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Short Commercial Break, Episode 21
Vinny and Cresci are joined by special guest Jeff Balinksi to talk Bates Motel, Mad Men, and Game of Thrones.
To listen, click here!
To listen to previous episodes of Short Commercial Break and other podcasts, visit our Waiver Wired page!
Also, be sure to subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes by searching for “Waiver Wired” in the search bar.
Fake Baseball, Week 3
Note: This fantasy baseball post was written by guest contributor Tim Branfalt.
Baseball sea
son is long and most baseball players are streaky, other players are fragile. In the first few weeks of the season the injuries become far more relevant, not to mention harder to manage, than the slumps. Look at Johan Santana, a late-rounder and potential sleeper for fake managers on draft day. DL’d before opening day. Brett Lawrie and Chase Headley, considered top-ten options at the hot corner have yet to have a regular season at bat. Brian McCann, a top-ten player at a thin position – out.
Marquee names, such as Mr. Josh Hamilton, have forgotten how to hit a baseball. Dustin Ackley has become Chone Figgins 2.0. Mike Trout is ranked 356 in the Y! Game while Coco Crisp and John Buck are in the top-five. Now I am am saying this is where we will be in three weeks. Hamilton can rip off five homers in two games, Trout can be on base all five times and steal a base prior to each blast. Crisp will go back to being Crisp, Buck will be back on the bench and Ackley … Well, I haven’t much nice to say about Ackley (or J. Montero) right now.
So who else is slumping and what can you do about it?
Slumping
Roy Halladay, SP, PHI – So … About that 14.73 ERA? What is really maddening about Halladay is he could put it together in any given start, strike out nine without allowing a single run. If you own him and bench him you might miss his only quality start of the month at this point though. You could try to sell low on Doc, but what do you get in return? Barry Zito? Andy Pettitte? Owners have to try and weather this storm and hope the rest of your staff can put up microscopic ERA’s to combat the mess that is Halladay right now.
Slung
Jered Weaver, SP, LAA – 15 Day DL (broken elbow, non-throwing arm). Read more…
Mad Men Season 6, Episodes 1 + 2, “The Doorway” Recap
Throughout the sixth season of Mad Men, our writers will be on a weekly rotation giving their thoughts on each episode. For recaps of previous episodes of Mad Men and other shows, please visit our Pop Culture page.
I recently re-watched the first season of Mad Men. It’s funny how much things have changed since then. Sure, most of the of the core characters are still around, but they aren’t really the same characters. A lot has changed from the summer of 1960 to the end 1967. Betty Draper is no longer the trophy wife she once was. Hell, she’s not even Betty Draper anymore, she’s Betty Francis. Peggy Olson went from a shy, uncomfortable, yet motivated fresh face out of secretarial school to a confident, Don Draper-esque personality, bossing her minion junior copywriters around the office she keeps them at well past when the sun sets. Roger Sterling’s been divorced. Twice. And then there’s Don Draper, who appears after taking a season off to enjoy the life of a married man, is back to his affair-having, pitch-selling ways. Yes, ladies and gentleman, Don Draper is back. The only question now is whether or not the Don Draper of old can exist in the days of new. Read more…
Fake Baseball, Week 2
Note: This fantasy baseball post was written by guest contributor Tim Branfalt.
There are many sites and many scoring formats. I play the Yahoo! game using a 12 team, head-to-head league format. Keep this in mind when reading my posts. I’m going to try and be as universal in my advice. If you have individual questions e-mail me but be sure to include your site and point system.
That said good numbers equal wins no matter which game you play and as good as you think are on draft day the difference between first and second place comes down to the…
Waiver Wire
Franklin Gutierrez, SEA, OF – Guti plays on a subpar team. Guti spends less time on the diamond than most LOOGY’s. Guti also has two home runs on this young season, one of which came on Friday. His first O-fer came on Sunday (0-5). It’s hard to trust an 8-year-player who has only had two 400 at-bat seasons (especially one on the Mariners). Given a full healthy season my prediction would be: 75 R 18 HR 69 RBI 12 SB .255 AVG. That said, Gutierrez would be a strong waiver pick up in a weaker matchup, just don’t put a whole lot on the wire in favor of him.
Jim Henderson, MIL, RP – With The Axeman blowing it I’d keep an eye on what develops in the back end of the Brew Crew bull pen. Henderson hasn’t recorded a save yet but that could change in any ninth inning.
J.A. Happ, TOR, SP – Happ won his first start of the new season and might get a ton of run support if the Super Jays click. Happ held the Sox scoreless and K’d six while walking three through 5 1/3 innings. Happ is a spot start guy and his next opponent will likely be the Royals in KC. None of the current Royals have a home run and own a combined .178 average against Happ.
Kyuji Fujikawa, CHC, RP – Marmol has imploded. The Fujikawa era is here. If you can snag him get him while you can.
New Places Read more…
The Fake Baseball Roundup
Note: This fantasy baseball post was written by guest contributor Tim Branfalt.
Baseball season is here and with it comes the fake game. First week stats are borderline useless as guys are hitting .500 and leading the league with three home runs. Unlike fantasy football, fantasy baseball requires daily commitment and an eye for the streaks that players tend to play into as the season progresses.
Different leagues have different formats, AL or NL only, rotisserie versus head-to-head. Each site has a different player pool depending on the number of teams in a league and roster spots. But one thing that is usually close to universal is the…
Waiver wire…
Justin Maxwell, HOU, OF – On opening day Maxwell knocked two triples, the first driving in two runs and almost went for a home run, if not for the high wall in left field. He followed up that performance with joining his teammates in almost getting blanked by Darvish and picking up one hit on Wednesday. With only four triples in his career until his opening day performance and a lifetime .220 batting average the 29 year-old would have to keep his average high in order for him merit a pick up in any league.. Read more…
The Walking Dead Season 3, Episode 16 “Welcome to the Tombs” Recap
Throughout the third season of The Walking Dead, several of our writers will be on a weekly rotation giving their thoughts of the most recent episode. As always, be aware of spoilers.
Note: As all four of our writers agree that The Wire is one of the best shows ever, the character Tyreese will often be referred to as Cutty.
To read previous recaps of The Walking Dead, click here!
In one of my previous recaps of The Walking Dead, I mentioned how the strategy to break seasons into two separate parts, a tactic that appears to be becoming more and more popular, inherently increases the audience’s expectations for four episodes (regular season and mid-season premieres and finales) instead of two. And while Andy Greenwald pointed out in his article previewing the third season of Game of Thrones that GoTs and other shows may be tapping into methods originally conducted by The Wire, where no episode is truly more important than the one that precedes or follows it, The Walking Dead doesn’t quite fit that mold. What does that mean, exactly? It means that The Walking Dead needed to nail the season finale. To be honest, I expected what we probably all expected: an epic showdown between Rick and The Governor. The execution of The Walking Dead has been hit or miss since its very first episode, but if it was going to miss in the finale of its third season, I at least thought it was going to go down swinging.
Instead though, The Walking Dead played it safe, keeping its bat on its shoulder, much like Carlos Beltran in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS.
That epic showdown between Rick and The Governor that the back half of this season, especially the last few episodes, seemed to be circling around never happened. And as much as Rick wants to include Andrea in “us”, there wasn’t a death to a character within our group either. I’m surprised The Walking Dead has yet to go all Hawaii Five-O on us and let the fans vote for who dies, since the only main characters who seem to get written off are the ones whom the fans disapprove of anyways. That being said, it did feel necessary for Andrea to die, because well, she sucks. Milton on the other hand? He could have been an interesting (and potentially helpful) addition to the prison group. Read more…
Short Commercial Break, Episode 20
A milestone podcast! Cresci and Vinny celebrate their 20th SCB podcast by discussing the new show The Bates Motel, as well as The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.
To listen, click here!
To listen to previous episodes of Short Commercial Break and other podcasts, visit our Waiver Wired page!
Also, be sure to subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes by searching for “Waiver Wired” in the search bar.
Ducks on the Pond: Over/Unders, Part II
To prepare for the MLB season, Greg and Vinny sit down to discuss the the over/under win totals of the second 15 MLB teams. If you missed Part I, click the link below!
To listen to Part II, click here!
To listen to Part I, click here!
To listen to previous episodes of Ducks on the Pond and other podcasts, visit our Waiver Wired page!
Also, be sure to subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes by searching for “Waiver Wired” in the search bar.
Pretty Little Liars Season 3, Episode 24 “A Dangerous Game” Recap
Throughout the second half of the third season of ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars, Vinny Ginardi will discuss his thoughts and theories on the show following each episode.
Previous recaps: Episodes 14 + 15, Episode 16, Episodes 17+18
Yikes, it’s been a while. Sorry for taking the last six weeks off PLL/WaiverWire fans, but that is the life of a graduate student. But don’t think for a second that my lack of recaps means that I haven’t been keeping up on the lies, deceit and mind-games of our favorite high school girls. Please forgive me for my absence. And by that I mean don’t lock me in a house in the woods and then set it on fire.
So where to start in this event-filled finale? Let’s start with the big reveal.
With a Pretty Little Liars finale (mid-season or regular season) you almost expect a character to die. There have been enough examples of this happening that it has become almost safe to assume that the end of season also means the end of the life for one of our characters. So in an interesting way of playing on the audience’s expectations, the finale did just the opposite. Instead of killing off a character, the writers revealed that one who was presumably dead the entire time and whose death the entire premise of the show is actually built around, has been alive the entire time.
Yes, it appears Allison is (probably?) alive and is the lady in red, as has been hinted before. Not only that, but she appears to be some sort of superhuman firefighter who can run into a flaming building and pull out four unconscious bodies to safety without so much as a light cough. I mean she has her own airplane, so I guess she can do anything. But why would she save them? Does this mean that read coat/Allison is actually good? Or maybe she just has too much fun torturing the girls? And Mona is not actually as involved with A-Team as we were led to believe this entire season? SO CONFUSED. Read more…
Ducks on the Pond: Over/Unders, Part 1
To prepare for the MLB season, Greg and Vinny sit down to discuss the the over/under win totals of 15 MLB teams. Look for Part II within the next few days!
To listen, click here!
To listen to previous episodes of Ducks on the Pond and other podcasts, visit our Waiver Wired page!
Also, be sure to subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes by searching for “Waiver Wired” in the search bar.
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