CCO Fantasy Baseball: Week Five

Five weeks into the season and how is your fantasy team doing? 3-2 and 2-3 records are all right there and nothing to worry about. 4-1 or even 5-0, great start to the season, you obviously have received production from some players more than expected, maybe it is time to sell high on them. 1-4 or 0-5 and you have trouble. It is very tough to recover from three and five games under .500 but it can be done. Your best bet may be to do the unthinkable, trade your best players and the players with the hottest starts to see if you can make a move with your team.

I am a little tight on time right now as my son is about to turn 18, graduate from high school and start college and my honey do list is pretty long to get ready for birthday and graduation parties, so a little short on links this week but still some very interesting articles here.

We all like to call pitchers Aces, yet there are so few of them at any one time. But what if you are the fourth best pitcher on your team? Is Steven Matz an Ace? The other problem with Aces is what to do when they are not acting Ace like? One thing for sure, Don’t Fold you Aces!

He is no Ace (seemed like he was a future Ace at one point), but Garret Richards going under the knife to repair his torn UCL leaves a hole in the Angels rotation and yours if you own him. But the question you have to ask is, how do you replace Garrett Richards?

Eric Karabell examines five hitters who deserve more playing time and one of them is our own Javier Baez. This is an ESPN Insider article and I have tried not to post them on here due to not everyone having access, but it was so Cub related and Javier just hit a walk off home run on Sunday. The bottom line is even though Joe plays everyone and Javier is playing more than some originally expected, he has an amazing bat and foot speed and is a future 20/20 player and that he is ready to play more now. I agree, and think he should be our starter at third base with Kris Bryant in left field. But Joe Maddon just recently said he thinks he needs to be in the middle infield as he is just too valuable defensively to not be up the middle.

Who is the next prospect to be called up and his Julio Urias putting on the pressure to get the call as a teenage arm?

When to trade a player and when to buy? That is always the tough question and sometimes it is best to try and sell high?

Here is the ESPN Player Rater that does use just the stats from this season. It is based on the ESPN standard league point system. And going forward rankings from Week 5. The top Cubs Anthony Rizzo eighth, Jake Arrieta 12th (second pitcher behind Clayton Kershaw) and Kris Bryant 18th.

MLB Best of Last Week

Each week we will review the best performances of the week in all of MLB.

Top Batters

Ben Zobrist: 50 pts (4 HR, 2B, 15 RBI, 8 R, 5 BB)
Robinson Cano: 48 pts (4 HR, 3 2B, 9 RBI, 8 R)
Anthony Rizzo: 41 pts (2 HR, 6 2B, 4 RBI, 10 R, 3 BB)
Brandon Phillips: 40 pts (5 HR, 2B, 9 RBI, 6 R)
Jose Altuve: 40 pts (2 HR, 3 2B, 5 RBI, 9 R, 3 BB, 4 SB)

What a great week for Ben Zobrist, but 50 points is a huge week. We watched it happen as the Cubs went 7-0 on the week. Great to see Zobrist get off to a good start with the Cubs as we know, fans can turn quickly on free agents who start slow. Zobrist wasn’t the only Cub to have a great week, as Anthony Rizzo came in third for the week with 41 points. The rest of the top five are fellow second baseman in Robinson Cano, Brandon Phillips and Jose Altuve. Hard to believe four of the top five are from one position, let alone a middle infield position.

Top Two Start Pitchers

Jeff Samardzija: 52 pts (2 GS, 15.2 IP, 18 K, W)
Jose Quintana: 52 pts (2 GS, 15 IP, 10 K, 2 W)
Bartolo Colon: 48 pts (2 GS, 14.2 IP, 12 K, 2 W)
Steven Wright: 48 pts (2 GS, 15 IP, 13 K, W)
Jon Gray: 45 pts (2 GS, 13 IP, 16 K)

Former Cub, Jeff Samardzija led the way this week for pitchers with 52 points. I believe Samardzija landed in a very good place for him to be successful and his 4-2 record, 3.17 ERA and 1.14 WHIP is a good start out in San Francisco for him. Jose Quintana picked up two Wins on his way to a 52 point week and don’t count out Bartolo Colon (we started doing this about five years ago) as he picks up 48 points in his two starts this week. It sure looks like knuckleballer Steven Wright is going to stick in the rotation if he keeps pitching 48 point weeks.

We all know the story of how the Cubs drafted Kris Bryant, but the guy they passed on was Jon Gray. Gray landed in Colorado (can you imagine if the Cubs drafted Gray and Bryant ended up in Colorado what Bryant’s stats would look like hitting in that park) which is not the best thing for pitchers, but give him two road starts and his numbers look much better.

Top One Start Pitchers

Steven Matz: 35 pts (7.2 IP, 8 K, W)
Cole Hamels: 33 pts (7 IP, 9 K, W)
Tyler Chatwood: 33 pts (8 IP, 7 K, W)
Corey Kluber: 33 pts (9 IP, 7 K, W)
Danny Salazar: 33 pts (7.2 IP, 9 K, W)

A pair of lefties top the list and what I find interesting about this top five is no double digit strikeouts. That is normally what we see from one start pitchers who have great weeks. Another Colorado pitcher enjoyed his time away from home and a couple of Indians pitchers picking up the slack from losing Carlos Carrasco to the DL.

Top Closers

Alex Colome: 36 pts (4 IP, 6 K, 4 Saves)
Steve Cishek: 35 pts (5 IP, 6 K, 3 Saves)
Fernando Rodney: 34 pts (3.2 IP, 5 K, 4 Saves)
Santiago Casilla: 30 pts (3.2 IP, 4 K, 3 Saves)
Hector Rondon: 24 pts (3.1 IP, 4 K, 2 Saves)

There were some big weeks from closers and a Hector Rondon sighting. Rondon is 15th among closers this year, thanks to a Cubs team that keeps adding jug runs before he gets the ball, but this week, he got to pitch in four games and finally picked up back to back saves. Alex Colome is doing his best to show why he should stay the Rays closer even after Brad Boxberger comes back from injury.

Chicago Cubs Batters

Ben Zobrist: 50 pts (4 HR, 2B, 15 RBI, 8 R)
Anthony Rizzo: 41 pts (2 HR, 6 2B, 4 RBI, 10 R, 3 BB)
Kris Bryant: 31 pts (HR, 3 2B, 4 RBI, 6 R, 4 BB, SB)
Dexter Fowler: 25 pts (2 2B, 3B, 2 RBI, 4 R, 4 BB, 3 SB)
Addison Russell: 22 pts (2 2B, 4 RBI, 3 R, 4 BB, SB)
Tommy La Stella: 21 pts (HR, 3B, 2B, 2 RBI, 4 R, 2 BB)
Javier Baez: 15 pts (HR Walk-off style, 2B, 4 RBI, R)
David Ross: 9 pts (2B, 2 RBI, R, 3 BB)
Jason Heyward: 7 pts (2B, R, 2 BB)
Tim Federowicz: 7 pts (2B, 2 R, BB)
Jorge Soler: 6 pts (RBI, R, BB)
Matt Szczur: 3 pts (R, BB)

Amazing what happens when you play seven games in a week and the bats come back to life. There are lots of great weeks here with six players over 20 points. Ben Zobrist and Anthony Rizzo were top five in all of MLB this week and Kris Bryant put up 31 points, Dexter Fowler had a 25 point week and Addison Russell had a 22 point week. But look at the line for Tommy La Stella, one of this and one of that, he needed a stolen base to complete the fantasy cycle.

Chicago Cubs Pitchers

Starting Pitchers

Jake Arrieta: 37 pts (2 GS, 12 IP, 12 K, W)
John Lackey: 27 pts (1 GS, 7 IP, 11 K, W)
Kyle Hendricks: 24 pts (1 GS, 6 IP, 4 K, W)
Jason Hammel: 19 pts (2 GS, 10 IP, 6 K, W)
Jon Lester: 18 pts (1 GS, 5.2 IP, 5 K, W)

It sure is a pretty good week when your worst starting pitcher put up 18 points for the week. Jake Arrieta was human on Sunday and still ended up with a 37 point week. John Lackey had a rough start to the game and then settled down for a 27 point game. Kyle Hendricks pitched a very good six innings and had his best point start of the year. Jason Hammel had one okay start and one not so good start and raised his ERA to 1.85 on the season. Jon Lester had the lowest point total for the week and put up 18 points in his one start. That is how a team goes 7-0 for the week and continuing to more than double the opponents, 45-21 on the week.

Bullpen

Hector Rondon: 24 pts (3.1 IP, 4 K, 2 Saves)
Pedro Strop: 15 pts (4 IP, 6 K)
Trevor Cahill: 14 pts (5 IP, 4 K)
Adam Warren: 12 pts (5.1 IP, 3 K, W)
Justin Grimm: 5 pts (4 IP, 3 K)
Travis Wood: 4 pts (2.2 IP, 2 K, W)
Clayton Richard: 2 pts (2 IP, 2 K)
Spencer Patton: -4 pts (0 IP)

There were some good weeks for relievers this week with Hector Rondon having a top five week while Pedro Strop, Trevor Cahill and Adam Warren all had double digit point weeks.

CCO Fantasy Leagues

The leagues are off and running. This year with three leagues it will be harder for me to watch all teams to see if someone isn’t playing. If you see a team that didn’t make any moves all week during your match-up, let me know. Sometimes teams just need a reminder or life happens and they can no longer keep up with a team. On the other side of that, if you would like to take over a team to get your foot in the door to these leagues, send Neil an email to forward to me or comment below. There are always openings as the season goes in leagues of this size.

CCO Leagues Trades

There were some big names on the move this week in the CCO leagues. Michael Brantley, Sonny Gray, Manny Machado, Matt Carpenter and Matt Holliday all got new homes.

CCO Fans Trades Last Week

• Trying not to Suck traded Michael Brantley and Michael Pineda to Dock Ellis D for Sonny Gray and Melvin Upton Jr.

CCO Trades Last Week

• Waiting on Bryant traded Manny Machado, Derek Dietrich and Evan Gattis to Clark n Addison for Matt Carpenter, Matt Holliday, Danny Espinosa and Jon Jay.

• Waiting on Bryant traded Kendry Morales to Runnin Bredstiks for Andrelton Simmons

CCO Auction Keeper Trades Last Week

• No trades.