Fantasy Baseball

[Drax]

Anyone else play Fantasy Baseball? I'm not looking to start a league or anything like that (no time this year, plus no at-home internet access yet). I'm just curious. Plus I have a couple opinion questions I'd like to discuss with folks, as the only friends interested in the game already are in my league and are, in the friendliest sense possible, the "competition." :mrgreen:

Thanks!

[Raveneye]

Sorry brother, I don't follow baseball enough to play fantasy, not to mention football takes up enough of my time each year already, and it's only 17 weeks with one game a week!

I can tell you where to go for advice though, try http://www.rotoworld.com . It's free, and they have some seriously addicted dudes over there that can give you the what's up on everything from fanatasy baseball, football and basketball to auto racing and llama polo.

Ok, so I made up llama polo.

[Shiz]

|345b4l1 Zu><><0rZ!

[Drax]

they have some seriously addicted dudes over there that can give you the what's up on everything from fanatasy baseball, football and basketball to auto racing and llama polo.

Ok, so I made up llama polo.

Um, I've been an active FLPL player for 5.5yrs....

[Lycos]

Sorry, Baseball is an extremely manpower intensive fantasy game. With all the teams playing any given day of the entire season. It's a challenge every day! No thanks.

[Drax]

Sorry, Baseball is an extremely manpower intensive fantasy game. With all the teams playing any given day of the entire season. It's a challenge every day! No thanks.
Nah, not quite everyday... (Unless you count the offseason. :lowlol:)

I'm in a weekly league, where changes to the active roster take effect Sun night, early Monday morning. However, trades and monitoring your players can be everyday occurrences...

[Yuglooc]

I used to play in a fantasy baseball league on Compuserve. Yeah, it can be a lot of work (especially for the statistician). I might consider getting back into it.

[Drax]

Just as an update that absolutely no one else but me cares for... :lowlol:


The draft is tomorrow afternoon, and I'm excited about it! We could keep 7-16 players (on a 30man roster - 25 active and 5 bench; only active players' stats count towards the totals). I kept 9, and everyone else who has submitted their teams kept 12+. If the one remaining manager keeps 12+, I'll be very happy, since I'll then get to have my choice of any three players for $1 each. Most likely will be Barry Bonds, AJ Burnett, and David Wright. We're also counting OBP as a hitter's stat, so Bonds will completely dominate in that, even if he only plays 2/3 of the season. And getting Wright for $1 would be ultra sweet, since that'd be two seasons at $1, then I could contract him for 5 yrs, which would make his salary each extra year $6, $9, $12, $15, $18. Not bad for a 7yr deal. (The salary cap, btw, is $280.) And if Wright doesn't pan out, as predicted, so what? He's only a buck. :lowlol:

OF course, this is all conjecture until I know what the last manager has chosen concerning his keepers.

My current keeper list, for those of you interested (again, just me, but I need to make sure I did the right thing by "hearing it aloud" ... :)):
Johnny Estrada C ATL $3
Mark Texeira 1B TEX $14
Marcus Giles 2B ATL $10
Melvin Mora 3B BAL $10
Richie Sexson CI (1B) SEA $6 (first year of 1yr contract)
Johan Santana SP MIN $13
Dan Kolb Closer ATL $3
Brad Lidge Closer HOU $10
Francisco Rodriguez Closer ANA $10

My goals for the draft:
- Draft a top 10 outfielder (many quality outfielders were kept, so it's left to Bonds, hopefully Ichiro, or maybe Garrett Anderson as established studs)
- Draft a quality top 15 starting pitcher to complement Santana, arguably the best pitcher going into 2005 baseball
- Draft Edgar Renteria or Carlos Guillen at SS.
- Get a couple sleeper candidates, specifically Garrett Atkins 3B COL, Khalil Greene SS SD, Jose Lopez SS SEA (should beat out Pokey Reese for the job).

Hopefully I can end up with a contending team come Sept. This will be the third year of the league. The first year, I tied with the commissioner for first place out of 6 teams. The second year (last year), I tied with the commissioner for second place out of 10 teams. This year, first place is for me and me alone. Oooooh yeah. Dig it!

[kullen]

M Barrett (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/18657)
T Helton (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/7700) [/url]
A Miles (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/player/news/7700)
T Glaus (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/13014)
J Lugo (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/player/news/13014)
L Gonzalez (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/player/news/21619)
J Edmonds (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/7578)
R Hidalgo (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/player/news/7578)
T Hafner (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/player/news/7715)
C Pavano (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/11056) [url="http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/player/news/11056"] (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/11056)
D Davis (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/21532)
J Peavy (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/288915)
C Cordero (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/432207)
T Percival (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/player/news/432207)

Reserve

D Mientkiewicz (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/18877)
T Lee (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/7806)
O Hudson (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/player/news/7806)
C Koskie (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/18718)
B Crosby (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/292366)
T Redman (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/28579)
B Hawpe (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/player/news/28579)
Z Greinke (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/player/news/292235) (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/390851)

Minors

C Burke (http://rocc.baseball.sportsline.com/players/playerpage/448404)



Just listing my team lineup. Won my first week. :D

[Drax]

Are you in a head-to-head league, I take it, kull? :) Very cool, congrats. :)

I'm currently in 7-8th place following week 1, in an 11team 6x6 rotisserie league with a $280 draft-day salary. (Standard 5x5, plus OBP for offensive and BAA (Batting avg against) for pitchers).

As explained (somewhere) above, we have a 30man roster, with a set 25man active roster and a 5-person free bench. The 25 man active roster has 13 set position players, plus two "free" utility slots, and a 10 person pitching staff. Bench can be any players, 5 pitchers or 5 hitters or any combo. We also have 3 minor league players - I have Joe Blanton, Daric Barton, and Huston Street; just happened to all be A's players (Barton was a Cardinal prior to the Mulder trade).

I know I listed it in another thread, but I like "listening" to myself talk about this, simply to explore where there might be a weakness in my roster. :)

C - Johnny Estrada
C - AJ Pierzynski
1B - Mark Texeira
2B - Marcus Giles
3B - Melvin Mora
SS - Carlos Guillen
CI (1B or 3B) - David Wright
MI (2B or SS) - Kaz Matsui
OF - Garrett Anderson
OF - Chone Figgins
OF - Willy Taveras
OF - Ryan Klesko
OF - Shannon Stewart
Utility - Richie Sexson (1B)
Utility - Lyle Overbay (1B)

P - Johan Santana
P - AJ Burnett
P - Jeremy Bonderman
P - Jake Westbrook
P - Javier Vasquez - may be an early season casualty if he doesn't change things around; will have an idea after his start against the Nationals...
P - John Thomson
P - Ryan Drese
P - Dan Kolb
P - Brad Lidge
P - Francisco Rodriguez ("K-Rod")

Bench:
Michael Cuddyer - 1B/2B/3B
Lance Berkman - OF, out until late April
Trot Nixon - OF
Wade Miller - P, out until late April, early May
Brad Penny - P, out until April 24

My offense has gotten off to a slow start, with Mora, Tex, and Figgins, all three solid offense producers, having avgs less than .160 thus far. Not cool, but that'll turn around relatively quickly. My team is also pretty heavy on high risk, high reward players, more than I had planned on going into the draft. If Burnett, Westbrook, Berkman, Miller, Penny, Giles, Klesko, and Anderson all pan out, I should be okay... *cough* :roll: :lowlol:

My stats, relative to the respective leaders:
HR - 8 (tie with 2 others for 8th), 18
RBI - 48 (6th), 68
R - 53 (tie with 1 other for 4th), 62
SB - 6 (tie with 2 others for 7th), 9
BA - .2627 (8th), .2934 - this should dramatically improve; I've won this category for previous two seasons
OBP - .3222 (8th), .3672

ERA - 5.4000 (11th :|), 2.298 - this is 95%+ b/c of Javier Vasquez, who gave up 7ER in 1.2 innings his first outing, then 5ER in 5.1 innings in his second...
WHIP - 1.353 (6th), 1.234
W - 5 (3rd), 10
S - 8 (1st), 2nd highest has 4 :mrgreen:; Best part is my three closers cost me $23 total, for this and next season; Rivera, ie, cost his owner $25 alone! :lowlol:
K - 67 (4th), 74
BAA - .2656 (8th), .2294

My hitters have gotten off to a slow start and, barring injury, everyone should pick it up within next three weeks to give me solid production.

My pitching staff is kinda oddball. I have a good crew, tho', as evidenced by the fair BAA (decent) and WHIP (a tad high, but not too bad). Throw out the 12 ER in 7 innings by Vasquez, and my ERA becomes 4.416 which would be 8th in my league. Still not fantastic, but more realistic considering that only one week has been played. Heck, even Santana gave up 4ER in his first inning of work for the year, then was perfect (0ER) for the next four innings of that game.

Heh, enough rambling, I think... :)

[kullen]

Yep, It's a head to head league. Third year of the league, second year of a progressive keeper format. i.e. 2 keepers first year, 4 keepers next year.. until it's a full keeper league.

Anybody who leaves has to find a buyer for their team. Since the final winnings for a year reaches over a thousand dollars, it's not usually that hard. :mrgreen:

[Drax]

Since the end of week 1, my team's gone from the bottom third to bouncing between 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place. Sat, i was 3rd. Sun, tied for 2nd. Today 4th.

My team's about to get tough to set, tho', b/c i dropped Michael Cuddyer for Ryan Freel (2B/3B/OF), and Lance Berkman is coming back likely this weekend.

Which means for next week, I have to decide who are the two odd men out between - Marcus Giles, Chone Figgins, Trot Nixon, Ryan Klesko, Shannon Stewart, Garrett Anderson, and Richie Sexson. It'd be so much easier if Nixon would receive AND accept his likely upcoming suspension for this weekend's broohaha. Then I'd likely sit Stewart, and would be satisfied. But as it stands, everyone in that list is contributing something important (R/Avg, R/SB, power stats/Avg, Avg/R/RBI, R, power stats, power stats - respectively), that I really don't want to relinquish.

THEN next week, I have the chance for Wade Miller to return, complicating my pitching staff, meaning I'll have to sit two pitchers per week. Likely Fogg and badmatchupoftheweek will sit. *sigh*

Tough to be in these good situations. I think I smell a trade looming in the near future...

[kullen]

We do a weekly head to head. So far I'm 2 and 1. The loss was a tough one because I was in the lead until the last day when my opponent had a huge point day.