Yeah its mad late. STFU.

Week 23's installment of the DDWPIPOTCFFBE (Diamond Dynasty Weekly Preview In Pursuit Of The Chalice For Fantasy Baseball Excellence)

Week 22 – Yahoo!'s tiebreaker system ruins a fantastic finish to the regular season

The Match-Up: Adrian (3^rd) vs Ben (6^th)

After a confusing end to the regular season, Ben has apparently secured 6^th place and the right to play for the Chalice. When I started keeping stats in week 10, Ben was in 5^th place. By week 12 he was in 7^th, and didn't regain sole possession of 6^th until this week! Pretty good timing by Mr. Ben. But boy, did he earn it! With 5 weeks left in the year, Ben was staring down a 4.5 game playoff deficit and rose to the occasion, posting a 3-0-2 (32-18) record to edge out Alex (7^th) for the final spot in the playoffs. That end of season record included a 5-5 tie against Adrian (then 3^rd) in week 21, and an uber-clutch 8-2 beat down over Drew (then 1^st) in the final week of the season.

Adrian endured tale of two seasons: 9-0-3 in the first 12 weeks, and 3-6-1 in the final 10. His early season play afforded him the late season struggles, and he was really on an island for 3^rd place – 7 games out of a bye, and 7 games up on 4^th. He only has one win over the past 5 weeks, and that was against James (10^th). He was never worse than 3^rd place all year, pretty impressive. It'll be interesting to see if Adrian has been underachieving, or if he was playing over his head earlier in the year. Ben's playing well and Adrian is struggling – if there was an upset to be had, I think this would be it. These guys went at it 3 times in the regular season; week 3 (Adrian 8-2), week 12 (Adrian 6-4), and week 21 (Tie 5-5) (season: Adrian 19-11).

The Match-Up: Kurt (4^th) vs Colin (5^th)

Kurt held 4^th place for the majority of the season, losing it briefly to Colin before regaining it 2 weeks later. The Commissioner has been pretty steady all season, without any major winning or losing streaks to his record. It's hard to say exactly what we'll see from Kurt over the playoff run. He beats the good teams just as often as he loses to the bad teams. Last week's loss to Jarrett (8^th) was his first loss since losing back to back weeks to Drew (1^st) and Adrian (then-2^nd) in weeks 16 and 17. I can't seem to find any outlying statistics that can tell us just how good he is – we'll have to see what kind of noise he can make in the playoffs. We'll see if his activity at the trade deadline pays off.

Colin rebounded from a rough start (0-4) to prove that he is a worthwhile contender. He propelled himself to the middle of the pack with solid mid-season play, and played .500 ball to close out the year. August was feast or famine for Lancey, with weekly scores of 8-2, 8-2, 1-8, 2-8, and 9-1. As far as I'm concerned, this match is a toss up. Can't wait to see who makes it to the final four! Kurt has taken 2 of their 3 match ups this year, but they're at a stalemate (season: 14-14). This weeks winner will take the season series and move on to the next playoff round.