Oh, they’re not just bad. Nah, I outdid even myself this time. On this drafternoon, I picked a team that is near-perfectly awful. They simultaneously suck and blow. On a scale of one to ten, they’re a negative seven. I did the math! Somehow I managed to get a team where not one hitter projects for more than twelve home runs. If someone in the Royals brass gets wind of my drafting skills, I may get a job! If you think I’m being facetious (which was recently outlawed in Madagascar), shame on you. And shame on this team! I took part in a fantasy baseball draft this past Saturday to pick the worst fantasy baseball team. And I think I done did it. My co-conspirators in this were:
Roto Rob
Tirico Suave
Drunk Jays Fans
Fantasy Baseball Cafe
Fantasy Pros 911
Hire Jim Essian
Sharapova’s Thigh
Fantasy Baseball Geeks
Beyond the Box Score
Come with me as I take out the trash:
Random thoughts about various rounds of the draft:
ROUND 1 – I had my eye on Ronnie Belliard like only Mrs. Belliard could ever know. He’s eligible at 1st! Need I continue? Okay, he’s on the Nats. Should I go on? His K rate has been going up. More? He’s also eligible at 3rd. All right, one more thing. He’s projected for 400 ABs and 11 home runs. Bleh, and thank you.
ROUND 2 – It was between Chone Fuggums and Lousy Castillo. Had to go with the more shallow position of 3rd base. Fuggums will probably get 500 ABs, and, I don’t know, 4 HRs. Not a bad guy for the Not Corner.
ROUND 3 – And Lousy Castillo makes it back to me. Projected for 487 ABs and… Wait for it… Here it comes… Hold on, I have an itch… All right, here it is… Zero home runs! WTF? How is that even possible?
ROUND 4 – Okay, I’ve waited on crappy outfielders long enough. Skip Suckmaker, you’re mine! Thank you, LaRussa.
ROUND 5 – I’m actually worried about my Runs at this point. No, I didn’t just drink some Mexican water. So to clog up my tailpipe, I select Erick Aybar. He’s projected for less than 50 Runs and over 400 ABs. Later I will add his Brother in Razzball Charms.
ROUND 6 – One thing I really notice about drafting craptacular players, everyone has a different draft sheet. It’s like you got ten owners together that have all been in solitary confinement for the last six months. Everyone knows who’s crappy, but nobody knows which order anyone else is going to take them, so guys last longer than you think they will. Without further ado, Brian Schneider.
ROUND 7 – And because no one knows when anyone is drafting a player, you (or at least I) want to fill up your (my) Utility spot with another catcher that I know will rack up the ABs and little else — Yadier Molina.
ROUND 8 – Super futility man, Willie Aybar.
ROUND 9 – Finally, I take a pitcher. Not just any pitcher, but a pitcher worthy of a Razzball Spotlight, Gorilla Ponson.
ROUND 10 – B. Giles because anyone who’s ever played any level of baseball can put up his stats.
ROUND 11 – Travis Ishikawa. Everyone loses a job on your fantasy Razzball team, so backups are very helpful and Giants hitters are even more so. Worst case scenario, Ishikawa and Belliard will make a nice blahtoon.
ROUND 12 – Vicente Padilla, probably my riskiest pick so far. He can’t make it out of May with a job, can he?
ROUND 13 – Endy Chavez. Nicest thing anyone can ever say about a guy on your Fantasy Razzball team, “He’s a great fielder!”
ROUND 14 – DeWayne Wise. Ozzie’s crazy enough to give him 500 ABs, but he’s not crazy enough to lead him off, is he?
ROUND 15 – Having played this league last year, I knew anyone I took on the pitching side would lose their job sooner than later if I was playing right. With his 150th pick, Grey selects Danys Baez, a leading candidate for an Orioles rotation spot. You heard me right, non-Orioles fans. Baez might be an Orioles starter this year. How’s dem apples? Delicious!
ROUND 16 – Mark Buerhle. Tried to balance all of the starters I was going to lose with a guy who can give me 200 lame innings. There’s a chance I bench him until he gets cold.
ROUND 17 – Matt Harrison. Okay, I’m a sucker for sucky Texas pitchers.
ROUND 18 – Jamie Moyer. Another innings eater-slash-guy you can’t believe is still a major league starter.
ROUND 19/20 – Chris Dickerson and Gerald Laird. Dickerson’s a K machine, but he’s the only guy on my entire team with any downside. I’ll be honest. I might be patroling the waiver wire for a Dickerson replacement. As for Laird, it’s really hard to resist taking an extra catcher. They’re all so good!
ROUND 23/24 – Jesse Litsch and Mike Pelfrey. Some of you may be sad to see these guys here because you have them on your regular fantasy teams. Let’s just say, I’m hoping these guys stay healthy because they could be in for an awfully wonderful year.
ROUND 25/26/27 – Kevin Frandsen and Cristian Guzman and Gabe Gross. Not sure how this crapfecta lasted this long, but I just had to back up some of my other guys that are sure to lose playing time. Actually, if I played my cards right, some of them might have lost playing time already. Razztastic!
I don’t think I’ve ever been more nervous before a draft than this FRL one.
I’m taking you down, Iowa.
So, you’re the Mets minus Professor Reyes and co. That is too perfect.
My draft is tonight. I’m basically just going to draft your team, Grey, if that’s cool.
Have no idea how to strategize. Basically, I took my Fantasy Baseball magazine and started reading the rankings backwards.
Well, hello, Radhames Liz!
Random question – if the goal is essentially to have the worst fantasy team, why are steals excluded, when they are such a big part of “real roto”?
@Freak: Talking smack, I like that. And not a peep from Iowa, wow.
@Smooth Lever: Yup, there’s lots of great around four hundred pounds of ugly on that team.
@Baron Von Vulturewins: You actually might be able to draft my team since there’s no set rankings anywhere, people tend to grab players willy-nilly. R. Liz is a great pick… Actually anyone on the O’s and Jays not named Halladay.
@Jon: Rudy devised the game, so I’ll let him answer you when he gets a chance.
@Jon: I thought about it including SBs somehow but the spirit of Razzball necessitates factoring in CS. I believe a 70% success rate is considered the baseline so if an SB was valued at +1 and CS at -2, it just came out that most players were at or around zero. So it just proves less cluttered not to credit SBs.
The rules aren’t written in stone so we’ll re-evaluate in 2010 based on player feedback…
I have Dickerson on a team as a 5th OF like you, only it’s not razzball. Made me start thinking, who are some players you’d gladly take in both leagues?
I have my Razzball draft this weekend, and I too am quite nervous. There are so many sucky players, it’s tough to choose.
One suggestion I might make for Rudy is to look into including GIDP as a stat next year. For those ‘great’ ballplayers who like to suck the energy out of any possible rally…
@bpasinko: That’s called finger-cuffing and I would own Dickerson in both leagues too. Reynolds, Cust, Gomez, Taveras, etc. There’s lots of players that cross over like EPMD. But it sure is bittersweet when they do perform well or poorly.
Note: We have a couple of final slots open. If you want to get in, please send an e-mail to rudy@razzball.com.
We had 10 last year. It looks like we’ll end up with 90 participants. It’ll just be that much sweeter when I retain my title as the best compiler of sucky players!
Hey I will finally have a use for Mathew Berry’s rankings in my draft tonight! Barry zitto here I come.
The Padres are razztastic. Check their team up the middle:
C- Nick Hundley
2b-Eckstein/Adrian’s brother
SS-Luis Rodriguez
Cf-Jody Gerut
It’s a little cheap the Dodgers get to play them 19 times and call themselves division winners.
@Eric W: Ha!
@bpasinko: The Padres are so money.
Looks like you assembled the worst fantasy team ever on the worst fantasy site ever, ESPN.
@Grey: I’m thinking I’ll load up on my hometown Jays, so I can “root” for them again.
@Juice: Thanks!
@Baron Von Vulturewins: I could see a case made to even draft Rios. I mean they’re bad.
@Juice: To be fair, ESPN let us do our crazy point assignments for free where it would’ve costed on other services. (Sorry – my inner ombudsman requires me to write this)
@Hardcore Midget: Yeah, GIDP is good…was thinking at one point you just credit for any out that a player creates. But the more you customize, the tougher it is to implement in a free tool and the tougher it is to prep (i.e., who projects GIDP?).
BTW, here’s a good piece on GIDPs I read recently. More proof that Ausmus is the Bossmus!
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-worst-thing-a-batter-can-do/
Hey, I couldn’t make my razzball draft (saturday night at 8:30, for some reason) so I had to leave the league. Are there any other leagues with openings? I need somewhere to implement my grit-based player rankings.
@youngid: See comment #10
Pelfrey???? What the…explain!! haha
From May 21 through July 25, Pelfrey made 11 starts. During that time period he was 7-0 with a 2.57 ERA, and allowed just 20 walks in 73.2 innings. Now it is true that late August and September were not so hot, but that is endemic on the Metropolitans
He has a low K%, but with a 98 MPH fastball, that should be rectified. As an optimistic Met fan, I project 16-19 wins. Then again, all Mets fans need to be optimistic; otherwise they would kill themselves.
But I do like the pickup of the Flying Aybar Brothers – it always seemed to me that their name was more apt for a trapeeze team then forballplayers.
@Grey: Is it worth picking up and stashing Kelvin Escobar and Dustin McCowan in my DL spots or they belong on your recently assembled Sucky team?
@Rudy Gamble: My apologies kind sir, I shall never overstep that imaginary line again.
@Grey – I forgot to applaud you on your selection of Luis Castillo, who has the amazing capacity to allow us Met fans to yearn for the halcyon days of Kaz Matsui.
@Paulie Allnuts: Pelfrey may end up on the scrap heap for providing too much inverse value, but there’s always a Matt Albers out there. His low Ks is what excited me though.
@Juice: Snap, Rudy and you had it out! Escobar is worth is, still a little early on McGowan unless you have a DL spot burning a hole in your pocket.
Is that Dustin McGowan in your pocket or you just happy to see me?
You got Ponson! I named my team after him! And Baez too! Oh man I’m going to finally have some Orioles on one of my teams oh man.
Hello stepsister. Lookin mighty fine tonight
@Juice: Have you and Rudy made up yet?
@cockyphoenix: I was pleasantly surprised Ponson lasted as long as he did.
@Grey: depending on how long it takes for his inevitable tank and/or for the Royals to get fed up with his drunk ass that could be a huge steal for you
@cockyphoenix: An innings eater on a bad team is about the best you can hope for and man can he eat innings.
@Grey:
nice job on this draft .
couple of questions ….. did you consider johima over laird ?
where did daniel cabrera go ?
well this explains all those crazy ‘Percent Owned’ stats you find sometimes in ESPN. Its your fault!!
@big o: Laird will get more playing time potentially because Clement could be taking some in Seattle. Cabrera went in round 7, 63rd overall. A bit too early for him. He strikes out too many.
@arussell1983: Ha!
@Grey: Just finished the Razz draft in Bizarro World. I had to “reach” for Ponson but I feel like he brings a certain miserableness that should infect the whole team.
Also, I drafted Sean Casey, then someone told me he’d retired. That counts for something, right?
@Baron Von Vulturewins: Quite happy with my starting five:
Sidney Ponson, KC SP
Radhames Liz, Bal SP
Jason Marquis, Col SP
Joe Blanton, Phi SP
Danys Baez, Bal SP
with Brian Moehler thrown in for bad luck. I wanted Garland but he got snatched up a few picks before me.
Once I figured out that the ESPN player lists were configured to league stats, and so actually listed people in order of crappiness, I felt much better. That, and when I remembered my password six minutes before the draft started.
@Baron Von Vulturewins: Marquis in Colorado seems like a marriage made in hell.
Where was I when this started?
Oh well…………..
@Baron Von Vulturewins: That’s a solid front line. They look like the French Army ready for battle.
Marquis de Shat, for sure. An innings eater in Colorado. Blech!
@Grey: If Chavez gets hurt again in Oakland and they go with Jack Hannahan at 3B, he should be the steal of the draft.
The draft was kind of hilarious, like 9 people running around in a room knee-deep in shwizz, holding their noses and fishing around for gold nuggets they’d been told were buried there.
@Baron Von Vulturewins: It is a lot of fun. I think it’s because no one has any preconceived notion as what to do. Like in one draft Lousy Castillo will go in the first round and in another he’ll go in the 5th round. Everyone’s draft sheet is headed with “Guys To Avoid” crossed out.
Jack Hananananan is a great late round flier. He’s the kind of guy that can pull out 300 ABs of pure, “Why was he given 300 ABs? Ask Geren.”
Chris Dickerson fo lyfe.
Rookie of the Year, BAYBAY!
@and1mcgee: Crooked hats fo lyfe!
@Juice: ha. no worries.
We’ve got one more opening in a Fantasy Razzball league. E-mail me at rudy@razzball.com if you’re interested!