Kings of Cork

Summer is in full swing. The weather is hot. The Sun is scorching everything. And vacations are pulling us all into a relaxing dream world that ends abruptly with returning to work. I wouldn’t call running the HR Derby ‘work’ but summer has a firm grasp on me and I’m trying my best to stay focused on baseball in my free time. But holy crap its past the midway point in July and I’m just recapping June… that’s unacceptable.

But we made it through the longest week of the summer. The week where we get a home run derby, 1 game with all the stars of the game, and then 2 days with no baseball (at least the British Open started today so there is something to talk about in the sports world).

Speaking of the home run derby (not ours, we will get to that in a bit), if you missed it, the new format was AWESOME!! That derby was probably the best that I can remember watching. Which isn’t saying much because I usually hardly watch the Home Run Derby because it used to be so boring watch every batter take 25 pitches just to swing at one. But the new rules of unlimited outs with 4 total minutes (plus bonus time the player could earn) made it exciting and actually a competition. Mad props to the hometown hero Todd Frazier for winning but watching Joc Pederson hit some of those bombs was absolutely amazing. I can’t wait to see the line of players signing up for next years derby (instead of the usual running away from it).

Ok onto our derby… So the month of June is well past us but it was an exciting race. Our monthly winner, lead by Pujols’ 13 and Stanton’s 12 (before he swung and broke his wrist), was Pete Rose From The Dead whose team tallied 37 homers. In a very close 2nd was our current leader Get Deep with 36. And 3rd for the month of June was our first ever winner $5 Donation with 34.

The actual players that hit the most home runs in June were Pujols with 13, Stanton with 12, Arenado with 12, and JD Martinez with 11. Odds are if you had 1 or 2 of those players you made a big jump in the standings. And there were 5 teams who made a leap of more than 30 spots in the month of June. Grand Slam moved up 32 spots from 67th to 35th. Chicks Dig The Long Ball jumped 34 spots from 62nd to 28th. FRANtastic Five and Nana and Me both jumped 35 spots from 78th to 43rd and 99th to 64th respectively. And JoseyWales was our biggest mover in June with 39 spots from 75th to 36th.

On the other end of the spectrum, the losers in the month of June were two teams moving more than 30 spots in the wrong direction. Tom Pipines Ear Hair must have gotten trimmed in June because their team dropped 39 spots from 18th to 57th. And Bovee’s Home Run Derby Team dropped a whopping 41 places from 35th to 76th.

Player swaps since mid-June will be covered in the next week because Giancarlo is about to be trade eligible and I’m expecting roughly 40 moves. So rather than make another post, I will just lump all the moves in the past month into one large update.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming of baseball.

The statistics have been verified and as much as I look them over and over again, I still can’t believe that a team hit 45 home runs in May. Yes, Icy Hot In Your Joc dominated the derby in May. Four of his five hitters hit more than 9 home runs. Stanton and Joc Pederson had 9 a piece. While Josh Donaldson had 10 and Harper had a whopping 13. This catapulted Icy Hot In Your Joc into 1st place overall with an 6 home run lead. Their team may be hard to catch without injuries.

Second for the month (or the first loser) was Get Deep whose team hit 40 home runs in May. No surprise that their team also had Donaldson and Stanton but substitute Arenado’s 9 home runs instead. 40 is still pretty good and has put Get Deep into contention whose currently sitting in 2nd overall.

West Coast Useless more than doubled his overall home run total in May (as did Get Deep) from 18 to 56. Their team hit 38 in May for the 3rd most while utilizing a similar set of players as the two teams above: Stanton, Donaldson, and Pederson. Their team moves into the top-5 but has a ways to go to catch the leader.

Biggest movers in May:

1. Walker This Way jumped 61 spots! (91st to 30th)
2. Kettle Poppers moved 47 spots (68th to 21st)
3. The Flying Aces gained 45 spots (94th to 49th)
4. Bleacher Bums moved 44 spots (89th to 45th)
5. Why Is Ozzie In The Hall jumped 43 spots (86th to 43rd)

Biggest losers in May:

1. FRANtastic Five plummeted 58 spots (20th to 78th)
2. Grand Slam dropped 56 spots (11th to 67th)
3. Tulowizki’s dropped 51 spots (17th to 68th)
4. Mayer’s Mashers dropped 48 spots (15th to 63rd)
5. Devil Dogs and Denton’s Biggest Fan dropped 44 spots (29th to 73rd and 46th to 90th)

Recent Transactions:

• The Big Stinkey – Todd Frazier for Yasiel Puig (May 18)
• Another year, Another Wasted… – Bryce Harper for Yasiel Puig (May 18)
• Pete Rose From The Dead – Joc Pederson for Jayson Werth (June 5)
• Warning Track Power – Bryce Harper for Corey Dickerson (June 8)
• Devil Dogs – Joc Pederson for Jayson Werth (June 8)
• Hit Bull Win Steak… – Bryce Harper for Corey Dickerson (June 8)

I haven’t been completely idle from baseball. Just idle from informing you guys of baseball information. So here it is, the first formal HR Derby update of 2015:

For the majority of our Derby managers, spring couldn’t come soon enough for Giancarlo Stanton. He’s got 10HR total now thanks to 4 in his last 8 games. Including this HUGE blast which left Dodger stadium (which went 474 feet and 2nd only to ARod’s 477ft blast):

We officially have 105 teams entered in this season’s HR Derby. And leading the way early this year is basically every team that selected Nelson Cruz (who hit 10 in April and 5 in May so far). Cruzin’ for a Bruisin’ (a previous overall winner in 2013) won the month of April with 29 homers. And I’m sure R. Dziedzic is singing their team’s theme song after Stanton’s two home run day yesterday put their team back on top.

Right behind the top team are Ballz Deep, Icy Hot in your Joc, and Philly Phanatic. Ballz Deep has been our leader for the most of May thanks to Cruz and Bryce Harper. Harper has 8 home runs in his last 9 games. That’s simply ridiculous and he’s living up to his hype from 4 years ago. Icy Hot in your Joc is the only one of the bunch that doesn’t own Cruz. They also have Harper’s HR streak but also put Joc Pederson’s weird HR streak on top of it to help their team lead the month of May so far. And Philly Phanatic has to be fanatic about this season because their team is typically near the bottom of the standings. But sitting in the top-5 has got to feel pretty good (at least better than the rest of us who are sitting in the bottom half of the standings).

Recent Transactions:

• Let’s Play Two – JP Arencibia traded for Luis Valbuena (April 25)
• I Must Be In The Front Row – Yan Gomes traded for Devon Travis (May 4)
• The Flying Aces – Yan Gomes traded for Joc Pederson (May 5)
• Dinger Derby – Alex Rios traded for Joc Pederson (May 5)
• Scotts Jogging Shorts – Alex Rios traded for Josh Reddick (May 5)
• Mayer’s Mashers – Juan Francisco traded for Chris Young (May 5)
• Nana and Me – Jonathan Lucroy traded for Joc Pederson (May 11)
• Snoop’s Troops – Jonathan Lucroy traded for Luis Valbuena (May 12)
• The Geezerhawks – Yasiel Puig traded for Mark Teixeira (May 15)
• 27 years since a Dodger Championship… – Yasiel Puig traded for Adrian Gonzalez (May 15)

Well we made it. It was touch and go for a while, but we made it through the horrible winter stretch with no baseball.

Opening night was pleasant for some of us, for others, they may be saying “There’s always next year” already, and for a select view, they are praising functioning plumbing.

Most of the rest of the league kicked off the regular season today (Brewer fans at least were drunk and charging up for the Final 4 championship that they didn’t realize that the Rockies destroyed them). And since the season has now officially begun, the Kings of Cork HR Derby Standings has been officially published with all the team details. If you need help figuring out how to use the standings, here is a help guide (but really its as easy as clicking on the team’s names).

We have a record 108 teams in the competition this year. I’ll post a heat map one of these days of where the teams are distributed but it pretty much spans the entire US (with a lot in the upper Midwest). Of the 108 teams, we didn’t have a single duplicate team selection for the 6th straight season (that’s every season for those who are counting).

Before we get to the player selection breakdown, I always like to give props to the teams that are creative with their selection process:

• This year we have Guys with two first names who selected players from each group that have last names that are used as first names also (also this team is the current leader after day 1).
• We also have Mariners 3 4 5 6 and Stanton who somehow figured out they could pick almost the entire Mariners lineup except for someone in group A.
• There were 2 teams that appeared to focus on common letters in players’ names. Kelly’s A-team chose players that have first names beginning with A. And Mega Mashers keyed in on players’ names with the letter M.
• And we have a few creative team names playing on Jorge Soler’s name: So Long Soler and Soler Powered.

Ok, enough is enough, onto the selection statistics.

Group A
An overwhelming amount of people (42%) went with the obvious choice of Giancarlo Stanton hoping that another fastball doesn’t find his face. Another ~20% of teams went with the other young phenom of Trout. Grand Slam and FRANtastic Five both went out on a limb and were the only teams to select a player (Ortiz and Chris Davis respectively). Only time will tell if their gambles pay off in Group A. The rest of the teams were fairly divided but no player in group A was left snubbed.

• Stanton – 45
• Trout – 21
• Abreu – 10
• Cabrera/Ecarn/Rizzo – 6
• Bautista/Carter – 5
• Goldschmidt – 2
• Davis/Ortiz – 1

Group B
The majority aren’t afraid that Nelson Cruz is moving to the deep caverns of Seattle. Josh Donaldson was the next most popular selection who is also a popular pick for AL MVP. Next in double digits was the young swing-and-a-miss style hitter George Springer. Hannah Made Me Sign Up and Silly Fish Picks were the gamblers in group B. They were the only teams to select Victor Martinez and Mike Napoli. After that the picks are fairly evenly distributed and the only goose egg goes to Evan Gattis who is playing through a wrist injury right now.

• Cruz – 22
• Donaldson – 16
• Springer – 11
• Trumbo/Tulo – 7
• Jones/Pujols – 6
• Kemp – 5
• Fielder/Cargo/Moss – 5
• Beltre/Bruce/Longoria – 3
• Alvarez/Howard – 2
• VMart/Napoli – 1
• Gattis – 0

Group C
As we get down into the lower groups with more player options, more variety in player selections occurs as expected. The popular picks were Kris Bryant (who isn’t even in the majors with no real ETA but smashed like 9+ HR in Spring Training) and Andrew McCutchen (he is not Scottish) with 12 teams choosing them each. It seems like Group C has a lot of the young players with a lot of upside that we are all fasinated by (oooo, shiny objects). Yasiel Puig, Yoenis Cespedes, and Bryce Harper seemed to attract the next level of team selections. Lets Play Two was the only team to take Devin Mesoraco and for the 2nd time, Hannah Made Me Sign Up also gambled and was the only team to take Chase Headley. There were 7 non-selections and 2 of them combined for 3 homers on opening day (I can’t believe no one selected Hanley Ramirez).

• Bryant/McCutchen – 12
• Puig – 10
• Cespedes/Harper – 9
• Braun/J. Upton – 7
• AGon/Soler/Duda/Cano – 5
• Frazier/Votto – 3
• Arcia/Holliday/LaRoche/JD Martinez – 2
• Headley/Mesoraco – 1
• Baez/Lind/McCann/Pearce/HanRam/Rosario/Teixeira – 0

Group D
I don’t know if it’s because we have a lot of Brewer fans in the derby or what, but Carlos Gomez must have done his campaigning because 18 teams selected the 5 category stud this season (he’s never hit more than 24 HR in a season). Carlos Santana (not the singer) grabbed 12 selections, Buster Posey got 11, and Kyle Seager scored 10. Surprisingly in the group with the most selection choices, those 4 players added up to be almost 50% of the derby selection. The gamblers in group D were The Rando-mizer (Gyorko), The Patriots don’t deserve… (Morse), Scotts Jogging Shorts (ARod), Guys with two first names (Tomas), The Geezerhawks (ARam), and keeping up with their trend, Hannah Made Me Sign Up (Hart) has another solo pick.

• Gomez – 18
• Santana – 12
• Posey – 11
• Seager – 10
• Heyward – 8
• Desmond – 7
• Arenado – 6
• Adams/Freeman/Ozuna – 5
• Byrd/K.Davis/A.Garcia – 3
• Beltran/Granderson/Rasmus – 2
• Gyorko/Hart/Morse/ARam/ARod/Tomas – 1
• Gallo/J.Hamilton/Hardy/Middlebrooks/Morales/Moreland/Myers/Pence/Quentin/
  Ramos/Rendon/Reynolds/Singleton/Swisher/Wieters/Vargas/Zimmerman/Zunino – 0

Group E
I always like Group E. Mainly due to the fact that it doesn’t really matter who you pick because its all about luck in group E. And second, because I really like seeing write-ins. Players I maybe forgot about or players people are projecting to be a break out star this season. Before we get to those players though, let’s look at the most common picks. Kung-fu Panda (Pablo Sandoval) was selected the most at 14. Brian Dozier and youngster Joc Pederson were chosen 13 and 12 times respectively. And Michael Brantley had 9 devoted fans select him.

Now onto the write-in players. These are the guys that weren’t part of the multiple choice list. Surprisingly, some of the guys were written in more than once. Those guys were Brandon Belt (3), Luuuuucroy (2), and Manny Machado (2). I believe Belt and Machado are coming back from injuries that limited them last season. And if Lucroy turns half of his doubles into home runs, he is an excellent Group E choice. The other solo write-ins are Eric Hosmer, Salvador Perez, Logan Morrison, Luis Valbuena, Gregory Polanco, and Steven Souza.

Here are the total break downs in Group E:

• Sandoval – 14
• Dozier – 13
• Pederson – 12
• Brantley – 9
• Walker – 8
• Gordon – 6
• Cuddyer/Y.Gomes – 4
• Calhoun/Kinsler/Rios/Werth/Belt – 3
• Lucroy/Machado/G.Jones – 2
• Arencibia/Butler/Craig/Francisco/Joyce/Reddick/Peralta/Salty/Smoak/
  C.Young/Hosmer/Perez/Morrison/Valbuena/Polanco/Souza/Utley – 1

Good Luck this season and may the best/luckiest team win the 2015 Kings of Cork Home Run Derby.