Astrology Baseball 2013: 1/3 of Way Through the Season Recap

Looking back at my recent output, it's clear that I've had an extremely unproductive Gemini. I wish I could say it was a conscious choice to go on hiatus for this particular astrological cycle, but the truth of the matter is that I just haven't been motivated to analyze my Topps 1992-inspired 40 man roster. As it happens, for the last couple of weeks I've been less interested in 20 year old baseball cards than I have been in 15 year old Magic: The Gathering cards, a whole tub of which my friend just recently uncovered. (It's very possible that you'll see a post about them in the near future, as I have tried my hand at blogging about Magic before.) And on the baseball front, I've been paying more attention to the current rather than the historical side of things, specifically how they relate to my Fantasy Astrology League. After all, with the Summer Solstice fast approaching, we could start seeing some big upheaval in the standings, and I want to talk a little bit about how things are going before that momentous event.

As you'll no doubt recall, this year I split the league into four divisions of three teams each - one for each of the classical elements (Fire, Earth, Air, and Water). Even though I'm pretty sure the ESPN fantasy client ignores these divisions and just picks the teams with the four best records to participate in the playoffs (I'm not a savvy enough commissioner to figure out how to change that), I'd like to go over how the current division leaders' teams stack up compared to their projected lineups.

Darvish's Leo uniform should really be orange, but you get the idea

The first team in any conversation about Fantasy Astrology 2013 (if indeed there are any aside from this one) has to be the surprisingly strong Leo Lions. After finishing 2012 in a three-way tie for 5th in the league with a .500 record, Leo is currently sitting on the most wins in the league (by only one win, but it's still an impressive jump). Their attack is fueled by three pitchers who are averaging at least 90 points per game: Topps 2012 All-Star Rookie Yu Darvish (90.1), still unbeaten Max Scherzer (94.5), and Clay Buchholz (99.0), sore neck notwithstanding. Most teams would kill to have Madison Bumgarner (averaging more than 60 PPG himself) as a fourth starter, but after those four (who are all owned in 100% of fantasy leagues), the pitching depth falls off considerably. The next most popular pitcher they have is Huston Street, who is owned in less than 3/4 of fantasy leagues, but a lot of that might have to do with the fact that he was just activated from the DL today. Injuries have also hit this staff particularly hard - before Street's activation, more than half of their top 15 ranked pitchers going into the season were on the DL (including Ryan Vogelsong, Brandon Morrow, and Chad Billingsley), so it's scary to think how good this crew could be if healthy.

The offense has also had some injury troubles, the highest profile case being Alex Rodriguez's recovery from surgery, which could end up being made moot by a Biogenesis-related suspension. The team has been able to roll with the more recent punches due to either depth (Mark Reynolds was able to vacate the DH slot when Pablo Sandoval went down) or surprise breakout rookie performances (Wilson Ramos's setback in his recovery from a hamstring injury doesn't hit nearly as hard considering they have Evan Gattis to step in). Carl Crawford's most recent trip to the DL would have been easier to swallow had Jason Heyward and B.J. Upton not been shitting the proverbial bed all season, leaving them to rely on Colby Rasmus or Zack Cozart for the DH slot. In addition to Heyward and Sandoval, this team has five batters who are owned in 100% of fantasy leagues: outfielders Mike Trout and Adam Jones (the only offenders with more than 1,000 points each), 2B Dustin Pedroia (who's apparently been playing through a torn thumb ligament, which could mean more playing time for backup Ryan Flaherty down the line), J.J. Hardy (who's leading the AL in All-Star votes at SS), and 1B Anthony Rizzo.

Imagine Miggy's Aries uniform as red...

Leo's runner-up in the Fire division is one of three teams tied for second place overall: last year's runner-up the Aries Rams. By far the scariest team on paper, this squad leads the pack with a whopping 19 players owned in 100% of all leagues, the best of which is reigning Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera (who also leads all of baseball in fantasy points). The three (count 'em, 3) 100% catchers are all neck and neck in points - Buster Posey (774), Joe Mauer (762), and Carlos Santana (725) - and although all three are eligible at 1B, the two runners up are currently taking a backseat to Michael Cuddyer (791) at that position and Adrian Beltre (898) at DH, which pushes the slumping Billy Butler and the recently activated Mark Teixeira to the bench. All three outfielders are also 100% owned, with Hunter Pence on pace for a 30-30 year, Dexter Fowler enjoying a breakout year, and Jay Bruce chugging right along. In fact, the only non-100-percenter in the starting lineup is A's SS Jed Lowrie, who is currently performing better than Starlin Castro of the Cubs. The only DL-eligible hitter is Aaron Hill, but thankfully they have Jason Kipnis and Daniel Murphy ready to step in.

Like Leo, Aries has three starters with more than 1,000 points - Hisashi Iwakuma (1,306), Matt Harvey (1,236), and Felix Hernandez (1,141) - but only Iwakuma is averaging more than 90 PPG (93.3). Their other two starters in the rotation (Chris Sale and Hyun-Jin Ryu) are also 100% owned, with their sixth starter, Justin Masterson, just one percentage point behind. If this team has one weakness, it's the bullpen, with John Axford recently having lost his closer's job, Jose Valverde pretty clearly on the way out, and only middle relievers behind them.

Oops, no logo visible on this one...
At least the coloring is somewhat correct.

The other participant in last year's finals, the Libra Scales, are right behind Aries with 18 100%-owned players. 11 of them are on the offensive side, although 3 of those 10 (Matt Kemp, Bryce Harper, and as of today Troy Tulowitzki) are on the 15-day DL, with Yoenis Cespedes possibly (although hopefully not) to join them soon. The other 7, including AL Home Run Derby captain Robinson Cano, team point leader Carlos Gonzalez (1,257), and Pirates outfield duo Andrew McCutchen and Starling Marte, are holding down the fort just fine, as they are leading the Air division by a comfortable 3 games.

On the pitching side, the team has gotten a lot more production from their #'s 6-10 ranked starters than their 1-5's, tops among them Cardinals rookie sensation Shelby Miller. The return of Jered Weaver and the metal plate holding Zack Greinke's collar bone in place should help shore up a pitching staff that is relying on Alex Cobb and Derek Holland to compensate for Matt Cain's failure to live up to the expectations set by last year's perfect game (although his most recent outing against the Pirates might forecast a return to form). Libra's projected bullpen took a hit due to injury (Joel Hanrahan) or ineffectiveness (Carlos Marmol), but they've got two replacements who have actually been used to close games in Jose Veras (albeit for the Astros) and Canadian star Jim Henderson (who hasn't officially regained the role after coming off the DL last week).

Again, this Virgo uniform for Wainwright should be blue

The third team tied for the second best record in the league is Virgo of the Earth division; they have 14 100%-owned players, for sake of comparison. Even after losing Matt Kemp, the outfield has enjoyed solid performances from NL home run leader and May Player of the Monthy Domonic Brown (19), AL stolen base leader Jacoby Ellsbury (30), and April Player of the Month Justin Upton, who has since cooled off considerably. Their logjam at 1B - Paul Goldschmidt (1,130), Joey Votto (999), and Freddie Freeman (714) - is a good problem to have, and Brett Gardner (800) and Ian Desmond (737) round out the players who have broken the 700-point barrier. Adam Wainwright (who just recorded his 1,000th career strikeout) and Cliff Lee present one of the best righty-lefty combos in baseball, and the rotation will only get stronger with the returns of David Price, Matt Harrison, and Brandon Beachy. The bullpen sports two legit closers, but just barely, and if anything happens to either Casey Janssen or Bobby Parnell, there is not a whole lot of help waiting in the wings.

The Water division is locked up in a tie right now with both Cancer and Scorpio playing .500 ball thus far, so this seems like a good opportunity to do a position-by-position comparison (with the winning player's team listed next to hi name). Behind the plate, Mike Napoli (SCO) has outscored Yadier Molina, but remember that Napoli can only play there because of an eligibility loophole. Adam LaRoche has outplayed his intra-team competition at 1B (Eric Hosmer and Adam Dunn), but he hasn't measured up to Allen Craig (CAN), and he's even got OF eligibility. Marco Scutaro has been heating up lately at 2B for the Giants, but he's been outscored by both Brandon Phillips (CAN) and Howard "sometimes Howie" Kendrick, and when Ian Kinsler returns he'll also be a better option. Preseason rankings would have favored Martin Prado over Kyle Seager at 3B even though 2013 so far has had the opposite results, but neither of them would measure up to Orioles phenom Manny Machado (CAN). Scorpio had a similar rankings situation with shortstops - Asdrubal Cabrera (injury notwithstanding) hasn't measured up to NL steals leader Everth Cabrera (SCO) - but both of them have outplayed the black hole Cancer suffers from while they wait for Derek Jeter to return (Marlins rookie Derek Dietritch has recently emerged as an extremely deep replacement option).

In CF, Shin-Soo Choo (CAN) has the lead in points (887 to 867) even though Coco Crisp has played better (17.7 PPG to 13.6), but I have to give the lead to Choo here just due to Crisp's inability to stay on the field. Going by preseason rankings, the rest of Scorpio's outfield has the clear edge (Ryan Braun and Giancarlo Stanton over Nelson Cruz and Angel Pagan), and while we all know about Braun's slump/legal issues and Stanton's injury troubles, Pagan is also injured and Cruz (with the highest point total of the previous four) is also linked to the Biogenesis scandal. Looking at the fourth outfield situation, Nate McLouth's (SCO) resurgent season with the Orioles has trumped Torii Hunter's stability with the Tigers.

On the mound, no starter compares to Patrick Corbin (CAN 1,086) but no reliever compares to Jason Grilli (SCO 1,111). Even with Stephen Strasburg's (CAN) injury, the only other non-Corbin pitchers to surpass him in points are Cincinnati's Mike Leake and Pirates rookie sensation Jeff Locke (SCO), although CC Sabathia and Paul Maholm (CAN) are not far behind. On the Scorpio side, Francisco Liriano's return to form has almost made up for R.A. Dickey's regression and Ricky Romero's demotion, while Cancer has to rely on Tim Hudson and Phil Hughes to shore up the rotation until Jaime Garcia and Wei-Yin Chen return. In the bullpen, Jim Johnson and Ernesto Frieri haven't measured up to the combo of Grilli and Greg Holland (SCO), but Cancer also has injured All-Star closers Chris Perez and Jason Motte taking up space on the roster. Judging by my extremely unscientific evaluation method, it's a dead heat between these two teams who were separated by 8 spots in my extremely unscientific rankings prior to the season.

So there you have it: what was supposed to be an evaluation of the four division leaders turned into a profile of half the league. During the All-Star Break I will be completely occupied by updating my 40 man roster project, so I will likely revisit Astrology sometime in the dog days of August, likely right around the Virgo-Leo cusp.