Pennant Race Heats Up!

It looks like 2009 will give us an exciting PLPFBL finish. As of today, we have five teams seperated by just 12.5 points.

Father and son are currently battling for first place, as the Brewmasters and ass cheek! are both carrying point totals of at least 185. Following the Jenkins duo are the Natty's, Gay Rum, and the Utley's.

The Brewmasters are led by their dominant pitching staff. Doc Halladay, Jon Lester, Jair Jurrjens, and Cole Hamels are starting, while Joe Nathan and Ryan Franklin are closing their wins. Offensively, Kurt Suzuki, Gordon Beckham, Andre Ethier, and Kevin Youkilis continue to carry an improving batting order. The Brewmasters also just made a DL swap, placing David Wright on the injured list and getting Torii Hunter back.

Inject in ass cheek! is a unique team. Bret seems to always will his teams to victory, while carrying nothing more than a bunch of awful relief pitchers an overstock of average hitters. Meanwhile, he works the waiver wire daily, picking out the "least crappy" starting pitcher available, who is pitching against the Royals. Offensively, his team has been led by Derrek Lee, Shane Victorino, and Ryan Theriot. He is also carrying the "slumping" Manny Ramirez. Ass cheek! can gain the most points in the ERA and WHIP categories, not surprising based on his strategy of using bad pitching.

Rick Cummings and his Nasty Natty's are putting together quite the nappy season. Rising stars, Kendry Morales, Denard Span, Justin Upton, and Mark Reynolds appear to be carrying this squad. His pitching staff has some quality arms, like Josh Beckett and Justin Verlander. Unfortunately, the Natty's are way over pace in IP, and will see a drop in their counting stats over the last month. The Natty's have also played hurt this year, losing both Carlos Beltran and Daisuke to injuries.

Mount Gay Rum has had a great season. He even held first place for a while in mid-summer. His team is led by super-stud Albert Pujols, and his partners in the infield, Michael Young, Chone Figgins, and Jason Bartlett. On the mound, he's put together a very solid group of unsung relief pitchers to follow the starts of Johan Santana, Jered Weaver, and the surprising Edwin Jackson. Gay Rum is not going away, and should stay in contention throughout September.

Kris Gross' Bumpin' Utley's squad is led by, you guessed it, second baseman,.... Chris Coghlan. The pressure that would have been on Chase Utley to play for a team that was named after him would have been too much to handle anyway. Utley is actually on the team that is named after a shortstop, go figure. Bumpin has what looks like the most stacked offense in the league, carrying studs at almost every position. Their starting pitching is led by the 1-2 punch of Felix Hernandez and Chris Carpenter. The problem is a relief corps that has only recorded five saves all year, and Kris has had trouble finding a third of fourth starter that he can count on.

There are a few other teams that are still within striking distance, including the two-time defending champion Roughnecks and "Tradin" Josh Robbins' Honkbal squad.

Meet the Competition

Here’s a list of the PicketLine owners for 2009. I’ve included a fact about each of us. Some of it’s true, some of it isn’t….

69 wit SusanWaldman – John Treadwell – Fredericksburg, VA
Current US title holder of “Best Fantasy Baseball Team Name” according to Yahoo.com.

Bent St Bashers – Bryan Bentley – Newburgh, NY
Bentley attended SUNY Cortland, where he majored in ‘running up the score on weak opponents’.

Brewmasters – Chris Jenkins – Poughkeepsie, NY
‘The Godfather of Poughkeepsie’

Bumpin Utley’s – Kris Gross – Chicago, IL
Kris was once roommates with Chicago Cubs legend, Sam Fuld.

CITI-REX – Eric Rosin – Merrick, NY
Rosin homered four times in a high school baseball game in 1934.

Cellar Dwellars – Ken Koller – Los Angeles, CA
There were actually three people in the white Ford Bronco on June 17, 1994, O.J. Simpson, Al Cowlings, and yes, Ken Koller.

Chumps – Chirag Amin – Houston, TX
Chirag is Terrel Owens’ touchdown celebration choreographer.

ClubhouseChckenHeads – Sean Comerford – Bristol, CT
Sean has fulfilled his lifelong dream of working for ESPN, unfortunately the job is cleaning Stuart Scott’s personal bathroom.

Dickie Thons pt III – Eric Bjorkman – Poughkeepsie, NY
Bjorkman once played all nine positions in a single NCAA game for SUNY New Paltz, and earned the save.

Honkbal Hoofdklasse – Josh Robbins – Redondo Beach, CA
Josh holds the land-speed record for attending a baseball game at each stadium in the shortest amount of days: 30 stadiums in 26 days. Thirty27.com.

inject in ass cheek! – Bret Jenkins – Napa, CA
Bret holds the Cornell University and New York Chiropractic College records for most passing yards in a single intramural football game.

Los Presidentes - Sven Jenkins – Poughkeepsie, NY
Commissioner Sven’s fantasy baseball advisors include current presidents Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, Rafael Correa, and Evo Morales, as well as former Cuban Head of State, Fidel Castro.

Mariners GM – Dave Prince – Fishkill, NY
Prince eats people like you for lunch.

Mount Gay Rum – Rob Moran – Camillus, NY
Rob is the real-life inspiration for the “most interesting man in the world” commercials by Dos Equis.

Nasty Natty’s – Rick Cummings – Standish, ME
Rick is sick of the ‘porn name’ jokes. Leave the guy alone.

Roughnecks – Greg Wozniak – New Orleans, LA
Greg was taught all he knows about fantasy baseball while on a 10-day trek in the Chilean Andes.

Schweddy Balls – Jeff Drescher – ????, USA
Jeff pitched for gold medal winning Team USA in 2000.

Skinny Dominicans – Steve Curtis – Chicago, IL
Curt is a fine, upstanding young man, who treats women with the utmost respect that they deserve.

WaxOnWaxOff – Justin Ford – LaGrange Park, IL
Justin, ironically, drives a Chevy. But he doesn’t have one of those cartoons of that stupid kid pissing on the ‘Ford’ symbol. That would be weird.

X-Factors – Joe Werner – Columbus, OH
Joe is lefthanded and throws a mid-80s fastball. I thought that’s all it took to reach the major leagues.

WHO'S #1?: a history of first overall picks

"Who's #1?" is a question always asked by fantasy owners. Which player will put up the big numbers that will carry a fantasy team? Here's a year-by-year breakdown of the five year history of our league....

2004: Bret Jenkins (Neck Snap) made the first ever draft selection in what I like to call the modern era of PicketLine baseball. His pick: Alex Rodriguez. It was ARod's first year in New York, and he put up somewhat disappointing numbers, for ARod. Bret finished the season without ARod on his roster, likely trading him at some point, and finished 6th in the overall standings.

2005: In year two, Sean Comerford (Kingman's Killers) received the first pick, selecting Albert Pujols. Pujols continued his incredible career by posting monster numbers (.430 ob%, 41hrs, 117rbi, 129r, 16sb, 65k). For the second year in a row, the #1 pick was traded during the season, and Sean finished a disappointing 10th overall.

2006: Amazingly, Sean Comerford (Red Hook Rosin Bags), was randomly generated the #1 pick for a second consecutive season. And for the second year in a row, Sean selected Albert Pujols. Pujols responded by pounding 49 homeruns while striking out only 50 times. This time Sean held onto Pujols all season, but it didn't matter as he finished in 15th place.

2007: For the third consecutive year, Albert Pujols was the first selection in the PLPFBL. This time it was fantasy virgin Eric Rosin (Mangini's Mutts) who took Pujols. However, Pujols finally had an "off" year, hitting only 32 homeruns and scoring less than 100 runs the only time in his career. Eric traded Pujols for a package that included Matt Holliday and a pitcher I believe. It was a trade that caused some controversy, but Holliday ended up having a much better season than Pujols. Eric struggled in his first ever season of fantasy baseball, and finished a brutal 19th overall.

2008: Rob Moran (Mount Gay Rum) won the lottery for first pick, and surprized most of the league, to a degree, by selecting shortstop Jose Reyes. Reyes had his fourth straight monster season (.358 ob%, 327 tb, 56 sb, 113 runs), proving that he deserved the top honor. Owner Rob was a first-time PicketLiner, but he battled all year, making trades and staying on top of the waiver wire. His team finally faded out of contention in the final months and he finished in 9th place.

So who's it going to be in 2009? Pujols again? He seems like the logical and safe choice. Or Jose Reyes for the second year in a row? He fills up our stat sheets with total bases and stolen bases. Hanley Ramirez? A similar player to Reyes, with less speed and a bit more power. Grady Sizemore? All around superstar. David Wright? Mets' rbi machine. Or is it "The Natural", Josh Hamilton. Or it could easily be someone else. The game seems to be filled with all-around superstars these days, giving an owner tons of options with the #1 selection.

**** Other Notes on top draft picks ****

[ Besides being selected #1 overall on three seperate occasions, Pujols has been selected #2 (2004) and #3 (2008) ]

[ Alex Rodriguez has had a career of being drafted highly as well. After being selected with the first ever pick in PLPFBL, he was been selected 5th in 2005 and 2nd overall the last three years ]

[ The first pitcher ever selected in PLPFBL was Eric Gagne, who was picked 7th overall in 2004 by John Treadwell (Trish Giglio is hot) ]

[ Johan Santana, the best pitcher over the history of our league, has been one of the top five picks each of the last four drafts ]