Fantasy Baseball Advice

Here’s a monthly look at where my teams are and some moves I’ve made.  I know it’s boring as crizzap to read about other people’s teams, so I’ll keep it midget-sized.  Though my league updates aren’t completely a case of narcissism gone wild (which would make a great show.  Clear skin to win!  Show your mirror!).  Perhaps you can gleam something from my team updates on what you can be doing in your league.  Or maybe not.  Anyway, here’s my fantasy baseball team updates:

15 Team, mixed league, 5×5; host: Tim of RotoRob, Currently in 1st place, 12 points in front.

Key Pickup – If I sat here (and I am indeed sitting) and told you I’ve made some great pickups to mollywop into first, I’d be more or less lying.  In the past month, I’ve picked up Tony Pena, Dan Wheeler, The Dread Pirate and Dallas Braden to varying degrees of success, but they haven’t done all that much.  Steal here, vulture win there.  As a recurring theme with all my teams, Captain Fancypants for this team is/has/hopefully will be Mark Reynolds.

Debilitating Loss – Oh, Peavy, I give and give and give and you hurt me.  Now I know how Ben Affleck feels about movie critics.

16 Team, mixed league, 5×5; host: Andy Behrens of Yahoo! Roto Arcade, Currently in 1st place, 14 points in front.

Key Pickup – I picked up Edward Mujica, Jon Rauch and David Murphy, but if anyone outside the Mujica, Rauch or Murphy family considers them key pickups, I’d like some of what they’re smoking.  (Mujica, Rauch, Murphy — We don’t just do immigration law, we’re illegal!)

Debilitating Loss – The loss of Lidge and Frank² has put a slight damper on my saves.  Casey Kotchman went down some time in the last month too, but that’s just given me an excuse to not bench Branyan, which has probably been for the best.  Thanks, Kotchman!  May you contract some social anxiety disorder!

12 Team, mixed league, 5×5 (with OBP/SLG instead of AVG/HR) ; host: FSWA, Currently in 4th place, 6.5 points out of first.

Debilitating Loss – First, I lost Carlos Quentin.  Then a few days before Jose Reyes was supposed to return, I traded Dunn and Theriot for him.  Since then, I’m in a tailspin trying to stop the bleeding with a tourniquet of Gordon Beckham, Adam Kennedy, Sean Rodriguez, Tony Gwynn, Mark Teahen, Luke Scott, Gerardo Parra and Ben Francisco.

Egregious Pickups - See 1/8th of an inch above and my schmohawk tourniquet.

12 Team, NL, 5×5; host: FantasyPros911, Currently in 2nd place, 2.5 points out of first.

NOTE:  Hey all this is Rudy.  I’m writing now since I’m the sole manager of the next two teams.  I co-manage the other teams but Grey only knows how to write in the first person so you’d never know it.  (To his credit, he does most of the short-term adds/drops – he’s better at that than me)  Anyway…

Key Pickup – In a 12-team NL league, there’s not a lot of great pickups to be had.  Given my top two OFs coming out of the draft were Conor Jackson and Cameron Maybin, it’s been shopping off the OF bargain bin all year.  With draft-day stash Andrew McCutchen joining Bourn & Rasmus as respectable starting OFs, I’ve managed to get at least some performance out of 4th OF types Tony Gwynn, Jonny Gomes and Delwyn Young.

Debilitating Loss – See Conor Jackson.  I’ve survived so far without Edinson Volquez and John Maine but hopefully they come back soon as I can pick up a few points in Wins with a good week or two.

Dizzying Pickups - With a plethora of relievers (F-Cord, Street, Franklin, Hawkins) and a crappy team AVG, I packaged Franklin w/ Uggla to get Joey Votto…..right before he went on the DL.  Ugh.  Hopefully he’s back next week.  But if Votto does come back strong and I get something this year out of bench players Conor Jackson, Cameron Maybin, Jesus Guzman (SF) or Jake Fox (trade him to the AL already!), my team’s looking pretty damn good.

Here are the league standings if you’re interested.

12 Team, mixed, H2H points; host: Rudy’s friend, Currently tied for 1st at 9-1

Here’s the background on this one.  A friend of mine at work cajoled me into this league.  It’s ESPN’s default points structure for head-to-head leagues (1 point per Run, Total Base, RBI, and SB.  -1 for a hitter K.   3 pts per IP, 1 pt per K, 10 pts per Win, 5 points per Save, -5 pts per Loss, -1 per hit/walk, -2 per Earned Run)

On the plus side, I like it better than H2H leagues where you compete on the 10 categories.  Those always felt fluky to me.  It’s been a lot of fun trash-talking with my opposing players (especially since I’m chillin’ like Matt Cain at 9-1).  And I’ve never had a team on a better starting pitching run than this team – Verlander, Jered Weaver, Cain, Beckett, Cueto, Wandy, and Broxton!

On the negative side, it feels like the game is too dependent on pitching.  The average start gives positive points so teams are incented to max out their 12 starts.  With wins being worth twice a save, relievers are devalued vs. starters.  So if you’re going to play this format, draft a LOT of 2nd/3rd tier starters as SP depth is more important than having an ace or two at the top.  On the hitting side, it’s just a downer that a HR is worth only 1 point more than a Triple – I’d add a HR bonus.

Key Pickups – I swapped out Gordon Beckham for Jose Lopez in the middle of the week and his series @ COL this weekend helped me get the win.  I picked up Luke Scott when he got off the DL and he’s put up nearly the same amount of points in 16 games as Garrett Atkins had in 43 games.  In a league with perhaps 50-60 SPs owned, snagging Ubaldo Jiminez for a complete game victory was pretty sweet.

Egregious Drops - Dropping Ian Stewart.  I just got tired of him clogging up my bench during his May swoon.

Your leagues are here – Fantasy Razzball and Razzball Commenter League – updated almost every Sunday night!

Suffering through a first half of the fantasy baseball season that you wish would go away?  Owning Delgado, Peavy, Nolasco, Aramis, Volquez and Reyes got you down?  Wanna draft Ben Zobrist in the first round? Simply want another team because your fantasy baseball obsession hasn’t pulled you sufficiently far enough away from your loved ones? Well, here’s your chance. Midseason Fantasy Baseball Leagues!  So do you crave fame amongst eleven other random people you don’t really know?  Or simply have a lot of time on your hands because you can make your Economic Stimulus Tax Rebate last longer than others?  Then here’s your chance!

Unfortunately, ESPN doesn’t do midseason fantasy baseball leagues, so we’re not able to do a master standings (which was updated yesterday) for the midseason leagues. (We need to be able to access the leagues to do a master standings.) So the only real incentive to join one of these leagues is you’ll get some worthy competition.  And, as someone who has dabbled in free leagues before, they suck with eleven other random doodes that you can’t talk trash to or rely on to be present.  So I’ll open up the comments to you guys (and 3 girls) to form leagues here if you like.  I suggest mixed leagues, 12 team, 5×5, 5 OFs, 9 pitchers, 20 game eligibility.  I believe Yahoo’s midseason fantasy baseball leagues begin June 22nd, so you need to act fast!

If interested, please contact the commissioner — Josh — iamjoshlacey [at] gmail.com

Hey Razzballers – it’s been a while since our last formal standings update so let’s get crackin’….

In our Razzball Commenter League, the top three have been consistent for several weeks.  Anthony G leads the pack by 7 points as he has a remarkable 111.5 points out of 120 in the Gorditas Supreme division.  You’d think the division would suck but the overall league performs about equal with the rest of the divisions.  ThirdandKing and Mowses are the other two teams over the 100 point mark in their leagues and own the 2nd and 3rd slots. I thought it would be interesting to see what players were on more than one of those teams.  No player was on all three; here are those on 2 of the top 3: Adam Lind, Adrian Gonzalez, Mark DeRosa, Shin Soo-Choo, and Zack Greinke.  Most of the other likely prospects you’d expect show up on one of the teams like Ibanez, Broxton, Nelson Cruz, etc.  Perhaps we’ll do a test on the top 10 and bottom 10 teams to see who are the lucky and cursed players…. As for notables in the rest of the top 10, a pack of commenters have risen into the top 10 over the past 2 weeks:  VanHammersly, Rhymenoceros, NoonTime, and PWNightmare.

In the Fantasy Razzball league, Mike Podhorzer of FantasyPros911 still is in the lead with Razzball commenter Jay and Jonathan Halket from The Hardball Times Fantasy Focus in 2nd and 3rd, respectively.  Only three players of note made it on two of the three teams:  Emmanuel Burriss, Brian Anderson (White Sox), Shane Loux.  Just goes to show there are many ways to both skin a cat and to assemble a crappy fantasy baseball team.  Other notables in the top 10 include the Razzball duo of Grey (#4) and myself (#7).  Razzball commenters ZK & Freak, and fellow bloggers RJ White from the Fantasy Baseball Cafe and Paul Moro of Umpbump.com.

Here are a few more shout-outs to the participating blogs.  We appreciate them putting their reputations on the line to compete against bloggers and commenters in our little masochistic game:

Melissa from the ESPN Podcast “Play Ball with Amanda and Melissa“.  This is the podcast that is ‘by women, for women”.  I’ve tried the blog and found it to be strong enough for a man.  I’m not sure why they haven’t had Grey or I on as it’s a well-known fact that more females visit our site (3) than any other fantasy blog.

Lee Perrault from RotoSavants - This blog is run by Troy Patterson and has been our friend since he came with us to Vegas and counted cards for us in blackjack.  Lee has held his own in the league so far, lingering just outside the top 10 for the past couple of weeks.  Luckily, rosters are finalized on Sunday nights so it doesn’t interfere with Monday night fish stick dinner.

Tirico Suave -  One of the funnier sports blogs around, Tirico Suave took the bold step of referencing an ESPN anchor as part of their blog name.  Loved this post/screenshot and it makes me want to buy MLB ‘10 The Show to see what it says about Conor Jackson and Joey Votto.

With about a month and a half in, I figured I’d go over where my (Rudy and my?  Rudy and I?  Rudy and me?  Did I miss this day?) fantasy baseball teams are in their respective leagues.  I know most of youse only care about your teams and how they’re faring, so I’ll keep this brief.  I won’t bore you with all the tremendous moves I’ve made — Oh, there’s been some doozies.  I also won’t bore you with all the lousy pick-ups I’ve made — Thanks, Hochevar!  I’ll touch on a few key transactions and where I currently am in the standings.  Anyway, here’s my fantasy baseball team updates:

15 Team, mixed league, roto; host: Tim of RotoRob, Currently in 4th place, 9.5 points out of first.

Key Trade –  Moved my Heath Bell and Huston Street for Dan Haren and David Aardsma.  This trade isn’t quite as lopsided as it seems because at some point I needed to make the hard decision between C.J. Wilson on waivers or holding Aardsma.  I went with Wilson because Morrow was just pitching poorly and Frank Frank was actually hurt.  In hindsight, I would’ve held tight, but hindsight has Wade Boggs vision.  Anyway, the trade is still in my favor because I’d still want Haren over Street and Bell.

Key Pickup –  Michael Bourn.  No idea where the guy from last year went, but someone’s been *pinkie to mouth* re-Bourn.

Egregious Pickups — Ah… Where do I start?  Actually, this reminds me of a valuable insight that you’re all going to enjoy.  No need for your thinking caps either; I’m thinking for you!  All of my terrible pickups (Hochevar, Grabow, Julian Tavarez, Shawn Hill, Wang and Anthony Reyes) and I’m still less than one good week out of first place.  This shows you that you can take fliers on guys as long as your core is fine.

16 Team, mixed league, roto; host: Andy Behrens of Y!, Currently in 3rd place, 17.5 points out of first.

Key Trade — I’ve only made one trade, sending Elvis Andrus and LaTroy Hawkins for Julio Lugo and Ian Stewart.  I still like my side better, but it’s basically a push so far.

Key Pickup — In a 16 team league (this one is much deeper than even the 15 team league with more outfielders and bench spots), there’s really not much out there.  My best pickup so far is Randy Wolf.  Yee-haw!

Egregious Pickups — Again, there’s been quite a few.  Most of the same schmohawks as the other league as I tend to like the same guys across leagues.  And end up disliking the same guys.

12 Team, mixed league, roto; host: FSWA, Currently in 1st place, 2.5 points in front.

Key Trade — I’ve made one trade and it happened today.  Pending approvals, I receive Jose Reyes for Adam Dunn and Ryan Theriot.  It’s an OBP league, so Dunn has a lot more value than in a regular league.  I’m hurting most for steals and Reyes should correct that problem.  I plan, nay, hope Reyes goes on the DL and misses a few weeks.  This way he returns to doing what he do by July at the latest.  I figure July through October of Reyes will be all I need for steals and can play a waiver guy at shortstop for the next few weeks.  Since this is only 12 teams deep, there’s waiver guys to be had.

Key Pickup — LaTroy Hawkins.  This league I had a few things working for me that actually worked against me thus far.  I’ve been in first for 95% of the season, so I didn’t want to mess with success (Isn’t that a Deepak Chopra book?) and I had a solid core of pitchers (F-Her, Wandy, Wolf, Bedard, Scherzer, Papelbon, Rodney and Broxton) so I couldn’t grab closers or starters as I like to do.

Egregious Pickup – Kenshin Kawakami, Spaz and Cameron Maybin didn’t do me any favors, but they were all drafted.  Haven’t had any egregious pickups in this league, because I haven’t needed to take many gambles thus far.

Your leagues are here – Fantasy Razzball and Razzball Commenter League

As the first month of the season winds down, it’s time to finally look in on our Fantasy Razzball leagues to see how well our participants are doing at sucking.

For those unfamiliar with ‘Fantasy Razzball’, it’s a fantasy baseball variation where you aim to manage the worst team possible.  (See here for rules).  We expanded from one Blogger league last year (won by me – suck it Grey) to 6 10-team divisions:  3 blogger leagues and 3 commenter divisions (note:  we may actually have some satellite leagues – need to check on this).  We then compile a total standings based on each team’s total points and an index based on league performance (basically, it’s total points of league divided by average league points).

The standings can be found here.  For future reference, we have a link to this page in our Razzball Leagues section in the top left of the homepage.

Big shout-out to the top 3 so far:

1) Mike Podhorzer of FantasyPros911.com

2) Grey Albright of Razzball

3) Freak of the Razzball Commenters

27 and rising) Rudy Gamble of Razzball (still smarting from Brandon Inge and Marco Scutaro’s hot starts)

As part of these standings posts, I’m going to throw a few shout-outs to the participating blogs.  We appreciate them putting their reputations on the line to compete against bloggers and commenters in our little masochistic game.  Here it goes:

Jonathan Halket of THT Fantasy Focus – Jonathan writes for The Hardball Times’ Fantasy Baseball section and currently is leading the Jose Lima Division (of which I am in).  Definitely some strong content throughout that whole site – ranging from very statistical to smart but entertaining (e.g., Shysterball).  From his post-article bio that states “Jonathan Halket is graduate student in New York”, I have learned two things:  1) Jonathan Halket is in graduate school and 2) He is not studying English.

Paul Moro of UmpBump – Paul is one of a stable of awesome bloggers at what would’ve been Billy Martin’s second favorite blog after Razzball (Billy would’ve appreciated Grey’s ’stache).  Rather than copy/paste his whole bio, I figured I’d just copy his picture and give you the link to his bio.  If you’re a baseball fan beyond the fantasy aspect, definitely check out this site.

Cory Humes of MVN – Cory – who is also in my FantasyPros911 NL Blogger league – has a leg up on everyone in this game as he’s a diehard Pirates fan.  Cory’s too busy overseeing MVN these days to post some entries on Pirates Revolution but I’m looking forward to his coverage of the Pirates’ inevitable Razztastic slide this year.

That’s it for now.  We’ll try to keep these standings updates posts coming every 2 weeks and update the standings at least that often.  We’ll change the date on the standings page when we update it.