Jessica Alba Sucks

I want to apologize to Erik because he gave me this post a few days ago and I am late putting it up. As a result, several roster changes have been made and some of the information is out of date. This is my fault, not Erik's. My bad.

Without further wasted words: Erik's post after the jump.

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According to Erik, Jessica Alba sucks.

Here's the intro blog to the series I told you I was going to write
(the first one will be in at least by Monday):

Fantasy baseball is great. In The League there is no cap limit and you can put together a Yankee-esque line-up. With only eight teams, it is possible to have an entire line-up of future hall-of-famers (just like the Yankees … almost). However, how are the Yanks doing so far this year? When was the last time they actually won the World Series?

With this in mind, I will be putting together a whole series of blogs with one entry dedicated to each fantasy team in our league. In these blogs, each team will be looked at as if they were a real team. A line-up and rotation will be made and from that, strengths, weaknesses and overall successfulness of the team can be discussed.

After each team has been dissected, two power rankings will be released. One will rank the teams in order of their fantasy effectiveness and the other will try to predict how the teams would fair if they really took it between the lines and played ball.

Jessica Alba – formerly known as the Columbia Shilbies – has the worst fantasy team in our league to date. Their record is 3-9 and probably going on 3-10. They have scored fewer points than everyone else in the league, and yet they have some parts that could fit nicely on a real
team. The following would be Alba’s line-up and pitching staff if a real team was created from their roster (note: their line-up has no DH because they are in the St. Louis Division).

Line-up
1. Chone Figgins - 3B - .325 AVG, 1 HR, 23 RBI, 19 SB
2. Edgar Renteria – SS - .326, 10, 39, 7
3. Justin Morneau - 1B - .280, 20, 61, 0
4. Carlos Lee – LF - .293, 15, 67, 5
5. Torii Hunter – CF - .303, 17, 63, 11
6. Brad Hawpe – RF - .300, 13, 55, 0
7. Brian McCann – C - .261, 7, 41, 0
8. Placido Palanco – 2B - .333, 2, 36, 3
9. (Pitcher)

Pitching Staff
1. John Smoltz – 9-4, 2.98 ERA, 90 K, 21 BB, 1.22 WHIP
2. John Lackey – 10-5, 2.99, 82, 29, 1.21
3. Kelvim Escobar – 9-3, 3.32, 80, 28, 1.18
4. Chad Gaudin – 7-3, 2.92, 65, 44, 1.36
5. Andy Pettitte – 4-5, 3.24, 56, 33, 1.33

Bullpen
Middle Relief – Fausto Carmona – 8-4, 3.92, 48, 24, 1.33
MR- Julian Tavarez – 5-5, 4.60, 47, 29, 1.38
MR – Orlando Hernandez – 4-3, 2.78, 59, 25, 1.04
Set-up – Hideki Okajima – 2-0, 0.92, 35, 10, 0.82, 4 Saves
Set-up – Pat Neshek – 3-0, 1.37, 47, 12, 0.71
Closer – Jason Isringhausen – 3-0, 1.67, 26, 11, 0.84, 15 Saves

Summary

Alba has a strong line-up that leads off with two line-drive hitters who use the entire field. Figgins and Renteria are followed by a strong heart of the line-up that can change the course of a game with one swing of the bat. The 3-4 tandem of Morneau and Lee shows some resemblance
to Manny and Big Papi with their power and hitting from opposite sides of the plate. Hawpe, McCann and Palanco round out the line-up. Hawpe and McCann both have 25+ HR potential and hit for a decent average. Palanco doesn’t show much power but gets on base and almost acts as another lead-off hitter from the 9-hole.

Defensively, Alba is solid up the middle with McCann, Renteria, Palanco and Hunter. Lee isn’t the best defensive left-fielder in the game and Figgins would struggle playing 3rd everyday, but overall Alba is above average defensively.

Pitching is where Alba begins to have a problem. Smoltz and Lackey offer a relatively strong 1-2 punch although neither is truly dominating. Escobar, Gaudin, and Pettitte man the 3-5 spots in the rotation and all have big question marks. Escobar has never put a whole season together
with the type of numbers he’s put up so far this year. Chances are he will begin to struggle soon or be struck with injury. Gaudin is extremely unproven and is the wild-card because nobody knows how he will fair the rest of the year. Pettitte offers another veteran arm – the only
lefty – who is consistent but not far above average.

In the pen, Alba could be in trouble if it has to go to its middle relievers against the line-ups it will face in this league. Carmona, Hernandez and Tavarez are not the scariest trio out there. Carmona could be great but has a history of buckling under pressure. However, if Alba
makes it to the 7th or 8th with the lead, they should be able to lean on Okajima, Neshek, and Isringhausen to shut the door on the opponent. The back end of their bullpen has the weirdest names and best numbers of possibly any other team out there.

As with fantasy, Alba has a solid line-up that can steal some bases and pound home runs, but their pitching staff has some holes that could ultimately lead to their downfall.