KJNL Week 3 Recap

By Staff Writer: Brad Atkinson

Boston Red Sox over Toronto Blue Jays (7-5-0)

The Blue Jays split the categories they actually competed in, but 0 SB and 0 Holds leaves them out in the cold with a 7-5-0 defeat. High K totals by both teams and a nearly equal pitching match-up with the Jays starters keeping even with the Red Sox relief corps, but in the end, punting two categories killed the Jays.

MVP: Garrett Atkins - .345/.953 in six games with 2 HR.

Goat: Rickie Weeks - .091/.291 in six games with 2 R and no other stats.

Cleveland Indians over Detroit Tigers (9-3-0)

Indian bats killed last week, going 6-0 and none of the races were even close. A split in the pitching categories gets us to the above final score. The Tigers continue to be snakebit and fall to 0-3 . . . maybe the second trip through the division will be more productive.

MVP: Conor Jackson - .480/1.599 with 3 HR, 10 RBI and 10 R.

Goat: Edwin Jackson and Ian Kennedy – 4 GS, 0 W, 9.00 ERA, 2.1+ WHIP, 16 K in 18 IP.

Chicago White Sox over Seattle Mariners (7-5-0)

A very tight game was played here. The White Sox won BA by .002 and ERA by 0.05. A loss in either gets the Mariners a tie and a switch in both gives them a win . . . so it all came down to about 1 hit and 1 earned run for the week. That’s tough to take on the losing side and hard on the heart for the winners.

MVP: Billy Wagner – 4 IP, 3 SV, 3 K, 0 ERA and 0 WHIP; won saves category all alone.

Goat: Frank Thomas and Todd Helton in the Util spot - .125/.310 and 1 RBI between them.

Minnesota Twins over Kansas City Royals (9-3-0)

A nice, balanced performance put in by the Twins last week. They kind of punted saves getting only one, but the other two categories they lost were by only 1 SB and 2 HR. The Royals had a decent week, but it is hard to compete with the numbers that the Twins were putting up on the scoreboard.

MVP: Derrek Lee - .400/1.204, 3 HR, 7 R, 8 RBI.

Goat: Tom Gorzelanny – rocked in his only start – 2.2 IP, 7 ER, 10 H+BB.

Cincinnati Reds over Atlanta Braves (11-1-0)

What a batting week for the Reds, .347/1.047 as a team!! The Braves are putting up decent ratio numbers, but are falling behind in the accumulation categories, this is because their lineup isn’t being kept up with very well and there are some current holes.

MVP: Chipper Jones and David Wright - .544/1.704, 5 HR, 11 R, 16 RBI combined

Goat: Braves Owner – this team could really compete if someone would keep up daily with the rosters and pitchers.

Chicago Cubs over St. Louis Cardinals (7-4-1)

A dominating batting performance for the Cubs lets them coast on the pitching categories against a tough Cardinal staff and get a satisfying win. The NL East really locks up after these two games . . . three teams within 0.5 games of the lead and a third that will begin to compete if their owner ever pays attention.

MVP: Scott Olsen – 2-0, 0.64 ERA, 0.71 WHIP, did just enough to keep it from being a sweep for the Cards on the pitching side.

Goat: Yuniesky Betancourt – 4 RBI, but only batted .158/.353 for the week, Carlos Delgado was a close second here, but he only played 3 games.

Colorado Rockies over Arizona Diamondbacks (9-2-1)

After a slow start in week 1, the Rockies have been suitably dominant the last two weeks and have taken sole possession of second in the NL West setting up for a showdown in week 4 against their week 1 nemesis and division leader the Astros. The Diamondbacks continue their struggles to put up power numbers and a 1 W, 0 Sv, 1 Hld week is going to get you an 0-3 in those categories about every time.

MVP: Manny Ramirez - .417/1.476, 4 HR, 7 R, 8 RBI. Pedroia on surprise factor almost made it in here.

Goat: D’Backs Owner – Bergmann has been in the minors for weeks and why Messenger, Riske and Reyes are still being used out of the bullpen while pitchers like John Rauch pass waivers and pitchers like Doug Brocail and Wesley Wright are still FA is beyond me.

Houston Astros over Los Angeles Dodgers (5-4-3)

Bobby Crosby goes 3 for 4 with a BB on Sunday in the late afternoon to give the Astros a .005 BA win and a .011 OPS win while the Dodgers pick up a save and hold to even up those categories on the pitching side. The Astros were literally a double and a walk away from a 6-3-3 defeat this week, but the stats stand and they remain atop the division at 3-0.

MVP: Obviously, Bobby Crosby - .345/.939, 1 HR, 7 RBI, 5 R and his Sunday afternoon timeliness.

Goat: Johnny Peralta’s .136/.376 week in 22 AB’s killed the Dodgers in this week’s hotly contested categories.

Week 4 Match-ups:

These should all be repeats of our week 1 match-ups as we start a second trip through our divisions before taking off into interdivisional games for several weeks starting in week 7.

Rockies (2-1-0) at Astros (3-0-0): A fight for the NL West lead, the Rockies have gotten hot since a week 1 defeat and the Astros cooled last week . . . should be a good one to watch.

Dodgers (1-2-0) at Diamondbacks (0-3-0): The D’backs are the Dodgers only win, will it repeat or will there be a tie in the NL West cellar? The D’backs have some roster work to do to get competitive.

Cardinals (2-1-0) at Reds (2-1-0): The winner leads the NL East, hot batting against hot pitching . . . who comes out on top?

Braves (0-2-1) at Cubs (1-1-1): The Cubs can pull into second on their own with a win or in a tie for first if the Cards and Reds tie. That win possibility looks likely with the absentee owner of the Braves

Twins (2-1-0) at Mariners (2-1-0): The three way tie at the top of the AL West begins to sort it self out with this powerful match-up. Both teams will needs their A-games on to win here.

White Sox (2-1-0) at Royals (0-3-0): The White get the early break of playing the cellar dweller first in the round robin through the division in weeks 4-6, but the Mariners and Twins are both next on the list.

Indians (3-0-0) at Blue Jays (1-2-0): The Indians aren’t 3-0 by accident and punting categories like the Blue Jays did last week won’t help them at all here. Bring your bats, make sure your pitchers do their thing and hope that it’s enough to knock off the top dog.

Red Sox (2-1-0) at Tigers (0-3-0): The Tigers try to turn their bad luck around and get off the schneid against one of the better teams in the league. It may not be that the Tigers are bad, it may be that their division is just that good!

Good luck to everyone this week!

KJNL Week 3 Preview

Written by KJNL Commish


Arizona (0-2) at Colorado (1-1):
Arizona is off to a rough start, but has no reason to panic yet. Their hitting has been doing everything it can to make up for the lackluster production being shown by their pitching staff. Having Kazmir on the DL is definitely showing. Colorado's anemic offense showed life last week and will need to do so again to beat the tough luck Arizona team. Should Colorado's offense produce, along with another strong week from their pitching staff, this one should go to Colorado. If their offense goes back to sleep, Arizona could very well get their first win of the young season.

Los Angeles (1-1) at Houston (2-0):
Houston's riding high at 2-0 with a well balanced attack the first two weeks. Los Angeles is coming of it's 1st loss against Colorado last week. Los Angeles will need their batters to keep doing enough to get by and get their pitchers to start performing more consistently if they want to win this week. Houston has been riding the back of some pleasant surprising pitching that is due for a bad week. This one should come down to the wire and the winner of this match up will be the team who can milk all they can out of their pitching.

St. Louis (2-0) at Chicago Cubs (0-1-1):
Division leading St. Louis has been lights out from the rubber. When their hitting tries to keep up, they end up with a week like last where they beat a solid Atlanta team by a wide margin. Cubs have been winning most hitting categories and should continue to do so. What they need is to have a good week from their pitching staff to try to keep up with the Cy Young caliber output coming from St. Louis. Unlike the records show, this should be a very tight match up and may very well be the game of the week.

Cincinnati (1-1) at Atlanta (0-1-1):
Atlanta just can't seem to put it together yet. Their offense has yet to really show up and their pitching was great the first week and equally as bad the second. Cincinnati, after running into the pitching juggernaut of St. Louis the 1st week, put forth a Cardinals-esque performance themselves in the second week. If Atlanta doesn't wake up, they could be looking at another lopsided loss this week and be looking out the basement window of their division for a while.

Minnesota (1-1) at Kansas City (0-2):
Minnesota has had two very close match ups so far this year. They have lost and won by the same score 5-4-3. Their balanced attack has given them a shot both weeks and should do at least that this week. Kansas City's pitching has been good enough, but been out performed by their opponent. Kansas City is going to need to put forth a much better offensive week if they want a chance in this match up.

Seattle (2-0) at Chicago White Sox (1-1):
Scary thing about Seattle is that they are 2-0 while both Martin and Howard are off to slow starts. They're another one of those teams with the players on both sides of the ball to put out a balanced performance each week. Chicago has shown that it can hit and pitch. They just need to put it all together this week and they could challenge Seattle and give them their first loss of the season.

Cleveland (2-0) at Detroit(0-2):
Detroit's a team that has the players to contend, but has been besieged by injuries and low output. When you have a team loaded with bats from the Yankees, you'd expect to win most hitting categories. This team will not go o-fer this year. Eventually, their hitting will live up to the hype and they won't be placing key players on the DL every week. In real life sometimes adversity breeds strength and pulls a team together. Detroit needs that to happen here. Cleveland can beat you with their bats or arms. They're getting some great pitching performances and their young hitters are off to excellent starts. They'll be in each match up every week, but are beatable.

Toronto (1-1) at Boston (1-1):
When you've got a lot of pitchers on your staff that play half their games in Coors Field, you're never going to know what you're gonna get. Boston's pitching has been inconsistent, but adequate. They're hitting is not doing what it needs to do if they want to challenge Cleveland in this division. Toronto's win last week against the M*A*S*H unit named Detroit wasn't pretty. Their pitching was good enough to win 4 categories and their hitting pulled a Rob Deer by winning the power numbers with an avg. below the Mendoza line. Based on past performances of these two clubs, this match up will not be pretty. Neither team is clicking on all cylinders and the numbers will show it.

KJNL Week 2 Recap

By Staff Writer: Brad Atkinson

Two weeks have passed and we have four outright leaders in our four divisions. The leaders are the Indians in the AL East, the Mariners in the AL West, the Cardinals in the NL East and the Astros in the NL West. All are 2-0 and all are alone in first. So how did they get there? I’ll begin this week’s recap with a special section:

Facts and Footnotes for the Division Leaders:

What weirdness has conspired to make these particular teams the early frontrunners?

Cleveland Indians: Everyone knew that the Indians would dominate the starting pitching stats. Wang, Peavy, Webb and Lincecum will make sure of that week in and week out. Where is the shock factor? How about this . . . Joe Crede + Mark Reynolds + Justin Upton are good for a .346/1.111, 26 R, 14 HR and 41 RBI stat line. Combine that with the expected production from the other bats and that leads to first place despite a combined 3 saves and 3 holds from the entire pitching staff over two weeks.

Seattle Mariners: Honestly, there are no surprises here. This is where this team is supposed to be with that lineup. The only thing in store now is finding out where the saves are going to come from with BJ Ryan back and Accardo going back to the setup role.

St. Louis Cardinals: It’s all about the pitching!! 6 SP with 8 total wins, each with a sub-4 ERA and 5 of them with double digit K’s . . . that’s every SP that has accumulated any stats for this team. The four RP on the roster (no bench RP at all) have combined for 8 saves, 6 holds and 22 K. That is what you call great production from a pitching staff that only has one producing bench player . . . 10 hot pitchers can definitely bring a team into first early.

Houston Astros: Hot hitting . . . all normal starters except for Hunter Pence have OPS of .790 or better . . . and if you take out Util Bobby Crosby, they are all .855 or better. Also, going into the year the Astros figured to have 3 good SP and 3 struggling SP . . . the shocker is who they are!! Oswalt, Burnett and Lilly: 1-5, 8.40 ERA, 1.82 WHIP, 27 K in 45 IP. Meanwhile, Backe + Bannister + W. Rodriguez: 5-1, 1.76 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 44 K in 56.1 IP. All of that combined have the Astros ranked as the #1 overall team, though I am not sure how exactly that is calculated.

Now for the game by game recap:

Indians at Red Sox: The Indians set league record for R and RBI in a week while rolling over the Red Sox at a 7-4-1 clip. The Red Sox had to really step up to get the tie in wins, I would be willing to bet that not many people will be able to do that with the Indians this year.

MVP: Tim Lincecum in a two start week with a 1 W, 18 K, 2.25/1.25 stat line.

Goat: Bronson Arroyo in a two start week gets only 10.2 IP with 9 K, 5.91/1.59 line and NO wins.

Blue Jays at Tigers: Despite batting .188 and pitching at a 5.09/1.42 clip for the week . . . the Blue Jays roll 8-3-1. The Tigers simply underperformed, much like their MLB namesakes . . . the totals of 16 RBI, 0 saves and 1 hold for the week are truly telling.

MVP: They were hard to find, but CJ Wilson and Francisco Cordero had great closer weeks for the Blue Jays . . . 4 K, 3 saves, 0.00/0.80 combined.

Goat: Yankee youngsters . . . Cano shows up for the second straight week (.167/.394, 2 RBI) while Philip Hughes in a 2 start week gets only 5 IP with a 16.20/3.80 line . . . he did get 5 K’s though.

Twins at White Sox: A very close game that ended 5-4-3 in favor of the Twins. They won Wins by 1 and OPS by .003 and lost Runs and K’s by 1 . . . all of that combined with the 3 tied categories mean that this might be the closest match-up seen all year. I bet both owners were biting their nails the whole time.

MVP: Geovany Soto - .346/.991 with 1 HR, 2 R and 5 RBI . . . just enough to put the Twins on top.

Goat: Gerald Laird and Ryan Zimmerman combine for .158/.477 and 3 RBI despite being the only C and 3B on the roster.

Mariners at Royals: The Mariners were 2 K, 1 W and 2 Sv from going 12-0. Now THAT’S dominance. The overall totals for the Royals were very low while there were several teams that would have put a hurting on the Mariners this week. Of course when you team is full of Pirates and Tigers . . . this was a BAD week.

MVP: Raul Ibanez - .370/1.469, 4 HR, 7 R, 11 RBI. Honorable mention to Cole Hamels.

Goat: The power bats of the Royals, the speed guys are scoring, but there is no thump!

Cardinals at Braves: Wow!! Blowout!! Cards win 11-1 losing only SB by two. I think the Braves lack of activity and lineup changes are really hurting them and their chances of being the #1 team in the NL like their lineup says they should.

MVP: Albert Pujols (.417/1.392, 3 HR, 7 R, 7 RBI) and Greg Maddux (2 W, Sub-1 ERA and WHIP)

Goat: Andruw Jones (1/18 with 3 R) that’s two weeks in a row on him I think!

Reds at Cubs: The Reds sweep pitching and the Cubs nearly sweep batting . . . falling short by 5 RBI to get their first loss rather than their second tie. The Reds ERA (1.46) and WHIP (0.96) are easily new records and may hold up for a very long time. The Cubs are a projected playoff team but are struggling to start the season.

MVP: The entire Reds staff minus Miguel Batista . . . he had an average outing, the rest were spectacular.

Goat: Fukudome came back to earth after his stellar first week.

Dodgers at Rockies: The Rockies get off the schneid with a 7-5 victory on their strength of their bullpen and a near collapse by the Dodgers’ bullpen. The thumpers in the Rockies lineup are not hitting on all cylinders, as evidenced by their low HR and RBI totals, but the runs and the bullpen numbers were there giving them a squeaker of a win.

MVP: Lance Berkman - .391/1.418, 3 HR, 8 R, 7 RBI, 1 SB . . . he and Manny are providing ALL of the pop in this currently punchless Rockies lineup. Hon. Mention: Javier Vasquez for the Dodgers (2 W, 1.93/1.03, 17 K, 14 IP) . . . great week!

Goat: Sabathia and Borowski (25.07/3.86 with 5K in 4.2 IP) . . . that’s terrible!!

Diamondbacks at Astros: The D’backs have a great production week in the batters box and go 1-4-1 as the Astros set three league records (two of which may last a while, .333 BA and .976 OPS) on their way to a 8-3-1 win. The Astros entire attack, batting and pitching, is very balanced right now, but who knows if that continues?

MVP: Byrnes and Tejada - .444/1.252, 13 R, 2 HR, 10 RBI, 2 SB

Goat: Jason Bergmann . . . he exploded on the mound and was sent to the minors in the middle of the week.

Good luck to all this week!

Week Two Preview

Week Two Preview
-Matt Sanders
Seattle vs. Kansas City
I think Seattle wins rather easily. They have some big bats that didn’t deliver last week, and expect n explosion sooner or later, probably this week. Their starting pitching, while slightly inconsistent, is good and can rack up wins. The bull pen is a save and hold machine with Betancourt, Accardo, Soriano, and Moylan. Kansas City lacks offensive fire power, and much pitching, Seattle wins big.

Cleveland vs. Boston
The Indians have the clear edge in pitching, with stars like Wang, Webb, Peavy, and Lincecum-all but Lincecum receiving nice run support. They have some great hitters, who are playing well now, like Jim Thome and Joe Crede…but they’re sitting on the bench when struggling players like Mark Reynolds play. If they platy the right guys, they could compete with Boston. Boston has plenty of bats ready to explode, like Holliday. Boston wins a close one.

Toronto vs. Detroit
Toronto is hitting for average but not for power, which is what most of his players are used to doing. The bull pen is rock solid, but the staff is shaky. The Tigers have a monster line-up if everyone can get going, and will win this one, by most the hitting categories.

Minnesota vs. Chicago White Sox
Chicago is coming off a big victory, and Minnesota a close loss. Chicago should roll in this one, just because Minnesota has to rely on the Cubs too much, they didn’t make many moves to differ from their franchise. Zambrano, the staff ace, isn’t getting it done, and Lee seems to be the only bat they have right now. Chicago rolls.

Cincinnati vs. Chicago Cubs
The Cubs have one of the best young teams in baseball. Hanley Ramirez, Alex Gordon, and Dan Uggla are all firing on all cylinders, that should lead the Cubs to a victory. They have lots of power, as well as some speed. The Reds have a better team on paper, with Adam Dunn and Chipper Jones leading the Cincy squad, but lack speed. This will be a close game, but the Cubs win it.

Dodgers vs. Rockies
If LA is healthy, this should be the game of the week. Victor Martinez, Paul Konerko, Ian Kinsler, Grady Seizmore, Ichiro Suzuki, and Travis Hafner lead a powerful Dodger team into Coors Field. Their pitching is doing terrible however. Manny Ramirez, Lance Berkman, Troy Tulowitski, Big Pappi, and Mike Lowell lead the Rockies. I see this one dead even until somebody gets hurt or hits an early slump.

Arizona vs. Houston
Arizona is really fast, really, really fast. Joey Gathright, Carl Crawford, BJ Upton, and Julio Lugo. They have no power however, after Pena-Upton and Wells will hit some too-, and will struggle against a powerful Houston line-up. Houston wins big on paper, but can those big names deliver? They didn’t Opening Week.

St. Louis vs. Atlanta
Atlanta has a great line-up, that should win nearly every hitting category. St. Louis has better pitching though, and should dominate that side of the scoreboard. This looks lopsided, but look for this to be a close game.

Week 1 Recap

By Staff Writer: Brad Atkinson

First a note . . . I thought that each individual category counted as a win/loss and we would have some 200+ decisions on the year (like a yahoo league) . . . as the standings show this morning, that is not the case. It is MUCH easier to come back from a bad week in this format.

Astros at Rockies:

The Astros take the game 7-4-1, every category was nip and tuck except for OPS (won by Houston) and ERA (won by Colorado) . . . this is definitely a case of the final score not being indicative of the closeness of the game.

Matchup MVP: The Astros truly had no standout . . . so in a losing effort . . . co-MVP’s go to Dice-K and Papelbon who combined on the week for the following line: 15 IP, 1 W, 2 Sv, 22 K, 2.40 ERA, 0.87 WHIP.

Matchup Goat: Travis Buck . . . only got into two games going 0/10, but his week stats tell it all . . . 0/22, 1 R.

Tigers at Red Sox:

The Red Sox win three categories by 1 point and OPS by .008 to take the final 7-4-1 . . . another close matchup between potential playoff teams. Crazy stat in this game . . . Boston loses the WHIP category 1.43 to 1.07, but win ERA 3.50 to 4.19 . . . WEIRD!!

MVP: Kyle Lohse: 2 GS, 12 IP, 1W, 5 K, 0.00 ERA, 0.92 WHIP.

Goat: Robinson Cano . . . counting on him as a high end 2B . . . 7 GP, .174 BA, 0 R, HR, RBI or SB.

Blue Jays at Indians:

The Indians post an impressive win . . . dominating the Pitching categories and splitting the hitting categories . . . 8 pitching wins in a week is an impressive total! Indians take the game 8-4.

MVP: Jake Peavy – 2 W, 12 K, 0.56 ERA and WHIP . . . Wang and Webb are a close 2^nd.

Goat: Gil Meche – 2 GS, 11.2 IP, 0 W, 6.94 ERA and 1.71 WHIP for the #1 SP on a team that started 4-2 in week one.

Royals at White Sox:

With a dominating batting performance on the ratios and obviously big SP numbers to split the pitching categories, the White Sox take this matchup 7-3-2.

MVP: Carlos Gomez hits .357 in 28 AB and steal enough bases to win this category all by himself.

Goat: Magglio Ordonez batted .280 for the week but provided 0 R, RBI, or HR . . . the matchup was so close that he could have turned the game around with a little power.

Mariners at Twins:

Leading big early in the week, the production began to shut down, but the Mariners hold on (barely) for the 5-4-3 win. Don’t look for 1-3-2 to be a normal line on the batting side of this lineup.

MVP: Chase Utley with the 8 R, 3 HR, 6 RBI, .429/1.471 week kept the Mariners from being 0-6 in the batting categories.

Goat: Strong performances in the loss . . . Soriano’s .077 average stands out though.

Cubs at Braves:

A sister kisser, Cubs 5-1 Batting, Braves 5-1 Pitching . . . the Cubs had a lot of people hurt and the Braves weren’t around too much . . . nto really taking advantage of the day-to-day lineup changes. It’s hard to predict the future for these two potential playoff teams.

MVP: Rich Harden and Kosuke Fukudome

Goat: Justin Verlander and Andruw Jones

Reds at Cardinals:

The Cardinals dominate the pitching side coming only 3 K short of the 6-0 sweep and split on the batting side to take this matchup 8-4 and go to 1^st alone in the NL East.

MVP: Split: Isringhausen wins the Saves category all by himself and AJ Pierzynski posts a 7 R, 2 HR, 7 RBI, .500/1.565 week.

Goat: Brett Myers, 2 GS, 10 IP, 6 K, 6.3 ERA, 1.8 WHIP, 0 W.

Diamondbacks at Dodgers:

I would call it a dominating pitching performance by the Dodgers, but it was more about the D’Backs staff being horrendous . . . 5.21 ERA, 0 SV and 27 K for the week?!! The Dodgers batted .300 but were otherwise really unimpressive in a 7-4-1 win.

MVP: Jermaine Dye posts a 7 R, 2 HR, 3 RBI, .417/1.315 week.

Goat: The D-Backs pitching staff except for Shields and Wheeler . . . the D-Backs seriously need a closer or two.

Good luck in all of your matchups this week!!