Dexter has wanted to play a Fantasy Baseball League since last year. His cousin, Jeremiah was nice enough to start a 4 team league with his Bro and Sis (Tom and Stacey) -two of Dexter's cousins. It's an ESPN driven league and free to play. With only 4 teams of 20? players and a pool of 750 to pull from, there will always be many good players to pick and choose from. I told Dexter I would help- do a little research and assist with the draft.
I had completely forgotten on draft night, involved in a project at work when Dexter called at 6:45 reminding that the draft was at 7:30! Are you going to be home? Crikey! I had not yet done any research! Immediately dropping what I was doing, I managed to find a taxi and get home in 15 minutes. Cramming all the notes that I could (began in the taxi) we were ready for the draft. By the (un) luck of the draw we had the last (well,fourth) pick but also because of this would have the very next-5th pick. Our draft selections were always in two's and throughout Dexter continually reminded me to have two-three ready choices.
The draft was fun - when it was your turn, you had about a minute to choose, then the process moved fairly quick. We weren't sure if we should draft position players by position or by quality, how many pitchers to acquire- so we decided to target some players, not draft any Dodgers (made easier when Kershaw and Kemp were picked up early) and just go for it. In the end we came up with a pretty solid team (again, with only 4 teams it would be harder not to) but probably had one too many relievers.
We are the
World Chemps (nickname Big O Franchise); Chemps for Chew-Dempsey and Big O is for Oliver- originally we were "Oliver's Head" but he didn't care for that one. Going against team names that will also strike fear and intimidate:
The Crazy Crabs (homage to the Giant mascot of the early '80's designed for fans to intentionally dislike),
Nicely Done (to lull into underestimating) and
Tommy Tommy Long Hair.
I didn't pay much attention to the proceedings the first three-four games but when I realized that some strategy is involved, it became much more interesting. Also I wanted to know how exactly were we leading. You only get credit for players selected to play so you have to play hunches as to who might have a good day, who is on a roll, which pitcher might get a win or a bunch of strikeouts, slotting players to fill in your regulars- on days off, trading players, dropping and adding players. Dexter
and I - are hooked!
I explained to Dext that the season is long so he should expect a lot of up and downs- you can clear 100 points in two days so you might move from first to last in just that amount of time, and reverse direction even faster. However, we're still on a pretty good roll.. Here's who we have now (with one change- we acquired Napoli-c and dropped Avila. Earlier this week,
Tommy Tommy Long Hair traded us Strasberg-Pitcher for Cesedes,Outfielder of the A's (which may work well for both teams). You definitely "bench" players that aren't playing that day but sometimes a team plays but your player does not -drats! Or you think you have a great player but he doesn't hit! Or field! Tulowitski! However you figure it's worth keeping him until he comes around. An older player like Michael Young will get a rest every few games so it takes some guessing as to which game that might be. I don't know! A pitcher like Yu Darvish is on a team that will score a lot of runs (Texas) so even if you're needing convincing about how good Yu is, you determine that he still will get a bunch of wins. I should stop here as to not give out any of our team secrets... if only we had any. We've been lucky so far and Josh Hamilton has been the main mover of our team. He, was a steal!
the scores for the pitchers reflect how their teams did on this day- not their individual games.
we also have a home rule not to root against the Giants under any circumstances.
| C | Yadier Molina, StL C |
|
|
| L 3-6 |
| --/-- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| -- | -- |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| 1B | Prince Fielder, Det 1B |
|
|
| L 3-10 |
| 1/3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 4 |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| 2B | Dustin Pedroia, Bos 2B |
|
|
|
|
| --/-- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| -- | -- |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| 3B | Michael Young, Tex 1B, 3B, DH |
|
|
| W 10-3 |
| 3/5 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 0 | 8 |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| SS | Derek Jeter, NYY SS |
|
|
| W 7-6 |
| 1/5 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 3 |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| OF | Jose Bautista, Tor 3B, OF |
|
|
| L 4-9 |
| 0/3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 3 |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| OF | Josh Hamilton, Tex OF |
|
|
| W 10-3 |
| 1/4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 4 |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| OF | Josh Willingham, Min OF, DH |
|
|
| L 6-7 |
| 1/5 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 1 |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| UTIL | Hunter Pence, Phi OF |
|
|
| W 2-0 |
| 1/3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 3 |
| 100.0 | +0 |
|
| Totals |
| 8/28 | 7 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 0 | 26 |
|
|
| Bench | Pablo Sandoval, SF 3B |
|
|
|
|
| --/-- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| -- | -- |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| Bench | Troy Tulowitzki, Col SS |
|
|
|
|
| --/-- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| -- | -- |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| Bench | Alex Avila, Det C |
|
|
| L 3-10 |
| 0/2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 2 |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| Bench | Adrian Beltre, Tex 3B |
|
|
| W 10-3 |
| 1/6 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 0 | 2 |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| DL |
|
|
|
|
|
| -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| -- | -- |
| -- | -- |
| DL |
|
|
|
|
|
| -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| -- | -- |
| -- | -- |
| SLOT | PLAYER, TEAM POS | ACTION |
| OPP | STATUS ET |
| IP | K | CG | SO | W | L | SV | PTS |
| %OWN | +/- |
| SP | Jered Weaver, LAA SP |
|
|
| L 2-4 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| SP | Ricky Romero, Tor SP |
|
|
| L 4-9 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| SP | Yu Darvish, Tex SP |
|
|
| W 10-3 |
| 6.1 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 15 |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| SP | Stephen Strasburg, Wsh SP |
|
|
| L 4-11 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| SP | Colby Lewis, Tex SP |
|
|
| W 10-3 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 100.0 | +0 |
| RP | Craig Kimbrel, Atl RP |
|
|
| W 10-2 |
| -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| 100.0 | +0 |
|
| Totals |
| 6.1 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 15 |
|
|
| Bench | Madison Bumgarner, SF SP |
Didn't consider what a rain out does ! We had 4 major players not play today because of it! At one point on 4/20 Jay, Stacey and Tommy were all in a row, each separated by one point. Wild stuff.
Postscript: 10/5/12 we ran the table from day 1 to the end of the season. Yeah, I'd call it luck!
6555
6392
5999
5391
CHG |
|
R | 1B | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | HBP | SB | CS | E |
|
K | CG | SO | W | L | SV |
|
| 1 | World Chemps BigOFranchise |
|
798 | 957 | 534 | 48 | 1004 | 812 | 569 | 84 | 80 | -29 | -75 |
|
993 | 65 | 25 | 720 | -230 | 200 |
|
6555 | +9 |
| 2 | The Crazy Crabs |
|
788 | 899 | 602 | 75 | 860 | 753 | 580 | 41 | 113 | -35 | -82 |
|
1018 | 65 | 40 | 750 | -265 | 190 |
|
6392 | +33 |
| 3 | Tommy Tommy Long Hair |
|
717 | 790 | 516 | 81 | 944 | 755 | 531 | 38 | 107 | -41 | -72 |
|
968 | 20 | 10 | 690 | -220 | 165 |
|
5999 | +21 |
| 4 | Nicely Done |
|
687 | 810 | 514 | 99 | 744 | 718 | 531 | 41 | 109 | -44 | -78 |
|
850 | 15 | 10 | 610 | -230 | 5 |
|
5391 | +19 |
we ended the season with six Giants: Pence, Baumgarner (both all year), Panda, Pagan, Scutaro, Vogelsong
