Nephews of Jody Reed - Season VI Roll-Out

The weather is finally warming, retirees and ballplayers are migrating back north for the winter, and sabermetricians are dusting off their calculators. It can only mean one thing - the Nephews of Jody Reed are back in action!

Go Isotopes!

Welcome to the 6th year of NoJR. We've got a great group of active GMs once again, and I'm looking forward to a fun year of baseball.

In the following blog post, I'll give you some of the background on the league in FAQ format. Disclaimer: most of this is a cut-and-paste job from a couple years ago, but I'm busy these days, so please forgive me.

The Sad Tale of Bard

In 2011, Daniel Bard was well on his way to becoming one of the elite relievers in MLB. The previous season was a breakout campaign where he posted a 1.93 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, and averaged a K per inning. His average fastball velocity was a sizzling 97.9 mph. 2011 was quite similar, and he even set a new Red Sox record for consecutive appearances without giving up a run (25). At just 26 years of age, he had an incredibly bright future ahead of him.

Better days...

That same year, however, things began to unravel. In September, he posted a 10.64 ERA, and he walked more people that month (9) than in the previous three months combined (8). On September 4th, the Red Sox were 9 games ahead of the Rays for the AL Wild Card, but then squandered that lead and missed the playoffs. Based on the metric WPA (win probability added), Bard was most responsible for the Red Sox's collapse at the end of that year. Somehow, things were going to get even worse...

UMassBallers Season Finale

No RFO this week, gentlemen, I just hope you all have happy holidays and enjoy the last week of the fantasy season.  Best of luck to Farts Are Funny and Nickel Blitz in the championship.

Merry Dogemas

2015 Roster Freak Out - Week 15

The regular season has gone in a flash, and four lucky GMs have emerged in the playoffs. Only something doesn't smell right here...

Let's see, we've got 2011-2012 champ Farts Are Funny, 2013 victor Nickel Blitz, and 2014 winner West/Knile Virus all in the playoffs. Wow, the rich just keep getting richer in this league!

They're just swimming in their vault of gold!

Oh, wait a second - who dat fourth team? I don't believe my own eyes, it's the one and only perennial ne'er-do-well Doge Flutie! That's me!!

Now in my 7th season in the UMassBallers league, I'm hoping to improve on my best-ever performance of $0 when I got 4th place way back in 2009. It's been a long time since then, and after half a dozen terrible drafts and literally hundreds of transactions, I have finally achieved a winning record again!

How did I do it? It's all thanks to the power of DOGE! Its sideways glance is a constant source of amusement for me and vexation for others. Its face is the Mona Lisa of whimsy. I do not know why it exists, but I do know that it turned my fortunes around. It certainly was not due to any amount of fantasy football know-how.

Take your best shot Nickel Blitz!

I think it's clear who all the other GMs should bandwagon: LET'S GO DOGE ("dogue")! LET'S GO DOGE ("dogue")!

2015 Roster Freak Out - Week 14

I saw a news story in my Facebook feed today regarding the possibility of another planet in the far reaches of our solar system that got my imagination going. It's intriguing to think about a mysterious planet out there, just lurking in the dark and being creepy.

It's just been watching us silently for millions of years, what a creeper.

For years, astronomers have been searching for a Planet X. Planet X is not just a fun level in Timesplitters 2, but rather a new planet on the far reaches of our solar system. So far, they have found a variety of TNO's (Trans-Neptunian Objects, not Thursday Night Out), so many of which were similar to Pluto that it made sense to demote Pluto from planetary status rather than have school kids try to memorize a bunch of new planets. This new planet, however, is allegedly between Earth and Neptune in size.

As with most stories that pop up in social media, the "news item" is mostly clickbait, and a healthy dose of skepticism goes a long way. Reaction from university astronomers in the Scientific American suggest that the findings are likely rubbish, so let's wait and see what further research finds.

I guess this post is just a public service announcement to say that social media can be fun for stirring the imagination, but don't put much stock in anything you read there. If you need anything else, I'll be listening to the Time Splitters 2 soundtrack.

2015 Roster Freak Out - Week 13

Have you guys ever read articles about these ghost towns in the U.S. that have zero residents and are up for sale for the cost of a house? I've got to admit, they have a certain allure - the idea of owning a whole town sounds pretty awesome, even if no one else lives there.

There are quite a few available, such as Johnsonville, CT; Swett, SD; or my favorite name of all: Dead Mule Canyon, CO. But this morning I was just going through the mental exercise of what it would actually be like to buy one of these ghost towns.

An ominous, hollowed-out church - it's the bleak town backdrop you never knew you wanted!

For starters, let's think about utilities.

• Hopefully the town has a well and septic system still in place - if not, your town might get renamed to Poopsville. 
• I'm not exactly seeing a lot of power lines in any of these places, but this does offer the opportunity to be fully off the power grid. The only downside is needing to buy a bunch of solar panels and/or windmills (assuming your town gets a decent breeze), which would probably get pricey, so factor that in before buying.
• For heating - if you get oil or natural gas delivered to your town, it's probably not that huge of a hassle, relative to the water and power issues.

Next, let's consider services that connect you with the rest of civilization. If these aren't important to you, then it's not a big deal, but I unfortunately have an addiction to TV and fantasy sports, so I'm gonna need internet. 

It sounds like the only option for internet in a remote location via satellite, which evidently isn't that expensive. Granted, I've never really tried satellite internet, but this almost turned into a reason for moving the boonies. Just make sure your ghost town has clear skies most of the year. I couldn't imagine the frustration of not being able to tinker with my lineup on Sundays due to cloud cover.

Aside from all this stuff, you've just got to be concerned about basic services, like how far to the nearest grocery store (I doubt your ghost town land is capable of yielding crops). Lastly, make sure your town has well-paved roads, that you don't have a roaming pack of coyotes threatening your every move outdoors, and understand that literal ghosts will haunt your every waking and restless sleeping hour.

You are now ready to own your very own ghost town!

This is our land, meat.

2015 Roster Freak Out - Week 12

This week's column is all about clearing up some confusion about the origin of the name Doge Flutie and the pronunciation of the word "Doge."

The original image that started a pointless internet fad.

First off, what even is a Doge? It's nothing more than a silly internet meme that took on a life of its own, of which Doge Flutie was the natural fantasy football pinnacle. It basically involves using the original or a manipulated version of this Shiba Inu dog(e), with a sideways glance and raised eyebrows, and then overlaying that image with short, often misspelled, phrases or individual words representing an internal monologue, always in Comic Sans font. The word "wow" is always included.

For the full history, I recommend you give this a read, but I'm going to warn you in advance, the full history is so mind-numbingly inane that I cannot believe people have the time of day to make memes like this a thing.

As far as how to pronounce "doge," there are two factions. It appears that most pronounce it "dohj" with a long o, and there does appear to be more of a historical basis for that, especially in the aforementioned article. However, "dogue" is also a viable pronunciation, as shown in the Wikipedia page for the meme. Personally, I love to use the latter - you wouldn't call someone your "dohj," but you could totally call someone your "dogue!"

As far as the numbers go, a Slate poll has "dohj" slightly ahead, but I believe "dogue" will one day overcome!