Usually, as one does, I type with my fingers. Hunt and peck with mostly the index’ers, but definitely fingers all the way. I’m so pumped up going for the win this year I’m typing up this post with both fists. WE MUST WIN! BY WE I MEAN ME! BY ME I MEAN I, IF “I” WAS SUPPOSED TO BE USED IN THAT SENTENCE INSTEAD OF ME; I DON’T KNOW, AND AM TOO HYPED UP TO LOOK INTO IT, IN FACT, THIS SENTENCE IS KINDA KILLING MY HYPE BY EVEN DISCUSSING GRAMMAR. GRAMMAR BOO! WINNING THIS LEAGUE YAY! Actually using my fists is not enough. I will now type up this post by banging my forehead on the keyboard. ABCJIVS1I7$ Damn, that didn’t work so well. Maybe I’ll try my nose. Hekko, froend. Ugh, that didn’t work either. Okay, I’m gonna use my fingers again, but I’m just as pumped up. RAWR! Anyway, here’s my Yahoo Friends & Family team, it’s a 15-team, mixed league:
C: Chris Iannetta
1B: Jose Abreu
2B: Whit Merrifield
3B: Joey Gallo
SS: Francisco Lindor
CI: Justin Smoak
MI: Ketel Marte
OF: Mookie Betts
OF: Eddie Rosario
OF: Trey Mancini
OF: David Peralta
UTIL: Miguel Andujar
UTIL: Jackie Bradley Jr.
Bench: Matt Kemp
P: Carlos Martinez
P: Lance McCullers
P: Sonny Gray
P: Patrick Corbin
P: Chase Anderson
P: Trevor Williams
P: Alex Reyes
P: Arodys Vizcaino
P: Shane Greene
Bench: Alex Claudio, Juan Minaya, Jimmy Nelson
CHICKEN NUGGETS CAN BE SHORTENED TO NUGGS AND YOUR PITCHING CAN BE SHORTENED TO UGHS
In the immortal words of Billy Joel, “Darling, I don’t know why I got to extremes. Too high or too low there ain’t no in-betweens.” Or as Keith Hernandez sings before every game, “Ron Darling, I don’t know why I go to extremes.” Wasn’t the plan to sorta, kinda, well, definitely, punt pitching. Honestly, I didn’t even know I was punting pitching, until I looked at the projections. The projections for my pitching staff is the stuff of legend. Only legend in this case is the really bad Tom Cruise movie, and I’m a Tom Cruise apologist! I love him, but Legend isn’t good, and the projections for my staff are not either. Here is the War Room totals (prepare to shudder):
If your eyes are going or that image makes your eyes cross, yes, that is a 2.4 out of a possible 16 points in WHIP. That’s comically bad. The 5.1 for Ks isn’t so, uh, good either. So, what happened? Let’s take one team as an example. Someone drafted Max Scherzer in the 1st round. Not crazy, no. Of course, he was the 4th pitcher off the board! But, okay, let’s just say there was an early 1st round pitching run. Some people want that one number ace. *smacks vein* They gotta to have it, yo! Yeah, that wouldn’t be bad if it stopped there. The person who drafted Scherzer, followed that pick with Madison Bumgarner in the 2nd round. “Well, that’s plenty of pitchers for an entire draft,” you say, batting your eyes. You twirl your finger in your 1980’s phone cord and say, “I don’t mind having a two starter foundation, there is a lot of offense still out there.” Okay, great. That person followed Scherzer and Bumgarner with Justin Verlander! If they were the only one doing it, it would be one lone crazy man running into a Burger King with no pants. However, there were 13 starters taken in the first three rounds. Robbie Ray went in the 3rd round! Multiple teams had multiple starters before I took Carlos Martinez, and now there’s talk Carlos Martinez might’ve touched someone’s no-no area without consent. I haven’t yet moved C-Mart down my rankings, but if the writing on the wall is saying anything of note, there’s a chance I don’t even have my 1st starter.
IF THE TOP’S THE TOP AND THE BOTTOM’S THE BOTTOM, THEN PLAY FOR THE MIDDLE.
Precisely, Mr. Al Bolden Caps. There was some discussion recently on Twitter that I saw (because Razzball was tagged).
Doing some fantasy baseball research and figured I’d share (I’m sure this has been done before, but I’m not familiar with FBB twitter). 2017 NFBC ADP vs player value courtesy of @Razzball (s/o @rudygamble).
Will try to break this out by position next. pic.twitter.com/0BEpRjY7QQ
— Anthony Amico (@amicsta) February 28, 2018
He’s tagging us because we have the best projections. This is one thing I think people lose sight of because I joke around, but we have the best projections. Lots of studies have been done, and our projections are regularly at or near top of the heap. Anyway, there’s one big takeaway from that thread, “At least in 2017, catcher and 1B were your most reliable options based on ADP. I can also see why folks wait on pitching. After the top few, it becomes a lot more scattered.” Essentially, what I’ve been saying for years. Starters are a crapshoot. What this league did by so many people taking top starters is it allowed people to load up on hitting, and then play for 4th best pitching.
SO YOU HAVE THE 4TH BEST PITCHING?!
Prolly not. I like the starters I drafted, even took a few that I can just DL — Hello, Alex Reyes and Jimmy Nelson. — but this goes back to our projections. As I showed above with the 2.4 in WHIP (HAHA, WTF?), the projections don’t love my starters. I am firmly on my own island with a lot of these guys, muttering to my volleyball, Wilson. Trevor Williams (sleeper), Patrick Corbin (sleeper), Sonny Gray and Chase Anderson are guys that Rudy’s projections do not like at all. I like them all, but, yeah, it might be asking a lot for me to be right on all of them, while Rudy’s hates them.
OKAY OFF THE NEGATIVE STUFF, LET’S BASK IN YOUR HITTING. LINDOR! BETTS! ABREU! WITH ALL OF THOSE GREAT BATTING AVERAGE GUYS, I CAN EVEN GET BEHIND JOEY GALLO! NOT TO MENTION, EDDIE ROSARIO, TREY MANCINI AND, UH…MATT KEMP?
Once the season starts, Miguel Andujar will move to my N/A slot, and I will need to platoon someone off waivers with someone else on my team, so, at pick 352, I took Kemp. Honestly, my early hitting picks are so stacked, I can juggle my UTIL spots between Mikie Mahtook and Tucker Barnhart for the classic MiTucker Barntook blahtoon, and be fine. You know your hitting is gonna be stacked when you draft Francisco Lindor with the 24th overall pick.
ANY BIG REGRETS, BESIDES, YA KNOW, HALF YOUR TEAM?
Sigh. I didn’t think Trevor Bauer was still on the board when he was drafted at 157 overall. I would’ve taken him over Lance McCullers. Freakin’ Yahoo’s got some guys so buried, you’re like this drafting, “Well, looks like the last closer on the board is Brad Ziegler,” then 4 rounds later you stumble on Alex Claudio ranked around 870. That happened with Bauer. I was scrolling around, looking for players to draft, and saw McCullers was still there, so I grabbed him. Then four rounds later I’m like, “Trevor Bauer was still available?!” Likely because he’s ranked somewhere obscene in the 200s.
REGRETS ARE LIKE A BENT-OVER PLUMBER, THEY BUM ME OUT. LEAVE ME WITH SOMETHING UPLIFTING AND SPIRITUAL.
My average was so insanely good in the middle of the draft, according to the projections — a 54 out of 32! — that I drafted Joey Gallo and my average is still way above average. Everyone on my team, besides Gallo and (insert catcher name), will hit .280+. I know, I know, average is fickle, but it’s not going to be that fickle. Average also equals runs and RBIs, and many of my guys will give some steals. In all, my offense will be crazy balanced. So, hopefully I can get off the schneid in this league. Or off the Schneider, if The Ghost of Bonnie Franklin is reading. By the way, the New York Times described Bonnie Franklin’s character on One Day At A Time as “pert but determined.” That sounds exactly like me, one determined fantasy baseball ‘pert!
