Reavin' Ain't Easy - The Nephews of Jody Reed 2013 Season Revue

If the 2013 Nephews of Jody Reed season taught us anything, it was to expect the unexpected. A variety of new players took their place among the fantasy elite, such as Chris Davis and Jose Fernandez. Puig-mania became a thing. The Royals and Pirates finished with winning records in the same season for the first time since before I hit puberty. The Biogenesis PED scandal altered the course of the season, from both a real and fantasy perspective, in an unprecedented way. And in the end, the eventual NoJR league champion wasn't even a top-6 team at the All-Star break.

The 2013 Rip City Reavers: from scrap heap to marauding terror.

These crazy events underlie just a few of the storylines from this latest edition of NoJR. Let's take a look back in this special TDZ season revue, from the draft day duds and studs to the fresh crop of free agent finds and all the way to the finale.


The Billy Beane Award

Similar to last year, I simply added up the end-of-season ranks for all drafted players, and divided by the number of roster spots (23) to arrive at the average ranking for each team's draft. This year was perhaps the strongest showing as a league that we've ever had:

1. Saratoga Oldtimers - 209.7
2. Rip City Reavers - 225.5
3. Nickel Blitz -238.7
4. SilverLiningsPlaybk - 279.0
5. Nuckin' Futz - 291.7
6. Hughes Drubbers -312.8
7. Lavallee Team - 323.0
8. Hulley Sluggers - 377.7
9. Natty Bow - 396.7
10. Analog Kid - 420.9

The winner of the 2013 Billy Beane Award is the Saratoga Oldtimers! In just his first year in the league, he made some very savvy investments, buying under-the-radar players like Hunter Pence and Alex Rios (both top 25 players this year) to complement his more expensive purchases.

Teltec's Bunters held the previous record of 228.2, set last year, meaning that two managers in 2013 beat the best draft to date, showing an overall strengthening of draft strategy in the league. It looks like we're really getting the hang of this now....

Analog Kid takes the infamous Ruben Amaro Award from Hughes Drubbers for the worst draft this year, although picking up Daniel Murphy, Hisashi Iwakuma, and Greg Holland off of free agency helped make his team more competitive. Nuckin' Futz's record for worst draft from 2011 (487) remains the standard for stumbling out of the blocks.

"What's that? Oh, we're drafting? Yeah sure, I'm ready." *flick*

Your 2013 All-Bargain Team

Catcher: Mike Napoli - Analog Kid

$2 - Ranked 88 - 176

- After a turbulent off-season where his health was called into question, Mr. Uppercut Swing went for a mere $2 on draft day. Once the season began, however, it quickly became clear that many of us passed up a substantial offensive force. Batting in the heart of the highest scoring team in baseball, Mr. Naples led all catchers in R, HR, RBI, and finished second in BB. So much for bashing Analog Kid's draft, he ended up with the best value behind the plate on draft day.

Honorable mention: Jonathan Lucroy at $1 (Natty Bow)

He's kind of like Crash Davis, except he's real.

First Base: Chris Davis - Hulley Sluggers

$1 - Ranked 3 - 3

- This is the biggest no-doubter on the All-Bargain team as Crash Davis pounded 53 homers en route to becoming the 3rd most valuable fantasy player in 2013. As if that wasn't enough, he was also OF eligible. Congrats to Hulley for landing the biggest whale in the late hours of the draft.

Honorable mention: Paul Goldschmidt at $16 (Analog Kid, again!)

Second Base: Kyle Seager -Saratoga Oldtimers

$1 - Ranked 107 - 107

- Seager Genesis was a key part of Seattle's offense this year as he proved that last year's 20 homer season was no fluke. He only missed 2 games all year and finished 7th in OPS for second basemen while hitting 22 HRs. Best of all, he's actually a third baseman with 2B eligibility. Content with Dustin Pedroia and Josh Donaldson at 2B and 3B respectively, Saratoga dropped him, allowing the Lavallee Team to snag him.

Honorable mention: Jason Kipnis at $15 (Rip City Reavers)

Shortstop: Elvis Andrus - Nuckin' Futz

$10 - Ranked 58 - 580

- It's funny how Elvis' auction value seems to bounce around from year to year, but his production is so consistent. Nuckin' Futz reaped the benefits of a low in the roller coaster as Andrus put together a solid SS stat line, including 91 runs and 42 steals - just what NF expected on draft day.

Honorable mention: Ian Desmond at $15 (Saratoga Oldtimers)

Third Base: Miguel Cabrera - Lavallee Team

$59 - Ranked 1 - 59

- I may catch some flak for putting the consensus #1 pre-draft player here, but I think it's justified: Lavallee Team paid #1 money for him, and he got #1 value. I don't think many of us expected another season the caliber of his 2012 Triple Crown campaign, but that's almost exactly what we got, if not better.

• 2012: 109 R, 44 HR, 139 RBI, 66 BB, .330 BA
• 2013: 103 R, 44 HR, 137 RBI, 90 BB, .348 BA

In sum, Miggy improved on every stat that he had full control over. No buyer's remorse here.

Honorable mention: Pedro Alvarez at $1 (Hulley Sluggers)

Last winter, Werth vacationed beyond the wall and became a bit grizzlier. Anything to avoid this comparison helps.

Outfield: Jayson Werth - Rip City Reavers

$1 - Ranked 29 - 29

- After signing a 7-year, $126 million contract with the Nats, J-Dubs debuted with a down year in 2011, and missed half of 2012 with a wrist injury. Finally back to full strength, he contributed in every offensive category in 2013. I snagged him at draft time only to impatiently drop him, much to Hughes Drubbers' benefit.

Honorable mention: Torii Hunter at $1 (Analog Kid - where are the busts?!)

Outfield: Michael Cuddyer - Natty Bow

$1 - Ranked 36 - 36

- Playing in his second season in the Mile High City, Cuddy had the season many thought him capable of in the thinner air. He led all NL hitters with a .331 BA, clubbed 20 HR, and even picked up 10 sneaky steals en route to becoming the #36 most valuable player in our fantasy game. With a BABIP of .382, don't expect this guy to become Larry Walker, though.

Honorable mention: Carlos Gomez at $3 (Lavallee Team)

Outfield: Hunter Pence - Saratoga Oldtimers

$6 - Ranked 9 - 54

- Coming into the season, I would have never guessed this guy would enter the fantasy elite. His yearly output has always been fairly predictable: .280 BA, 25 HR, and an appropriate amount of runs and RBI to match. The big difference this year is that he added a Turbo button: his steal count went from 5 last year to 22 this year. If he still has those wheels next year, he'll be worth about 5x as much at auction.

Honorable mention: Adam Jones at $4 (Nuckin' Futz, keeper)

Just soak it all in. And make it last a while.

Starting Pitchers:
Anibal Sanchez - Nuckin' Futz - $2 - Ranked 39 - 78

Clayton Kershaw - Natty Bow - $42 - Ranked 2 - 84

Max Scherzer - Hughes Drubbers - $15 - Ranked 6 - 90
Matt Harvey - Nuckin' Futz - $8 - Ranked 17 - 136
Shelby Miller - SilverLiningsPlaybk - $2 - Ranked 78 - 156

- This list is dominated by two Tigers, two rookies, and the best pitcher in the game. Similar to Cabrera, Kershaw was purchased at a price befitting the best pitcher in the game, and he delivered. Creepy Eyes Scherzer is on this list for the second year in a row, still sporting an elite K-rate, while his teammate was as frustrating to opposing hitters as his eponymous Uniball pen is to hand-writers everywhere. Meanwhile, the rooks made huge waves early in the year, but their end-of-season rankings actually belie just how dominant they were as injury (Harvey) and possible dead-arm (Miller) hit toward the end.

Relief Pitchers:

Greg Holland - Rip City Reavers - $2 - Ranked 35 - 70

Glen Perkins - SilverLiningsPlaybk - $1 - Ranked 79 - 79

Joe Nathan - Nickel Blitz - $4 - Ranked 38 - 152

- Another top value that was jettisoned due to early struggles, Holland almost made Rip City very remorseful were it not for picking up Koji Uehara along the way. SLP got a very solid closer in Perk, who has upped his K/9 in each of the past 3 years. Last but not least, the ageless Joe Nathan makes the list of top reliever values for the second year in a row.

The All-Bust Team

Catcher: Miguel Montero - Hughes Drubbers

$6 - Ranked 890 - 5340

- It's a testament to how well the league drafted overall that the biggest bust at catcher went for only $6. Monty was a nice value for HD last year, but couldn't replicate his production this year after struggling with a finger infection. Expect him to bounce back next year.

Honorable mention: Joe Mauer at $13 (SilverLiningsPlaybk - keeper)

On the plus side, Natty Bow didn't spend $240 million.

First Base: Albert Pujols - Natty Bow

$50 - Ranked 304 - 15200

- I'm sure many, including Natty Bow, expected Pujols to rebound from a "disappointing" 2012 in which he hit "just" 30 HR and batted "only" .285. Unfortunately, Big Al's career appears to be genuinely winding down as his OPS fell for the 5th straight year, and he struggled with injury. Supposedly he's just 33 years old, but based on his last few years, I don't blame people for crying Danny Almonte here.

Honorable mention: Ryan Howard at $14 (Lavallee Team)

Second Base: Danny Espinosa - Nuckin' Futz

$9 - Ranked 1283 - 11547

- Danny provided Nuckin' Futz with the opposite of value as he hit just .158 with an absurdly low .465 OPS. NF, like the Nationals, demoted him for Anthony Rendon, and after a paltry .217/.283/.290 slash at AAA, Espy's future with the team - and future fantasy relevance - has never looked more dour.

Honorable mention: Aaron Hill at $17 (Analog Kid)

Shortstop: Starlin Castro - Nickel Blitz

$21 - Ranked 469 - 9849

- Usually baseball players have career arcs where they improve throughout their 20's, but Castro bucks that trend as his K rate has increased and his speed and pop have fallen off. He'll be fantasy relevant for years to come still, but his fantasy value has peaked for now.

Honorable mention: Jose Reyes at $29 (Saratoga Oldtimers)

You think that's bad? Think how mad your owners are!

Third Base: Brett Lawrie - Lavallee Team

$12 - Ranked 460 - 5520

- Lawrie was massively hyped when he entered the league, and you've got to think that, one day, a NoJR GM will profit massively by drafting him. Until then, he needs to learn how to stay healthy, slash better than .254/.315/.397, and not be such an idiot.

Honorable mention: Chase Headley at $13 (Saratoga Oldtimers)

Outfield: Matt Kemp - Natty Bow

$43 - Ranked 774 - 33282

- Kemp joins the Bust team for the second year in a row after another disappointing season marred by injury. It's a testament to his amazing 2011 season that he went for so much money after a relatively down year in 2012. Kemp will undergo shoulder surgery and rehab a bad ankle to try to recapture MVP-caliber form in 2014.

Honorable mention: Curtis Granderson at $14 (Nuckin' Futz)

Outfield: Ryan Braun - Hughes Drubbers (keeper)

$40 - Ranked 695 - 27800

- To-date, hardly any players suspended for PEDs have been fantasy relevant. Perhaps the biggest name was the Melk-man last year (see the "honorable mention" below). In 2013, however, the Biogenesis scandal had an unprecedented impact on baseball, and that includes from our fantasy angle. Braun was easily the biggest casualty out of all the suspensions, even if he was having a relatively down year, because he was one of the elite players in the game, to the point where HD kept him under lock as a keeper with a $40 price tag. Despite the lies and betrayal, Hughes was still able to move on and reach the championship game for the 3rd season in a row.

Honorable mention: Melky Cabrera at $10 (Natty Bow)

Outfield: B.J. Upton - Analog Kid

$19 - Ranked 1077 - 20463

- No one expected Upton to be the best fantasy player this year, but they did expect him to show up. That simply didn't happen. In his first year in the ATL, Upton hit a pathetic .184/.268/.289 and had to fight for playing time by the end of the year.

Honorable mention: Giancarlo Stanton at $36 (Natty Bow)

S.I. was right for once: drafting Halladay did hurt.

Starting Pitchers:

Roy Halladay - Hulley Sluggers - $20 - Ranked 990 - 19800
C.C. Sabathia - Hulley Sluggers - $23 - Ranked 771 - 17733

Josh Johnson - Nuckin' Futz - $10 - Ranked 1086 - 10860
Brandon Morrow - SilverLiningsPlaybk - $11 - Ranked 928 - 10208
Ian Kennedy - Analog Kid - $9 - 972 - 8748

- Doc Halladay was an elite fantasy pitcher for many years, but after more injuries and a 6.82 ERA, he'll be in the dollar bin come 2014. Josh Johnson and Brandon Morrow have also left the circle of intrigue (the one that's below the circle of trust) as injuries and ineffectiveness made those modest buys a waste of time and fake money. Perhaps most thought-provoking in this list is Sabathia, though. He's put a lot of IP on his arm, but he's still just 33. Looking at his stats a bit deeper, his K/rate has really taken a plunge (8.87 down to 7.46), likely due to fastball velocity, which is at the lowest point of his career (91.1 mph avg).

Relief Pitchers:

Joel Hanrahan - Hughes Drubbers - $5 - Ranked 811 - 4055

Rafael Betancourt - Nuckin' Futz - $7 - Ranked 345 - 2415
Jonathan Papelbon - Saratoga Oldtimers - $12 - Ranked 146 - 1752

- Aside from a season-ending injury to Hanrahan, the relievers on this list weren't nearly as worthless as in past years, again speaking to how savvy managers were at draft time in 2013. In fact, the 3rd worst relief bust last year was even worse than Joel Hanrahan this year. I'm proud, but also a bit scared, to see how competitive this league is becoming.

All-Free Agent Team

Last year's list included the #1 position player and pitcher in fantasy for 2012, so it was a tall order to find that kind of value this season. 2013 played out a bit more typically, but judging by the players below, a manager still could've done very well for himself just building a team off of free agency. Here are the stars who made a name for themselves this year.

One of my new favorite swings in the Bigs - you can see each step in sequence.

C - Jarrod Saltalamacchia - 196
1B - Daniel Murphy - 41
2B - Matt Carpenter - 20
SS - Jean Segura - 49
3B - Josh Donaldson - 31
OF - Alfonso Soriano - 26
OF - Marlon Byrd - 62
OF - Starling Marte -72
Util - Brandon Moss - 74

The biggest diamond in the rough offensively was certainly Carpenter. He led MLB by far in runs (126, 17 more than second place), and contributed heavily to SilverLiningsPlaybk's weekly BA (.318) and BB (72) scores. Best of all, he has Swiss army knife eligibility (1B, 2B, 3B, OF), which magnifies his value.

The other top FA values produced across a range of categories, particularly steals (44 for Segura, 41 for Marte) and HR (34 for Soriano, 30 for Moss, 24 for Byrd and Donaldson).

There's a very important free agent hitter I'm neglecting to mention here - more on him later in the post.

It took me quite a while to choose between his fastball, slider or change-up. The reaction here won it for me.

SP - Jose Fernandez - 13
SP - Hisashi Iwakuma -19
RP - Koji Uehara - 33
RP - Mark Melancon - 101
P - Clay Buchholz - 57
P - Bartolo Colon - 59
P - Francisco Liriano - 75
P - Hyun-Jin Ryu - 90

There was quite a bit of pitching depth in free agency, too, but for me the biggest revelation by far was Jose Fernandez. At some point I need to wax poetic about this guy's skill in a separate blog post; all I'll say in this season summary is that this kid could be the best pitcher in baseball since Pedro Martinez. No disrespect to Kershaw or any of the other amazing pitchers in the game today, but what this kid did at age 20/21 is incredible.

Give him the Cy!

Other big-time contributors included Japanese import Iwakuma, who made for a formidable top-of-the-rotation duo with King Felix. Fellow countryman Koji Uehara endeared himself to me greatly by having one of the best single seasons of relief I've ever witnessed (and for the Red Sox). He had by far the best WHIP (0.57, beating 2nd place with 0.82) and K/BB ratio (11.22, beating 2nd place with 9.20) in the bigs this year (min. 60 IP), and he even threw a "perfect game" by retiring 37 consecutive batters, the equivalent of 12.1 innings. I've been campaigning hard for him to win the Cy Young and will have another blog post about him in a few days.

Anatomy of a Championship: The Yasiel Puig Story
Rank: 111 (48 based on average stats - called up in June)

No discussion of this baseball season can go without mentioning perhaps the most electrifying offensive rookie of 2013: Yasiel Puig. His call-up was the difference-maker in my season and catapulted me into the playoff picture after floundering around .500 early on.

After joining the Bigs in early June, he proceeded to terrorize pitchers, batting over .400 for more than a month. I had the good fortune of picking him up and riding his hot bat for the first couple weeks of his career. I eventually decided to cash in on his enormous buzz and made a blockbuster trade with Hulley Sluggers, shipping him and Jered Weaver for Mike Trout and Aroldis Chapman.

Trout ended up as a key cog in my lineup, stabilizing my offense. Once some of my other hitters emerged from their early season struggles (Ryan Zimmerman and Martin Prado in particular), Rip City finally hit its stride at just the right time.


Odds and Ends

• There were 5 players who were on both of the championship Reavers teams the past two years: Salvador Perez, Aroldis Chapman, Justin Verlander, Johnny Cueto (keeper), and Gio Gonzalez (keeper).
• Rip City Reavers led the league in trades made with 2, and only those 2 trades were transacted.
• Saratoga Oldtimers led the league in free agent/waiver transactions with 61. This might be the first time Rip City hasn't led the league, but the Reavers still hold the all-time record for such transactions with 69, set in 2011.
• SilverLiningsPlaybk set a new record for regular season win percentage with a .633 mark, beating out the previous record set by Hughes Drubbers in 2011 (.621). 
• It's worth noting that Hughes Drubbers reached the finals with back-to-back ties (5-5 each time), and advanced on the tie-breakers. That may not be something we ever witness again, but it once more speaks to the increasing competitiveness in the league that the playoff match-ups are won by the most razor-thin of margins.
• This was the first year in quite a while that my good friend and fantasy baseball rival, Lloyd Christmas, was not able to play with us. We've been playing in the same leagues since 2007, back when we were roommates. I vow to make every effort imaginable to get him back in the fold for next year.

Thanks to all for another fun season of fantasy baseball - I look forward to the continued evolution of the league, and especially to competing with you all next year!