Globe iconLogin iconRecap iconSearch iconTickets icon

Twitter Fantasy League, Week 2: Mother's Day

The Cut4 staff, in an attempt to create a fantasy sport they're actually good at, invented the Twitter Fantasy League. Here, you can follow their progress as they learn exactly how to play it.

We had two important housekeeping notes from this week.

First, Bryant McKinnie created the need for a new scoring category called "Vigilante Justice," worth 10 points. You'll see why below. Spoiler alert: it's my favorite thing ever.

Secondly, we had our first waiver pickup this week, and boy, was it thrilling. Rule reminder: to pick up a player off waivers, each team must bid a certain number of points to be deducted from their score in the event they roster the player.

I, desperate to get Floyd 'Mo Money Mo Problems' Mayweather off my team, claimed Usain Bolt and went big with my bid -- a whopping 35 points. I needed to drop Money. He killed my team last week. It was a CJ 2K-like performance.

The good news -- my 35 point bid was enough to win me Bolt. The bad news -- I was the only one who bid, meaning I could have won him with 1 point.

The lesson, as always: I suck at fantasy sports. On to the standings:

Week 2 Standings

1) Jackie Robinson Onassis -- Molly Fitzpatrick -- 72 points

I'm +47 (+8 Azarenka, +38 Jennings and +1 Pierce) for the week, making my total for the month so far +72. What up, fools?

A happy belated Mother's Day to Kerri Walsh Jennings! The beach volleyball star's maternal instincts were apparently in overdrive this week, as she posted a total of 13 -- count 'em, 13 -- Instagram photos of her infant daughter Scout.

Bernard "I forgot was I was gunna tweet" Pierce may have carried my team last week, accounting for nearly half its total points, but this week? Not so much. To my surprise, the Ravens running back's Twitter was mostly quiet -- except for Thursday morning, which he spent retweeting dozens of female fans telling him how fine and, in one case, #Eyegasmic he is. No points there.

Even the formerly lackluster Victoria Azarenka -- whose hashtags and Emojis combined for a score of +7 -- outdid him in this round. Pierce did earn me one Emoji point -- not for tweeting an actual Emoji, but for tweeting the word "Emojis." Which counts. Sort of?

2) Team #WOHLO -- Dan Wohl -- 44 points

Once again, the Cut4 TFL draft's Mr. Irrelevant was anything but. Michael Oher was again a fount of deep thoughts about Mother's Day, Blow, and above all else, the NBA playoffs, authoring some legitimately entertaining tweets about Ron Artest being "where his name is" and Nate Robinson pulling "a [Lebron] on [Lebron]." Oher was also liberal with the inspirational quotes and emojis, carrying the load for Team #WOHLO.

The performance of #WOHLO's other two players, however, was disappointing. While Missy Franklin did Instagram a photo of food (a birthday cake, in fact, which should really be extra points), she did not impress in either hashtags or emojis, her categories of strength previously. An instagram of her meeting Prince Harry on her birthday was incredible, but as it did not apply to any scoring criteria, it was the TFL equivalent of a 450-foot foul ball.

And Dustin Penner was not any better. Although it should not be too surprising given he's in the midst of a playoff run, the Kings forward did not provide much positive value. Yet, he managed to sneak in some negative points with an unexpected shameless promotion for Fiji Water. A potential elimination from the postseason would likely be a boon for Team #WOHLO. Go Sharks!

3) MyCousinTweeter -- Matt Monagan -- 35 points

YOU GOTTA CLAW WITH YOUR FINGERNAILS FOR THAT TWEET! Welp, I gave my team a little pep talk and now they're back in the positives. I'm proud of you, fellas.

Novak Djokovic continued to take a ton of pictures. Mostly of food he was eating, but also … other things.

George Kontos listened to good music and watched some great movies. Sadly, that's worth absolutely nothing to my fantasy point total. Thanks, George. The Giants reliever did throw in some hashtags every now and again, though.

Vonta Leach was probably my biggest game-changer this week. The Ravens fullback talked trash to one of his own teammates, retweeted somebody talking trash about Dwayne Wade and even found time to go to church with his mom on Mother's Day. A well-balanced week, Vonta. And you looked good doing it.

4) J.R. Smith and Sons Plumbing Co. -- Ian Kay -- 32 points

Vigilante Justice

This week is dedicated to all the haters who said J.R. Smith and Sons Pluming Co. would never reach positive scoring. I needed a rule change to make it above zero, but that's just what Hawk Harrelson calls TWTW. (Is it a coincidence this happened as the real J.R. Smith shot out of his slump? I say no. -- Dakota)

T-Sizzle only tweeted 12 times this week (for a whopping two points) and Ricky Berens took a minus-8 thanks to more shameless promotion - Question: Does Ricky even realize he's pushing this stuff? And do I still lose points if he doesn't? - but that mattered little after Bryant McKinnie dished out 40 points of Vigilante Justice. The Ravens tackle engaged in some serious spot-blowing-up after "this dude named Kelvin in LA" started "playin on [his] phone." Kelvin may also be named Brian and Kelvin/Brian's mom was somehow involved. It's not entirely clear what any of that means, but McKinnie urged his 52,000 followers to spam Kelvin/Brian's mobile as punishment. Annoying for Kelvin/Brian, profitable for me.

5) Matt Christopher's Nightmare -- Dakota Gardner -- -66 points

Here's the best part of this fantasy league: I feel like I'm growing to know these people. I knew nothing about Torrey Smith before we started this process. Now? I know his feelings on everything from the Miami Heat, to skinny jeans, to losing, to parenting, to athlete fashion, to global warming (although that last insight cost me a political point). I haven't just gained a fantasy player, I've gained a friend too.

Between his philosophical musings and Keselowski's childish contrarianism, the team I've assembled is more than just the sum of their statistics. They play off each other well -- just as any good team does. There's chemistry. Usain Bolt might be a newcomer, but he'll fit in nicely (his Twitter bio claims he is "the most naturally gifted athlete the world has ever seen").

Even though we may not win the league title this month -- okay, even though we absolutely won't win the league title this month, I can find solace in the fact that I've created a well-rounded team of bros, each bringing their own special flavor of bro-iness to the table.

And most importantly, I never have to see #TheMoneyTeam again.

-- Dakota Gardner and the Cut4 staff