Fantasy Baseball: The Half-way Point…

The All-Star break is here.

i’ve never been a fan of the All-Star game. It is a popularity contest, not a game for the best players at this point. But that’s what you get when you leave the starting line up to the fans…

My fantasy team however is sitting on an 8-4-2 record. 2nd in my division by 1 game. 3rd in the league. I currently hold a playoff spot. The #1 team has a 10-4 record… those 2 ties against the 2 bottom ranked teams are hurting me, but they are better than loses.

Out of the 21 players I drafted, 12 have been replaced. Some many times over.

My 1st 2 picks are proving their weight in gold. Chase Utley and Grady Sizemore have been everything advertised.

My main weakness is Home Runs. Utley and Sizemore lead my team with 15 home runs each. I need a big bat.

Grabbing Kenny Rogers and Fausto Carmona off the waivers have proven to be good moves. Wandy Rodriguez was a good pick up too. Schmidt and BJ Ryan hitting the season-ending DL didn’t help, but I think I have recovered.

So far it has been a good season. Great competition. Lots of young, new players making a difference, and lots of moves to be made on the waiver wire.

Wish me luck.

Fantasy Baseball: 1-0

Week 1 is over, and aside from missing 4 games with Grady Sizemore’s stats, I was able to pull out a week 1 win winning 9 stat categories and losing 6. This week will be tougher, I am facing another 1-0 team who had a really good week last week.

Hopefully this week, Grady really likes playing in Milwaukee…

Wish me luck!

Fantasy Baseball: I might die from an overdose…

I love this time of the year.

We had our fantasy baseball draft last night. Sadly, I did not get Albert Pujols. He went #1 as predicted, and I had the 8th pick (go figure). I am very happy with my team and the choices I made. I have a couple of small holes, some places to beef up, and of course, you know some young kid will start off the season on fire (Santana from a couple of years ago; Weaver last season), and some veteran will redefine slump. But no matter what, baseball is finally here.

Alas, the sports section will be interesting again!

It all begins on Sunday night, the New York Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals will kick off the season.

Then it is on to the the daily scouring of the waiver wire. Then checking the buzz index to see who’s hot? who’s in a slump? Wondering why 500 people have dropped Francisco Liriano (he’s on the 60 day DL, by the way). And then there are the attempts to try and get the pitcher who went 8 innings, and 14 strikeouts, or the unknown slugger who belted 3 home runs last night before anyone else in the league does.

The game is on.

Every game has meaning. Don’t get me wrong, the Indians are my team, and you never root against your own team, you bench your fantasy player, or you let it go. Never root for points over real-life wins.

Ah, I love this game!

Fantasy Baseball: I have a problem…

My addiction to fantasy baseball makes me think I need to go to a meeting and tell people my name.

Last night, I got into a somewhat passionate discussion with two fellow fantasy baseballers about the upcoming draft on Sunday, March 25th.

“who’s your #1 pick?”
“if pedro is available in the 9th round, he’s a good value pick”

Value pick? What kind of a term is that? What am I? The GM of a multi-million dollar team of professional athletes and a city-fan-base to support my choices? No. I am geek who has a fan base of 1, and 11 other GMs who want to beat me, and a wife that just doesn’t get my obsession.

So who is my #1 pick? Albert Pujols. The 2006 World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals First Baseman. Who at the ripe age of 27 has 250 HRs and who strikes out every 8.8 at bats (some guys like Russell Branyon used to strike out every 8.8 pitches).

But Pujols is going to be everyone’s #1 pick, and I most certainly will not be picking first, so how do you make a value pick after the top 3 choices? What importantce do you put on pitching so early in the game? When do you grab the first closer? do you stock up on shallow positions like Catcher and Second Base while everyone else stocks up on big-bopper Outfielders?

I guess I will have to wait until Sunday to see what I do.