[Title Credit: @NOTSportsCenter]
{Current Mood: Spicy}
Hi,
In the never-ending search for inspirado, I took an
all-too-familiar brief hiatus from blog-writing for lack of anything I felt
like discussing. Once I get rid of my writer’s block and come up with a format
for how I want to do it, and once I discover exactly what my niche is, I plan on
putting out at least one blog every day. Nothing too spectacular, but that may
not happen for a tiny bit being that I’m in the middle of a brutally busy run
between wrestling, family trips, and my birthday coming up in exactly two
weeks.
Buy me shit.
Thanks.
But for serious, I know the chances of me actually getting one
blog per day up on the website consistently are slim. This is why I want to
have a set plan in place before I decide to start trying.
But, in the meantime, I figured I’d catch you up on some shit.
Since everyone seems to be doing it these days, I’m going to
learn how to use Blog Talk Radio and start a weekly fantasy sports po(n)dcast.
I’m not doing this until I figure out exactly what my niche would be. I want to
be able to accurately explain to somebody why you should make FRG (Fantasy for
Regular Guys) a part of your weekly listening. All I have so far is a DDP Yoga
inspired name (his workout system is called YRG: Yoga for Regular Guys).
And again, the odds of me actually doing it once a week
consistently aren’t great considering my schedule. So I want the plan to be in
place first before I take the plunge into the po(n)d………..casting world (see
what I did there?). Just know that it’s in the works.
So fantasy wrestling is a thing now.
Realfantasywrestling.com. Go there and play fantasy wrestling.
For reals.
All wrestlers and WWE personalities get a monetary value
assigned to them and you have $100,000 to spend to put together a roster of
five male wrestlers, two female wrestlers, a non-wrestling personality, and two
flex players. The scoring system is very intricate and I think it’s fair.
I’ve been entered into a group with some of the peeps from The
Ken Reedy Show to participate in a free nightly game for Raw last night and for
a weekly game in which you get to choose wrestlers for both Raw and Smackdown.
You can’t change the rosters once they lock at about 7:45 PM on Monday night so
you better hope if you choose someone that doesn’t wrestle on Raw, that they’re
likely appearing on Smackdown.
A lot of strategy involved as you can see.
My squad, Goatface Killa, took third place out of our group of
10 for Raw last night with 175.8 points followed behind closest by The Joan’s
squad, Weed The People, with 155.2. I finished 9.5 points out of first place
and the one goose egg in my roster from someone who didn’t wind up being on Raw
at all hurt my chances of winning.
I’m currently in third place for the weekly game although I’m
a little under 42 points away from the leader thus far. If I can get some
matches out of a few people who didn’t wind up wrestling on Raw last night, I
should at least make a run.
We’ll see what happens and The Joan and I will be sure to keep
you all abreast of the state of what could be America’s next great fantasy
sports indulgence (crazier things have happened). Apparently, the ability to have live drafts and
draft teams for weekly, monthly, yearly leagues, etc. is in the works. We’ll
keep you posted.
By the way, for those who were wondering: thekenreedyshow.com.
Pro wrestling talk on Blog Talk and AM Radio. Even Ray Ray Marz calls in every
so ofter to let the people know… about…my where………about…….s….(see what I did
there?)
The Joan and I are five days away from the conclusion of our
first foray into fantasy hockey. We joined a ten-team rotisserie league and
are currently sitting at 80 of a possible 160 points.
We’re in sixth place out of 10 teams but, since two of the
teams below us in the standings didn’t pay their entree fees in time and
subsequently had their teams blocked AND got their draft picks automatically
moved to the end of the first round, we will likely be picking second or third
in the upcoming draft depending on how we do for these last few games.
We took over a team that already had a full roster and, after being
trapped in dead last for a good chunk of the early part of the season, turned
things around nicely after trading away Henrik Lundqvist, Henrik Sedin, & our
eighth round pick in the upcoming draft to the team that’s likely winning the
league this year.
In return, we received an 11th round draft pick, Viktor Fasth,
Corey Perry, Ryan Nugget-Hopkins, & Vincent Lecavalier. Combined with our
core guys like Niklas Backstrom (the goalie), Johan Franzen, Mark Streit, Matt
Moulson, and Marian Hossa as well as solid mid-season pickups like Brian
Campbell, Jake Muzzin, Jake Allen, & Brian Elliot, we’re going to be
finishing a lot better than anyone playing fantasy hockey would be expected to
finish given the position we were in.
Sure this team took third last year but this lockout year
really forced you to learn how to play this game quickly. And now, with a whole
offseason to prepare, “Don’t Toews Me Bro” is ready to make even more noise
next season. We were dragged down quite a bit this year by Adam Henrique and
Nugget-Hopkins teasing us at times with potential, David Perron and the curious
case of “who the hell knows where the offense is coming from in St Louis,” and
Ryan Callahan’s general ineffectiveness up until the month of April began and
he notched 11 of his 26 points. But, again, next year is a different story and
we’re already on the road towards making it a better season than last.
Our projected keepers at this moment figure to be John Tavares
(C), Rick Nash (LW), Corey Perry (RW), Kris Letang (D), the option of guys like
Hossa and the greatest free agent pickup ever in Brent Burns (brushes shoulder,
I picked him up purely based on his awesome beard) as a utility player, and
likely Backstrom (G).
Although if a roster spot opens up if/when the Oilers put
Nugget on IR, we can move Nugget to IR and pick up the recently dropped Marty
Brodeur to either protect for next season if I can convince The Joan that he
isn’t going to completely fall off a cliff as it relates to production OR, in a
league full of Devils fans, see if I can trade the rights to protect him before
the next draft to acquire picks. I’d like to keep guys like Lecavlier, Nugget,
and Henrique on the roster just in case I can flip them for draft picks.
Regardless, it’s been an experience.
My first ever season of fantasy baseball is in full swing and
though I’m not a huge fan of our league settings that don’t allow you to pick
up ANY free agents (and those that know me are well aware that I’m a waiver
wire fiend), I figure that making this the only baseball league I’m in this
year will help me get acclimated to the daily rigors of the favorite fantasy
sport of a surprisingly large number of people. That way, when I enter the
proverbial big boy pool and do a standard league next year, I’ll have a decent
idea of what I’m doing. But for now, I take control of a stacked roster in this
league which is much different from any fantasy league I’ve ever done.
The story is that when this league started a few years ago,
each of the twelve owners were assigned what was, at the time, one of the
twelve worst teams in baseball. Each owner had the rights to any player on the
roster of the team they took over and could only add/drop people from that team’s
roster. They had an initial draft to fill out rosters with all the good players from other teams, and every year they do a three round draft in both
the beginning and middle of the season where you can “draft” up to three
players from any team that isn’t already accounted for.
For the mid-season draft, you can also add up to three new
people but you have to drop one of the people you drafted in the beginning of
the year. So basically if you draft someone in the beginning of the season that gets hurt or winds up being a
bust, you can replace them in this draft with someone who would've likely been picked up after the first week in standard fantasy leagues.
Of course, the team you get assigned could determine a large
portion of your success. My Uncle Ger, for instance, got the Nationals assigned
to him when the league started. He’s currently the defending champion. I have
the Rays which is good from a fantasy standpoint but terrible from a fan
standpoint.
Case in point: I had both Matt Moore and C.C. playing against
each other last night.
The other thing that’s interesting is that you can trade for
people on the rosters of teams your opponents own. Unfortunately for me, the
jobber that owned this team before me traded away David Price to my Uncle and
his Nats squad. But, thanks to some loopholes, I came into this season with a
few coups of my own.
Since he was already on my active roster when he got traded to
the Royals, one of the teams owned already, I still have the rights to James
Shields. The only way the guy who owns the Royals squad can gain access to him
is through a drop (and only he would be eligible to pick him up) or a trade.
Also, since highly touted prospect Wil Myers wasn’t on the
active roster of the guy who owns the Royals squad when he got traded to Tampa,
I am now the only person who can pick him up. And, even if he or anyone on my
roster gets traded, I will keep the rights to him as long as they’re on my
active roster.
Got all that? I’m quizzing you on it later.
Quick briefing on my team: my three draft picks were Aaron
Hill (2B-DL), Kyle Seager (2B, 3B), & Shelby Miller who now has both
starting and relief pitcher eligibility.
My active roster is Yadier Molina (C), Jose Molina (C), Adrian
Gonzalez (1B, RF), Seager, Evan Longoria (3B), Jimmy Rollins (SS), Desmond
Jennings, (LF, CF), BJ Upton (CF), Jacoby Ellsbury (CF), Ben Zobrist (2B, SS,
RF), Ike Davis (1B), Wil Myers (RF), Matt Joyce (LF, RF), my starting pitchers are CC Sabathia, Jake
Peavy, Jamie Garcia, James Shields, Wade Davis, my trio of Rays pitchers in
Matt Moore, Jeremy Hellickson, & Alex Cobb, and my relief pitchers are
Rafael Soriano, Fernando Rodney, Joel Peralta, & Jake McGee. Also on my DL
are Corey Hart (1B, RF), & two additional starting pitchers in Matt Garza
and Chris Carpenter.
This roster seems pretty stacked and the commissioner told me
I would really have to screw up to not make the playoffs with this team. I’ll
take his word for it. It’s a head to head league with two divisions and I’m
currently in fourth place overall, but third in my division, with a head to
head record of 28-17-3. I actually have the second most wins in the league but
am in third in my division. Not quite sure yet how that works. Maybe it’s Yahoo
screwing with my mind again.
Seriously, if I could murder a fantasy sports server, I would commit
unspeakably heinous hate crimes against that of Yahoo.com.
Only other things of note are that this is a head to head
league and you need to have a minimum of 40 innings pitched per week or else
you lose all your weekly pitching categories automatically. Between CC, Moore,
and Miller all going last night, I’m already over halfway there with 21.2
innings pitched. I like this idea of having a stacked team. We’ll see how long
it takes before I screw it up.
Speaking of domination, it would behoove me to mention that
yours truly is the reigning, defending champion of the Pond Scum Sports fantasy
basketball league.
Thanks to a dominant few games from Carmelo Anthony during
championship week that saw him drop over 90 points in two games, my “Chalupa
Batman” squad was able to beat out The Joan’s “Christmas Krampus” squad in the
championship.
A dominant regular season saw me enter the playoffs as the #1
seed having lost only two head to head matchups all season and having another
one end in a tie (with The Joan entering the playoffs in second place not too
far behind and Sir Daniel of Turner Town having a nice third place showing as
well).
Sure it was only an eight team league, but we were all new-ish
to this whole fantasy basketball thing so it was a learning experience. Key
contributors for team “Chalupa Batman” throughout the year included: Josh Smith
(who I traded my fourth overall pick Russell Westbrook for because I wound
up drafting a ton of awesome point guards), Kyrie Irving, Melo, Andre
Iguodala, Paul George (easily the steal of the draft in round 5 and my team's MVP), Tim Duncan, Jrue Holiday, Anderson Varejao, Tristan Thompson, Damian
Lillard, OJ Mayo, Omer Asik, Andre Drummond, Ersan Ilyasova, Nikola Vucevic
(the free agent pickup of the year in my opinion), Jonas Valanciunas, Kawhi
Leonard, & Backyard Wrestler Ricky Rubio.
Many more names came and went the way of the wire, but these
were the ones that helped me pull through the season with a championship.
Perhaps next season, I can look to repeat as champion in a slightly larger
league.
Quick note on the real-life NHL Playoffs: I’m all about
outlandish predictions. The Joan has recently gone on record saying that she’s
hoping for the Rangers to heat up so that they can move up to the seventh seed
in the Eastern conference. She, as a Penguins fan, would rather face the
Islanders than the Rangers in the first round.
I say that if the Islanders wind up at the eighth seed, they
will pull the upset… IF, and only if, Rick DiPietro returns from the dead and
leads the team that drafted him #1 overall in 2000 to a first round sweep of
the Penguins. Don’t worry, I’m only half serious with this prediction, needing
something or someone to root for now that the Devils are basically out of the
playoff picture.
By the way, the last DiPietro sighting came on March 1st of
this year as he took the net for the Brooklyn Sound Tigers, the Isles’ AHL
affiliate. He let up two goals on the first two shots of the game and five
goals in the first twenty minute period. He didn’t make it to the second.
Sounds like the perfect recipe for a playoff hero.
I’m thinking about doing a quick mock draft before the actual
NFL Draft happens. It most likely won’t happen, but I will put it up tomorrow
if I decide that it needs to be done.
I’m thinking that my fantasy writing/regular sports writing
niche is going to be centered on predictions that I literally haven’t read
anywhere else. Something always seems to happen that throws off the balance of
everything that we’re supposed to know about sports.
And if you don’t believe me, I’d like to direct you to the
empty space over there reserved for anyone who had the Devils and Kings making
the Stanley Cup Finals last year, anyone who had Florida Gulf Coast University
winning more than one game in the NCAA tournament this year, anyone who had
Cecil Shorts pegged as a fantasy sleeper entering the last NFL season, and anyone
who says they’re not afraid of getting into a drunken bar fight with Brittany
Griner.
Anyway, I’m a big fan of the “go big or go home” strategy as
it relates to pretty much anything in life which is why I want to be the first
to call these shots that aren’t 1000% outlandish (The Isles could very well beat
the Pens in the playoffs, whether or not Rick DiPietro comes anywhere near the
ice).
For instance, one prediction that I’m going to throw out there
right now is that this crop of QB’s for the upcoming NFL draft class is going
to be better than anybody thinks. They may not produce three rookie starters
like last year’s draft but there will be a few serviceable, if not starting,
quarterbacks taken in this year’s draft. Hell, I still think there’s a chance
that Andy Reid swerves everyone and drafts Geno Smith first overall. In fact, I
may predict that in my mock draft if I do one.
On the other hand, I really don’t see this year’s crop of running
backs being anything special. Everyone seems to be high on a lot of these guys,
but there aren’t a lot of guys that I see doing anything substantial. Eddie
Lacy and Zac Stacey are the only guys I can see potentially starting for a team
from day one. I also like guys like Knile Davis & Marcus Lattimore to
potentially make some noise at some point in their careers. I’m not high on lot
of the other big names that you’ve been hearing about though and think that
this is going to wind up as the “bust” position in this year’s draft. Of
course, that will be tough to quantify for a while because not a lot of these
guys are expected to go early enough in the draft to really consider them “busts”
but I rest my case.
Much like WWE Magazine does, I’m thinking about starting a
weekly blog/column as it relates to a fantasy wrestling matchup that I’d like
to see. To expand upon the WWE’s concept, I will include storyline progression
that leads up to a match between said individuals. Not sure exactly how it’s
going to go or when it’s going to start, but I already have my first match-up
in mind. Stay tuned to find out who the participants will be.
And finally, on the wrasslin front, I got to make my debut for Buffalo
Championship Wrestling in Buffalo, NY this past Saturday night as I teamed with
my trainer, Nunzio of WWE fame (or Little Guido for the ECW fans out there) in
BCW’s tag team championship tournament. We got disqualified in the opening
round but got to leave the show at 8:30 as a result to embark on our seven-hour
journey back to NY to drop off Nunzio before I trekked the extra hour and 45
minutes home to complete a day in which I was awake for 23 hours.
Oh, the crazy things we wrasslers do.
Other than that, I think that’s all I have for today unless I
can think of something quickly.
No?
Ok then. I’ll be back hopefully tomorrow with a mock draft
but, if not, I’ll see ya when I see ya.
#KThanksBye
-Ray Ray Marz-
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