Results tagged ‘ Fantasy Baseball ’
The Brian Cougar Show: Opening Week
To try and bring some order to the erratic nature in which I update this blog, and the fact that I don’t feel like simply recapping every game (Yanks win: GOOD! Yanks lose: BAD!), I’m going to copy Yankees manager Joe Girardi and provide some weekly programming. This doesn’t mean I won’t update during the week if something particularly interesting/infuriating happens around Major League Baseball, but, at the very least, this should guarantee at least one post a week.
Let’s go with this quote from Mark Teixeira after Sunday’s game that sums up the first week:
“We went straight from Spring Training and played arguably the two best teams in the American League, two of our biggest opponents in the division, and won both series,” Teixeira said. “Got to feel good about that.”
Now let me provide a bunch of other words that basically repeat that point. Indulge me!
So, as Teixeira said, after Opening Week the Yanks won two series against their two toughest opponents for the division, on the road, and head home one game behind the mighty Jays (Another hot start to the season for Toronto. Will that immediately hit a wall when they start playing Tampa/Boston/NY? Most signs point to yes, but I’m happy — until they play the Yanks — to see Vernon Wells coming out all gangbusters) for first place in the AL East. Their early success was simple: The four games they received good (Well, A..J. Burnett’s first start was just OK) starting pitching, they won. The two games they didn’t (CC Sabathia on Opening Night in Fenway and Javier Vazquez’s first start), they lost.
Highlights of Week 1:
Robinson Cano looks like he might have a monster year. I realize it’s very, very early, and he got off to a hot start last year as well (and had a very good year, batting average with RISP not withstanding), but this will be his sixth season in the Majors, he’s 27, he’s in a loaded lineup (well, that’s basically true every year) and Girardi has shown great confidence in him by having him bat in the No. 5 spot behind A-Rod. I don’t know if Cano’s OBP is ever going to jump all that much higher than his average, but if he’s hitting .330 and driving in around 100 runs, I’ll take it. The Yanks signed Nick Johnson for the OBP (.367 so far!).
Curtis Granderson should receive a warm reception when he’s introduced for the first time in pinstripes at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday (Godzilla returns!). He hit a home run in his first at-bat of the season off Josh Beckett (although he did fail to get a hit in the ninth inning of that game of Jonathan Papelbon. This caused Joel … actually, I was about to bring up the fact that Joel Sherman of the NY Post, who I usually like a lot, wrote a pretty ridiculous column about Granderson not coming up in the clutch and the ghosts of Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui after that game. Apparently I was not the only one, and Sherman responded to the many complaints about that column with this quote about writing columns following Opening Day:
“There are few columns I enjoy writing less than the post-game one after the season opener. You feel forced to make huge proclamations based on a single game. It is one of the elements of my business I would change if I was elected newspaper czar. Alas, the job is not open and I am not running.”
I respect that quote. Unlike myself (and about 97% — UNPROVABLE STAT — of other bloggers) Sherman is writing for a paycheck and an editor on deadline … there will be the occasional clunker. In my case, with no deadlines, paychecks (send me money) or editors, all are clunkers. Back to Granderson …
And then Granderson hit a game-winning home run off Papelbon to win the series on Wednesday. He’s Granderslammin’! (Amazing wordplay).
Sabathia, even though he completely ended my plans to go for a stroll through NJ on a wonderful Saturday afternoon, was completely dominant in his second start of the season while no-hitting the Rays through 7 2/3 innings. Not that I was worried after a rough Spring Training and lackluster Opening Day start (He rebounded fine last year), but after two straight years of subpar Aprils, maybe Sabathia will deliver dominant pitching all season long and win his second Cy Young.
Lowlights of Week 1:
Teixeira is on track to make sure his reputation as a slow starter continues in 2010. He did get three hits in Saturday’s win, but he was 0-for-17 heading into that game and went 0-for-4 again on Sunday. However it’s only one week and the Yanks are winning, so it’s not a big deal. My Dad’s suggestion of how team’s should deal with slow starters is to not start paying them until May. I don’t think the MLBPA will go for that.
I did not see Vazquez’s start on Friday, as I was freezing my pantaloons off while watching the Mets (Big Pelf!) beat the Nationals at Citi Field, but his line of 5 2/3 innings, 8 runs shows I didn’t miss much. I’m not worried, but it did cause obnoxious Daily News columnist Mike Lupica to crack this joke: “The Javy Vazquez who pitched Friday night against the Rays in Tampa – I recognized him almost immediately.” Giving Lupica material to make cheap jokes was probably the worst outcome of Vazquez’s start.
Well, that’s it for Week 1 of the “Brian Cougar Show.” I’m happy to let you all know that my fantasy season got off to a fine start (8-1 victory), and unless Howie Kendrick ends up having an MVP year, I don’t think I’ve made any colossally foolish player ms yet (see this post). There was plenty of other exciting action around MLB during Opening Week, but since this post is already incredibly long, you can go look for commentary on all that jazz on the millions of other articles/blogs around the Internet. Do it!
The ghost of Fantasy Baseball past
Now that Spring Training is approaching, those millions of us around the world with so much free time that simply following a baseball team for 162 games isn’t enough to completely occupy it turn our attention to the annual tradition of Fantasy Baseball. This will be my fourth year being an owner, GM and manager (Just call me Jerry Jones), and I will now look back in the hopes that I can learn some lessons for the upcoming season.
Now, year one of my fantasy baseball career, way back in 2007, was a complete disaster. After being late to the draft due to a job interview (where were my priorities?), I ended up selecting Alfonso Soriano way too high in the first round, and things didn’t improve from there. I play in a head-to-head league, and my first win of the season didn’t come until Week 10. Week 10! Not surprisingly, I finished in dead last.
In year two, I knew what to expect, and came back with lofty goals in mind. I did ample amounts of research (I printed out the Yahoo! Sports player rankings as I was leaving my apartment for the draft) and, as our draft was held at a bar, I managed to refrain from getting drunk until Round 17. I had the No. 4 pick, and had convinced myself that Miguel Cabrera, who had been traded to the Tigers that offseason, was poised to have a monster year. While Miggy may not have been the perfect pick at that point, he finished with an AL-high 37 homers and 127 RBIs. Those are the certainly the types of numbers I’d expect a monster to produce at the Major League level. Maybe the WOLFMAN (in theaters today!).
I ended up finishing in third place that year, but the biggest story to come out of my 2008 fantasy baseball season wasn’t the final results, it was a particular move I made early in the season. More to the point, it was a particularly stupid move I made early in the season. That year, I had selected Josh Hamilton in the later rounds of the draft. I, like many people, had enjoyed hearing about Hamilton’s comeback story with the Reds in 2007, which not only was amazing because he beat his various addictions, but because of the fact that he was able to make it on a Major League roster after being away from the game for basically four years. And he was pretty good in ’07, with 19 homers in only 298 at-bats. He was traded to the Rangers that offseason, and I figured he could have a monster (Mothra) year in Texas. So I drafted him.
Early in the 2008 season, I also picked up then-Cardinals, now-Royals outfielder Rick Ankiel, another Major League redemption story. Everyone knows the story of Ankiel, so I don’t really have to repeat it (although the same could be said about Hamilton’s story, but … too late!), but, a brief summary: A Cardinals pitcher who lost his ability to throw strikes tried to remake himself as an outfielder as a last desperate chance to get back into the Major Leagues. Improbably, he did made it back to the Majors, with the Cardinals no less, and then put on a Roy Hobbs-like homer display in 2007, before revelations of HGH put a bit of a damper on that fairytale storyline. However, he came back with the Cardinals in ’08 and got off to a bit of a hot start so I, inspired fantasy owner, picked him up off the waiver wire.
Here’s where things get dopey.
Not only did having both Hamilton and Ankiel make my outfield a bit too crowded (I also had Manny Ramirez, Carlos Beltran, Matt Kemp and J.D. Drew at the time), I also, for some reason, decided I could not have two redemption stories on my team. I thought, while one of these guys could end up being a productive player, there was no way both of them could. How that was any more improbable than anything else about the careers of Hamilton and Ankiel, I do not know. I decided one had to go and, I have a feeling you know where this is going, I dropped Hamilton.
Hamilton’s 2008 stats: AVG .304, HR 32, RBIs 130
Ankiel’s 2008 stats: AVG .264, HR 25, RBIs 71
So yes, not only did I make a move for bizarre, somewhat unnecessary reasons, I also dropped the wrong player. I ended up finishing in third that year, which was a big-time improvement over my debut in ’07, but my season is best remembered by myself and people in my league for the fact that I managed to somehow make the wise move of drafting Hamilton and then completely ruined it by dropping him due to my ” You can”t have two comeback stories on one team” logic.
Well, at the very least that was the end of my completely foolish fantasy moves. I learned my lesson, and have since made sure to think long and hard before dropping a player for dubious reasons. What was that? I dropped Justin Verlander two starts into the 2009 season? Well …
You know what, maybe it’s a better idea to ignore the ghosts of my fantasy past and focus on the bright future ahead.
briancougar
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