring Training!

Battle with Savagery and Kolaghan: Fate Reforged Prerelease

I was out of town for the Khans of Tarkir prerelease, but I did get to experience my share of Mighty Morphin' KTK limited format through my first ever competitive booster drafts (once at my local comic shop's Friday Night Magic and once at Grand Prix LA). There are two schools of thought on how to build a Khans deck that fully takes advantage of the distinct powers of the five three-color clans. One is to go for the long haul and rely on your slow but powerful morphs: face-down 3-mana 2/2 creatures that can be turned face up (i.e. reach their full potential) for their (usually) more expensive morph cost. The other is to prioritize two-drops (which can get on the board before the morphs), and try to gain enough of an early advantage that the late game doesn't matter. Being the somewhat nervous and panicky Magic player I am, I didn't really subscribe to either strategy, rather letting the first rare I opened dictate my draft each time: I built one deck around the star of Temur's intro pack, Avalanche Tusker, and the other around the aggro tokens generated by Mardu Ascendancy.

Fate Reforged, the second set in the Khans block, is an entirely different animal. There are no morph creatures in the set, but there will be plenty of dudes that look like morphs, thanks to the new Manifest mechanic, which puts the top card of your library onto the battlefield as a face-down 2/2 creature. Like morphs, you can flip up manifested cards for their mana cost, but only if they're creatures to begin with. FRF also has no three-colored cards (as opposed to KTK's 39, plus 17 other two-colored cards), meaning that it's easier to play fast and loose with the clan associations. The clans do still come into play, as each one had a wedge-specific keyword ability: bolster and dash are new for Abzan and Mardu, respectively, while ferocious (Temur), prowess (Jeskai), and delve (Sultai) all return. But there is also a rare cycle of ten clan-specific mono-colored creatures with an activation cost that requires hybrid mana of its clan's other two colors. One of these cards was the first one I saw upon opening my sealed pool, and once again it was the card around which I built my deck.

Since the Return to Ravnica block at least, prerelease events have been a little more complex than a normal sealed deck tournament, where participants crack six packs and build a deck from their contents. Upon signing up, participants choose a certain faction, and one of their six packs is a "seeded" pack that's weighted towards cards in that faction. For RTR, you chose one of the 10 guilds, for Theros you chose a color, and for KTK you choose a clan. I picked Temur, mostly because of my EDH deck starring Intet, the Dreamer, but also because I'm first and foremost a Timmy-style player, and the idea of overwhelming my opponents with huge creatures excites me to no end. Actually, I'm first and foremost a Vorthos-style player, which means I primarily pay attention to the backstory and flavor text aspects of cards. And with that particular idiosyncrasy in mind, there was another reason for picking Temur.

The current block takes place on the plane of Tarkir, a world once ruled by fearsome dragons, which have been extinct for hundreds of years, at the time of the Khans of Tarkir timeline. Tarkir is also the home world of planeswalker/protagonist Sarkhan Vol, and to make a long story short, the storyline of Fate Reforged involves Sarkhan going back in time to when these dragons still exist! According to Uncharted Realms, Magic's official weekly fan fiction article, when Sarkhan completes his temporal journey, he meets the powerful khan of the Temur, a fierce female warrior called Yasova Dragonclaw. In the latest installment, she reveals to him various plot points involving Ugin and Nicol Bolas, a couple of the Magic universe's most popular dragons, the former of which got his first official card representation in this set. The story is still ongoing, but the point is, the first card I saw when opening my seeded pack was the legendary creature herself, Yasova Dragonclaw.

Her presence in my card pool made it easy to lean towards green as a base color, or at least a prominent one. The card quality only got better in the rest of the seeded pack, which included such Temur mainstays as Snowhorn Rider, Icefeather Aven, and Temur Charm (all three of which did some major work during the tournament). The deal was sealed when only Khans of Tarkir rare I opened (the sealed pool was broken down into 4 FRF packs, 1 KTK pack, and the seeded pack) was the super efficient mana ramper/fixer Rattleclaw Mystic. But when I saw the Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury (the Black/Red legendary dragon) in one of my Fate Reforged packs, I knew I had to splash in order to include it. KSF would not be lonely in the deck either, as I also pulled a Shockmaw (Shock-and-Awe?) Dragon, but left a Lightning Shrieker in my sideboard, since I agree with LSV when he compares it to a Lava Axe that can be blocked and that dies to removal. Luckily for my splashing needs, my pool included seven nonbasic lands, three of which produced both black mana and one of my other colors, so it was not too hard to make it happen.

My two white rares I ignored outright, even though Dragonscale General can be great in the right deck (the same cannot be said for Rally the Ancestors). But my two other green rares (actually, two of the same green rare, although one was foil) gave me the chance to experiment with the manifest mechanic. Wildcall allows you to manifest the top card of your library basically as a Hydra (i.e. put X +1/+1 counters on it, with X being the amount of mana you spend when casting the spell). I left out the second copy, as finishers like that aren't necessarily good in multiples, and as it turns out I never got to cast it during the proceedings. I had other opportunities to play manfiest cards, but I left a Fierce Invocation and two Write into Beings in my sideboard since a) I would rather use those card slots on other good creatures and b) I wanted to be able to cast my spells rather than have them sit on the board as dumb grizzly bears.

One reason I wanted to be able to cast my spells was because I had three pretty solid blue flying creatures with prowess, the Jeskai mechanic that buffs your creatures when you cast a noncreature spell, to keep my dragons company. The other reason was that I had some pretty decent removal, both of the bounce and direct damage variety. True, I could have used my bounce spells (and sided in Ambush Krotiq) to bring some of my manifested spells back into my hand if I needed them, but I find it's generally a much more effective play to bounce your opponent's creatures to set up advantage in combat rather than to effectively pay for your spells twice.

You can check out my full decklist (and even playtest it!) on the amazing MTG site tappedout.net. As far as the actual tournament went, I lost in the first round against Mardu-splash-Yasova - turn 3 Yasova, turn 4 Citadel Siege is a nigh unbeatable combo, then in the second game I lost to Crater's Claws for exactsies right as I was about to sweep in for the victory. That gained me a bye in the next round cuz one of our players left, but after that I won my next two matches flawlessly. My MVP had to be Goblin Heelcutter, who showed up in most of my games and allowed me to get a significant amount of damage through. Unblockability is one of my favorite mechanics in Magic, and effects that prevent opposing creatures from blocking (such as one of the modes on Temur Charm) obviously achieve the same result. I wish that I had walked away with more than just two Ugin's Fate booster packs, featuring alternate art cards and tokens, but the prizes are secondary to the fun that was had by all, right?

Thoughts About LEGO 76023 The Tumbler

When I read the side of the box of LEGO set number 76023, I immediately thought of Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction. Except he would be saying, "In France The Tumbler is The Tumbler, except it's Le Tumbler." Thinking about this while watching a commercial for McDonald's quarter pounder - in the background during that heartbreaking Ravens vs. Patriots playoff game, which is when I first started building this late holiday gift to myself - was decidedly meta. The fact that I had the time and means to embark on a project of this magnitude - almost like a minifig-sized Bruce Wayne - is hashtag one thing I'm thankful for.

My relationship with the LEGO Tumbler goes back almost two years to when I manually reconstructed the iconic discontinued set 7888 from my collection supplemented with custom-ordered bricks. My relationship with the real Tumbler goes back a couple months before that, to when the Dark Knight Legends exhibit was in Los Angeles. While there I snapped a picture of an actual Tumbler used in the movies. While it didn't have the flare or style of the Batmobiles of the 60's and 90's, it was pretty darn impressive to behold. Before jumping into the new set, let's compare my two previous Tumbler experiences. According to the design specs decal from the new set, the actual vehicle measures 15 ft. by 9 ft. 4 in., which translates to roughly 8.5 in. by 5.5 in. in LEGO dimensions. According to my math then, set 7888 and its 449 total pieces (not all of them devoted to the Tumbler itself) represents roughly a 1:20 scale model. And I have to say it's pretty accurately minifig-scaled.

Onlookers' faces have been obscured for my legal protection.

It was also raining during that fateful game when Baltimore was eliminated from the 2014-15 playoffs. Whenever I walk in the rain, I think of the song from the signature Cowboy Bebop episode 5 called Rain. There were two versions of that song, one that appeared in the actual episode and one that was released on album one of the show's soundtrack. I made a fan mashup version to showcase the two of them together. The funny thing about that song is that whenever I hear it, I think of Hans Zimmer's haunting theme from the 2008 film The Dark Knight, on which set 76023 is based, which officially plants Christopher Nolan's versions into the DC Comics Super Heroes division of the LEGO snowglobe. I've included some of that in my fan mashup as well to show you what I'm talking about.

Now back to the new set. Bag 1 (of 11) took almost the entire football game to complete, and it wasn't until the beginning of Bag 2 that I realized the scale of this project and its 1,869 pieces was going to be far larger than the average minifig. To give a completely baseless comparison, in fantasy baseball points, that set's pieces count is exactly equal to Matt Holliday's 2014 performance, and he's a damn solid player, if not one you can build a team around. Set 7888's 449 pieces equals the production of Texas rookie outfielder Daniel Robertson (not to be confused with the shortstop prospect who the A's just sent to the Rays in the Ben Zobrist deal), not by any means a major league regular.

Professional scale models of the Tumbler do exist, like this one at left, also from the Dark Knight Legends exhibit, that was used in the movie. Comparing that pic to the official LEGO marketing image on the box, you can see how closely the designers followed these professional models, even down to the bronze coloring in the front wheel wells and the spoiler support struts. I realized after finishing Bag 3, the instructions for which included steps that called for both 16x and 20x of the same element, that what I was building resembled one of these scale models more than a more traditional LEGO "playset." That's why the special edition minifigs are off to the side in all the promotional materials. It's disappointing that I won't be able to use this new Tumbler in my minifig-centered vignettes (unless I employ some impressive forced perspective), but it's worth it when you see such detailed elements as the windshield wipers found in Bag 4 accurately represented in LEGO.

In Bag 5, after you put the huge unique tires on, you get the true sense of how much this new set dwarfs the original 2008 Tumbler. It's about the same overall size as the Millennium Falcon, which is much smaller than actual minifig scale. In fact, Han Solo's famous ship from Star Wars might be pretty close to Kenner's old Micro Machine scale, but I have yet to break out the old figurines from my childhood to check and see how it would look. The rest of the bags are devoted to the roof - which does not actually attach to the rest of the vehicle with any LEGO elements but somehow manages to fit ever so snugly - the ornate armor plating on the side, and the elaborate system of spoilers. The process ended with a lot of mirror image repetition and a lot of superfluous ornamental aspects that make the model look pretty but also hard to find a place where you can grip it to lift it up. It also made me question where I would put the damn thing. But I guess that's a good problem to have.

Detractors of LEGO often point to the lack of functionality: once you finish putting the thing together, it doesn't really do anything. But that's where the concept of replay value comes in, because at any time you can demolish the original product and have the entire experience over again. It's the particular experience that is important in playing with LEGO, you see, that first impression you get when you take those pieces out of the box and literally transmute them into something else. After finishing construction of the model, beyond being both satisfied and exhausted, I felt a greater sense of accomplishment than I had felt following any "instruction build" in my previous LEGO career. At times like these, I can't help but recall the King Crimson song Indiscipline, especially the penultimate lyric: I wish you were here to see it! Which then makes me want to thrash around on the drums all progressive rock style.