B Town Boyz Fantasy Football Preview 2013

So, I know this preview is way late, but there was a lot to cover this year. If you didn’t know, I usually do a column where I make fun of everyone’s team – kind of like a roast. I’d like to start by ripping on the newest members of our fantasy league, Michael Tambornino and Ben Johnson. Tambo – it was pretty ridiculous how we let you join the league and you wanted to make all these big changes (switching to an auction draft, using LeagueSafe.com) before you even played your first game. Most of us thought it was a little premature - kind of like getting engaged before college. Speaking of which, Ben recently got engaged (again) and so did Pasi AND Casey. Congrats to all three of you, I’m really excited for your weddings. But if your wives ever decide you can’t play Fantasy Football - just know that I’ll be making fun of you online.   

^ Because this looks waaay more fun than Fantasy Football

After losing in last year's finals by less than half a point (151.02 – 150.58 to Luca for the Championship), I’m back for vengeance. That was the highest scoring game I’ve ever had, so one of my goals this year was to re-draft the same team. My other goal was to get super wasted. Mission accomplished on both fronts; I had over ten shots and ended up with 6 “legacy” members in Tom Brady, Trent Richardson, Marques Colston, Vernon Davis, Michael Crabtree and Justin Tucker.

As a new tradition this year, I passed out penalty shots to anyone who picked one of my “Top Ten Worst Picks of the Draft”. This was not just to get everyone liquored up, but to have an unbiased way to grade the draft. One person earned the bottom spot in the power rankings by drafting two players from my list. This person is also next in line to get married, so I feel like he deserves to get ripped.

Two time league champion Eric Pasi gets the bottom spot for drafting both the “least clutch quarterback” AND the “slowest running back”. Heck, that doesn’t sound like a fantasy team at all - that sounds like a nightmare where AP gets injured and the Vikings’ offense features Christian Ponder and Toby Gerhart. Anyways, for making two of the worst picks of the draft, Pasi had to take two shots. Maybe it was the weed along with those two shots, but he was SUPER wasted by the end of the night. He passed out and took a cab home early the next morning. But - he was still so wasted he left his keys at my place and took Jake’s keys home instead. How the hell does that happen? Could you imagine if he made the same mistake with the Baker sisters? “Uh, oops sorry Jodie, I thought you were Dana”.

Anyways, taking the wrong set of keys is nowhere near as bad as throwing passes to the wrong team – which is the only thing Ponder has been good at so far. I gave up on him when he gave one of the dumbest excuses I’ve ever heard after losing to the Browns. He literally said, “That was a throw that I can make 99 times out of 100, unfortunately that was the one miss”. So, when we really need you to make a big pass, it just happens to be the ONE time out of a hundred that you mess up? How convenient.  

Could you imagine using that excuse in real life?  

Power Rankings

1. The Destroyer

Worst Player: Steven Jackson

Steven Jackson's high school football picture, circa 1965

Congrats on getting the #1 spot, bro – your team is pretty sick. For starters, I gotta give you props for the fact that (unlike Jake, Adam and Pasi) you NEVER draft Packers. On top of that, you draft the hell out of the Vikings (AP, Greg Jennings and Kyle Rudolph), which is awesome. So, bonus points for that. Plus, you have the league’s MVP through three games in Peyton Manning – who is on pace to throw 64 touchdowns. You also have last year’s MVP; Adrian Peterson. Your only real weakness is your backup RBs; the old and injury prone Steven Jackson and the newly demoted Ahmad Bradshaw. Still, the Peyton-AP combo is deadly and I would not want to face you in the playoffs.

2. Percy Control

Worst Player: Chris Johnson

Nice job with the 3-0 start, Tambo. Your team has the potential to score a ton of points every weekend, but you also have the potential to fall flat on your face. This is mainly due to Chris Johnson, who I’ve had a love/hate relationship with for years. He's the only running back in the league that will average 150 yards a game, but do it by getting 350 yards one week, and just 50 the other two. Kaepernick and Megatron can be inconsistent as well, but there will be times when you'll just be waiting, and waiting, and waiting for Chris Johnson to have a big game.

And you know what they say about waiting and waiting and waiting for a player to have a big game….

3. Purple Stuff

Worst Player: Steve “He’s Still in the NFL?” Smith

Wow Nate, you really nailed it this year. Cam Newton, DeSean Jackson, Jamaal Charles and Owen Daniels have all had huge numbers through the first three games. Plus, you have Gronkowski coming back this weekend. There’s not much to make fun of you for - other than for drafting Steve Smith - who is now officially the oldest player in the league.

4. Tuning Up the Band

Worst Player: None

First off, bonus points for not drafting any of my Top Ten Worst Players. Second, nice job utilizing my “Legacy” strategy by redrafting your players from last year. Third, even more bonus points for having “The Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels as your mascot. You know, a lot of people ask me why I love wrestling so much. Here’s why: Wrestling will never break your heart the way the Vikings can. If the Vikings continue to lose and are out of the playoffs by midseason, it might become too painful to watch. So painful that I would rather watch the worst wrestling match you could possibly imagine:

My point is, I’d rather watch Big Show wrestle The Great Khali than watch Ponder throw four picks. This may turn into a rough year, so it might be good idea to watch a little more wrestling and a little less football. Luca, (or anyone else) you should come over for wrestling sometime. I order every pay per view, even when it features crap like the Big Show vs Khali.

  

5. NEpotheadCouldWin

Worst Player: Chris Ivory

"Whatever man, I'm awesome"

I think my team is pretty solid, but I’m probably a little biased. I just got really high + drunk and drafted as many players as I could from last year’s team. What could possibly go wrong?

6. OstBerlin AllSterne

Worst Player: C.J. Spiller

"My teeth are whiter than the MN Timberwolves 2013-2014 roster"

Dude, you’re way better than your 0-3 record and I think you’ll be able to turn things around. Spiller only has 150 yards and 0 TDs through three games. He’s overrated, but he shouldn’t suck this bad. Andrew Luck should be solid all year and receivers Andrew Johnson and Wes Welker are due for some big games. Unlike the Vikings and their 0-3 start, you still have a good chance of making the playoffs.  

7. Wings of Pastrami

Worst Player: Giovani Bernard

With names like Jordan Cameron, T.Y. Hilton and Giovani Bernard you are leading the league in “players I’ve never heard of”. Who are these dudes? They must be rookies or something. From the looks of it, you have the youngest team in the league - which will certainly help when you're going against dinosaurs like Steve Smith and Steven Jackson.  

8. Big Poppa Pump

Worst Player: Fat Eddie Lacy

According to my calculations, there are only two running backs that Jake could outrun on a good day – Frank Gore and Eddie Lacy. I guess it’s somewhat fitting that he has one of them on his team (Lacy). It’s also ironic that Jake and Lacy both have a tendency to order five (or more) double cheeseburgers from McDonald’s while wasted. To be fair, they've both cut back on fast food in recent months and have lost some weight. That may change things for Jake, but it doesn’t change the fact that I think Lacy sucks and that I hope the Packers to go 0-16.

9. Heisenberg Express

Worst Player: Kenny Britt

Hey coach, I haven't even been arrested once this year!!

You got some solid dudes in Marshawn Lynch, Reggie Bush, Dwayne Bowe and superstar rookie Kenbrell Thompkins. However, I’m a little sour on Matthew Stafford and the NFL’s “dumbest wide receiver” Kenny Britt – who only has 5 catches for 43 yards for the year.

10. Anus Tart

Worst Player: LeSean McCoy

I don’t get it. What’s an anus tart? It sounds like you stuck a Pop Tart up your ass.

I decided to do a Google search for “Anus Tart” and it came back as two different things. The first was exactly what it sounds like; where you stick some kind of candy up your ass and have your lover eat it out. So, kind of like “tossing someone’s salad” – but with actual food items. This is also referred to as “eating someone’s snack hole”.

  

The second thing that came up was some ‘Arrested Development’ reference. I’m sure that’s what "ANUSTART" was meant to be, but I’m still going to associate you with the first option. Anyways, negative points for having the least intimidating team name in the league. I’m also not a fan of LeSean McCoy – he’s not very powerful and is essentially a wide receiver playing running back. Once he gets hurt, you won’t have much else to rely on.  

11. Moop 4.0

Worst Player: Aaron Rodgers

Hey Adam, what do you and Aaron Hernandez have in common? No idea? He (allegedly) killed someone and you killed your chances of securing a good spot in my power rankings by drafting the NFL’s biggest D-Bag, Aaron Rodgers. Now I know that’s pretty harsh, but Aaron Rodgers is my least favorite athlete in all of sports. I couldn't imagine how it would feel to have to root for him and the Packers every week. It would probably be similar to the feeling I’d have if I moved to West Bloomington and knew my kids would someday go to Jefferson.

12. Venereal Dynasty

Worst Player(s): Tony Romo and Frank Gore

Out of my top ten worst players in the NFL, you are the only one in the league to pick two of them. I am very worried about you winning a third championship someday and all the bragging that would come along with it, but this isn't going to be your year.

Fasntasy Baseball 2013 Season Preview / Power Rankings

…And we’re back. It seems like forever ago that we finished last year’s fantasy season. Since then, a lot of crazy things happened that I would’ve seriously doubted in 2011; Tommy got married, Jake got a real girlfriend and Manti Te’o got caught having a fake one. I realize this column is now a month late, but I had to wait until I won a match up before posting it. After spending the first three weeks in last place, I have jumped all the way up to #10 in the standings and am ready to lay the verbal smackdown on the rest of the league.

You probably noticed I moved my column to Blogspot.com. I was getting bored with Yahoo’s text only format. Now that I have an official blog, people outside of our league will also be able to read my column, just please don’t link it to Facebook or anything. That way I can still call your team gay or make weed references – without having to worry about my mom reading it. I’ll also have the ability to post pictures and video, so I’m going to make fun of everyone harder than ever. And while I certainly appreciate you reading my blog, get used to me talking about how awesome my team is and how shitty yours is.

                                                       [Gardenhire in April 2013]

Speaking of being shitty, we all know the Twins have no chance of making the playoffs. I’ll admit they’ve had a decent start, but you know they’ll be out of contention by the All-Star break. By September, Gardenhire will be in full Grumpy Cat mode as he knows there’s a good chance he’ll be fired.  

                                                       [Gardenhire - September 2013]

So, without the Twins providing any real form of interest, we’ll have to rely on Fantasy again. Unfortunately for you, I have assembled a team that is more than twice as powerful as yours. Let me say that again – TWICE as powerful as yours. So, did I cheat or what? How is my team so awesome? 

This will probably sound ridiculous, but when I smoke enough weed, I can visualize the future. You probably think I’m full of shit, but in November of 2011, I predicted a “no snow winter”. People thought the notion was “retarded”, but it pretty much came true. It hardly snowed at all in the winter of 2011/12, while it snowed a fucking shitload this past winter and the year before in 2010/11. Then in May of 2012, I wrote a blog predicting that Star Wars 7 would be released in 2016 – which everyone thought was “retarded” as well. Just three months ago, George Lucas shocked the world by announcing plans for a seventh Star Wars film.

                                        [Me in December 2011 - calling the "No Snow Winter"]

               http://www.joeangeles.blogspot.com/2012/05/things-to-look-forward-to-between-now.html

  [ ^Link to the blog where I predicted Star Wars 7 six months before George Lucas announced his plans for a seventh film.]  

I have used my Nostradamus-like weed powers to draft a team full of home runs hitters. As I claimed earlier, I have twice as much power as the second most powerful team. Don’t believe me? I have compiled the number of players on each team with either 30+ HRs or 100+ RBIs in 2012. Sadly, it wasn’t even close. If this were Fantasy Wrestling, my team would look like this:

And your team should look more like this:  

Since I think “Power” is the key to winning it all, my Power Rankings will literally be focusing on the “Power Statistics” i.e. HRs and RBIs. I won’t pay much attention to records through the first month, as the sample size is too small. On top of that, lots of power hitters tend to start the season slow. I will also take into account each team’s “lamest player” and will identify the player on each team that looks the most like a nerd and/or a jabronie.

 

Power Rankings:

#1 NEpotheadCouldWin

30+ HRs – Albert Pujols (30), Adrian Beltre (36), Carlos Beltran (32), Curtis Granderson (43), Adam LaRoche (33) and Alfonso Soriano (32)

100+ RBIs – Albert Pujols (105), Adrian Beltre (102), Matt Holliday (102), Curtis Granderson (106), Adam LaRoche (100), Alfonso Soriano (108)

Lamest Player: None

Seriously, bro - I promise I didn’t cheat. I somehow ended up with six players with 30 or more HRs last year and six players with 100 or more RBIs. I also have Curtis Granderson and Jeter on the DL; once they’re healthy, I’ll be unstoppable.

#2 Strange Magic

30+HRs – Miguel Cabrera (44)

100+ RBIs – Miguel Cabrera (139) and Adrian Gonzalez (108)

Lamest Player: Max Scherzerer

Remember that scene in Wayne’s World 2 where Wayne meets some guy at the city office that has two different colored eyes? Well, that’s basically Max Scherzerer – starting pitcher for Detroit. I’m sure he creeps the hell out of batters when they see his crazy Terminator eye for the first time. I’d bet his crazy eye also has a lot to do with the fact that he’s 4-0. But he’s not exactly the kind of dude you’d want as a wingman when you’re at the bar trying to pick up chicks. But hey, if that’s the lamest thing about your team – a 4-0 pitcher that looks like a zombie then you’re looking pretty good.

#3 Repeat Offender

30+ HRs – Ryan Braun (41), Josh Reddick (32) and Chris Davis (33)

100+ RBIs – Ryan Braun (112), Buster Posey (103)

Lamest Player: Josh Reddick

Reddick is hitting a measely .148 with 1 home run. On top of that, he looks like a cross between Daniel Bryan and some guy selling meth out of a minivan parked at KFC. However, you do have a decent amount of power and have solid pitching to back it up. I also think a slow start is good luck in Fantasy baseball; so despite the bad record, you should be a lock for the playoffs.  

#4 Outfield Fly Rule

30+ HRs – Prince Fielder (30) and Adam Jones (32)

100 RBIs – Prince Fielder (108)

Lamest Player – Homer Bailey

Is it just me or does Homer Bailey look like a lesbian? I heard a rumor the Reds found her dominating the female softball leagues and offered her an incentive based contract. But seriously, you have a deece amount of power and when you factor in David Ortiz – (who is looking to be the steal of the draft) your team is pretty sick.   

#5 GreinkeCantDodge-er

30+ HRs – Ike Davis (32), Mike Trout (30) and Chase Headley (31)

100 RBIs – Chase Headley (115)

Lamest Player – Ike Davis

Not a bad all around team, I’m really struggling to find someone to make fun of. I’ll go with Ike Davis, he’s hitting .172 and is from Edina. What a loser.

#6 The Analrapists

30+ HRs – Mark Trumbo (32), Giancarlo Stanton (37), Corey Hart (30)

100+ RBIs – Aramis Ramierez (105)

Lamest Player – Coco Crisp

Before I rip on poor Coco, I must say that I really like your team. You have four of my guys from last year: Mark Trumbo, Giancarlo Stanton, Dan Haren and Kris Medlen. Sick bro! On top of that, you’re getting some huge upside from Carlos Santana and Aramis Ramirez. However, I do have to make fun of Coco Crisp real quick. I’m mean, if you’re gonna be named after a breakfast cereal – at least pick something cool – like Cap’n Crunch – that would be fucking badass. You can just tell from the look on his face that he’s pissed at life for giving him such a dumb name. But hey, if that’s the lamest thing about your team – that you have an outfielder named after a breakfast cereal – you’re not doing too bad.      

#7 The Harper Image (aka Kitten Mittens)

30+ HRs – Josh Hamilton (43) and Pedro Alvarez (30)

100+ RBIs – Josh Hamilton (103)

Lamest Player – Felix Doubront

The slow start from Josh Hamilton has cost you a few wins, and if he has a down year - you’ll be seriously lacking in the power department. But despite Hamilton’s slump, you’ve managed to stay above .500 thanks to your pitching staff. You have some aces for sure, but Felix Doubront is certainly not one of them. First off, his head seems really small. He's also 6’2” and weighs only 165 pounds. Are you serious bro? That’s how much I weighed in 8^th grade.  I could seriously pick him up, lift him over my head and hit him with a variety of pro wrestling finishing moves – including a Diamond Cutter, an F-5, or an RKO. 

#8 Hell Raisers

30+ HRs – Robinson Cano (33) and Edwin Encarnacion (42)

100 RBIs – Edwin Encarnacion (110) and Billy Butler (107)

Lamest Player – Billy Butler

How are you going to intimidate the other teams in the league when your best players are named Billy, Robinson and Edwin? Those names sound like the roster for Book Club at my neighbor Stephen’s house – where they discuss romance novels and everyone brings their cat.  

#9 Big Poppa Pump

30+ HRs – Josh Willingham (35) and Adam Dunn (41)

100+ RBIs – Josh Willingham (110)

Lamest Player – Adam Dunn

Too bad Willingham and Dunn’s averages last year were .260 and .204, respectively. Right now, Adam Dunn is hitting .146 – among the shittiest batting averages in all of MLB. I know he has six home runs, but that does not make him worth it. I don’t get why you have such a man crush on this jabronie; he doesn’t even look cool. Anyways, mediocre power + batting averages in the low .200s = you not making the playoffs.

Here’s my impression of Adam Dunn’s weekly argument with White Sox manager, Robin Ventura.

Robin Ventura: Allright now, Dunn. It’s the bottom of the eighth and we’re down by three. We just need you to get on base. Don’t go up there and try to hit a home run. Just get on base somehow, dammit!

Adam Dunn: Allright, I got it.

[whispers to self]:  “That motherfucker doesn’t tell me what to do! I’m fucking Adam Dunn! I’m gonna crush the shit outta this ball!”

[strikes out swinging]

Robin Ventura: “You motherfucker, Dunn! What is wrong with you?!? You just went up there and swung as hard as you fucking could and you missed the ball by half a foot! Hit the showers ya bum!

#10 Da Laser Show?

30+ HRs – Andrew McCutchen (31)

No players with 100 RBIs

Lamest Player – Jeff Samardzija

I don’t know what to say, Larson. I love McCutchen, he’s badass. But that’s your only dude that hit 30+ home runs last year? This is not “Fantasy Be the GM of the Twins and Put Together a Team with a $75 millon Payroll” - this is Fantasy Fricking Baseball and you are allowed to draft some dudes with power. On top of that, Jeff Samardzija who looks like a cross between Kenny Powers and a child molestor. Make some trades ASAP, or the playoffs are out of the question.

#11 DickedBytheAutoPick

30+ HRs – Jay Bruce (34)

100 RBIs – Hunter Pence

Lamest Player – Bud Norris

You’re right, you did get dicked by the auto pick – but complaining about it won’t make it any better. To make things even worse - Jay Bruce looks like a tool, Pence Hunter has a stupid name and Bud Norris looks like a total hick. A team full of players that are A.) not cool looking and B.) aren’t actually good at baseball – will leave you sitting at home come playoff time.   

#12 Mandelbaum!

Are you serious bro? No players with 30+ HRs and no players with 100 RBIs. Wow. How is this even possible? 

Lamest Player – All of them.

Not only is your team completely powerless, it’s completely uninteresting. You know what’s more interesting than your team? I spit into this pop can and it made a bubble. Pretty crazy huh? Well, it’s at least more interesting than a team full of jabronies with no power.