Stephen Strasburg hitting the disabled list puts the punctuation mark on the end of my fantasy baseball season. This has not been a season I’d like to remember. Despite having the third most points scored in my head-to-head points league, I am sitting one spot out of last place. The only take home is that I will have the second pick in next year’s draft. Can’t wait. Seriously though I couldn’t be more ready for fantasy football at this point. However, I still have an obligation to my four readers. Wait, do I? Grey? Ok fine! Not everyone is in the same position as me (or is it “as I”). I guess it’s whatever I write. It’s not like the grammar police is one of my four followers. And if they are, what are the chances they will correct me.
So where did I go wrong this season? Coming off a championship season, how did I fall so far? Was it just bad luck or bad decisions? Or was it the fact that I had last pick?
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Well it wasn’t at catcher. I projected Buster Posey to be the top catcher and he is. It didn’t take much to come up with that not-so-bold prediction. However I didn’t draft Posey. While I did draft Travis d’Arnaud, he was quickly benched and subsequently dropped shortly after I picked up Wilson Ramos, who might be better than Posey this season.
At first base I had Paul Goldschmidt as a keeper. So I can’t point the finger of blame at 1B. Plus I drafted both Freddie Freeman and Joey Votto as backups/utility players. While it took Freeman some time to kick it in gear, both he and Votto are firmly in the top ten.
Perhaps my best selection in the draft was Robinson Cano. I grabbed Cano with the first pick of the ninth round. I had him pegged as the comeback player of the year. I think I nailed that one.
Third base is the first position where things didn’t go so well for me. I drafted Mike Moustakas. An ACL injury ended his season after seven weeks of less than stellar performance. I replaced Moustakas with Jung Ho Kang and was feeling pretty good about myself. However Kang seems to have fizzled out quite a bit since all of that rape talk surfaced. Apparently “he so horny”.
Francisco Lindor was my selection at shortstop and I couldn’t be more pleased. To make matters even better, I picked up Jose Ramirez off the waiver wire halfway into the season and have never looked back. I’d like to say he was the best waiver wire pickup this season, but Ramos and Danny Duffy might have him beat in that department.
There is no doubt that my biggest failure this season was drafting Justin Upton. The failure actually isn’t mine, it’s Upton’s. Milk was a bad choice. I mean Justin was a bad choice. I should have taken anyone else and then picked up his brother off the waiver wire. Everyone loves a good B.J. Oh, that’s right, he goes by Melvin. Both are better names that what I’ve been calling Justin all season.
I did manage to draft Gregory Polanco who has been best Pittsburgh Pirate outfielder this season. Unless, of course, you really needed stolen bases. Then you might prefer Starling Marte. What about Andrew McCutchen? He’s not even in the top 40 OF this season. However, I think I am looking at my 2017 comeback player of the year. You heard it hear first. Mark it down. See Cano for my track record.
My third OF pick was David Peralta. If I were writing a story about his 2016 season it would go something like this. David’s first five weeks were good. Then he was hurt, and eventually dropped. End of story. The CliffsNotes version would be more like this. David Peralta was a waste in 2016.
I think my biggest problems this season were injuries and ineffective keepers. Zach Greinke had a very poor start. He had some good starts between weeks 7 and 11 (Slurpee anyone?), but then spent some time on the DL, and now it’s too late. Felix Hernandez has only 96 strikeouts and was on the DL from week 8 to 16. Sure, he pitched two good games last week, but the fat lady has already sung. And by “fat lady” I mean Billy Butler in a blonde wig that Danny Valencia mashed on his head. I heard he said “up your Butler” when he walked away from the altercation.
This brings me to Gerrit Cole. Another keeper that has underperformed and spent weeks on the disabled list. I still really like this kid and am hoping the 25 year old bounces back nicely next season. And finally we have Strasburg. Even with his recent visit to the DL, I really cannot complain. Stephen has been awesome this season. At least he waited for my team to be officially eliminated before taking his obligatory DL stint.
The only good thing I was able to salvage out of this team was the ability to secure some extra first round draft picks for next season. Our league has a rule that limits the number of trades we can make for draft picks to two. So that’s exactly what I did. Along the way I moved players such as Cano, Ramos, Upton, Bautista (I got in trade), Tanner Roark, Kyle Hendricks, Vincent Velasquez, and David Robertson for two additional first round picks in the 2017 draft. If the season were to end now I’d have the 2nd, 3rd and 9th picks. So there’s that. But in a ten-team league with five keepers, that doesn’t leave a ton a sure fire players for our first round. Maybe the team with McCutchen won’t keep him and I’ll be able to scoop him up with one of my picks.
The next question is who to keep out of Felix Hernandez and Danny Duffy? But I guess I have a few months to think that one over…
