Fantasy Baseball

[jon abbey]

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[bostontricky]

Through some astute manuevering, I wind up with Lind, Butler and Kobayashi - giving up Casilla for Bartlett at SS in the process, fine for me as Casilla isn't running in the #2 spot for the Twinkies.

Posada - Butler - Cano - Beltre - Bartlett
Vlad - Lind - Gathright - Ortiz

Felix - Matsuzaka - Pettitte - Bonderman
Kobayashi - Zumaya - Devine



Gardiner went unclaimed. Can you run against Oakland? I still need a replacement for Ortiz until he's off the DL...

[Borat Pri Hagafen]

Suzuki has thrown out 21 of 58 base stealers. 36.2% CS rate puts him 4th in the majors among qualified catchers. Darren would be the one to ask about whether individual pitchers are easier to run on than others.

Greg Smith is statistically their easiest guy to run on, followed by Eveland. Casilla's let up 5 steals out of the pen as well.

[surfer]

Greg Smith is statistically their easiest guy to run on,

I'm assuming you're going by success percentage, because imo Smith is the hardest to run on because his pickoff move is the best in MLB, he leads the league in pickoffs (9). The A's are 2nd in MLB caught stealing percentage (38%), and have allowed the third fewest overall. Suzuki has a good arm, and overall we've done a good job defending against the stolen base.

IMO, Smith is the hardest, and probably Street or Casilla the easiest. That's just from memory, I didnt look up their individual stats.

[Borat Pri Hagafen]

9 SB against Smith according to ESPN, which is the most by an A. That was the extent of my research.

[bostontricky]

For some reason, I tabbed Joyce instead Gardner for the short week. For another unknown reason, someone dropped Sheffield for Garrett Anderson, so I grabbed Sheff for this week, until Papi reappears.

65.5, seventh place, ten points back. Lind and Butler seem to be just what the doctor ordered for my formerly moribund offense. Gathright's the only remaining black hole on offense, perhaps I can move Kobayashi (saves aren't going to help me)
to snag Sheff, Ben Francisco, someone...

[Borat Pri Hagafen]

How in hell is Ben Francisco available in an AL-only league? Not the highest of upsides, but I've owned him for long enough that he's played 49 games in my lineup, and has 30 runs and 30 rbi in those games, which projects to 99 over 162. Sheffield has higher upside, but Francisco has been pretty much a fixture in my lineup for the past 2 months. Of course, I'm in 9th place.

[bostontricky]

Man, I have no idea. The 11th place team dropped him for Wes Bankston; they traded me their first round pick (#2 overall) when it was apparent they couldn't take Buchholz, overlooking Adam Lind in the process (which is why I traded for the pick, fools) - then they pick up Bankston in the second round.

One of the problem with the tight standings is that there are no corpses to loot (last year someone was 77 points out at this time) -even the last place team still thinks he's got a shot at some coin, even though injuries to Matsui and Vernon Wells have probably kneecapped him. I made a polite overture for Manny, offering to take Lowell's expiring contract and a hurt Accardo for Beltre, Zumaya, and, well, I don't really have an OF to throw in there, Lind or Gathright.

The catch is, if Lind catches on fire and starts looking viable to this guy, I don't think I make the trade.

[bostontricky]

Bizarro World continues, I surge to 69 points and sole possession of fourth place, nine points back

Since the eleventh place team is at 60.5, I'm technically closer to eleventh than first. the eleventh place team is closer to first than last, and it's not like the last place team is in the teens....

78, 76, 71, 69, 67.5, 66, 66, 63.5, 61, 61, 60.5, 40.5

[Borat Pri Hagafen]

In my 12-team head-to-head league, the last place team has a record of 38-117-5, and is 55 games out of first. The 11th place team is 34.5 games ahead of him. Why, yes, I am the only team to have lost to the last place team, thanks for asking!

Only 4 teams make the playoffs, but I'm just 4 games out of 6th, and can make up most of my 8-game deficit to the 5th place team by beating his ass this week. Working 3 AM-3 PM for the next month probably won't help, but not giving up just yet.

Trade deadline's August 1st: I should still move a closer for something more useful to me.

[bostontricky]

Dwelling upon whether or not I should replace Posada with Jeff Mathis. I've got until 5:00 PM.

If I keep Posada I'm stuck with second choice of the available catchers out there as a injury replacement (at least until Victor comes back), and it's not an attractive pool.

Mathis, Laird, Varitek, Johjima, Barajas, Olivo, Inge etc. No one's done anything remotely productive over the last month except Mathis (15 RBIs).

I don't want Laird if he moves to the Yankees. I'd be interested in Max Ramirez if Laird moves, though...

[jon abbey]

the Yankees won't be getting Laird or any other catcher, if that helps. in the real world, Molina's been fantastic this year, even with his awful hitting.

[bostontricky]

After some rumblings from a couple of other teams, I quickly grab Mathis, figuring even if Posada comes back, he goes into the 1B/DH blender in the Bronx with half a dozen other guys. Managed to land Sheffield for Gathright earlier today which will help, as will the imminent return of David Ortiz.

Mathis - Butler - Cano - Beltre - Bartlett
Vlad - Sheff - Lind - Ortiz

Felix - DiceK - Pettitte - Bonderman
Kobayashi - Zumaya - Devine

Movin' on up. One of the offensive leaders moved Quentin for pitching today, getting Damon to fill the offensive spot. He still needs more pitching, I wonder if I can wait a couple more weeks and get Konerko for, say, Pettitte.

[jon abbey]

if Posada comes back, he'll be playing mostly full-time (certainly against righties), splitting 1B and DH with Giambi. don't forget that Matsui is also likely done, and assuming Damon can play LF again soon, they really don't have much depth at DH.

[bostontricky]

I'm guessing that's a pretty big if; also, it's not like Posada was lighting it up this year, with all of three HRs. And I'll never discount the Yankees' ability to complicate matters by adding additional pieces to the pie.

If it looks like Posada's able to come back, I suspect he'll be fairly easy to pick up, many of the teams in our league are stable at C. (The guy who has Shoppach may want someone when Victor comes back, but he may be out of the money and looking to 2009 at that point.)

At the least, I've picked up two weeks of Mathis instead of two of Gerald Laird. Maybe I net a home run out of the deal.

[Borat Pri Hagafen]

Only 4 teams make the playoffs, but I'm just 4 games out of 6th, and can make up most of my 8-game deficit to the 5th place team by beating his ass this week.

Big 8-2 win against the (former) 5th place team moves me from 9th to 7th. 2 games out of 6th, 5.5 out of 5th, 8 out of 4th and 8.5 out of 3rd.

5 weeks left in the regular season: 1 play the 5th place team this week, and the 4th place team in a couple weeks. My other 3 are against the last place team, the least active/rapidly plummeting team, and the first place team (who i beat 8-2 the first time around).


The last place team is now 60 games out of first place, and 37.5 games behind 11th place (of 12). Happily, his last 4 opponents are the 9th, 10th and 11th place teams, and then me, so I should be able to make up ground there. He does play the 3rd place team this week, so that's likely to result in only 1 playoff spot only really being up for grabs.

Anyway, hope remains alive! Still love to trade a closer before our Friday deadline though.

[Borat Pri Hagafen]

In what I can only assume is my final trade of the year, looks like I'm giving up Billy Wagner/Carlos Gomez/Michael Bourn/Todd Wellemeyer for Adam Dunn and 3 throw-ins. My pen will still have Lyon, Ryan, Hanrahan and Grabow, although I think Denny Bautista is going to take that job, so I should probably grab him for Grabow rather than waiting 2 days for this trade to process. Strong in steals with Reyes and Upton and some others, although I do actually think Gomez is going to pick it up at some point.

[crawjo]

It looks like my trading is done for the year. In the last two days I made two deals: trading Michael Young and Adam Dunn for Miguel Tejada and James Shields, and then trading George Sherrill straight up for Fred Lewis. These deals were necessitated by injuries, mostly. I've got Joba and Erik Bedard on the DL, plus last month I traded away Ervin Santana and Ted Lilly for Albert Pujols. That briefly left me with a rotation of Justin Duchscherer, Scott Baker, Jeremy Guthrie, Todd Wellemeyer, and Dave Bush. With the addition of James Shields I dropped Wellemeyer. With the subtraction of George Sherrill I added Will Ohman, and then also dropped Carlos Gomez to make room for Lewis, who should give me some steals without killing me in the other categories.

My team is a distant second in a 16-team league. Ellsbury sucking horribly for the last couple months has really hurt, forcing me to use all sorts of garbage in center field to make up for the loss.

Now my roster looks like this:

Geovany Soto, Albert Pujols, Mark DeRosa, Mark Reynolds, Miguel Tejada, Jack Cust, Jacoby Ellsbury, Nick Markakis, Gary Sheffield, Lyle Overbay, Fred Lewis and Paul Konerko on offense, and my pitching is now Duchscherer, Baker, Guthrie, Shields, and Bush as starters, with a pen of Papelbon, Marmol, Rafael Perez, Jon Rauch and Will Ohman. I'm leading my league in saves and holds, so I figured I could give up Sherrill as he's not likely to keep up his saves pace and I expect there's a good chance Perez is closing for Cleveland before the end of the year. I figure flipping Young for Tejada was pretty much a wash. If Ellsbury gets back to doing well again and Sheffield picks things up my offense should be okay. I expect Duchsherer's ERA to continue to rise, but hopefully the addition of Shields will offset that, and Guthrie has been outstanding recently.

[Borat Pri Hagafen]

Thanks to an improbable 29-8 run (with 3 categories tied) over the final 3 weeks, my team will make the playoffs, finishing the regular season in 4th. 2-week semifinal up next against the regular season champ, who beat me both times this year, but we haven't played since June.

As this is my final go-around playing fantasy baseball, it'd be excellent to end it with another title and then retire undefeated from this league...

here's hoping!

[surfer]

Finished the regular season in 3rd. Just missed the first round bye given to the top 2 teams. This is my roster going into the playoffs:

C Ramón Hernández
1B Chris Davis
2B Mike Aviles
3B Mark DeRosa (ChC - 1B,2B,3B,OF!)
SS Michael Young
OF Matt Holliday
OF Josh Hamilton
OF Matt Kemp
Util Mark Teixeira
BN Dan Uggla
BN Iván Rodríguez
DL Mike Lowell

Pitching

SP Tim Lincecum
SP Jeremy Guthrie
SP Jake Peavy
SP Oliver Pérez
SP Gil Meche
RP Chris Pérez
RP Francisco Rodríguez
P Manuel Corpas
BN Chad Qualls
BN Félix Hernández
BN Ervin Santana
BN John Danks

Also, this will be a keeper league going forward, I get to keep 4 players, right now I'm leaning heavily towards: Lincecum, Hamilton, Teixeira, and the fourth is up for grabs, maybe Holliday or Guthrie(!!!). Peavy and King Felix have been pretty big disappointments.