So, Rudy says to me, “You should get into a Best-Ball league?” And I replied, “Is that a fantasy league where everyone drafts in blue Polos like you work at Best Buy?” Then I saw those three little dots like he was typing something, then they disappeared. Then I saw the three dots again, and, alas, they disappeared again. Finally, he responded, “You don’t think that do you?” After googling what Best-Ball was, I replied, “No, jokes, man, jokes!” So, I got myself in my first Best-Ball league. Everyone likely knows what it is, but, if you don’t, it’s when you draft a team and the computer manages it for you by choosing who are the best players, and you get those stats. It’s basically one fantasy league removed from the robots taking over and killing us all. Drafting with me in my league was Elon Musk, Issac Asimov–Okay, I keed. Anyway, here’s my NFBC Best-Ball, Points League, 10 team draft recap:
C: Jorge Alfaro — 21st
C: Omar Narvaez — 24th
1B: Max Muncy — 9th
2B: Rougned Odor — 10th
SS: Francisco Lindor — 2nd
3B: Jose Ramirez — 1st round, 5th pick
CI: Joey Wendle — 19th
MI: Adalberto Mondesi — 5th
OF: Juan Soto — 4th
OF: George Springer — 6th
OF: Marcell Ozuna — 7th
OF: Andrew McCutchen — 12th
OF: Nomar Mazara — 16th
UTIL: Jorge Polanco — 20th
Bench: Trey Mancini (23), Ian Happ (26), Jeff McNeil (27), Tyler White (30), Kevin Kiermaier (33), Yonder Alonso (34), David Fletcher (35), Ronald Guzman (37), Tim Beckham (38), Daniel Palka (39), Christian Vazquez (40)
P: Justin Verlander — 3rd
P: German Marquez — 8th
P: Zack Wheeler — 11th
P: Raisel Iglesias — 13th
P: Rick Porcello — 14th
P: Nick Pivetta — 15th
P: Joey Lucchesi — 17th
P: Jose Alvarado — 18th
P: Kyle Gibson — 22nd
Bench: Forrest Whitley (25), Brandon Woodruff (28), Touki Toussaint (29), Trevor May (31), Vince Velasquez (32), Caleb Smith (36), Sergio Romo (41), Ty Buttrey (42)
I KNOW YOU WEREN’T FAMILIAR WITH THE FORMAT, BUT WERE YOU ALSO UNFAMILIAR WITH THE FACT YOU SAID YOU HATED JOSE RAMIREZ THIS YEAR?
Haha, yes, this is where the comedy really comes in. I took the whole Best-Ball thing with computers managing my team one more step than anyone else — I autodrafted the first four rounds too! As mentioned above, Rudy told me to get into the league, so I paid the $150 to join the league, then, because I have my spam filters set so high, I didn’t get the emails saying the league was starting and I drafted Jose Ramirez, Francisco Lindor, Justin Verlander and Juan Soto. Nice on Sexy Dr. Pepper; not so nice on three other guys I would never draft. I guess I’ve inadvertently hedged my bets in case I’m wrong on Jo-Ram being an also-ran. It’s either first world problems I paid to join a league that started drafting without me or I drafted too many leagues this year. I’m gonna make like a teamster and lean on the latter. Thankfully, this was a slow draft, and only ten teams, so it wasn’t catastrophic (at least that’s what I keep telling myself). I’m actually okay with where I took Lindor, 16th overall. On my sheet, he was ranked 13th overall, totaling 682 Points and, well, this is a good time to tell you what their Points were:
WHAT, ARE YOU MALAMONEY NOW WITH THE POINTS LEAGUE POSTS? THIS IS A LATE 3RD ACT TWIST I DIDN’T SEE COMING.
Malamoney is still our Points League guy, but Rudy told me I could pay $150, autodraft the 1st four rounds and the winner gets $250. That’s not a typo, somehow I joined a league where the winner gets $250 after depositing $150. I’m told there’s a good overall prize. Oh…*rappels up the side of the Sphinx’s face*…Kay. Hey, it was good practice! Any hoo! It was a 42 round draft, though I only participated in 38 rounds, and it’s points. These points do not compute like most Points Leagues. According to Rudy, Max Scherzer is the 14th best points earner in this league, after Lindor. Yes, we are trusting Rudy who got me in this fakakta league. So, unlike most Points Leagues, pitchers don’t drive your team. To further beat this dead horse, last year using this scoring, Scherzer scored 743.60 points and Whit Merrifield scored 729 points.
OKAY, I’M FADING, CAN YOU TELL ME IF YOU USED ANY SPECIFIC BEST-BALL STRATEGY? CAN YOU TELL ME LITERALLY ANYTHING OF USE HERE?
Whether correctly or not, I decided to go upside crazy in this league. As I figure it, winning this league doesn’t matter, because of the awful winner’s stake. I don’t care about winning $100 on a $150 bet. That’s viciously bad. However, the overall prizes are huge. 1st place gets $70,000 (think out of a thousand teams maybe), and I have to imagine the only people winning that prize are going to have a strong core but also a lot of shares of guys who well exceed their draft spot. In other words, German Marquez could be a mess, but this is Best-Ball so all the terrible starts should be removed, due to the system only counting the good starts, and Marquez’s good starts are automatically in my lineup. No sonavabenches here. Same reason I drafted Pivetta, Lucchesi, Alvarado, Whitley (only share of him), Woodruff, Touki and Velasquez. In theory, I won’t suffer any of their bad starts and only get the good ones. Of course, if they’re all bad, then the system will have to play some of them. Same with the batters. Do I like a guy like Kevin Kiermaier? Not really, but when he actually plays, he does have a high $/game. Same thinking with McNeil, Muncy, Springer, Ozuna, White…Basically, the whole team is looking at their ceilings and not worried about the floors. I’m going boom or bust, primarily.
YOU DRAFTED ADALBERTO MONDESI FINALLY. TAKE A LAP AROUND YOUR DESK.
My desk backs up against a wall, so a lap is difficult. I will high-five myself. Ow! Stupid carpal tunnel. Again, it goes back to all about that upside. For no other reason, I’m glad I was able to grab Mondesi in at least one league. Imagine he helps me win $70,000. I will travel to his hometown and organize a parade, Dia de Levantar los Pantalones, or Day of the Lifted Pants, and I will name my next dog, Adalberto, even though I really want to name my next dog, Arfer Woofruff.
