MLB 2014 Postseason: NL Wild Card Game

Well, the lineups have been posted for tonight's game, and I must say I'm a little surprised. As happy as I am to see Fuld in left field and batting second where I wanted him, I am decidedly NOT happy to see Adam Dunn on the bench. Wasn't everyone making such a big deal about him making his postseason debut this year, and now he's not even starting in what could be (although hopefully not) his ONE chance at playing in a postseason game? Dunn is hitting only .200 against James Shields for his career, but he does have a HR (to go along with 5 walks and 16 K's). At least Bob Melvin didn't have to sacrifice any defense to get Stephen Vogt's super clutch bat in such a big game, but I would honestly rather see HIM come off the bench in the late innings. Looking back, it makes sense that Geovany Soto would start over Derek Norris behind the plate, since Norris has fallen off quite a bit (remember when he was an All-Star, you guys?) and I've seen Soto be a one-man offense in person vs. the Phillies - at least for the first 9 innings, until Josh Donaldson's walk-off HR. Ned Yost filled out his lineup card pretty much true to form of what we've been seeing for the last few weeks.

Meanwhile, let's check out what the lineups for tomorrow's NL Wild Card game might look like. The Pirates and the Giants actually had the same record this year, which I always like to see because it kind of justifies the whole second wild card spot - this one-game playoff would still be happening under the old 8-teams-make-the-playoffs system! Pittsburgh will host by virtue of their 4-2 season series advantage over San Francisco, so let's start with them:

Pedro Alvarez was the Bucs' third baseman for most of the season with Josh Harrison playing more of a super utility role, but a stress fracture to the former's foot has allowed the latter's bat (he finished the season within 4 points of the batting title) to find a regular position on the field. With J-Hay entrenched at the hot corner, right field is open for former Blue Jays prospect Travis Snider, who has gotten most of the starts out there in the season's final month while Pirates prospect Gregory Polanco gets some more seasoning on the bench. He has also been hitting second, since manager Clint Hurdle also apparently believes in the importance of the platoon split. I was a bit optimistic slotting Russell Martin in to the lineup, as his hamstring makes him an uncertainty at best. But with backup catcher Chris Stewart's wrist feeling the pain of Johnny Cueto's backswing, it's more important than ever that the Canadian Martin can play. I put Ike Davis in the lineup since I have a propensity to highlight midseason acquisitions, but in all likelihood he will sit in favor of righty Gaby Sanchez against Giants lefty Madison Bumgarner. The rest of the lineup are no-brainers, particularly defending NL MVP Andrew McCutchen, who it turns out I didn't need to win my fantasy baseball league after all!

With young ace-in-the-making Gerrit Cole used on the last day of the season to try and catch the Cardinals for the NL Central title, Edinson Volquez gets the nod in this season-making game. Despite a propensity for wildness - his 71 walks in 2014 ranked 10th in the league and he's 32nd on the active list in that category with 520 for his career - he's actually been the most consistent pitcher on the Pirates' staff, as the only hurler to start at least 30 games. He and Francisco Liriano have to rank near the top of the list of highest-upside 1-year free agent contracts (although Liriano's 2013 deal had an option, which he is currently playing out). Mark Melancon has stepped in admirably after former closer (and WBC Team Italy member) Jason Grilli faltered and was eventually traded to the Angels for their closer (Ernesto Frieri), who faltered and was eventually released. Meanwhile, who would have predicted that Tony Watson and Jared Hughes would finish the season with ERA's under 2 (1.63 and 1.96, respectively), becoming one of the most dominant lefty/righty relief duos since Stanton/Nelson for those late 90's Yankees.

Injuries sure have devastated the Giants' lineup at exactly the wrong time. Leadoff hitter/center fielder Angel Pagan is out for the rest of the season with a bulging disk in his back. Left fielder/first baseman Michael Morse is recovering from a strained oblique. Second baseman/consummate veteran Marco Scutaro has played in exactly five games this year. Don't Panik, though: #14 organizational prospect Joe Panik has had a nice start to his career with a .305 average in 73 games filling in at the keystone. In the outfield, Gregor Blanco is a fine replacement level center fielder, but San Francisco might not have any other options for left field than journeyman Travis Ishikawa. This lineup still has some pop in Hunter Pence, Buster Posey, and Pablo Sandoval, but after those threats, there is a big-time drop off.

Speaking of drop-off, this rotation is not nearly as dominant as some of the Giants playoff teams of the recent past, mostly due to Matt Cain being lost for the season with bone chips in his throwing shoulder. Tim Lincecum has also struggled before and since throwing his no-hitter, and was dropped from the rotation at the end of August. The good news is that Tim Hudson has shown limited signs of aging and Jake Peavy has been sharp since being acquired from the Red Sox, but none of that matters for this one game playoff, where SF will start their unquestioned ace, Madison Bumgarner. The members of the Pirates current starting lineup have hit Bumgarner pretty well, however, with their combined average - even including McCutchen's .200 clip - at .339 against him. But that doesn't mean he's not one of the premiere lefties in the game right now. The bullpen has also seen their share of upheaval, with Sergio Romo losing the closer's job to Santiago Casilla in the beginning of July, but they still have some good weapons against both lefties and righties, plus breakout swingman Yusmeiro Petit will be available in a long relief role.


Yes, writing this post was mostly just a way to keep myself busy so that I wouldn't have to nervously stew about what will happen in the A's game tonight at 5pm PT on TBS. Depending on what happens in that game, you might find me watching the NL Wild Card game tomorrow at 5pm PT on ESPN, or you might find me crying in the fetal position with a bottle of whiskey clutched to my chest. YAY BASEBALL!

MLB 2014 Postseason: AL Wild Card Game

Well, it's been a long arduous journey to the end of the season for the Oakland Athletics and their fans, given that the they were considered the best in the sport for most of the season, but was the last team to clinch a playoff spot (if you can even call the "coin flip" wild card game a playoff spot). But at least we should count ourselves lucky that the A's won yesterday to avoid a tiebreaker with the Mariners. In fact, we avoided all three tiebreaker scenarios that could have taken place yesterday - the others were St. Louis vs. Pittsburgh for the NL Central title and Detroit vs. Kansas City for the AL Central crown -, which leaves us with a day to rest, recuperate, and preview the impending one-game playoffs that will happen tomorrow and Wednesday. Today we'll look at the AL matchup since it will occur first.

The Royals earned the first wild card spot by a margin of one game, so they will host tomorrow's contest. It should also be noted that Kansas City would have home field advantage had the two teams tied, since KC won the season series against OAK 5 games to 2. Let's take a look at their projected lineup for tomorrow's game along with the rotation with which they ended the year.

Royals manager Ned Yost has been running out a different batting order for the last two weeks than the one he used for most of the season. You can see the new lineup in the above graphic, which also includes cool info such as each player's preseason ranking from MLB.com, how they bat and throw, their 2014 fantasy point totals and salaries, when they're set to become free agents, and astrology/hometown information. Let's just say you don't win your fantasy baseball league (as I did this year!) by not paying attention to every minuscule detail of every MLB roster. Basically what changed was that two bottom of the order hitters got big batting order promotions: new leadoff hitter Alcides Escobar had been holding down the 8th or 9th slot, while Lorenzo Cain, who spent most of the season batting in the 6-7-8 range, jumped up to #3. Then the middle of the order - Hosmer, Butler, Gordon, Perez - all shifted down one slot to accommodate the moves. The new lineup seems to have been paying dividends, since it kept Kansas City in the hunt for first place in their division until the last day of the season.

Tomorrow's game marks Kansas City's first time in the playoffs since 1985 when they won the World Series, and they've got a pretty good starter on the hill for them in James Shields. "Big Game James" earned his nickname pitching in the postseason (including the World Series) for the 2008 Rays - despite the fact that he's lost his last two postseason starts in 2010 and 2011, both to Texas. But if his team has any kind of lead heading into the late innings, they can turn it over to one of the sharpest bullpens in the game, anchored by All-Star closer Greg Holland and Shields's former Ray teammate Wade Davis. The silver lining is that all of KC's top pitchers are righties, which means that the A's can trot out their actual, big boy lineup tomorrow.

Speaking of the A's lineup, Bob Melvin also tried something new for the final series of the year against Texas - namely moving last minute acquisition and Yoenis Cespedes replacement Adam Dunn from his usual cleanup spot and batting him second between Coco Crisp and Josh Donaldson. I'm not necessarily NOT a fan of this move since, for all my obsession about batting orders, studies have shown that they don't impact the outcome of games all that much. But that being said, studies have also shown that it's smart to put your most powerful bat in the #2 hole (cf. Mike Trout) and it's not as if Donaldson is going to be catching anyone on the base paths given the way he's been limping for the past few months.

I would almost rather see Sam Fuld hitting second, but his presence in the lineup is predicated on Brandon Moss moving back to first base and "I Believe in" Stephen Vogt warming the bench. This move I WOULD be a fan of for a couple of reasons: 1) it gets Oakland's best defensive alignment on the field, since a run prevented is just as good as a run scored, and 2) it allows Moss to go back to first base, where he spent the part of this season when he was actually hitting well. (Remember when Brandon Moss was an All-Star, you guys?) But Melvin is such a mixer and a matcher that I wouldn't be surprised to see any batter in pretty much any spot in the batting order (except for Crisp and Donaldson), or to see him pull his best middle of the order bats for right handed pinch hitters at the mere sight of a lefty warming up in the KC bullpen.

James Shields may have the reputation for pitching in pressure situations, but Jon Lester has the results. In his 13 postseason appearances (all starts except for two relief appearances in 2007) lester has a 2.11 ERA, 1.043 WHIP, and 3.24 K/BB ratio (compared to 4.98, 1.398, 3.13 for Shields in 6 starts). And if my hometown team project from earlier this year is any indication, Lester knows how to pitch in a one-game, as he led the bottom-ranked Western US team to the gold, while Shields couldn't even get a win pitching behind the top-ranked Californians. But far be it from me to use a video game as a predictor of what might happen in real life.

The back end of the A's bullpen has been a strange mix of dominant and shaky. The only reasons that Sean Doolittle's stats aren't approaching Holland-esque numbers (he's got a 11.13 K/BB rate, compared to 4.50 from KC's stopper) is that a) he languished as a setup man during Jim Johnson-gate and b) he missed time with a lower back issue. Luke Gregerson looks top notch on paper, but for some reason all I can remember are his 8 (eight) blown saves. Fernando Abad and Eric O'Flaherty are quite solid lefty options (unlike Francisley Bueno and Tim Collins of the Royals). But it's been Dan Otero who has quietly become the most consistent member of this relief corps, averaging about 1.3 innings per appearance and vulturing 8 wins on the year.


I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow evening, but I'll definitely be sending all the good vibes I can muster in the direction of Kansas City. Oh, and apologies to all friends and co-workers who might be in close proximity to me for the next month, because I'm definitely wearing my good luck A's shirt for the entire duration of their stay in the postseason.

The American League Wild Card Game is on Tuesday September 30 at 5:00 pm PT on TBS. Get excited!

Basic Lands of Tarkir

When I explain the game of Magic: the Gathering to new players, the first thing I say is that all cards can be divided into two types: spells and lands. Well, actually that's more like the second thing I say, after setting up that it's a duel where each player uses their own deck of trading cards to reduce their opponent's life total to 0 before he or she does the same to you. Or maybe the third, after explaining the different between Creatures are other types of spells and how combat works. But when it's time to get into the mechanics of actually casting spells, I eventually do bring up lands.

A well balanced deck should have a spells-to-lands ratio of somewhere between 1.4 and 1.6 to 1 (depending on the format), despite the fact that the ratio of spells to lands in the entire multiverse is greater than 24:1. (12,142 spells of all types against just 492 distinct lands, but who's counting?) This ratio gets even wackier when you consider that, in most limited formats, the majority of lands that go in your deck are one of the five basic land types: Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain and Forest.

Khans of Tarkir, the upcoming set that focuses on five factions that each exclusively use three colors of mana, might be a notable exception to this rule, as the set has a cycle of extremely useful nonbasic lands in common, uncommon and rare (oh my). But that fact didn't stop the designers of Khans from putting a lot of work into making the 20 basic lands (four of each type) interesting in their own right. Each of the five clans of Tarkir has one artist responsible for the art on each basic land (and the nonbasic tri-land) associated with that clan. (This setup might look familiar to those of you who remember the only other three-color set in recent memory, Shards of Alara.)

The official Magic site had a nice feature article on the basic lands and the tri-lands, but never before have they been organized together with a cool graphic (from the Planeswalker's Guide series) and the banners. Each clan has a primary color (which gets two basic lands) and two secondary colors (one each). So let's take a look at each one in turn and see what we can glean about each clan's personality from looking at where they get their mana.

Starting at the top of the color wheel, we get the Abzan Houses, a desert-based clan that loves outlasting its enemies by always staying ahead in the race to accumulate +1/+1 counters. (It's a pity that the Selesnya and Golgari guilds are rotating out of standard play.) The main feature that dominates all four Abzan basic lands (illustrated by Sam Burley, who also did all five Emissaries from Theros) is a giant fortress in a desolate setting. The high walls surrounded by utter emptiness, save for a few birds here and there, give a sense of the safety that goes along with fortified places. The flavor is clear here, as these definitely look like places that will endure all sorts of hardships.

The lands of the Jeskai Way are all shrouded in mist, which is appropriate for a clan populated with skilled monks known for their martial arts prowess. These places all seem to give the impression of places where deep contemplation and self-discovery are possible. There are also no clearly defined architectural structures, save for the Mystic Monastery (which just is exactly the Potala Palace in Tibet's capital city of Lhasa). You can just picture a serene bald robed figure standing on one leg on any of the outcroppings on Florian de Gesincourt's landscapes (a new artist who has only four non-Khans pieces to his credit so far).

The Sultai Brood's lands are some of the most evocative in the set, many featuring jungle temples and ancient ziggurats that are associated with harrowing sacrificial rituals. This is no accident on the part of artist Adam Paquette (a Magic staple in every set since Innistrad) as many of the clan's most powerful spells require them to delve into a full graveyard. I feel like each of these lands exudes the same sense of foreboding that Marin Sheen's character must have felt as his skiff meandered up the river towards Colonel Kurtz. And that's exactly how I would feel if I found myself heading towards the fearsome Naga inhabitants of Qarsi Palace.

In many ways, the Mardu Horde is the star clan of Khans of Tarkir. Their khan Zurgo was featured in the Speed vs. Cunning duel deck, his throne is one of the most iconic and powerful cards in the set, and his clan's primary color is the color of most Dragons. (Of the 116 creatures with the subtype Dragon in the multiverse, 86 have red as one of their colors.) Noah Bradley's mountains and plains have a sense of openness and emptiness where you would expect to see a Dragon's massive wingspan, but then his swamp serves as a cruel reminder of what happened to the greatest predators Tarkir has ever known. I can't wait to see how the art evolves when (not if) Dragons eventually return sometime later in this block.

I personally like the lands of the Temur Frontier the best out of all five clans, but that might have something to do with the fact that my main EDH deck stars Intet, the Dreamer. I find that Magic rookie artist Titus Lunter's landscapes have the most to offer in terms of texture and atmosphere - you can almost feel the specific mana that would be produced by each of these wintery locations. The snow that pervades the images doesn't necessarily bring to mind the fiery temperament of most dragons. But how can you beat a shelter made out of a gigantic ferocious dragon skull? REI should take note when they're designing their next line of tents for the fashion-forward shaman.


These five graphics illustrate one of the reasons I dig Magic so much: obviously there are distinct differences between the five factions in terms of gameplay, but each one has their own unique feel in terms of flavor and art, aspects of the game that have absolutely nothing to do with how it's played. In a format full of tri-lands, taplands, fetchlands, and mana fixing artifacts, I just hope the Vorthosian time and effort that went into these beautiful basic lands won't be overlooked.

My Magic 2015 Prerelease, Two Months Late

My friends and I were all at an adult men's retreat during the actual Magic 2015 prerelease, so at the urging of one individual, six of us bought prerelease seeded card pools and had our own home-brewed event this past weekend. I randomly drew green (we opted for two green packs since most of us are EDH players), so Phytotitan and I went to work attempting to ruinate my friends/opponents on the battlefield. During the round robin play that ensued, I didn't win a single game (that counted). Here's a little about the embarrassment of a deck I ran into that tournament with.

When looking at a sealed pool, I tend to do what Channefireball's Conley does: separate all the rares and see what color they represent. Opening your packs consecutively makes that somewhat easy to do, but what it makes harder is getting a feel for the entire card pool without forming preconceived notions. I present my findings now:

GREEN
The prerelease version of the aggressive Phytotitan and the defense-oriented Hornet Nest were in my seeded pack, along with a Siege Wurm, one of the best green commons. For mana fixing, and to take advantage of the Convoke mechanic, I found an Elvish Mystic and Satyr Wayfinder. A Genesis Hydra was in one of my other five packs, so at least for high upside cards, Green was in the lead.

BLUE
Jalira, Master Polymorphist is a flavor win, starring in an episode of the Uncharted Realms series on Wizards of the Coast's (confusingly redone) website. (I hope you like accepting cookies!) However she doesn't have a really useful mechanic unless you're trying to fill your graveyard (which I just might be, in Green) or have a bunch of dumb low drops to upgrade to. One such dumb low drop (in my situation) was the Chief Engineer, who I have respect for because there is an Artifact deck in M15 and he's in it. But the only Artifacts I had were Meteorite, Will-Forged Golem (who already has Convoke) and Grindclock (which is NOT in the aforementioned M15 Artifact deck...).

BLACK
Cruel Sadist was the only rare in Black, but her direct damage / self pump ability was a convenient option for dealing with tokens: she could ping insects or spirits and make herself big enough to block soldiers. Couple that with the fact that my only other good removal options (double Flesh to Dust, double Crippling Blight) and my best beatdown options (double Shadowcloak Vampire, double Accursed Spirit) were in Black , I tried to go for the Golgari shell. Plus, it would have been a great setup had I managed to draw a Garruk, but no such luck...

WHITE / RED
Even though I had no rares from these colors, I did pull a Triplicate Spirits and Seraph of the Masses, which in retrospect might have been good enough to build around. (The one red playable I opened, Inferno Fist, was not.) Between matches - when you go 0-20, sometimes you lose pretty fast and have time to socialize - my buddy and I put together a White/Blue deck, which consisted of using pretty much every white and blue card I had, playable or no. Maybe I'll write about that one later on if I don't get too depressed from rehashing my ineptitude.


WHAT WENT WRONG
The first match, against the Blue mage, I got blown out by evasion: in Game 1, I didn't happen to draw as many Crippling Blights as he did Welkin Terns, and in Game 2, Spectra Ward and Invisibility did some work. The second match was against the other Green mage, but his deck was surprisingly Red and White... so I got aggro'd out pretty hard. Match three was against the Black mage, who picked green as his secondary color after drawing both the green promo AND Hornet Queen, a card that's not any less broken in Core Set Limited as it is in EDH.

In match four, against the Red mage, Triplicate Spirits proved why it's such an epic card, although I did get to 2-for-1 his Siege Dragon with Flesh to Dust just as it was about to be Marked by Honor (which was in turn searched for by Heliod's Pilgrim, so I guess it's more of a 2.5-for-1). Then the fifth match was against the White mage, who was saved by Resolute Archangel exactly once, then followed that game up with both Avacyn AND Soul of Theros. Also it didn't help that I missed with Genesis Hydra both times I was able to cast it and also with Satyr Wayfinder two out of four times. Needless to say it was a bit of a frustrating day for me in the blind eternities.


But what about that Azorius deck we built for funsies? Well, later that night I playtested it against my Green Black deck and it won both games of the match with Seraph of the Masses. Come to think of it, I wonder if I might have been better served with swapping the Black for the White, going Selesnya and just saying 'stuff it' to removal. My guess is that I would have been, but unless any of my friends saved their limited decks and want a rematch, the world will never know. At least Khans of Tarkir comes out soon, but of course I will be out of town for that prerelease as well. Anyone up for a home-brewed prerelease event sometime in November?

Hometown Teams 2014 All-Star Break, Final Recap

Remember my Hometown Teams project that I started at the All-Star Break? It's been a while, so I don't blame you if you don't, but thankfully the previous four posts are available on the Internet! The rest of the tournament was pretty wild, so I'll go through them in an equally wild fashion: with words and images! The results of the first two rounds of the winner's bracket set up the first two rounds of the loser's bracket (matchups 7 thru 10 on the handy PrintYourBrackets.com sheet I downloaded to help me with the seeding), so we'll go through those first and say goodbye to the first four teams to be eliminated. But first, here's how the bracket looked as of the last post:

Based on what I wrote about California's first matchup, you might be able to guess what happened in this one. First of all, I changed the lineup back to how it probably should have been before the computer players' attributes prompted me to do some tinkering that went against the real-life statistics. I put Coco Crisp in CF batting leadoff, which pushed Chase Utley back to 2B (he responded by hitting two home runs in the contest) and Ryan Braun to DH. I also brought in John Jaso instead of Jason Castro, who actually also airmailed a throw to second on a stolen base attempt, but the results weren't as catastrophic as the last game. The catastrophe was Stephen Strasburg's pitching, as he gave up the go-ahead run to Florida on a bases loaded walk, and the boys from the Sunshine State never looked back. In retrospect, I probably should have respected the 2014 stats and given Garrett Richards a chance to pitch, but it's hard to ignore the super high overall ratings of the starters who screwed things up for my home state. Either way, it's goodbye to my beloved Californians until the next tournament.

In the first matchup so far where a favored team actually won the game, the Central US eliminated Scott Kazmir's Texas club behind Corey Kluber's complete game masterpiece and an offensive charge led by Alex Gordon. Interestingly enough, the game suggested starting Mark Buehrle over Kluber, but I went with the stats and it proved beneficial to the team, which only leads me to further believe that the CA games might have gone differently if I chose Richards and Kyle Lohse over the higher profile star starters. Either way, in matchup 9, Florida continued its winning ways against the Southeast US by beating a pitcher who unquestionably SHOULD have been pitching for their opposition: David Price. But FL's starter Gio Gonzalez was just effective enough and Andrew McCutchen out-powered Mark Teixeira, and just like that the #4 ranked team was out of the running. A similar fate followed for the #3 ranked Central US when they faced the Dominican Republic behind breakout All-Star Alfredo Simon. I gave Mark Buehrle his shot here, but the veteran left hander couldn't keep up with an offense led by Carlos Gomez (who had a HR), Carlos Santana (bases-clearing 2B) and Robinson Cano (2-run 1B).

Back to the winner's bracket for matchups 11 and 12, the International team had a clear advantage against Venezuela in the pitching matchup, since it was only INT's second game, whereas VEN had to play two by virtue of being ranked in the bottom four. But honestly, any of Team World's top four starters could be a number 1 or 2 on a major league club, and Braves ace Julio Teheran proved just that by pitching a complete game to beat Henderson Alvarez of the  NL East rival Marlins. He got plenty of support from the Cubans on offense, enjoying home runs by Yasiel Puig (giving him three in the two games so far) and Jose Abreu, with two more RBI's from Alexei Ramirez. In a matchup that heavily favored the Northeast US (breakout star Rick Porcello) over the West US (journeyman innings eater Scott Feldman), you can guess who ended up winning. Chase Headley provided a home run to keep the West in it, but it was Kole Calhoun's 9th inning grand slam off Jason Grilli (brought in after closer Joe Smith imploded) that sealed the deal and kept the lowest ranked team undefeated through this juncture. Let's take another look at the updated bracket, with eliminated teams crossed off:

Jumping right back to the loser's bracket, the Northeast US had a chance to redeem themselves as they trotted out Cardinals playoff mainstay Lance Lynn against Mets rookie Jacob deGrom. But since MLB 14: The Show apparently LOVES the underdog, deGrom ended up pitching the full 9 and Florida enjoyed home runs from some typically power-light hitters (Dee Gordon and Denard Span), plus one from an expected source (C Jonathan Lucroy). That's three significantly higher-ranked teams eliminated by Florida, for those of you keeping track at home. Meanwhile, in a shocking turn of events, the Dominican Republic actually won a game against an inferior team! Granted, Venezuela's pitching depth just about ran out, as they were forced to basically split the game's innings between long relievers (or at least they were at the time) Carlos Carrasco and Yusmeiro Petit, while the D.R. was able to trot out prized last minute free agent acquisition Ervin Santana. It also helped that Carlos Gomez (the player of the game) and Jose Bautista both went deep and that Santiago Casilla was able to pitch two innings for the save.

Back to the winner's bracket, if there's a game featuring the Western US, you can basically already deduce who's going to win. Baltimore rookie Kevin Gausman (from Colorado) out dueled Hyun-Jin Ryu (from Korea) as the top of the order (Kinsler, Brantley [who later added a HR], and Calhoun) chained together a couple of good rallies, pushing Team World into the loser's bracket to face whoever won the Flordia/Dominican Republic matchup... which we will move onto right now! It helped that FL had made it all the way around to the top of their (four-man) rotation, so Chris Sale went against Bartolo Colon of the D.R. Josh Donaldson and Anthony Rizzo proved the offensive heroes with a HR and a HR shy of the cycle, respectively, as the West US and Florida continued the set-em-up, knock-em-down pattern.

The previous victory set up Florida's #2 (Zack Greinke) against the International's #4 (Hisashi Iwakuma) in the semi-final round. The whole favoring the underdog thing is honestly getting kind of old for me, so I'll just tell you that Florida ended up winning, eliminating their fifth team in the process, behind home runs from Denard Span and Daniel Murphy. So what we're now looking forward to in the finals is a rematch of what happened in our very first matchup of the tournament (although it's listed as #2 on the bracket). Even though the West had ace Jon Lester on the hill and an undefeated record, Gio Gonzalez ended up the winner behind a 3-run HR from Ian Desmond (although Michael Brantley tried his best to answer with a 2-run 2B). Also of note is that I saw the first injury substitution of the tournament, as Chase Headley had to exit the game with a bout of forearm tightness.

So that should be it, right? WRONG! This is double elimination, so if the team that had previously ran the table to make it to the finals takes their first loss IN the finals, there's an automatic rematch to get every eliminated team to two losses. I made an executive decision to pitch FL ace Chris Sale on "three days rest" - or whatever the equivalent would be, cuz I can't for the life of me figure out how long a tournament like this would take - against the West's SP2 Tim Lincecum, but as you can guess, it didn't matter. Jed Lowrie didn't do much subbing in for the injured Headley at 3B, but Brantley and Kinsler combined for home runs and that was enough to give the VERY LOWEST RANKED TEAM the victory in this whole competition. Here's how the final round shaped up:

So there you have it, a completed tournament style lineup creation project using MLB 14: The Show (for the PS3, mind you) as a simulation engine. I'm somewhat of a rankings nerd, so I was mortified when all the best teams consistently got eliminated, but I guess that's the nature of one game coin flip style of play. Either that or The Show's AI gives an unfair advantage to the underdogs, which I'm not ruling out at all. But even funnier than that particular programming quirk was the crowd animation at Tropicana Field, home of the Rays, who I used to portray the Florida team. Despite all the exciting final round baseball going on, the only thing I noticed was the people walking in an endless loop down and up the stairs in the background. I hope they made some improvements for the PS4 version...

Thanks for reading!

Astrology Baseball: September Call Ups

It's time once again for Labor Day, which means it's time for baseball teams being awarded a whopping 10 extra roster spots to help keep regulars rested (if in contention) or showcase some of tomorrow's talent without using up an option year (if competing for protected draft picks). Either way, the occasion of September Call Ups gives us a good sample size of "replacement level" talent, the ubiquitous but elusive phrase that is responsible for one of the sport's most violent acronyms: WAR (Wins Above Replacement, or how many actual legitimate team wins would this guy contribute on his own, over and above say you're average September Call Up (SCU) type player).

That being said, it also provides us a useful landmark/vantage point in time to judge the season as a whole, much like the first quarter (1Q) or the All Star break (ASB). Since I already plugged the ASB stats  into the Hometown tournament project (which I promise I will finish, for those of you into video game simulation), let's take a look at the top performers pre-SCU through the lens of Fantasy and Astrology. Direct your attention not only to the ESPN website I set up several years ago, but first to this chart of how the final four would look if a) they were managed as efficiently as possible and b) the playoffs were determined by overall point value throughout the year, none of this "fantasy is a weekly game" stuff Matthew Berry keeps shouting about. To the right is the most basic standings based on points, below are the position by position breakdowns for the two matchups that make up the final four:

Aries is once again the overall top scorer, which means it takes on the fourth seed Scorpio. I've put handy check marks next to the team that I think has advantage in a particular area, and as you can see, the Aries team is clearly superior in the areas of infield and starting pitchers, even with the substitution that I should have made of the disappointing Jason Kipnis for doubles machine Daniel Murphy given that the Mets put the latter on the DL last week. Few could match the trio of Stanton, Braun and Ortiz in the OF/DH department, and if Coco Crisp can somehow miraculously recover from the newly strained neck that's kept him out of action for the last few games, they'll have a game changer in all four spots. If Aries wanted to sub out a couple of players based on recent performance rather than overall point totals, they could sub Orioles 1B Steve Pearce (who recently forced Chris Davis to move over to his old position of 3B to make room for him) in for Michael Morse (who the streaking Giants have "fallen in love with" this season), and put Astros cleanup hitter Dexter Fowler (now that he's back from the DL) in for Lorenzo Cain.

The Aries pitching staff is just unfair (and strangely international to boot), especially considering they have the likes of Chris Tillman, Henderson Alvarez, and Mark Buehrle waiting in the wings. Scorpio would look a lot better had Masahiro Tanaka not gone down for the season with an injury. Thankfully phenom James Paxton returned from his own injury just in time to put up some excellent numbers, and in terms of depth they've got solid performers like Wade Miley, Jon Niese and Jeff Locke (all lefties) who are all doing alright this season. If I were a betting man, I'd put some cash down on the "Rams" but I also know that fantasy tides can turn unexpectedly, so I wouldn't be surprised at any outcome here.

Last year's champion (and the one before) Libra doesn't look like they have a great edge over Leo in terms of direct player to player comparisons, but they didn't look like they did last year either and still ended up taking the crown. Mike Trout and Andrew McCutchen are probably the top two outfielders in the game right now so it'll be interesting to see them each lead a playoff team here. What might turn the tide in this matchup was Jose Bautista's surprise eligibility at 1B. Had he stayed in RF (pushing Calhoun to the bench) he would have easily won the matchup with Jason Heyward (since they don't count defense in fantasy), but that means breakout star Anthony Rizzo would have mopped the floor with Libra's second string 1B Lonnie Chisenhall. Dustin Pedroia might not have beaten Robinson Cano even at full strength, but the former's concussion issues stemming from a right cross from Logan Forsythe make it all but impossible. Libra was not immune from injury either as the shortstop spot occupied by rookie Xander Bogaerts went to NL Home Run Derby captain Troy Tuolwitzki for most of the season.

Although they have the top two pitchers in the matchup, Leo would have been even more stacked were it not for season ending injuries to Jose Fernandez and Yu Darvish. Jesse Hahn has pitched well bouncing between AA San Antonio and the Padres this year, but he doesn't have the staff-leading electric stuff of the pitchers he's replacing (at least not yet). On the Libra side, Greinke and Roark have the kind of stuff to be #1 starters on some clubs, while Weaver, Cobb and Lohse are kind of the opposite: above-average pitchers who are saddled with their teams' ace responsibilities. I gave Leo the edge in both relief pitchers here, but were it not for Sean Doolittle's placement on the DL, the two teams would be evenly split. This should be a fun and unpredictable week, everything a seed 2 vs. seed 3 matchup should be.


So now that we've seen how the stars are influencing baseball, it's time to turn back to see what the actual teams are doing on the field, including Scorpio Adam Dunn's last minute acquisition by the Oakland Athletics. Even if he continues the fireworks show he put on this afternoon, I doubt he'd supplant either LaRoche or Big Papi from the 1B or DH slots. But it's nice to keep track of players involved in the Astrology playoffs who have a chance to be involved in the actual playoffs.

Hometown Teams 2014 All-Star Break: Round 1 Results

It's taken me a little more time than expected to plug all the rosters into my copy of MLB 14: The Show and simulate the first round of matchups. But I finally found some time between prepping for my fantasy football draft, familiarizing myself with Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, tinkering with my Magic: The Gathering EDH decks, and other random stuff like my job and family, to take this project one step further. Here's a new color-coded bracket for the start of the second round, followed by a summary of the results, and finally a breakdown of the final two teams.


As could be expected, neither of the two favored teams in the preliminary round came away with the victory. Game 1 delivered the pitcher's duel that we all expected with both Clayton Kershaw (Texas) and Felix Hernandez (Venezuela) each managing a quality start, but then leaving with the game still tied. Victor Martinez proved the hero with a late home run and Francisco Rodriguez nailed down the save easily. Game 2 also featured a solid pitching matchup where neither Jon Lester (West US) nor Chris Sale (Florida) figured into the decision. It was Wade Davis who faltered, giving up a late home run to Jacoby Ellsbury, whose Western counterparts never looked back.

In Game 3, we get the first example of where I let the video game's rankings take precedence over actual 2014 statistics, which may have proved fatal for one of my favorite teams (more on that later). Health permitting, Masahiro Tanaka would have started for the International team, but in his absence, the raw stats would favor Colombian right hander Julio Teheran to take his place. However, the game put forth Yu Darvish as the team's #1 starter, and I can't say that I disagree, given the Japan native's track record and truly electric stuff. On the other side, the game suggested David Price, but I gave the nod to Adam Wainwright based on his 2014 performance (he averaged 95 points per game through the All-Star break against Price's 77.6 ppg). In any case, it was the offensive prowess of Cuba's own Yasiel Puig - who hit two home runs in the contest - that continued the upset trend.

Based on how things are going, I'll bet you can guess who won the matchup between the intimidating Dominican Republic and the powerful Northeast US. It was pitching that spelled the D.R.'s doom with Johnny Cueto just not able to get going against the likes of Mike Trout and Nick Markakis, who managed a grand slam in the slugfest. Jeff Samardzija pitched the North to victory in another case of the game suggesting a starter without the statistical edge. Although neither of the above cases represents the favorite team I mentioned earlier.

As a native of California, I may have put too much stock in the games played by the Californian team. This bias led to an inordinate amount of last minute tinkering to the lineup before the simulation. Below is how the team arguably should look on paper based on 2014 stats, and in the summary I'll tell you what changes I was compelled to make by the computer players' attributes:

As an Oakland A's fan, I really like Coco Crisp. He plays a good defense, sparks the team with his winning personality, and is the best true leadoff hitter among this group. The game, however, doesn't think too highly of his lack of power, and instead opted for Dustin Pedroia in the leadoff spot - a guy who is big on reputation but small on 2014 production (10.1 ppg thru the ASB) - shifting Utley to DH and Braun to LF. They also preferred power hitting catcher Jason Castro (8.0 ppg) to on base machine John Jaso, which proved problematic when Castro air mailed an attempt to throw out a base stealer, leading to a decisive Venezuela run.

In the pitching rotation, I can't say I blame the game for slotting "Big Game" James Shields and erstwhile phenom Stephen Strasburg above Garrett Richards, because who even knew who Garrett Richards was before this year? (And honestly, who knows who he is even now?) The pitching on both sides was great, but it was Venezuela's creative use of their bench that led them past CA: pinch runner Alexi Amarista came in after a Pablo Sandoval single, then stole second and scored on a Martin Prado hit. Since it's double elimination, we'll see California take on Zack Greinke's Florida in the loser's bracket.

With the Wild West's completely unexpected victory over the much higher ranked Central US, every game in the first round was officially an upset. In this case, the lowest-ranked team in the tournament prevailed behind a strong pitching performance by Tim Lincecum, who outdueled Max Scherzer and quieted a very potent lineup. I don't know what this trend means for the accuracy of The Show's programming, the nature of double elimination tournaments, or both, but take a look at the Central's lineup for what is very likely to be the second-to last time, if the current patterns hold...

Remember "It's over 9000!!!"?

Well, it is. Deal with it.

Phenax Dimir Mill: a Story of a Deck

The marble floor of the circular room was ringed with alternating Ionic and Doric columns. While the high level of craftsmanship was plain to see, it was also plain to see that the columns were purely ornamental, for the room had no roof, nor walls, but instead remained open to the night sky, across which bright, enchanting constellations played.

The room was occupied by a handful of characters, each with their own intentions and impressive powers. The most intimidating of these was an old, shriveled yet deceptively powerfully built humanoid, whose features were almost entirely concealed under a heavy hood and cloak. The suit of armor and sheathed weapon were clear to see, but the figure's gender, or even race, could not be determined. Beside this creature, and several feet above the floor, floated a fearsome shirtless vampire, raven hair flowing although there was no wind in the chamber. He floated down near ground level and whispered into the hooded figure's ear.

"Master Lazav, do you know where we are? Or how we got here? I have searched the minds of all present, and none have any knowledge of the Implicit Maze."

"No indeed, Mirko," sneered Lazav, the Dimir Mastermind also in a whisper. "This place does not seem to have any affiliation with any of the Guilds of Ravnica... Except for one of our guests!" Its attention turned swiftly to another powerful vampire, floating several feet above its companion. "Szadek, I presume. I did not expect to find the Lord of Secrets outside the safety of Agyrem."

"Nor did I," responded the larger vampire, dressed in gaudy papal robes and with eyes as blank as a comic book superhero's. He floated even higher, crossed his legs and clasped his hands in front of him. "It appears I have been summoned here, as have you, by a powerful leader with some special purpose. But I sense no such creature..."

His white eyes fell on a scrawny yet charming and unintimidated merfolk, who said brazenly, "I hope you're not insinuating that it could be me. I'm honored, but I just simply can't identify with most of you." When he felt he gave his jest enough time to be absorbed, he continued. "Allow me to introduce myself: Ambassador Laquatus," the smiling merfolk replied, bowing low to the ground. "I represent the cephalids of Otaria, on the plane of..."

"Dominaria," piped in a voice from a corner of the room, belonging to a thin, blue-clad man with spiky black hair and a blue scar down his right cheek. "I'm familiar with your work. I consider myself somewhat of a memory adept myself."

"Oh, don't be modest, Jace," cooed an attractive, scantily-clad female mage from another corner. She sidled up to the famous planeswalker and draped herself over his shoulders playfully and sensually. "We all know you're the best at what you do."

At the mention of this name, the hooded figure perked up. "Jace Beleren? Although in somewhat less fashionable garb than when we last met... But seeing you means that whoever brought us here has extracted you from the Implicit Maze of Ravnica as well!"

"I have spent some time in that plane's sprawling metropolis," replied a bewildered Jace. "But I haven't been back for some time, nor do I recognize this maze you speak of. I've been traveling the plane of Shandalar, relaxing at the Evos Isle."

"Why, I've been in Shandalar too, darling!" interjected the woman. "Earning the favor of the Xathrid demons of the Dark Realms. I'm surprised we didn't run into each other."

"And I'm surprised you think that was a coincidence, Liliana" groaned Jace, rolling his eyes and shaking himself free of her grasp. "But I am merely one of many Jaces, we could say. The multiverse is a vast place, and I have no doubt that more (and less) powerful alternate versions of myself exist in many other corners of it, wielding their own magic and influencing events in their own way."

"Tell me then," chimed in Liliana, "does this version of Jace have any idea where we are or why we were brought here?"

"Allow me to answer that question," came a sinister voice that seemed to emanate from one of the great constellations itself. The stars began to animate into the form of a gigantic gray male figure with a mask and gauntlets made out of shimmering gold. "I am Phenax, God of Deception, and this is my domain."

"A god?" scoffed Laquatus, his smile quickly fading. "Those are merely the stuff of childhood legends."

"Legends, yes. But here on the plane of Theros, we are very real," boomed Phenax, raising his hand and causing a mass of stars to swirl around him. "We are the physical embodiments of the concepts and ideals that shape the lives of the people here."

"Incredible! Deception, eh?" mused Lazav. "It seems that your world might be very similar to ours. And how many of you... Gods are there?"

"Funny you should ask," responded Phenax, although it did not seem like he found anything particularly amusing. "Until recently, there were 14 in the pantheon. It is partly due to the addition of another that I have called you all here."

"Addition?" blurted Jace. "Is it possible then to actually become a God?"

"Regrettably so," answered Phenax. "A planeswalker like yourself, a native Theran satyr, has accomplished this feat. He has also, regrettably, been exiled from our plane by a jealous God who was quite resistant to change. While in exile, it seems he has become part of a powerful army, much like the one I have gathered here. I have tracked his progress to many strange planes, many of which you are familiar with. I have enlisted your services to travel to these planes and face these foes in battle!"

"Forgive me for asking," Laquatus volunteered, "but why should we go seeking after these enemies? What cause do we have to fight?"

"Wherever there are minds wielding powerful magic, it is my duty to break them," thundered Phenax from the night sky. "The stronger, the better! I shall spread lies and deceit until the mortal realm is thrown into utter confusion. I know deep down in your hearts, you all have the same goal. Follow me onto the battlefield, my minions, and take the glory you deserve!"

===

The above account is a possible flavor text inspired story of how a Magic: The Gathering Commander deck led by Phenax, God of Deception might have come into existence. For those of you who don't recognize most of the phrases in the preceding sentence, I hope the narrative was at least somewhat enjoyable.

Speaking of narrative, that's actually the goal I have when creating a Magic deck: to tie all the mechanics and characters and flavor together in a way that makes sense creatively, while also not being too embarrassingly bad to play with. Of course, I quickly and frequently question this goal whenever I play with those decks, since my friends' decks are for the most part built to win, period. But the silver lining is that losing repeatedly only inspires me to justify my obsession with the flavor aspects of Magic by writing stories like this, rather than driving me to break from my principles and make my decks ruthlessly overpowered with an eye towards nothing but gaining the victory.

I'll probably write some more about how these decks actually play some other time, so those of you who enjoyed reading about these characters can learn a little bit about how they interact in the game space. Until then, I'll just continue striving towards the dream of making a deck that's both playable and flavor relevant.

Hometown Teams 2014 All-Star Break, Seeds 3-6

I'll admit, I haven't had time to simulate the first round games on my PS3 yet, but since the first two games in round two can technically be going on at the same time, I'll jump right into talking about those matchups. For those of you who need a refresher, these include the 3rd seed Dominican Republic taking on the 6th seed Northeast US, and the 4th ranked Southeast US taking on the 5th place International/Team World/All the Other Countries.

As was the case in the most recent World Baseball Classic, the Dominican Republic is the team to beat, in my opinion. Not only is the lineup stacked from top to bottom (I won't go position by position because most of the names on the below list should be recognizable enough), but they have amazing depth. If Edwin Encarnacion looks like he's going to miss significant time, David Ortiz can fill the DH slot better than most. Need left-handed power off the bench? They've got Pedro Alvarez and switch hitter Melky Cabrera. What if Hanley Ramirez needs a late-inning defensive replacement? Call on Jose Reyes, Starlin Castro, or Erick Aybar. Don't think Carlos Santana can handle a full workload behind the plate? Wilin Rosario's not a wizard with the glove by any means, but he is a full-time backstop. Even the starting pitching, which has traditionally been a weakness for this country, has developed into a strength, mostly thanks to the emergence of Alfredo Simon to slot in behind bona fide ace Johnny Cueto. But there is depth here too, with Edinson Volquez and Yordano Ventura waiting in the wings if anything happens to their top 5. I also didn't place any left handed relievers on the roster, preferring to focus on the working closers (two of whom are among the best in the game), but Antonio Bastardo and Fernando Abad are available for those tough lefty batters.

Looking at both the teams in the Eastern time zone (as you will have done if you read to the end of this post), you'll see a clear divide between offense and pitching. I won't tell you which is which here, but I'll give you a hint: any team that can trot out Mike Trout, Paul Goldschmidt and Todd Frazier 2-3-4 in the lineup is going to vex many an opposing pitcher. Following that trifecta is legitimate future star candidate George Springer and breakout catcher Devin Mesoraco, plus since this isn't just a fantasy team, Jason Heyward's plus defense actually means something, as does Derek Jeter's clubhouse presence (although depending on your opinion of him, that could be a positive or a negative). It's not that this team doesn't have good pitchers, but their top guys are middle of the rotation types on their actual teams (although Rick Porcello could potentially be an ace on a non-historically-great rotation and Jeff Samardzija was once the ace of the almost-historically-bad Cubs earlier this year). What this team lacks, compared to the Dominicans, is depth of star power, and I honestly don't see them advancing to the next round.

This next matchup is where things get interesting, mostly because of a slightly controversial decision I made with regards to dividing the territories. If you look at a map of the Eastern US, you'll see that while Kentucky and Tennessee are both clearly in the south, they're also divided halfway between the Central and Eastern time zones. To make a long story short, I gave both of those states (totaling 35 players between them) to the Southeast team, which gave them access to two of the best pitchers in the game right now: David Price and Sonny Gray. The main reason I made this tough decision was to even out the number of players available to each territory: without the 35 guys from TN/KY, the Central team would have 140 players to choose from while the Southeast would have just 97. Plus, even without Price and Gray, the Central is still the second seed team, so they clearly don't need any help. And it's not like any player would supplant Adam Wainwright from the SP1 role anyway, so we're really just talking about the middle of the rotation here... plus a useful bullpen piece and another shortstop option in case Chris Owings stays injured for any amount of time. We'll see how things go in the simulation, but I think this team's offense is weak enough that it might not matter one way or another.

This should come as no surprise based on the influx of Cuban stars, but no country dominates this international team more than the land famous for Castro and cigars. Jose Abreu might win Rookie of the Year (despite his long track record of playing professional baseball) and we've all seen the impressive talents of Yasiel Puig and Yoenis Cespedes (although I predict a significant downturn for the latter following his trade to the Red Sox, and not just because I'm an A's fan... or rather exactly because I'm an A's fan). Then there are All-Stars Alexei Ramirez (who I moved to 2B for the first time since his rookie year in 2008 to make room for a better defensive shortstop) and closer Aroldis Chapman who has returned admirably after taking a line drive to the face in Spring Training. And the Cuban contingent would be even stronger if Jose Fernandez didn't succumb to the Tommy John bug early in the season (he was averaging 86.3 points per game at the time of his injury). Japan has a very strong presence on the pitching side, even without Masahiro Tanaka, who is very likely done for the year as well (which is why I included a sixth pitcher on the depth chart, who is no slouch himself). I put Yan Gomes behind the plate over Yadier Molina not only because Yadi is injured and having a worse season offensively, but also because I wanted to give a shout out to the first ever Brazilian born player in MLB history. Speaking of injuries, if Brett Lawrie isn't healthy enough to play, future star Xander Bogaerts can fill in just fine.

I'll run the simulations on these matchups before analyzing the final two teams, so get ready for some fake recaps, coming up next time!