2016 REL Dynasty League: Regular Season Wrap-Up And World Series Update

If anyone has been following what the NL Commish has been doing to the Brewers, you know I’ve completely dismantled all the vets for prospects.  #TankingIsReal!  But with a payout for a 5-year period, I still wanted to stay semi-competitive.  At one point, I couldn’t even field half an offense.  At another point, I didn’t have a single starting pitcher currently in line for a start.  But over the final two months, a lot of my stashes got called up, unlikely sources kept it going, and I had a full rotation, making back 16 points from mid-July until the end.  On the final Sunday of the season, I hit .357 and got a 1.12 ERA and 0.81 WHIP in 16 innings, with a win and 2 saves.  That final line gave me a whopping 3.5 points up in the Roto table, and topping the Phillies – aherm, Sillies! – by a single point to get to 12th, the highest standing I’ve gotten to since early June.  What a way to go out!!!!

The active squad:

Offense – I’m in love with Ryan Schmipf.  What a lucky add.  Meh, actually not too much else is that interesting.  I’m loaded at OF, so NL teams out there – if you need some outfield depth, I’m going to be just like Slingin’ David Stearns and dealing like a madman!

Pitching – You know me, I’m the pitching guy, so scrapping the Brewers garbage rotation and putting something together here has been a conquest.  Getting Alex Reyes was monstrous, he looks unreal.  I am begging and pleading for the Dodgers to give Brock Stewart a rotation spot next year, but it might not happen.  I think Albert Suarez was a mad sneaky add right before he got back into the rotation, and might make the starting 5 next year.  Adam Morgan has looked serviceable as well.  And of course, my one Brewer Junior Guerra had an unbelievable rookie season.  If not for the amazing SS rooks, he could be in the NL ROY convo!  I was also happy to snag Alec Asher – I’m not really high on him, but he could enter 2017 in the Phils rotation as well.  And my bullpen actually looks decent as well; I think I snagged the 2017 Braves opening day closer in Cabrera on the final FAAB day.

The farm system:

On top of having the Brewers #1 ranked farm system (yes, I don’t have Lewis Brinson, but I own most of the other big players), I feel like I’ve assembled an awesome group of high-upside ‘spects.  Victor Robles and Eloy Jiminez are hopefully part of my OF of the future, and luckily I have a ton of OF for the 2-3 more years they have of seasoning anyway.  And I love me some Oscar De La Cruz as a hopeful future ace as the Cubs staff gets older.

Overall, it’s really interesting how much my first REL season mirrored the Brewers.  I dismantled the vets to build an elite farm system, yet stayed more competitive than I assumed, not being a doormat of the league.  I’m REALLY excited what kind of season I can have next year.  I hope everyone is pumped for the 2017 REL season, it’ll be here sooner than you think!

Well we did it.  We came back from 10-14 points back to win the AL.  I sold a bunch of prospects and in many cases I think I overpaid.  But in a league where your team is so tied to a major league club and your club is the Cleveland Indians I think you have to go for when you have the chance.

When I compared my team to the NL champs I can easily see we are the underdog.  He out scored me in every single category during the regular season.  I would have thought that my pitching would have the edge but with Salazar, Carrasco, and Bedrosian all done for the year we will have to get lucky with some less than optimal pitchers.  Kluber, Tomlin, and Bauer should be getting the starts no matter what.  I felt I had to pick up a couple starters to play the match ups so the best I could find is Peacock who has/had nice match ups with Oak and LAA.  He pitched fine against Oak so far so good.  I also pick up Ubaldo because he has been pitching well.  His first start was against the Boston so I sat him last night.  He pitched very well 5 innings of shut out ball with 8 strikeouts.  I could have used those numbers but it was too much of a risk.  I also have Fiers who has been very up and down.  One of his down nights could really do some damage to my chances of winning but I will most likely roll the dice.  Just like I’m hoping with the real Tribe, anything can happen in the playoffs injuries or not.

What went right this year:
My hitting.  If you would have told me that Michael Brantley would be basically a zero for the year I would not have guessed that I would have won the AL.  A lot of career or close to career years happened this season with Santana, Kipnis, Napoli, and Ramirez so can’t ask for much more than that.
Aggressive trading/buying.  I’m not saying I won a lot of trades this year but I was able to pick up stats in areas of weakness and turn them into an AL win and I’ll always over pay to win.  I was dead last in S/H category a good way into the season and climbed all the way to 3rd.  I also was a middle of the pack in home runs and was able to add Pujols and Gattis which lead to a 3rd place finish in that category as well.  I targeted certain needs, got players, and they actually produced in those areas.  Sounds simple enough but it doesn’t always work.

What went wrong this year:
Aggressive trading/selling of pitching prospects – I didn’t mean to trade all of my pitching prospects.  McKenzie will most likely prove to be my biggest regret.  My logic was that I was in win now mode and I had starting pitching.  Kluber, Carrasco, Salazar, Bauer, Tomlin are under contract with the Indians for the next few years so trade the starting pitching prospects and hope that the Indians draft some more in the coming years.  Now with Salazar’s elbow issues and Tomlin’s home run issues I wish I would have kept one or two.  This is not something that can’t be overcame and I still like my starters for next year.  Even though I sold many prospects I still have Mejia, Bradley, Benson, Jones, Chang and Allen as decent hitting prospects going forward.

It’s been a fun year and I now need a little luck.

Go Tribe!

Now onto me.

Frankly I don’t want to even talk or look at fantasy baseball right now. Baseball in general really. My parent team basically destroyed my season in the last month. They went from a top 3 AL team over 4+ months, to playing like one of the 3 worst teams in the whole league for the final 3 weeks of the REL season. I think you could pick almost any stat and they would be at the very bottom of it over those 3 weeks. Wins, OPS, AVG, Runs, RBIs, Ks, you name it. At one point I looked and I had one bat inside the top 175 in the prior 14 days. One. And he was around 85 in that period. My best player had an 0-23 stretch there, followed by some missed games to injury.

In September the Jays put together a 5-11 record, managed to score more than 5 runs twice and got outscored by a total of 31 runs! A minus 31 in the month of September! From a playoff team!?! This directly ties my team going from a 9 point lead to like a 9 point deficit since everything was so close in the standings. As for my bats, they gave me things like 4 guys with AVGs over .240, 1 guy with more than 10 RBI, nobody with more than 10 runs, nobody with more than 4 HR, one guy with more than one steal (2 whole steals), and 8 guys who struck out in at least 1/3 of their at bats. Pitching wise I got a whole 5 wins from my entire pitching staff, as well as some truly horrendous ratios from a handful of guys (I’m looking at you Grilli, Sanchez, Estrada).

As for my REL deadline deal acquisitions. Wow, where to begin. I did make deals to try to improve. I swear I did. This is how they turned out. Jordan Zimmermann. Oh Jordan Zimmermann. In a month and a half he managed to give me 2.2 IP / 0 W / 0 K / 10 Hits / 5 BB / 12 ER. Thanks soooo much! Jeremy Jeffress. Well, he was better than Jordan Zimmermann I guess, so that’s….something, right? A solid 5 IP / 0 W / 2 HD / 2 Hits / 5 BB / 2 ER. Of course, he then proceeded to get busted for a DUI and go to rehab less than 2 weeks after I traded for him. So I got nothing out of him at all for the last month of the REL season. I also dealt for Erasmo Ramirez who managed to pitch decently for me (19 IP/4 HD/9 K/2.37 ERA/1.26 WHIP), and Brad Miller who was pretty good (.227/20/10/31/0).

At this point the MLB Jays have almost played themselves completely out of the playoffs, though they’ll probably hold on to the last wild card spot. Which is more than I can say for my REL team. Pretty sad since they were in first place by like 3 games going into September. This league was supposed to allow me to root for my home town team through my fantasy team, strengthen the bonds and all that. It did for a while, but after what my team just did to me I don’t even want to watch them and barely care if they make the playoffs (I’m sure I care but, I’m just not feeling it right now). Stupid Blue Jays…

Here’s hoping next year is better, but since I have what I believe was the oldest team in baseball with some of their top players as free agents, that may be a tall order.

Quite a few things went right for me as I was in 1st most of the season and stayed near the top in the end. I think I did well with my key acquisitions in the draft (Porcello and Saunders), kept the more productive Orioles (besides maybe Hardy), and managed to get a steals guy in Kiermaier via trade (although too late). However, enough things went wrong as I ended the season in 3rd place.

My quick takeaways from playing in a dynasty league and how to improve for next season:
1. Balance is key so make sure to address your weak areas early on.
2. It is okay to sell the farm if you can win now as you may not get the chance again. (The Tribe are a good example of that, props to them)
3. Do not be afraid to trade more since player values changes all the time, but only make trades you are comfortable with. It is your team after all.
4. Be more patient with assets who have playing time. (Dropping Nunez still stings…)
5. Do more research on the unowned players and prospects in the league as there may be some value to be had.

On another note, Trey Mancini came up Tuesday and hit a home run in his first game.

Looking to the off season, here are some of my initial trade thoughts:
I will be looking to acquire a short stop or third baseman. I’d be willing to move Trumbo and/or Saunders (if both stay in the AL), some current farm pieces, and starter depth, but I’m open to any discussions.

In my opinion my original farm team was extremely weak so although it was possible to contend it got to a point where I wanted to focus on improving the minor leaguers and some skill position in the majors.

I’ve managed to acquire some minor league 1B help which should come in handy when VMart or Miguel either retire or need time off. While my OF’s were good going into the season I felt the need to bring more “depth” to the position due to Maybin getting injured every 3-4 days.

I’m looking forward to next year, hopefully the real Tigers make some solid moves in free agency and can help me with my pitching. Rodon has showed his skill set is real so that’s exciting and although Skaggs was lit up occasionally hopefully next year he will be back to full health and ready to contribute.

It’s been an exciting year, when does next year start???

Rays out!

Thanks also to JB and Slim who both did an outstanding job of managing through any of the inevitable first-year issues that came up. This league was a great experience and the first of what I’m certain will be many fun and competitive years. Only negative from my perspective was the relatively small amount of teams in contention (3 or 4) most of this season. Positives were everything else, engaged and responsive owners, really interesting format, and I can’t wait for Spring Training 2017!

With regard to the Royals, I’m fine with a 12th place finish and feel like I successfully achieved my primary goals for this season: 1) improving my farm system and 2) getting younger (my team that is, not me personally). I expect to be middle of the pack next year and hopefully a title contender by 2018. My main strategic takeaway is to better manage my FAAB budget next year. Ended up bidding my remaining $34 the last day on the relatively uninspiring Brad Peacock (who I had actually picked up for $2 earlier in the season-yikes!) and still came up $3 short to the Tribe. Not going to lose too much sleep over that one, but who knows in this crazy game? With my luck, wouldn’t surprise me if Peacock becomes an “out of nowhere” Cy Young candidate next year who ends up leading the Tribe to a second REL World Series appearance next year!