Suggest Ban Matt Wieters: Our 2010 ILB Fantasy Baseball League

http://imgur.com/oa9s0.jpg
http://imgur.com/fN5i7.jpg
http://imgur.com/q8Ri4.jpg

i know it's early, but there's talk of a keeper league this year, which would mean we'd have to sort out all the bickering on stat categories and rules a few weeks before registration opens.

a couple certainties:

Thermo for commissioner, did a great job in the past
roto set up
no Morbs

i want in this year

I'm in. Roto set up is good. Off the top of my head, the only thing I didn't like about last year's categories were SV and SV percentage (one or the other is good, but not both).

keeper league???

thermo is going 2 tunisia or w/e now i think

good start 2 the thread

i'd do a keeper league, though i'd prefer if the categories weren't too goofy (fielding percentage from last year was pretty much a dice roll imo).

i'd do something like
R, HR, RBI, net SB, OPS
W, K, ERA, SV, H (or maybe quality starts instead of wins to be more sabr-friendly)

i prefer OPS to replace batting avg rather than be alongside it since batting average is already kind of counted twice in OPS

I am ready for my sophomore slump.

I will join to keep the cellar warm.

i sort of really enjoyed fpct% and gidp from last year. you had to actually look at the players and in many ways it invalidated all those blogs and cheat sheets based on a 5x5 format. regardless, i agree for sabr-friendly stats, a few exotic ones but no bs like cycle or shutouts. i think the league regretted that in 08.

quality starts is a great idea. and i like save percentage a lot with our without saves. but as was pointed out in the 09 thread, it needs to be a holds league or a save percentage league, not both, as they're negatively correlated to each other.

I would like to play, but on the other hand my recent history has been to lose interest after a month or two, so maybe I should be a last resort?

doesn't using save % without also using holds make middle relievers almost purely negative in value since they can get blown saves but not saves?

^^^yes, don't listen to sanskrit and his "negative correlative" doo-doo

ciderpress, you're absolutely right. not actually advocating for a save % league without saves or net saves as a counting stat of some sort. that would be disastrous, as you could simply ignore the category.

to son steve shasta, it's a problem of a smaller magnitude to have both save % and holds together, as to ciderpress' point and common fucking sense every hold chased creates the risk of an additional blown save with little chance for a net save while the closer is healthy.

the negative correlation existed in the league oin '09 (let me the first to say small sample size)

you also can't discount the value of two empty slots in lieu of middle relievers to stash subs or sleeper picks.

Overall Points
Rank	Team			HLD		SV%		Total
1	In Ambiorix Burgos	1		12		174
2	The Cerutti Column	6		5		146.5
3	Whole Camels		2.5		8		144.5
4	dealwithkhalil		11.5		9		140
5	No Tulo only Zuul	5		10.5		138.5
6	The Vottobots		4		10.5		137
7	Moistest Aloo		8		6		131
8	Koyaanis Kotsay Sr.	7		14		124.5
9	Kneel Before ZAUN!	14		3		122.5
10	The Hitless Wonders	10		13		118.5
11	b---- t---		13		4		85
12	joe pepitowned		2.5		1		83
13	Carlos Carlos Carlos	9		7		71.5
14	Peraltese Falcons	11.5		2		63.5

Overall Stats		
Rank	Team			HLD		SV%
1	In Ambiorix Burgos	4		84.2
2	The Cerutti Column	28		79.2
3	Whole Camels		11		83.7
4	dealwithkhalil		50		83.8
5	No Tulo only Zuul	24		84.1
6	The Vottobots		17		84.1
7	Moistest Aloo		38		80.6
8	Koyaanis Kotsay Sr.	36		85.8
9	Kneel Before ZAUN!	81		76.1
10	The Hitless Wonders	44		84.6
11	b---- t---		59		76.5
12	joe pepitowned		11		22.2
13	Carlos Carlos Carlos	41		81.8
14	Peraltese Falcons	50		70.6

http://imgur.com/BmQt1.jpg

for my team i figured holds and saves were the two stats which the pitchers who accumulated them were one-category wonders, for the most part, and holds are certainly more unpredictable (and the pitchers who gathered them tended to have higher eras and a lower K rate, from what i could tell), so i decided to almost completely forgo that category in favor of aiming for everything else.

*taking notes*

Tim Lincecum on Die Young?

If people like that name, maybe I do this thing again.

What are the specifics in a keeper league? How many players do we get to keep?

I reckon I'm in.

i have no idea but what is the secret to getting spreadsheets play nice with ilx?

bnw - the .xls thing is bracket code bracket as below in show formatting help

WmC - that's the thing.. along with coming to a general consensus about stat categories and rules, we'd have to figure out keeper rules, for example, keep 3 but only those drafted after the sixth round, or keep 5 but lose picks in the slot you previously drafted each one. it does add on another layer of complexity.

the point may be moot as i'm fairly certain for a Yahoo dynasty league where keepers auto-populate year over year you need to be in a Plus league. not sure what that costs, maybe $15 or $50 each? or $150 overall total? so a keeper league might not be in the cards. of course, one way to beat the fee would be to have a slow draft on an ILB thread and then Thermo manually enters the results. And we wouldn't have to worry about that until 2011. An ILB slow draft could make for either an epic or total clusterfuck thread.

Having figured out yahoo fantasy baseball last year with workmates, i'm in for this year.

I will join if you will have me. The other leagues I play in have all folded.

hey guys. i'm out of Tunisia and in Cairo right now. will be back in sunny Toronto in a little over a week and will start thinking/looking at our league set-up then. and also you might not hear from me until then.

glad to see more people interested and glad to see people are still down for the keeper league. keep your comments/suggestions coming - and i am very sorry for uncluding save% last year. it won't happen again.

also, thanks for the kind words and unexpected graphs, sanskrit!

andf Francis, if i;'m not mistaken you're qualified to compete for the Lightfoot cup this year, correct? welcome!

also - Thermo's free travel tip of the year: looking at pictures of the pyramids is much, much more pleasent than making it there in person.
end transmission.

ok - stats:

hitting:
i was pretty happy with our stats from last year (R, HR, RBI, GIDP, FPCT, AVG, OPS, NSB).
ciderp suggested yanking avg - and i'm ok with the idea so long as we break ops into obp and slugging. and i'm with sansk that fielding and gidp are both useful(ish) stats that give our league a funner/unique aspect.
i'll see what others have to say about avg/ops vs obp/slg

pitching:
last years stats: W, SV, K, HLD, ERA, WHIP, K/BB, SV%
most of us hated sv% last year - so lets kill that. i thought about net saves instead of just saves - but that would still seem to punish middle relievers too much and we'd probably almost all end up ignoring holds again. but i am down with adding quality starts - while still keeping wins. i like having another counting stat for pitching (cg and shut outs were never that popular even tho i'd like one or the other) and keeping wins allows a little more reward for having a quality reliever.
so lets hear what people think about quality starts (or even going with either cg or shutouts aswell)

as for the keeper settings - i'm still trying to figure out how the set up would work. but it looks like the 2010 draft will work exactly the same, except keep in mind you may be drafting people with more of a long plan in mind.

i think the only thing we need to agree on is how many people we should be allowed to keep. making keeper picks based on draft position was something i'd honestly never thought of. it could be complicating things too much - but i'll have a look at how some other keeper leagues are set-up.

maybe we should also discuss roster size. we had 23 last year - and i think maybe we should make it a full 24 so we have an extra roster space for a keeper that might not be performing so well or young or whatever?

so apparently the way keepers work is i assign players to teams before the draft starts and it's pretty much as simple as that. no extra cost either.

personally i think 9 players is good. it's a good amount that might let us keep a promising young guy or two in addition to the stars. the nice thing is that we can adjust this year from year if we want to tweak things.

I would like to join in this year too. I'm destined to lose because I'm not much of a stats junkie (anymore) and I only really follow a few teams really closely, but I still think it'll be fun!

cool - as long as you think you can stick with a keeper league, welcome!

so far we have (i'm taking it that the people who haven't said they're in yet are going to be in since they're taking part in the conversation):
myself
sanskrit
Jordan
NoTime...
bnw
johnny crunch
ciderpress
Andy K
Brownie
Steve Shasta
Omar Little
Lee
WmC
Francis F
Mayor J...
ZS

and maybe polyphonic? pretty good number!

Can someone link to last years's fantasy baseball thread? I can't seem to find it using search and I'd like to read through it to get a feel for what will be going on.

O NOES Fantasy Baseball 09 Thread (No Morbs)

I'm in. Still not sure whether a keeper league helps me or hurts me, but fuck it, I've decided the point to fantasy baseball is the journey, not the destination.

beat me to it on c and p ing

morbs should play this year

back, to comment on thermo's post:

offense: never thought it out that way like ciderpress did, good points. i kind of prefer an obp and slg split as suggested. another way of doing it is credit for BB but that's more of a counting stat than an average. i like something average based as proposed.

pitching: quality starts is a great idea. but agreed to keep the W so alfredo aceves or jp howell types can grab some vulture wins. maybe BB/9 or HR as a negative category? don't really care.

the most important things to maintain interest and participation are keeper rules. maybe as few as 3 keepers or as many as 6 but limited by what round they're drafted. so you can only keep draftees in 2011 if you picked them up 8th round, 10th round or later. or even 4th. but think about blocking the top 50 players from being retained, otherwise my 3 keepers will be pujols, sizemore, haren, 1-2-3, i'm out, with very little thought and a major impediment to a level playing field for future ILBers that want to join.

i'll be in to defend my title

i think quality starts would be cool -- complete games/shutouts would be a pretty inconsequential category -- also QS helps to lessen the blow of owning someone like... idk john lannan or roy oswalt who is a solid pitcher on a shitty team but can only finish with like 12/13 wins max on the year

Yes to OBP/SLG, QS, W.

No to CG, SHO, SV%.

^^^^ this

great. that's what i was expecting.

i'd agree on no to cg, sho, and sv%. cg and sho are rare enough that roto categories for them could become seemingly capricious.

but it would be nice if the two flukey but manageable offensive categories (gidp and fpct%) were mirrored by two non-traditional "fun" pitching stats. maybe something like hr/9 or babip. except i don't think those exist on yahoo. maybe batting average against? i don't know.

i have a question about how the keeper settings you suggested would work, sanskrit.

lets say we can protect 5 guys taken in the last 15 rounds (rounds 10-25). the next year the commissioner (me) would have to manually input the first 5 rounds - which would be the pre-determined keepers. would these guys then be ineligable for keeper status after that then - counting as rounds 1-5; *or* by virtue of being drafted originally in the bottom rounds are they still keep-able?

basically, if the keepers count as the early draft rounds it means you'll never be able to keep someone twice. which, honestly, i don't like because it means you can't have any "franchise" players. but if they don't count it means you could keep the same guys you drafted in the late rounds over and over again. which would probably require a limit on how many years you could keep someone to be instituted. which i think would be my preference.

i like the idea of having the super-stars up for grabs every year. and i also like the idea of having franchise players too - where a team may have some of the same core players year after year - with a max of maybe 5 years(?). which means, basically, if you were able to draft Matt Wieters in the 17th round - you could keep him for a maximum of 5 seasons.

i'm trying to keep this as simple as possible - not just out of obvious self-interest but so that our league's workings are a clear and easy to understand as possible for everyone. alot of the keeper leagues i've read about also have team payrolls - so many of the keeper rules/settings they use can't apply.

anyways, i hope i explained myself clearly enough there. what does everyone else think?

your instincts are right but i don't have the technical answer. i can ask someone i know who runs a y keeper league. i'm guessing it's as simple as locking keeper players pre-draft then unlocking and assigning to a team post-draft. you as commissioner can boot their last three or five picks and add in declared keepers manually in their place. i dont know if yahoo has the capability to track keeper status - i think you have to do that.

it claims it does - but doesn't go into any further detail about it! we (i) may have to learn as i (we) go.

really - if i'm manually drafting the keepers myself we could have almost any kind of guidelines we want for who can be kept. like age, for example, or yahoo rankings (although they are hit and miss).

i'm not sure where your line of thinking is headed, but age based keepers might be really simple and novel/fun. if only one half of the aging curve could be kept, say only players under 27 on the 2011 draft day, the dynamic of the league could really change.

teams out of contention in late 2010 could gain ground by finding or trading for the next 19 year old jose reyes
would a 25 year old prince fielder be worth more than pujols?
how do you value late bloomers like nelson cruz?

:: checks Brian McCann's age ::

ya - the more i think about the age thing the more i like it. similar to the way mlb franchises have so much more control over their younger guys - i think with a few simple rules this could be easily do-able.

advantage of jet-lag is i can lie in bed, not sleeping, and think about this stuff!

what about something like this: you can keep 1 guy under the age of 24 (opening day age) - 3 under 27 and - and two under 30 (ie 29 or less).

it allows you to grab one really young guy you feel strongly about - who might not be contributing at the mlb level, three who are most likely just getting their careers started, and two established – yet still young-ish – guys. it allows you to potentially control 1 guy from his very beginning until the end of his 20's and a few others for their first few years. but pretty much once a guy is really established he's not going to be a keeper for long.

i think the only stipulation is that you'll have to have drafted or traded for the guy (from a team that drafted him). basically being the first to jump on the waiver wire when someone like Strasburg pops up mid-season is a little unfair. but that's the only thing i can thing of that needs to be laid out.

thoughts?

and sanskrit - there's no hr/9 or babip but there is total bases. how would that sound?

dude i have no idea but team name oh, wrinkleKLAWs is up for grabs who wants dibs

So is this the consensus?

Hitting: R, HR, RBI, GIDP, FPCT, SLG, OBP, NSB

Pitching: W, SV, K, HLD, ERA, WHIP, K/BB, QS

i believe so, yes.

since i think all we're doing beyond this is figuring out keeper rules (which isn't anything i need to set in yahoo) i'll set up the league soon and email passwords to everyone.

we had a roster size of 21 last year - i will add one or two more extra slots for non-producing keepers. and maybe a draft date of two weeks before the season starts? probably a sunday afternoon. since this draft is alot more important than previous ones i want to make sure i have the most accessible date/time for everyone.

My suggestion for fun stats: W for pitchers, AVG for batters.

Hehehe, yeah I kinda agree on the AVG. I've never really played fantasy baseball so it's gonna be pretty goofy to leave off AVG on my first season, but I'm flexible.

I have a draft already scheduled for another league on Sun Mar 21 12:00 noon CDT, so if ours winds up on that day, could we make it a couple hours earlier or later?

sure.

so you two guys want avg along with obp & slg?

no preference regarding stat categories, really. (one of the categories I pwned last year was SV%, so I'm a little sad to see it go, esp if I'm able to keep Mo.)

we could do AVG and BB

i basically just want to get some plate-discipline-related category in there since it's essentially ignored in the traditional 5x5

not a bad idea.

SLG, AVG & BB hmmm....

well SLG basically corresponds with HR+AVG. you can't really pick up underdrafted players to boost your SLG, which i think is sort of the idea behind having the nontraditional categories, to create those opportunities to get value out of a player that's not thought of as a good fantasy player.

i'd do either AVG + BB or OBP + SLG

having more of them is fine too i'm just trying to figure out how to keep it to 8 and 8 without making any particular player skillset irrelevant

and while keeping the classic 5x5 categories mainly intact so that fantasy strategy articles and stuff dont become completely irrelevant for our league

i think i'm going to go with the AVG/SLG/BB combo.

AVG - there to keep the traditional stats intact and so the new guys have an easier time.
SLG - which i always thought as more a reflection of extra base hits - not just home runs and most people seem to want this.
BB - in lieu of OBP - having this as a counting stat keeps it from being too similar to AVG; plus keeps the number of % stats even with pitching - and also gives us a direct reflection of a hitters plate discipline.

this leaves us with 9 hitting categories and 8 pitching - which i'm fine with. we have 1 negative hitting stat (GIDP) but none for pitching, so i think there's still a balance of sorts.

if anyone sees some horrible oversight with the stats - now is the time to speak - i am going to set up the league in the next few days.

fellas i'm gonna be computerless from march 16-march 30 (honeymoon) so if the draft needs to be done during that period i'm gonna have to bow out

the weekend of march 13-14 looks iffy too (wedding)

hmmm - having it on the 7th might be sort of short notice.
i'd imagine that anytime before the wedding anyways might be too busy for you. that basically only leaves us the weekend the season actually starts (April 3rd). i don't want to leave you out tho, league wouldn't be the same without you - esp considering the keeper-ness of it. you couldn't just do up a thorough pre-draft order for yourself? i was planning on doing the draft on the 21st originally, fwiw.

also - congrats! :D
my wedding gift to you is making sure you're in this league with us however i can!

this leaves us with 9 hitting categories and 8 pitching - which i'm fine with. we have 1 negative hitting stat (GIDP) but none for pitching, so i think there's still a balance of sorts.

could add tacos eaten?

ok i will do a thorough pre-draft ranking, which will basically mean making sure i don't draft any cubs outfielders. y'all can curse me for those two-minute lags.

I know weekday drafts are not ideal but they're fine for me.

xp -- if you pre-rank, there won't be any lags I don't think. also congrats btw

i'll explain to my fiancee that i'm giving up the 2010 live draft for marriage, that might earn me some points.

ok - so still the 21st then - mid afternoon. ish.

if it helps i can write a letter to your wife so she appreciates what you're giving up for her! ;)

lol tbh based on my team as it appeared immediately after the draft in '09, maybe i shouldn't worry too much. btw fantasy baseball and vinyl records are filed under "married not dead."

omar get your priorities in order

can you push the wedding back a few weekends?

maybe i can bring an iphone to the wedding? it'll be like a beer commercial!

i think the reigning champ should get to pick the draft day. TO THE RICHES GO THE SPOILS. autopick will give you eight second basemen, i've seen it happen.

there's a couple simple solutions then i'll shut up:

1) slow draft inside an ILB thread starting real soon. if you dont post your choice within 24 hours you get an autopick based on yahoo's ranks at that number (commissioner determines). yes you would need to keep tabs on that thread for two weeks or so. all picks are manually entered into yahoo.
2) super early thread before spring training really gets going
3) draft a week or two after opening day (can rotisserie do this?)

#2 is obvs super early draft
none of this really matters that much

to the solutions:
1) that's alot of work! also, too soon - might catch some more casual posters off guard & without enough time to prepare
2) again, too soon. not desirable for reasons above
3) this is do-able. can set the stats to retroactive for in-season drafts

so, i'll let omar decide and then i'm setting this bitch up!
keeping with a weekend draft:
• original march 21st draft - i've seen auto-pick do really dumbshit before too, but that's usually only when there's no pre-season ranking done. and if it does do something retarded i'll see what i can do to sort things out
• draft the weekend the season starts (april 3/4)! omar will have just gotten back - could work
• draft a week into season (april 11) - with retroactive stats. fun stuff

gentlemen, i am ok with me preranking like a motherfucker and letting you guys ~do it live~. i kinda look forward to returning home and lolling at my team.

i prefer option 2

sorry to add my 2 cents, probably just confused things. also #3 is really kind of out as it might undermine parity and sustained interest if first time drafters target early success. remember bonaficio last year batting like .600 with a mess of steals in the first two weeks? not that any ILBers are that dumb but he might even kill you even as an eighth round pick, i dont know.

on second thought omar just hook up some good preranks and if you care enough have a friend log in as you and watch for redundant autopicks. you should be ok.

surely you can set autopick to skip picks on your list if you already are full at that position ??

it is supposedly set to fill a roster spot and then move on. sometimes it will do something daft like filling up the outfield before drafting a starter. which happened to me when i couldn't connect to a draft one year (so hadn't set pre-draft rankings).

it worked out ok - because i had alot of OF depth i used to trade for some starting.

ok. league is set up - you should all have emails through ilx - and yahoo if you were in the league last year.

it will be my honor to take last place in this league with such fine, fine men

Colon/King AC has registered.

jimmy mod you playing this year? if not can i be Shame On A Nyjer?

mod might want to change the thread title to give folks a heads up

just remember, albert pujols elbow is "95%" so you should move him down in your draft order, like 5th or 6th round

holy shit you can do mock drafts on yahoo now. I know that I will be doing all day long.

gah fuck you firewall at work. I am trying to slack here.

ha ahaha

trying to work joanna newsom into my team name

i liked my team name so much last year i decided it will also be a keeper!

i dont know about joanna but i googled and foudn this instead: http://www.slate.com/id/2182824
kind of cool. ha, remember slate.

blargh all the clever names i think of show up a bunch on googlesearch

there's a Bobo Newsom. Had quite a career.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/n/newsobo01.shtml

you're actually google searching your team name(s)?! dude...

*googles Vottobots*

thermo, can u email me

brownie, help me out on our grueling trade from last year. it was trevor hoffmann + ryan theriot for X + miguel tejada. i cant remember for the life of me.

I'm about to sign up. I am The Rolling Bears.

Is the draft time (3:30 am CST, Monday, March 22nd) correct?

brownie, help me out on our grueling trade from last year. it was trevor hoffmann + ryan theriot for X + miguel tejada. i cant remember for the life of me.

― sanskrit, Tuesday, February 23, 2010 8:14 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

there was bitter acrimony and fists raised- but I don't know the specifics other than a rivalry HAD BEEN BORN

Sticking with Peraltese Falcons I guess. Indie rock you have failed for two consecutive years much like the cleveland indians.

I'm usually the Dying Quails, but it has been changed to Dying Qualls to be more in line with league vernacular. And yes, I will be vying for the Lightfoot Cup as well!

chicago lols

tagucci mane represent
http://imgur.com/7aXl2l.jpg

ok I'm the Sub-Mariners this year

someone email me the league info

jordanmsargent @ gmail . com

Is the draft time (3:30 am CST, Monday, March 22nd) correct?

incorrect.
the 21st. 3:30 EDT.

I threatened you all with LincecumOnDieYoung. Now, face LincecumOnDieYoung.

thx, whoever emailed me

i'm in the gate as Children of Minaya

jealous of tagucci mane tbh

that was me - tupac.

gah fuck you firewall at work. I am trying to slack here.

― mayor jingleberries, Tuesday, February 23, 2010 1:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

funny stuff but you're probably better off without. i was drunk last night and did one. some dude took ian stewart in the 7th round and i caught beltran with the 160th pick. shit is stupid.

I'd take Ian Stewart in the 7th round.

I wasn't going to do it this year, figuring my improved baseball knowledge means I can't just get by on beginner's luck. But... Fuck it, I'd like to go again. I got an email - do I just sign up that way?

yup. also, you need to send me ten bucks.

feel bad using gucci bermanism in light of actual ringtone crew being in league :O

Theriot Killa

i've tired of Vottobots now.

new name: Umpire Weekend!

i'm Rubik's Kubel for now...

until/unless i think of something more ILXish

hey, thanks for the invite, btw.

i'm stoked to do a keep league. great idea.

I'm getting nowhere on a new name. Best Supporting Actas not bringing it imo.

Cleveland Brownies?

too depressing considering the state of the football team

hook, lind, & sinker

Grr, the draft is the same time as an unavoidable diary conflict. I didn't get to do my own draft last year and really felt I missed out. Sorry to be flakey and change my mind again, you guys, but have fun without me.

"diary conflict"? :|

if i shift things a bit later would that help? (or fuck things up for anyone else?)

My choir is performing that night! Seriously, don't worry about me - if it works for everyone else that's cool.

oh man - for some reason i was reading that as "dairy conflict" and was very confused/disturbed!

Am I the only one still confused/disturbed by "diary conflict"?

thinkin it's a british-ism for schedule/calendar or w/e

unavoidable dairy conflict has a nice ring 2 it as a team name imo

its like how they call elevators "lifts" and the smiths "good"
;)

Oh Byron you wag!

its ok i also thought he was saying he was lactose intolerant

i googled diary conflict and read something alomost interesting

i'm glad it ended well.

oh! so before anyone gets too far into pre-ranking or list/.xls/whatever-ing i guess i should lay out the keeper rules.

this is what i figure is the best way to have things:
• total of 5 keepers
• 2 of which must be 27, 28 or 29 yrs old
• another 2 players 26 or under
• one final keeper that can be either (basically anyone under the age of 30)
• age is based on that year's opening date (Carl Crawford, for example, can be kept in the 2011 draft because he won't turn 30 until after April 3rd of that year)
• for a player to be keep-eligible he must have been drafted on draft day by your team or traded to you by a team that drafted him. that means:
• free agent/waiver pick-ups cannot be kept

i've thought about this a bunch and think this should work pretty well. if anyone sees any glaring problems, please let me know.
everyone who gave their 2¢ seemed to like the idea of an age-based keeper system and i think it will really make things more fun and unique.

the one thing to watch out for is when you trade for a player in his 20s - if you plan on keeping him you should make sure the team trading him actually drafted him, as opposed to scooping him off the waiver wire.

and a final note - if you chose to keep less than 5 players in a draft, i'm going to have to put in a filler pick at the beginning of the draft (most likely Eric Hinske) and then when the draft is done you can drop him - right away - for a player that will count as having been drafted (for keeper purposes).
i think that's everything covered!

so to answer sanskrit's hypothetical upthread:
yes, a 25 year old Prince Fielder (26 on draft day 2011) will most likely be more valuable than old-man-Pujols.

btw - i think this awesome and am totally psyched and should probably be in bed by now.

Seems pretty clear to me (remember I said that when I inevitably screw up and try to keep somebody who can't be kept according to the rules).

this is gonna be really fun

is there a way we can have a stat column of age?

i feel like its not something that is readily known in a specific way. i mean i know jamie moyer is 1000 yrs old and chad billingsley is 15 but if u asked me how old say robbie cano or chase utley is i wouldnt really know

hmmm okay, that makes my five pretty easy to pick. Sabathia's age is a nice surprise; I thought he was 31-32 or so.

xpost, wiki was my co pilot

wait, WmC are you talking abt keeping dudes from your roster last year? that is not whats happening here altho maybe im misreading ur post

oh, I thought we were. I was wondering how that was going to work with new owners/managers

no - the keeping starts with the next draft, not this one. drafting strategy is going to be alot different when you know you're in a keeper, so we sort of need to start fresh.

and ya - i have no idea how it should work when a new team joins. this is why i'd like to have as many people in right off the bat - because it's easier to let a team fold than to get a new one in.

and i don't think there's any way i can get yahoo to show age as a stat, sorry jc.

I am stoked!

does the autodraft computer bot know the rules? or will I have to do this my damn self?

Aaargh, I barely keep up with beisbol nowadays, and I'm in a motherloving keeper league, you guys owe me.

own damn self. yahoo doesn't really have keeper "rules". it doesn't keep track of much, since i have to plug in the keepers myself at the beginning of the drafts. also the bot is not that bright to begin with - so you should be anal about pre-ranking everything under the sun.

xpost! i'll treat you to a J's game if you're ever up here. (unless you consider that punishment)

new teams joining could just draft their way into the league and be at a slight disadvantage, or you could let them pick anywhere from 1 to 5 'keepers' out of the draft pool before the draft and have a potential slight advantage depending on how many and the quality of the pool.

here's the 2010 marcel spreadsheets for anyone who wants an xls with player age in it for convenience (as well as lots of other fun stuff)
http://www.tangotiger.net/marcel/marcel2010.zip

i will prepare then. thanks for the .xls, cp.

• for a player to be keep-eligible he must have been drafted on draft day by your team or traded to you by a team that drafted him. that means:
• free agent/waiver pick-ups cannot be kept

hey not trying to split hairs but i am interpreting this as meaning that:

team a drafts aroldis chapman
team a waits three months for call up burning a bench spot
team a gives up and drops
team b picks up and uses him last month of season
team b is not eligible to keep chapman but would be had he traded for him

i had not thought of that specific scenario. but yes - i think that's the fairest way to do things.

i'm sure team a could work ot some kindof trade.

just fyi - i am hammered, team fuking canada winning the gooold!

oh yea!! being at yonge/dundas was mental!

nice! i was there 8 years ago!

trying to work joanna newsom into my team name

Dwight Goodententions Paving Company?

i'm working on my draft order and getting super psyched. some very interesting candidates working their way up my list.
i don't want to tip my hat as to strategy - but i'm 99% most of us are working with similar draft plans.

smoke w33d & make each pick on a whim? yep

my tradition is to buy a guide then blame it for my demise

i'm working on a list for my drafts too

i did my own projections this year, just for fun. all projection systems end up looking roughly the same in the end, though. working on a draft order now, the #1 overall pick is pretty obvious but i really have no idea after that! which is neat

I'm letting Yahoo do everything for me.

http://i47.tinypic.com/1238gfc.jpg

^me in my lab, working on my draft list^

the thing is - with the way we're doing the keeper deal-y - i have no idea what the #1 will be. i mean i have a guy i think it might be - but it could be several guys. i'm almost tempted to start a poll ending on draft day about who everyone thinks it'll be!

has to be hanley

that's what i figure. the first round is still going to be insane tho.

hanley's arguably the #1 pick in a regular league imo so he's a slam dunk here.

i really have no idea how much to discount unkeepable players though. is Pujols still a top 5 pick? is he even a first round pick when you could be picking 5+ years of Justin Upton or Pablo Sandoval or such instead of 1 year of Pujols?

not that any of us will still be playing fantasy baseball in 5 years, mind you

oh, don't think like that.

googlenyjer~findilbb

LOLLL who is that? is that you hstencil?
im starting to think about switching to ryan u mad son

thats mine ;-)

Every year we tweak the stat categories a bit, but in a keeper league don't we have to pretty much agree to not change the stat categories in future year? If we were to ever dump, say, HR as one of our hitting stats (to use a fairly extreme example), then that would definitely influence which kinds of hitters I'd choose to keep.

I guess this is why most keeper leagues stick to the standard 5x5 categories? I haven't played in a keeper league before, so feel free to tell me I'm reading too much into all this.

well we could change stats up if we decide too. obviously HRs would change up our keeper decisions a bit. but i don't see it as being a huge hurdle - changing gidp or fpct is not going to effect who we view as the best young talent in a significant way. Felix Hernandez is still gonna be Felix Hernandez with or without balks or complete games factored in.

fwiw i settled on Na'avi Vazquez for my other league

but that's only because "Precious: Based on the batting strategy 'Push' by Emilio Bonifacio" exceeded character limits

I saved this list in my gmail. I dont really have a draft strategy other than grabbing at least one of the dudes

James lists the 20 “most valuable properties” among young players in the majors (with ages in parentheses):

Felix Hernandez, Seattle (23)
Prince Fielder, Milwaukee (25)
Hanley Ramirez, Florida (25)
Ryan Braun, Milwaukee (25)
Pablo Sandoval, San Francisco (22)
Tim Lincecum, San Francisco (25)
Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay (23)
Justin Upton, Arizona (21)
Miguel Cabrera, Detroit (26)
Nick Markakis, Baltimore (25)
Matt Kemp, Los Angeles Dodgers (24)
Dustin Pedroia, Boston (25)
Zack Greinke, Kansas City (25)
Ryan Zimmerman, Washington (24)
David Wright, New York Mets (26)
Joe Mauer, Minnesota (26)
Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado (24)
Adam Lind, Toronto (25)
Jair Jurrjens, Atlanta (23)
Mark Reynolds, Arizona (25)

thank you for that list.

god damn panda is young

this should be an interesting draft

I debated not posting the list, but eh its not really rocket science.

As a dodgers fan Im utterly terrified of Justin Upton if he hits his ceiling. 21 goddamn years old.

hey guys can i join

thanks for posting the list, i'm a subscriber too. uh it was a Bill James top 25 so i'm assuming you don't have access beyond the pay wall:

here are the others:

Stephen Strasburg, Washington (21)
Kendry Morales, Los Angeles Angels (26)
Alfonso Soriano, Chicago Cubs (24)
Joe Nathan, Minnesota (25)
David Ortiz, Boston (26)

Joe Nathan's only 25???? /shakes fist at Sabean

Wish you hadn't of posted those others, i really want Ortiz. I reckon by 30 he'll really kick it into gear.

O I C what you did there.

You all had better ph34r me, obvously.

hey guys can i join

ya man. i'm assuming you saw everything upthread about the keeper rules etc?

fuck it, i joined

That list I c&p'd was reprinted on BTF I think.. In the news forums.

one week, ladies :D

17 teams. incredible.

therm i appreciate all your work. i hope these questions are helpful not intrusive but one more: what does Trade Review: League Votes mean? is that a one person veto or several? i only ask because more often than not in keeper leagues the bottom teams trade off top talent to rebuild for next year. i'd imagine that certain trades this year will look fishy though rational.

a certain number of teams need to vote against a trade for it to get killed (not sure exactly what # or %). and also as your all-knowing, all-powerful commissioner I can kill a trade myself, if i think there's something fishy. after the two teams agree on a trade the league gets a notification on their team page and you can review it there. it's not common - i think i saw it happen once in one of our leagues (?).

anyways - there's def going to be some unique trades with our league being set up the (awesome) way that it is. i'm looking forward to seeing how it shakes out, especially around our trade deadline when some people start considering the scenario you're talking about. but we all know the rules here and i don't anticipate any trouble.

so does the draft board help us in tracking ages or keepers at all? and how are the keeper rules enforced? just manually?

i have to do all the keeper bs myself (hence me trying to keep things simple). there's really not alot yahoo does for keeper leagues - aside from letting you label your keepers (which won't even apply until after our 2011 draft).
so that also means you're in charge of keeping track of how old guys are for the draft.

which i am still very much psyched for!

apologies for using the term "psyched".

No number crunching/draft ordering has been accomplished, so I will either draft blindly (like last year, which worked out OK!) or pick nothing but ex-Expos and rename my team Virdon Fleeced (or the Montreal Expos).

yahoo ranks are usually dead on accurate ;)

I always found that I was winging it by the fourth round no matter what I had down on my pre-ordered list. Unless of course you're hardcore and rank fifteen players at every position, but who has the patience to do that?

It's a bit more complicated now with the keeper picks, I still have to figure out how I'm going to tackle that.

i never thought of myself as a patient man.... but i, uh....

hey guys

is it gonna be a problem if we have an uneven amount of teams? if so my friend & pseudo-lurker will join -- he knows his shit

it's roto not head-to-head so number of teams doesn't matter

he can still join though!

I AM PYSCHED. my plan is to fill my entire bench with rookies and prospects who will do nothing all year!

I forget, are we doing a designated keeper round, or do we just pick some dude who meets the age criteria and say he my keeper?

the latter. but it must be phrased exactly like that.

basically, aside what might be some daring early picks, this draft will be the same as a regular one.

This is probably discussed upthread, but can you remind me at what point we designate our keepers? Can we wait until next year's draft, or do we have to choose at the moment we draft them tomorrow?

Hmm, I need to prerank today.

we're not going to worry about naming our keepers until the season starts at the earliest. yahoo is a little vague with this stuff.

can you post the keeper guidelines again?

OMG

it's upthread and also posted on the league homepage.

alright -- i just didn't feel like opening the whole thread and searching for the post

i think you pick your keepers in the next offseason and thermo just assigns them to our teams before next year's draft so they aren't in the draft pool

Yeah, there's no need to name them anytime during the 2010 season, right?

I've got a gigantic custom rankings spreadsheet going with some zany formulas. Hopefully it'll help compensate for the fact that I barely know who half of these players are! (tbh I completely stopped following baseball for most of 2000-2008, and the last couple years I've mainly just followed the NL since I don't have ESPN and I listen to STL games on the radio at work. But doing some research for this draft has definitely upped my game a little bit)

Dumb last-minute keeper question: a guy can be kept up to and including his age-29 year ... so if I draft 21-year old Stephen Strasburg, then I can keep him for nine years?

(yes, I understand that we can't keep five 21-year olds -- two or our keepers must be 27, 28 or 29 yrs old and another another two players must be 26 or under.)

yes.
(also don't forget the 5th keeper that can be either)

ugh, I'm so not ready for this

so many teams!

did canks join?

TOO many teams

• if you keep less than 5 players - you will have a random filler pick inserted instead of a keeper. once the draft is complete you can drop that player for someone else that will count as your final draft pick

i dont get why this is a rule. just allow a new draft pick imo

im assuming keepers will be slotted in to where u picked them previously ?

i dont get why this is a rule. just allow a new draft pick imo

because i can only manually do the keeper rounds as an entire round - not 4 for one or several teams and 5 for others (from what i've read).
they'll be slotted as the first 5 rounds as a result, not that it makes a difference.

and no canks, so far.

nah u can slot them in, i had a yahoo draft earlier this wk, the keeper rules were say you drafted cliff lee in round 6, as i did, i kept him by giving up my round 5 draft pick and the commish slotted all the keepers in where they would get autopicked as the draft went

also, its really hard 2 keep certain guys on ur roster all season long ~ id propose allowing say 2 free agents be keeper eligible if theyre on ur roster at the end of the year

i understand im a jerk 4 raising this rite now btw

ya, that is sort of last minute to be dropping this.

the slotting thing is news to me - remember i've never even played in a keeper - let alone commished one before and we might have to see what the consensus is on that one before our 2011 draft.

for get the free agent thing tho. if you really want to keep a guy, you'll have to suffer him on your roster all season. with less than two hours until our draft i'm not making up some new rules on the fly either. i'd be an ever bigger jerk if i went with that.

i guess i'm going to have to think on the slotting thing tho - it was my assumption, based on what i read with yahoo, that i would have to do all the keepers in at once in the same rounds.

word i hear ya. im more just thinking aloud of what teh possible complaints during the season will be..

yeah look in to the slotting & lets see what others think

it makes sense - but at this point it might be an unfair thing to drop on whoever picks Chapman in the 3rd round, not having seen what you've just brought up!

Yeah let's keep things as is, given that there's only an hour left until the draft and many people won't have seen this conversation.

I know there's only 45 minutes to decide, but would it be cool if we bailed on Yahoo and did it on ESPN instead? thanks for being accommodating.

pen and paper/conference call draft, en espanol, starting in 40 minutes

dial in # and conference code # forthcoming

HAAA hahAAH AHAHA hahahaa. your commish is Canadian - call will be en français!

our league is very unique. :)

"distinct" is the preferred nomenclature.

i started this thread for you in jan because i figured there'd be a ton of ilx style handwringing and arguing over the new format. then surprisingly no one objected to anything.
thanks for coming through ilx!

draft order is up

everyone jump into the draft now if you're reading this. i tried a mock this morning and couldn't get into the application until after the 4th round had passed. i think yahoo's servers are getting sonned today.

i'm in. 16th :(

i got in too

4th. :)

I'm mentally preparing to get pwned

Lost a team somewhere, down to 16

It's going to take a while for me to connect team names with ILX usernames. Right now I'm drawing a blank on everyone.

im ride it my loney

Oh, I just noticed our ILXor usernames are in parentheses next to our team names, that's handy.

Lost a team somewhere, down to 16

I dropped out. good luck everyone

g-damn! my laptop sabotaged my draft by shutting down and now i cant get back in!

im sure im autopicking all the rooks i had queued

your last two picks are michael taylor & rasmus

awesome draft dudes

incredible turnout

I have no idea if my team is good:

LincecumOnDieYoung

Round Pick Player Position
1. (7) Ryan Braun OF
2. (26) David Wright 3B
3. (39) Jacoby Ellsbury OF
4. (58) Brian Roberts 2B
5. (71) B.J. Upton OF
6. (90) Denard Span OF
7. (103) Carlos Peña 1B
8. (122) John Danks SP
9. (135) Scott Baker SP
10. (154) Gavin Floyd SP
11. (167) Bengie Molina C
12. (186) Rafael Furcal SS
13. (199) Randy Wells SP
14. (218) Ben Sheets SP
15. (231) J.P. Howell RP
16. (250) Mike Adams RP
17. (263) Ryan Madson RP
18. (282) Sergio Romo RP
19. (295) Michael Brantley OF
20. (314) Darren O'Day RP
21. (327) Madison Bumgarner P

Unless Club Sandwich
1. (14) Mark Teixeira
2. (19) Carl Crawford
3. (46) Justin Verlander
4. (51) Derek Jeter
5. (78) Josh Beckett
6. (83) Jake Peavy
7. (110) Josh Hamilton
8. (115) Rafael Soriano
9. (142) Carlos González
10. (147) Rickie Weeks
11. (174) Ryan Franklin
12. (179) Roy Oswalt
13. (206) Buster Posey
14. (211) Vladimir Guerrero
15. (238) Brett Wallace
16. (243) Tim Hudson
17. (270) Alberto Callaspo
18. (275) Chris Iannetta
19. (302) Joba Chamberlain
20. (307) Brad Lidge
21. (334) Nick Johnson
22. (339) Marlon Byrd

Children of Minaya

1. (10) Miguel Cabrera 1B
2. (23) Pablo Sandoval 1B,3B
3. (42) Shin-Soo Choo OF
4. (55) Cliff Lee SP
5. (74) Ricky Nolasco SP
6. (87) Hunter Pence OF
7. (106) Francisco Rodríguez RP
8. (119) Elvis Andrus SS
9. (138) Rick Porcello SP
10. (151) Howie Kendrick 2B
11. (170) Michael Stanton OF
12. (183) Rajai Davis OF
13. (202) Carlos Zambrano SP
14. (215) Mike González RP
15. (234) Juan Rivera OF
16. (247) Joe Blanton SP
17. (266) Felipe López 2B
18. (279) Gaby Sánchez 1B
19. (298) Ross Ohlendorf SP
20. (311) Justin Smoak 1B
21. (330) John Baker C
22. (343) Tyler Clippard RP

The Rolling Bears

1. (4) Álex Rodríguez 3B
2. (29) Kevin Youkilis 1B
3. (36) Robinson Canó 2B
4. (61) José Reyes SS
5. (68) Matt Cain SP
6. (93) Adam Jones OF
7. (100) Carlos Lee OF
8. (125) Brett Anderson SP
9. (132) Nyjer Morgan OF
10. (157) Huston Street RP
11. (164) Mike Napoli C
12. (189) Carlos Beltrán OF (UTIL)
13. (196) Michael Wuertz RP
14. (221) Martín Prado 3B/2B
15. (228) Brandon Webb SP
16. (253) David Ortiz 1B
17. (260) Ryan Theriot SS
18. (285) Alfredo Aceves RP
19. (292) Mark Teahen 3B/OF
20. (317) Jeff Francoeur OF
21. (324) Ángel Guzmán SP/RP/D'oh!
22. (349) Bud Norris SP/RP

Álex José Canó

and Ángel, who I've already dropped. I'm still a little iffy about the waiver system, I hope I'm not fucking up big time already.

1. (1) Albert Pujols 1B
2. (32) Roy Halladay SP
3. (33) Adam Lind OF
4. (64) Jason Bay OF
5. (65) Tommy Hanson SP
6. (96) Billy Butler 1B
7. (97) Max Scherzer SP
8. (128) Nate McLouth OF
9. (129) Neftali Feliz RP
10. (160) Matt Thornton RP
11. (161) Edwin Encarnación 3B
12. (192) Marco Scutaro SS
13. (193) Geovany Soto C
14. (224) Aaron Harang SP
15. (225) Carlos Santana C
16. (256) Kelly Johnson 2B
17. (257) Bobby Jenks RP
18. (288) Ryan Raburn 1B,OF
19. (289) Johnny Cueto SP
20. (320) Kyle Lohse SP
21. (321) Matt LaPorta 1B,OF
22. (352) Justin Masterson SP,RP

I definitely have some quesion marks on this team

and that team is ^DYING QUALLS

yea my last ten rounds are all reasonably absurd

googlenyjer~findilbb
1. (12) Justin Upton
2. (21) Adrián González
3. (44) Kendry Morales
4. (53) Aaron Hill
5. (76) Shane Victorino
6. (85) Jair Jurrjens
7. (108) Edwin Jackson
8. (117) Jason Bartlett
9. (140) Aroldis Chapman
10. (149) Frank Francisco
11. (172) David Aardsma
12. (181) Chris Davis
13. (204) Colby Rasmus
14. (213) Michael Taylor
15. (236) Lou Marson
16. (245) Scott Feldman
17. (268) Octavio Dotel
18. (277) Franklin Gutiérrez
19. (300) Adam Kennedy
20. (309) Conor Jackson
21. (332) Sean Rodriguez
22. (341) Adam Moore

and thats not even counting ROLDY

Hanson, Butler, Feliz and LaPorta are all good young'n picks.

(lind scherzer too)

xposts!

Poly your clubs look pretty scary good

xpost thermo: thx dude! and all thank you to my bosses for not realising how much research i was doing at work :P

*club

so this is my franchise, *~*Umpire Weekend*~*

c - Weiters (23) (i hope the early pick don't blow up in my face)
1b - Berkman
2b - Uggla
3b - Cantu (28)
ss - Drew (27)
ss - Hardy
of - Makakis (26)
of - Fowler (24)
of - Ordonez
of - Reimold (26)

sp - King Felix (23)
sp - Hamels (27)
sp - Lilly
sp – Kazmir (26)
sp - Arroyo
sp - Marcum (28)
rp - Wagner
rp - Rauch
rp - Sherrill
rp - Moylan
rp - Bard (24)

johnny - i really like Conor Jackson at 309. that's a good pick.

Colon/King AC

1. (9) Prince Fielder 1B
2. (24) Zack Greinke SP
3. (41) Justin Morneau 1B
4. (56) Yovani Gallardo SP
5. (73) Andrew McCutchen OF
6. (88) Jered Weaver SP
7. (105) Joakim Soria RP
8. (120) James Shields SP
9. (137) Raúl Ibañez OF
10. (152) Jorge Posada C
11. (169) Alcides Escobar SS
12. (184) Casey McGehee 2B,3B
13. (201) Adrián Béltre 3B
14. (216) Drew Stubbs OF
15. (233) Kyle Blanks OF
16. (248) Maicer Izturis 2B,SS
17. (265) Jason Castro C
18. (280) Rafael Betancourt RP
19. (297) Ricky Romero SP
20. (312) Fernando Rodney RP
21. (329) Miguel Olivo C
22. (344) LaTroy Hawkins RP

Poly your clubs look pretty scary good

Thanks! I'm pretty happy with it.

Which usually is a bad sign.

J-CHRIST, I joked about it earlier, but srsly half of my lineup is out with an injury right now. uuuugh

thx thermo yea i hope his desert fungus doesnt flair up

Major thanks to Thermo and those who aided in hammering out the details.

Five Brewers, no Tigers, WTF.

time for you to move to wisconsin

Nah, I'll just listen to more Ben Sidran.

best picks

Alberto Callaspo Unless Club Sandwich round 17
Julio Borbon Gregg! The Stop Sign round 12
Conor Jackson googlenyjer round 20
Marlon Byrd Unless Club Sandwich round 22

biggest reach
uh maybe a certain catcher or minor league pitcher
but whatever keeps it fun

YES I KNOW.

i'm more perplexed by the glut of O's on my team.
sorry, Higgins, if i have now jinxed your irl team's outfield with my actions!

/future

Haha, Callaspo is the guy I feel most ambivalent about.

I was strongly considering him but went with McGehee (also 2B/3B).

i like mcgehee. most frustrating thing was that they didnt play him enough last yr, even when he was red hot

I'm assuming that the DL spots will open up once the season has started? I'm not seeing them right now.

http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/306034/settings

Two DL slots, which'll open later, yep.

I had to bail after round 14 to take my daughter back to school, so my last eight were autopicked.

Sub-Mariner At Best

1. (13) Ian Kinsler 2B
2. (20) Brian McCann C
3. (45) Adam Wainwright SP
4. (52) Ben Zobrist 2B,SS,OF
5. (77) Jonathan Broxton RP
6. (84) Michael Bourn OF
7. (109) Jason Heyward OF
8. (116) Ryan Dempster SP
9. (141) José López 1B,2B
10. (148) Brian Fuentes RP
11. (173) Jhonny Peralta 3B,SS
12. (180) Ryan Ludwick OF
13. (205) Alfonso Soriano OF
14. (212) Kenshin Kawakami SP,RP
15. (237) Justin Duchscherer SP
16. (244) Erik Bedard SP
17. (269) Corey Hart OF
18. (276) Vernon Wells OF
19. (301) Alex Gordon 3B
20. (308) Cristian Guzmán SS
21. (333) Paul Maholm SP
22. (340) Brandon McCarthy SP

kind of a lol-some roster in spots -- I don't expect much out of this season, but I've got some good yoot' to build on for '11.

man, autopick did you no favours!

haha...glad to see some o's getting love. i think markakis will have a big year. dude is 26 this year and already hits a shit ton of doubles.

god knows i hope your faith in wieters is repaid!

nutty draft. i have some issues, folks.

Kneel Before ZAUN!
1. (3) Evan Longoria
2. (30) Mark Reynolds
3. (35) Dustin Pedroia
4. (62) Yunel Escobar
5. (67) Wandy Rodríguez
6. (94) Adam Dunn
7. (99) Mariano Rivera
8. (126) Matt Garza
9. (131) Russell Martin
10. (158) Brian Matusz
11. (163) A.J. Burnett
12. (190) Jeremy Hermida
13. (195) Álex Ríos
14. (222) Mat Latos
15. (227) Chris Carter
16. (254) Phil Hughes
17. (259) Jeremy Affeldt
18. (286) Wade Davis
19. (291) Skip Schumaker
20. (318) Hideki Matsui
21. (323) Nick Blackburn
22. (350) Ty Wigginton

tagucci mane: we have a good mix of past their primes stars and unproven youngsters

(11) Tim Lincecum 25
(22) Ryan Howard
(43) Jimmy Rollins
(54) Brandon Phillips 28
(75) Derrek Lee
(86) Michael Young
(107) Jonathan Papelbon 29
(118) Chris Coghlan 24
(139) Torii Hunter
(150) Michael Cuddyer
(171) Jorge De La Rosa 28
(182) Kevin Correia 29
(203) Chris Pérez 24
(214) Joel Piñeiro
(235) Mark Buehrle
(246) Yadier Molina 27
(267) Matt Guerrier
(278) Hideki Okajima
(299) Austin Jackson 23
(310) Mat Gamel 24
(331) Cameron Maybin 22
(342) Brad Bergesen 24

Gregg! The Stop Sign

Gregg! The Stop Sign
1. (15) Troy Tulowitzki
2. (18) Joey Votto
3. (47) Jon Lester
4. (50) Josh Johnson
5. (79) Gordon Beckham
6. (82) Jay Bruce
7. (111) Chipper Jones
8. (114) Brian Wilson
9. (143) Francisco Cordero
10. (146) Miguel Montero
11. (175) Garrett Jones
12. (178) Julio Borbón
13. (207) Pedro Alvarez
14. (210) Desmond Jennings
15. (239) Scott Downs
16. (242) Derek Lowe
17. (271) Clay Buchholz
18. (274) Scott Sizemore
19. (303) Jesús Flores
20. (306) Dallas Braden
21. (335) Colby Lewis
22. (338) John Lannan

mostly upside picks this year, since my ones last year worked nicely (Ryan Zimmerman!), but i won't be dominating the pitching categories this year unless one of my guys goes crazy like greinke did last year

O Say Can U SIERA

1. (5) Joe Mauer
2. (28) Ryan Zimmerman
3. (37) Johan Santana
4. (60) Clayton Kershaw
5. (69) Andre Ethier
6. (92) Chad Billingsley
7. (101) Stephen Strasburg
8. (124) José Valverde
9. (133) Todd Helton
10. (156) Brad Hawpe
11. (165) Miguel Tejada
12. (188) J.A. Happ
13. (197) Johnny Damon
14. (220) J.D. Drew
15. (229) Plácido Polanco
16. (252) Nick Swisher
17. (261) Cody Ross
18. (284) José Mijares
19. (293) Clint Barmes
20. (316) Dan Wheeler
21. (325) Jim Thome
22. (348) Barry Zito

During the draft I thought I was doing OK, but now I'm not so sure. I have a lot of young pitchers and old vets who might be due for collapse. But my keeper core is good if the pitchers pan out.

you're going to be our league's A's!

step 1 - trade ethier

12. (178) Julio Borbón

― ciderpress, Sunday, March 21, 2010 11:50 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

I almost took Borbon two rounds before that but chickened out U_U

he IS going to be a starter this year right?? i wasn't sure but assumed that he wouldn't be ranked that high if not

hes a keeper of mine in an auction league. all signs point 2 him being a regular. he has the most ABs of anyone in all of spring training fwiw

ya - he's def the opening day cf/leadoff guy, baring total implosion.
i think he outperformed when he was brought up last season - but even if his hitting takes a step back - he's still going to get you sb and score a decent amount of runs with the lineup he's infront of.

He seems like a pure steals guy and is a rookie, and I have been burned by that combination so many times.

yeah i'm expecting something like 2008 ellsbury. i took him for steals and not much else

my loney, jump on it (conspicuously absent of james loney)

1. (8) Matt Kemp
2. (25) CC Sabathia
3. (40) Víctor Martínez
4. (57) Ubaldo Jiménez
5. (72) Chone Figgins
6. (89) Curtis Granderson
7. (104) Heath Bell
8. (121) Asdrubal Cabrera
9. (136) John Lackey
10. (153) Chad Qualls
11. (168) Travis Snider
12. (185) Carlos Quentin
13. (200) David Price
14. (217) Erick Aybar
15. (232) Russell Branyan
16. (249) Jesus Montero
17. (264) Jason Frasor
18. (281) Chase Headley
19. (296) Blake DeWitt
20. (313) Lars Anderson
21. (328) Juan Uribe
22. (345) Hong-Chih Kuo

I tried to lean towards pitching and steals. Will need Branyan to repeat last year and a comeback by Quentin to do well in the power department, which is pretty lackluster. Maybe Granderson can pull a Damon and flip a bunch of cheap home runs into Yankee Stadium RF.

Ill also be able to mix and match a bunch when Chone gets 3B,2B eligibility as well as Blake DeWitt.

HI FIVE YO WE BOTH GOT DRAFTED YESSSSS

http://towleroad.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/wright_reyes.jpg

um

http://towleroad.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/wright_reyes.jpg

just about to post it a third time and realize i had images turned off lol

(probably obvious) question about waivers: I have one open spot in my roster since I dropped Angel yesterday evening. I have a few different waiver claims for his replacement. Assuming I get my highest priority, what happens with the second? Will it give me an option to drop someone else on my team in order to make room for the second waiver?

In other words, when you make a waiver claim, do you have to drop a player FIRST to make room (like I did), or can you wait until you find out that you successfully claimed the player off waivers and THEN drop a player to make room?

sorry for the n00b question, but I couldn't manage to find the answer in the help/rules section.

if you click add player when your roster is full it'll let you choose the player you're dropping to make room for the new one. if you do it this way, the drop and add should both happen at the same time or not at all.

like for example my current waiver claim says:
Waiver 1 - Mar 24: ********** dropping Jesús Flores

where the ********s are the name of the player i'm claiming (shh it's a secret). if i don't get the claim then Flores won't get dropped.

ah, that makes sense, thanks!

ROLDY CHAPMAN U BETTER NOT NEED A BACKIOTOMY

ZS, I would make traeds with you.

Wait, no I wouldn't.

looool

Devastating Probe May Become a Pain in the Ass

All four of the MLB players mentioned - A-Rod, Huston Street, Beltran and Reyes - are starters on my team.

i can't tell if your headline is even funnier than the original one -- so awkward to say that someone is "meeting with a probe" *shudders*

new team name in order.

Actually wasn't being a dick, there were some guys on your roster I was interested in but then Yahoo seems to have changed their position eligibilities, so. :\

so for some reason i drafted mostly lethargic sluggers. i'm looking for a guy who can get me sb and hit for decent average, if anyone is inclined to offer up a trade.

Hah I did the exact opposite. Take a look at my roster if anything interests you. I might stick to my guns tho. In the past Ive always leaned on HRs and Im trying a different path.

i proposed 2 u a trade

http://media.nj.com/yankees_main/photo/melky-cabrera-giving-thumbs-down-f28aa62a5a79f360_large.jpg

I will meditate on this.

i know you just image searched thumbs down but if the trade offer had actually involved melky that would have been cool as hell.

i know. sadly the internets is lacking in its photographic depictions of Nick Markakis giving Raj Davis an epic thumbs down.

tho, i suppose i could just photoshop the thing. but the payoff would not justify the effort.

i am not in the league but i started one for some of my friends and any of you could get in it (draft this saturday) by emailing me at expresso2222 at gmail dot com. thanking you, i remain yours...

Not to brag, but when the 75% of my team that's on the DL for 2-24 weeks comes back AND have breakout years all around, you guys are gonna be in TROUBLE

This is my first year in fantasy baseball and I learned a lesson that should have been obvious - check the fucking injury lists before you draft.

I'm putting together a massive spreadsheet that has every team's projected stats for the season, based off their current starting position players and pitchers. I won't post the rankings by stat, but I'm thinking I will post the overall projected team rankings. That way at the end of the season I might be able to console myself with the fact that I predicted my demise from the very start!

So far I'm 3/16th finished

(in case anyone cares, the projections I'm using cover all of our pitching stats but only 6.5 of our 9 hitting stats (.5 because I only have projections for SB instead of NSB)

are you generating the data yourself? does it involve a 20-sided die?

j/k i think its a fun idea

hahaha, I've got Devo playing on the record player right now - never before has it felt so shameful!

ha ha. i'm sure i won't do too well. this draft was all about *the future* for me.

When do we have to declare our keepers?

Next year, before the draft.

OK, here are my preseason rankings, with some caveats:

• I'm missing batting projections for GIDP and FPCT, and also I only had total SB instead of NSB
• I went off of what everyone has for their current starting lineup, for both pitchers and hitters. There were a few cases where I made slight adjustments (ie, subbing in a bench players for Strasburg and Heyward, who were both listed on the starting lineup, and accounting for a few pending trades that should be going through in a couple of days).
• I ask that all managers refrain from making any trade or ever altering their lineups, and that MLB players please perform exactly according to the projections that I have and do not get injured, so that my rankings will remain accurate all year.

Batting
01)Youk Ones Pt. II
02) chicago lols
03) LincecumOnDieYoung
04) tagucci mane
05) Dying Qualls
06) Devastating Probes
07) Kneel Before ZAUN!
08) Gregg! The Stop Sign
09) O Say Can U SIERA
10) googlenyjer~findilbb
11) Children of Minaya
12) Ride it my Loney
13) Unless Club Sandwich
14) Colon/King AC
15) Sub-Mariner At Best
16) Umpire Weekend

Pitching
01) Dying Qualls
02) Ride it my Loney
03) Colon/King AC
04) LincecumOnDieYoung
05) Devastating Probes
06) tagucci mane
07) O Say Can U SIERA
08) Gregg! The Stop Sign
09) Unless Club Sandwich
10) Youk Ones Pt. II
11) Sub-Mariner At Best
12) Umpire Weekend
13) Kneel Before ZAUN!
14) Children of Minaya
15) chicago lols
16) googlenyjer~findilbb

• Oh, one more: Since I have only 7 of 9 batting stats, as compared to 8 pitching stats, the projections will lean a bit toward pitching.

My source for the projections is my man Carl down the street btw

Carl reviewing my team:
http://blog.robotforest.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/carl.jpg

haha, well that's yet another caveat:

• This obviously doesn't take into account the keeper aspect of the league

ya - lets see those 2012 projections bitches!

I'm good with these projections, so we don't need to actually play out the season, right?

it's true ive somewhat ignored pitching so far cuz it's the easiest thing to add as the season goes

plus im not abt 2 stoop 2 drafting for HOLDS, that is the terrain of only the most disgusting savage imo

Are you calling me out.

lol no do ur thing homie

sounds like he was calling us out.

Me
http://theredzonereport.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/barry_zito_san_francisco_giants.jpg

johnny crunch
http://cdn.complex.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/beanballs_lead.jpg

Me:

http://i39.tinypic.com/s2grnk.jpg

ha hahhaa

can a mod revise the images up top with just that picture?

being 8th on all of those sounds good considering i did a ton of high upside picks that can't possibly have flattering projections yet

im callin out EVERYBODY pitching is 4 fags fans only care abt the longball iirc

I know I've mentioned this a million times already, but this is my first time participating in a league and I've already been really surprised at how much fun it is! I haven't been this tuned into baseball, probably...ever. There was the late-80s to late 90s, but I was pretty much just a Cardinals obsessive.

fantasy will do that to you, it's awesome

ME:
http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l59/proecadgod/arnold_numero_uno.jpg

Yahoo is only showing pitching probables for 4/5, am I assuming that they'll get the rest of the week's rotations up as managers announce their rotations? Or did I do a LOLWTF job of drafting SPs?

i'm seeing them for 4/6 too

i click "opponents" tab and look for the ^'s

I was already looking at that -- I have two guys going 4/5, and then the rest of the week, NOTHING.

btw, Z, i am currently in 3rd place.
SO MUCH FOR YOUR SILLY PROJECTIONS!

GO UMPIRES!

This may be my last day atop the standings. I will savor this moment.

Again thermo, I politely insist that in the interest of ensuring that the projections remain accurate, please guide your team to last place in the standings.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.

ugh, thanks to Nick Masset, my team ERA is now 45.00, WHIP is 5.00, and I don't have any starters pitching for another few days.

On the other hand, although I was wishing the Zambrano/Beltran trade with J0rdan would've went through in time to have him as a SP today, I'm preeeetty glad it didn't.

haha, i called my friend this morning to talk to him about that trade, and i said "well, at least i'll get z's start for today"

What else did he say about the trade? Just curious. ;)

I'm really going to regret it when Beltran comes back in mid-May and starts tearing it up, or if Zambrano doesn't bounce back a little this season.

well, when i proposed the trade, my pitchers were healthy, but then cliff lee & joe blanton went on the DL, and i got super thin, and then you accepted, so i have very minimal pitching at the moment -- just shitty timing for me is all

Oh man, I'm sorry. I know all about the bad luck. The good news is that when everyone is back in action during May you should be in great shape.

Also a little worried about the Youkilis/Huston Street for Carpenter/Hoffman trade I made on the same day. I'm confident Carpenter will continue to do well, but concerned about the hole left by Youkilis. There are enough marquee first basemen that having a powerhouse at 1B is kinda mandatory. Konerko played well today but I'm not sure how well the Konerko/Ortiz platoon is going to do this year.

I'm having a lot of fun with this league because it satisfies my constant urge to worry about SOMETHING

you could prob make due with konerko & another player platooning -- idk about papi tho -- frontline pitching is kind of hard to acquire & you needed it

lol my fantasy staff today - lincecum, halladay, santana and jimenez
27IP, 4 Wins, 27K, 1.67 era (ryan franklin messed it up a bit), 1.11 whip

are you in a two team league?

nah, yahoo public league - 10 teams (my everydays are mediocre at best tho, this similar lopsided strategy got me third i think last year)

wait, yahoo has 12 teams per league
i also have cliff lee on the dl

I know it doesn't mean anything, but I dropped from 2nd place to 13th place yesterday.

I thank Chone Figgins and Eric Aybar for sparing me from a similar fate.

My only pitching stats until Thursday night are going to be Nick Masset's performance last night:

2 IP, 3 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 2 BB, 1 SO, 45.00 ERA, 5.00 WHIP

smh

Cut to Chris Carpenter in dugout: Stuffing massive wad of chew in mouth
Cut to Chris Carpenter in dugout, a few innings later: CHEWING ON GOATEE HAIR

A couple more innings and Carp is going to be gnawing on Oquendo's sleeve

whoops, I meant to post that pointless anecdote in the Cards thread.

regretting the trade already?

hahaha, no. I'm confident Carp will turn in another great season. I do miss Youkilis, though. I was wistfully watching him in the BoSox/Yanks game earlier, remembering the great times we shared while he was still on my team during the first game of the season. Those were the days...

rasmus is pwning in walks

I was hoping to not feel incredibly frustrated with my team this early but here we are.

you should make an impulsive trade or drop.

yes. addition through subtraction etc.

Good point. Pretty sure this Teixeira chump is not going to get a hit all season.

Offense was no-hit last night! Great job!

does somebody have CJ Wilson? maybe someone pick him up?

he's campaigning hard for waiver wire pickups:

http://twitter.com/RotoSleeperz/status/11882611990 then
http://twitter.com/str8edgeracer/status/11884107863

ha hha! my god i love the future!

That is pretty lol, Wilson working hard to make sure his fantasy career is as successful as his real one! Sounds like his campaign may be working, though - Rotowire listed him as a "recommended pickup" this morning:

C.J. Wilson, SP, TEX – I'll be the first to admit that I was a little bit skeptical when the Rangers first announced their plans to give Wilson a look in the starting rotation. In fact, I recall Will Carroll making a comparison to Ryan Dempster, as far as Wilson having similar potential to exceed expectations and make the rare successful transition from reliever to starter. His start against the Blue Jays on Thursday was very impressive – seven scoreless innings, five hits allowed and a 9:2 K:BB – and he's shown the ability to induce outs on the ground in recent seasons (1.67 G/F, 1.41, 1.37, 2.19 from 2006-09). Given the expected innings spike, there has to be some concern about late-season fatigue, but he just may be able to survive his home park in Arlington given the ability to miss bats and limit the flyballs.

Reyes is off the DL today. Just to doublecheck, I've "activated" him off the DL, right?

http://i41.tinypic.com/11b2e76.jpg

I guess I'm just wondering why the "DL" is still by his name.

yeah it usually takes them a day or two to remove that but you'll still get credit if he plays

i think you're good. i have him in another league and had the same issue. as long as you pull him the day before (this is really important for pitchers coming off the dl when there's no notification of a start the next day). reyes is posting 0s across the board right now so i think the stats will count. then again it is yahoo.

you should be ok.

so you're the one who has Napoli. i have him in my other league and don't know what to make of his playing time situation. i did have the foresight to draft Doumit a few rounds later, so it's not much beyond annoying right now for me.

and i would now like to say how smrt i feel for drafting Ordonez in both my leagues!

Kiss my cleats, everyone else: 9 NSB!!

So, should I start Ben Sheets vs. LAA tonight?

MY FIELDIN PERCENTAGE BE INFINITE

Kiss my cleats, everyone else: 9 NSB!!

!!

OH. I thought you meant 9 NSB in one day! I mean, 9 in total is good too, but 9 in one day would've blown my socks off.

so you're the one who has Napoli. i have him in my other league and don't know what to make of his playing time situation. i did have the foresight to draft Doumit a few rounds later, so it's not much beyond annoying right now for me.

Yep, it's a pickle, and he's not playing today, either. So far he's sat out for 4 of the first 5 games! I'm not sure whether or not to just wing it with one catcher for now and see if Scioscia ends up playing him more as the season goes on or go ahead and try to draft an everyday catcher that probably hits .234/.290/.324 or something. Catcher is a position with virtually no depth anyway, but with our 16-team league it's especially thin in the bottom ranks.

I dunno man, there are a bunch of starting catchers in free agency, and a lot of them are old guys (who are usually better in April and May than they are later in the season). They could help you out while you wait for the Napoli situation to sort itself out.

anyone own barajas?

Nope, he's free.

I kinda wish Napoli would get a buttache while sitting on the bench and go on the DL so I didn't have to drop someone to add a new catcher!

I wish I wasn't carrying three catchers! Who am I, Omar Minaya?

zach i always read your team name as Devastating Pubes

"The pubes that ruined a marriage"

My thoughts are repeated in the Angels thread but goddamn the Angels need to trade Napoli if Scioscia is going to play Mathis every goddamn day.

i owned Napoli last year. he's great but is infuriating to own as Scioscia never starts him. he does 20 hr easy in like 325 ABs.. watch him get traded to the Red Sox as a DH/C and go nuts with regular play time.

I ended up adding the immortal Carlos Ruiz (C) and dropping the immortal Nick Masset (RP), so hopefully I can at least have some adequate numbers in the catcher spot. Would LOVE to see Napoli traded to Red Sox, it's true.

anyone have an extra catcher to trade me? looks like montero is DL-bound and the waiver wire is pretty thin...

David Ortiz, 4/11/10: 0-4, 4 K, 1 BB, 1 R
Josh Willingham, 4/11/10: 2-3, 1 HR, 5 RBI, 1 BB

This morning I had Willingham starting and Ortiz on the bench, but at the last second I decided to switch it around.

they need to put ortiz down

this braves/giants game is reeeeeeally looking to fuck with fantasy results today

On a related note - anyone want to trade me ANY BASEBALL PLAYER for Ortiz? He is awesome

this sucks i can't change my team name to Elvis Andrus Was a Hero to Most too many characters.

ElvisAndrusWzAHero2Most?

chris perez punishing my post-duncan faith in him, smh
ip:1 h:3 bb:3 wp:1 er:3

Another day, another 3 NSB (on top of .192/.308 BA/SLUGGO).

it autodrafted ortiz for my 1B in my other league and i'm currently platooning daric barton, jeff clement, and conor jackson rather than play him... r.i.p.

Ugh, sorry to ask another administrative question, but has anyone ran into any trouble adding a player when a roster position is empty? I'm trying to add a free agent RP, but when I try to add him it asks me to drop another player, even though I have an empty bench spot:

http://i44.tinypic.com/w7o2h1.jpg

leaving all the boxes unchecked and trying to move on results in:

http://i40.tinypic.com/egekyh.jpg

Make sure you've put the DL'ed guy(s) actually on the DL. Or maybe you've maxed out your DL slots?

i'll take a look.

dood.

the max number of active players is 22 and then there 2 dl slots. you have 22 active guys and 2 guys on the dl.

if you had cropped that a bit differently we'd see the positions on the left. what is empty is your P slot. it doesn't indicate an empty spot on the roster - it just means you can start one more pitcher (starter or reliever) on that day.

so whoever you're trying to add - you gots to pick a sucka to go.

i would recommend Carpenter. dood's a punk.

^^
Man, I'm losing to this guy?

me? yes you are.

good day guys, 0-18 so far w/ 1 GIDP, -1 NSB & aaron hill goin on the dl~

I meant the guy who couldn't figure out he already had two people on the DL already, boss.

but I thought I had an empty bench slot left, regardless of DL situation.

*hangs head in shame*

Meanwhile, I'm glad Carlos Lee and David Ortiz are fucking TEARING IT UP so far this season!

my stat line for today -
# 1/14
# 0
# 0
# 0
# 0
# 1
# 1.000
# .071
# 0.071

fuckin' a fielding percentage

1st! I guess I should fail to start two of my pitchers more often

-26

whats up now bitches

i probably shouldn't have started ross ohlendorf tonight *sucks teeth*

8 walks today tho, so there's that

guess i didn't need to hide son of jorel pineiro from the yanks ><

i will be hiding Kazmir from them tomorrow.

grow some balls i just started jonothong sanchezmang today against the mighty pirates.

so going back to the Napoli talk. some dude flat dropped him in a competitive league i'm in. real tempted. and julio borbon just got dropped. really tempted. i was kind of surprised by that one.

anyone wanna trade me a closer

thought about the Napoli thing. but since i have Doumit, i don't mind using a bench spot on the napster for the time being. mathis is not going to keep hitting and after time defense just gets boring - mike will be out there soon enough!

and no, i will not start Kazmir on his first start off the dl, first start of the season, in the NY homer palace.

I'm fine with Napoli on my bench...for now. But It's going to be a tough decision when Wuertz comes off the DL soon, not to mention if Brandon Webb ever makes it off the DL. Somebody's gonna have to be dropped, and although I'm planning on benching Ortiz until he hopefully turns it around last year...I dunno. I'm also thinking of trading Theriot (SS), who's good for speed (2 steals tonight, for example).

fuckin shit of course i have victorino on my bench

Although Yahoo is mysteriously claiming that Theriot has 3 NSB tonight. Anyone notice that Yahoo often totally fucks up the numbers for steals, and then corrects them about an hour later? It was the same deal with Nyjer Morgan tonight - he stole a base and Yahoo immediately throws up 2 NSB on the board, and later reduces it to 1.

i did notice that with Theriot - who's on my other team. not that i'm complaining.

fuck yahoo for telling me that colby lewis was starting tomorrow instead of today, he was sitting on my bench in both my leagues for his 10K start

its been doubling all my SBs at first too, probably a bugg

cj wilson came down w/ food poisoning so colby was moved up

yeah i dont see how that's yahoo's fault. those are just start dates estimates.

although i do remember last year the stats feed went down for an entire sunday. it was right before end of season and the last day of standard h2h. so everyone was freaking out unable to find out if they won their h2h league or not. lolllllllllll

their fault for playing h2h!

;)

so i think i have my Napoli situation resolved. one guy in our league had both McCann and Mauer - so i traded him Ordonez and Doumit for McCann.
not sure how i managed to get to him before the dude starting Barajas!

and still leaves me with Napoli to do whatever with!

that's a fucking steal for mccann

uh it looks like mccann and mauer are owned by 2 diff ppl?

oh u must be talking abt another league, dont we have a thread for that so as 2 not confuse the feeble minded (me)

its been doubling all my SBs at first too, probably a bugg

I also notice, for a while I thought I had something like 18 NSB based on the Stattracker but IRL I only have 12.

I am in third! ^_^ for the beginning of the season.

sorry johnny - the convo about Napoli started with me talking about my other team. (sorry - i'm seeing another league)
the kicker is - dude's outfield was weak enough - that i think i could have even gotten Mauer! :s

that's a fucking steal for mccann

― hoosalah (J0rdan S.), Thursday, April 15, 2010 5:30 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

Probably a good deal but I wouldn't call it a fucking steal. Maggs has been solid (with rate stats, at least) since his wife went through whatever she went through.

2nd half '09: .375/.438/.540
'10 so far: .368/.455/.658

Not that I've picked him up in either one of my leagues. Maybe I should.

dude - i can't remember where i picked him up in either draft, but i stand by it.

My pitchers are walking everything in sight ... after J.A. Happ's 6BB 0K night yesterday, my team K/BB is 1.25!

should i do a straight up wright for halladay trade?
i have a completely sick pitching staff with cliff lee waiting in the wings to take halladay's place and right now beltre is my best 3b option

lol with jimenez, santana and lincecum starting yesterday 2 w, 23 ip, 23 k, 0.00 era whip 0.78
guess i can part with halladay

I still like Beltre even though he hasn't done much yet.

I gained 28.5 points yesterday and yet I'm still in last place.

i had no net overall movement yesterday in another league. 15 innings of shutout ball but also bay + reyes a combined 0 for 14
lollll

Yeah, having francoer and Reyes with their epic 20 inning game contributed to my sub-.090 batting average last night, daaayum

Hey cool, live scoring is free all season long now.

One more Napoli-related post, sorry:

"With Jeff Mathis having been placed on the DL with a right wrist fracture, Napoli will serve as the Angels' starting catcher, the Orange County Register reports...Mathis is expected to miss 6-8 weeks of action."

YESSSSSSSSS

I know there's regression to come, but +59 points in three days is f'in SWEET.

uagh! it's because i got McCain and then dropped Napoli that Mathis got hurt.
you're welcome!

My draft "strategy" is coming back to haunt me ... almost all my pitchers are off to slow starts, but I drafted a bunch of keep-able guys so I can't exactly drop them and look for replacements.

BARRY ZITO is the glue that is holding my pitching staff together up until now! ZITO!!!

remind me on yr draft strategy.
i'm already really starting to regret picking up Fowler over Gonzalez. both Dexter and Reimold are off to thoroughly crappy starts.

^and although i'm suffering for it, this is also why i'm loving the new keeper aspect of things!

sorry about our trade, zach \(o_O)/

:(

Someone should call up Beltran and tell him to man up and "tough it out"

it would be fair if they moved beltran into "first pinch hitter off the bench" role

oh shit I just NOW heard about Zambrano getting moved to the bullpen!

tbh I'm not that alarmed because I still have 5 decent SPs. I wish Zambrano would've been named the closer, actually, because I'm really sucking ass in that dept (Hoffman is not doing so hot)

Also, now that Napoli is the starter again and Wuertz is coming off the DL soon, I'm looking to free up a roster spot by trading Carlos Ruiz + another player (maybe Ortiz, Theriot, or one of my underperforming OFs).

remind me on yr draft strategy.

Just like I said -- I drafted a bunch of young, keep-able starting pitchers (and Johan Santana). Of course calling it a "strategy" is something of an offense to actual, thought-out strategies. IOW, I decided to do this on a whim, partway through the draft.

Rumors are swirling that tagucci mane management has already lost the team. When reached for comment their embattled skipper said "the next guy who hits into a dp will be murdered. Also AJ Pierzynski sucks balls."

talk about motivation

my team is in the shitter. this is what I get for ignoring position players until its too late.

Oy, my position-player bench currently consists wholly of gimps and minor league scrubs. Still, beats managing tagucci mane.

fantasy really is some garbage. so in that competitive league above i mentioned wanting Napoli off waivers. the night Jeff Mathis went down I got him as a free agent.

i'm watching Teix's cheap shot on Bobby Wilson and instead of damn that that sucks he got knocked the fuck out i was like HAPPY HAPPY 100% NAPOLI TIME. good thing they didn't pawn him off to the red sox.

wow. quite the lopsided trade going on!

eh -- classic buy low/sell high trade, no?

Right now I need saves way more than I need a 5th outfielder, but yeah, I realize there's a strong chance that I'll regret it in a few months!

yup. there's also the keeper aspect to take into account.

I would like to criticize the trade but I am in last place so what do I know.

*head in hands*

*.gif*

it was your idea though. i wouldn't stress this shit too hard you might be getting 30+ saves and i'm dropping julio borbon 2 in six weeks.
these o-ranks don't mean shit.

The defense: each of the 30 current closers in the MLB is owned by someone in our league, which means that just about everyone has at least 2 closers, and a few of us have 3-4 closers. *cue sad violin* I had one (the youthful Hoffman, who also has been sucking ass in his spare time), and I've been mired in last place in saves all season, with no real hope of ever gaining much. So my reasoning was that, even when Capps inevitably regresses, he'll still probably be good for 25+ saves or so, which will hopefully be enough to get me 6-7 points for saves instead of 1. Jones, on the other hand, is not worth 6-7 points for me. Of course, he may have been worth dozens of net points for me over the next 5 years. But I could get hit by a car next year and not be able to play fantasy baseball (the great passion of my life) anyway, so...

sorry i meant 30-32 saves for the whole year and i guess i got 7 of em. not trying to be disingenuous and it is the natinals. but last year could be an outlier and he beats a 2.50 era this time.

I feel sorry for whoever has Billy Wagner

and Hoffman...who just blew ANOTHER save by giving up a solo shot and a grand slam.

Shit man, shit.

and, uh, octavio dotel!

i will admit i don't think i value closers as much as the average guy. with all the cats you can be competitive in in our league - a closer will contribute to two: saves and sometimes strikeouts. a good closer can impact things like era or whip - but your average one will be average in those stats and not throw enough innings to really impact it much anyways. a lousy or volatile guy could manage to seriously fuck them up before he drops in value to zero. and it can happen to any pro athlete - you have it and suddenly you don't. but it happens way more often to closers. AND for every stopper that dies, one is born (admittedly having holds sort of makes grabbing a newly or soon-to-be minted one more troublesome).

for my money, i'd rather risk failing in a category for a year than lose a guy who could possibly contribute to a bunch for several years.

many xposts - i have wagner. what just happened?!

oh. phew - i was worried he just proved me right. he's been fine so far this season tho.

Nothing, the Braves are just so bad right now that he never gets a save opp. He's pitching right now for the first time in a week.

anyways. i can see the reasons for doing the trade. i'm relying on Wagner and Rauch for saves while Fowler and Reimold are killing me.

wtf - i never even noticed the mf only has one! Rauch has been getting all my saves?! (including one tonight, yay)

but anyways - sort of shows my expectations for the guys. as long as they don't napalm the pen, i'm happy.

man, jimenez is fucking godlike so far this year

I know there's regression to come, but +59 points in three days is f'in SWEET.

― millions now zinging will never lol (WmC), Tuesday, April 20, 2010 9:33 PM (1 week ago)

lol / ;_;

"I know there's regression to come" is pretty much my motto, fantasy baseball or otherwise.

I'm first in ERA, first in SLG, second in AVG, and for most of the year I was near the top in RBI and R. You'd think that would make for a good team, with strong pitching and hitting across most categories. But you'd be wrong!

I seriously can't figure out WTF is up with my team.

Well, I do understand a few things ... when Barry Zito is your best pitcher, then you've got a problem with your pitching staff. But on the plus side, best 21st round draft pick EVER!!!

clearly saves is dragging your team down!

I have ubaldo on my team and it still blooooooooooooooooooows. I have a perfect game and a no hitter on my resume too.

hah I am last in rbi, avg and slug.

Didn't realize an app was out. Now I can see my shitty team anywhere!!!

and Hoffman...who just blew ANOTHER save by giving up a solo shot and a grand slam.

Shit man, shit.

― biologically wrong (Z S), Tuesday, April 27, 2010 10:51 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

before looking up today's scores you might want to sit down with a stiff drink..

Hoffffffmaaaan!

FUCK, my only closer is 2009 brad lidge!

But Capps picked up his majors leading 10th save today so theres that.

I won't get him til Saturday, though, at which point he'll likely suffer an acute gonad explosion or something and be out for the season.

Actually, I'm just surprised the Nats have won 10 games!

lol xpost stole my joke

yeah i don't know what's more shocking, that it's April 28th and Matt Capps has ten saves or that it's April 28th and the Nationals have ten wins.

I was really hoping that you'd also went for the acute gonad explosion joke

speaking of bad jokes it's infuriating to own Justin Smoak (nice pick children of minaya)

every time he's mentioned in the press it's all "Smoak on the Water", "Smoak Monster", or "Smoak Get In Your Eyes".

Smoak and mirrors. Smoak fiend. Smoak signal. Smoaked salmon. Up in Smoak. Blowing Smoak up your ass.

anyways - i did laff when i saw the Capps trade mainly because i'd picked him up as free agent in my other league 2 days earlier! FOR FREE!!!
;p

are you beating the other two guys in your league?

Haha in T Bone's league I picked up two blown saves from pitchers (one of whom I dropped this morning in favor of Capps [most likely just in time for HIS inevitable meltdown]) in the same game.

yes, i am beating all 11 of them.

I NEED A DAMN SECOND BASEMAN. SOMEONE OFFER ME A TRADE.

aaaagh fucking day games!

forgot to get Wainwright in the lineup until too late

I try to plan ahead as much as possible for thursdays and mondays which tend to cause havoc

the time has come for derrek lee to eat my bench, jerk

Seriously guys, I need a 2bman -- I've got some scrub named Reid Brignac as my starter as of tomorrow!!!

Trade proposed

if you're just waiting for Roberts to get better - i think Brignac might do!

yeah he's p good

i mean - he's on the Rays, which means he will at least compete for ROY!

The Brainiac will be good. much better than the 1B,2B,3B shitbird i just picked up. Roberts and Beltran will be in a dead heat for gimpiest return.

I have a whole roster of (non-pitcher) shitbirds

Sweet jeebus, I shouldn't have made fun of ZS for his DL follies:

Joaquín Árias
(Tex - 2B) DL

Jacoby Ellsbury
(Bos - OF) DL

Brian Roberts
(Bal - 2B) DL

Ryan Madson
(Phi - RP) DL

J.P. Howell
(TB - RP) DL

(I am mulling the proposal, btw.)

join the DL follies club, it SUCKS

Jeff Francoeur (got hit by a pitch today and is now "out until at least after the weekend")
Brett Anderson SP (6-8 weeks, fuuuck)
Michael Wuertz RP
Brandon Webb SP (til late June, at best - this one was the worst because I had no clue he was injured when I drafted him, d'oh!)

i was going to say Francoeur might be a blessing - but it looks like he's been doing alright. so far.

quit jinxing!

he's been waaaaaaay outperforming Carlos Lee and Adam Jones, that's for sure.

How did you not know Webb was injured? He was out for like five months last year!

I didn't really follow baseball at all (except for the cardinals) for the past several years. And when I put together my draft spreadsheet for this season I just weighted several different projections for each player, all of which apparently assumed that he'd be ready near the beginning of the season.

And even the Cardinals I barely followed, except for second half of last year.

Webb was supposed to be ready at the beginning of the season! All throughout spring training they were saying that they expected him to pitch in April. And you drafted him in the later rounds so it wasn't a bad pick at all (I think I had him queued up to pick him myself but you beat me to it).

My team went crazy today, it might be the best day I've ever had -- 16 for 36 (.444 AVG, 1.167 SLG), 14 R, 7 HR, 14 RBI. Plus 2 QS and 2 W from the starters. My pitchers won't stop walking people though (10 K vs 6 BB) so my team K/BB will remain embarrassingly low for the foreseeable future.

wow! you jumped 18 points!!!

And gained 29 points on the leaders!

nice effort today chums

C	Ryan Doumit	x @LAD
1B	Adam LaRoche	x @ChC
2B	Ian Stewart	x @SF
OF	Will Venable	x Mil
OF	Mark DeRosa	x Col
BN	Jason Kubel	x @Cle
BN	Jake Fox	x @Tor
DL	Manny Ramírez	x Pit
DL	Nelson Cruz	x @Sea

should have heeded the z_s anlyses, my pitching is disastrous!

altho 1st in taters iirc

at least i *was* 1st in taters, this has been a lost wkend

Dropping Soriano was not very well thought out on my part...it was too much to hope he'd sneak through waivers and I could grab him back.

yeah who else put out claims on him? didnt think i had much of a chance then saw the damage he did sunday and knew i'd have no chance.

bnw got him. I had to make room for Kinsler coming off the DL, and for some reason thought Daric Barton was worth keeping.

If only Justin Duchscherer's hip had given out a couple of days earlier.

i put in a claim on him too (had to drop Lidge to do it). congrats bnw!

the time has come for derrek lee to eat my bench, jerk

― βΠψ (bnw), Thursday, April 29, 2010 4:31 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark

5 for 12 since then ^#$@!!$#@%

yeah i am back to 6 OF's again :/ also have 2 cubs and team is pretty terrible :(

I put a claim on Soriano and lost, now I have Austin Kearns to the rescue ... =\

My team went on the greatest three-day run I've ever had in fantasy baseball. These are like company softball team numbers. Andre Ethier is a golden god.

45/105 (.429 AVG), 30 R, 15 HR, 30 RBI, something like 1.000 SLG

It's almost enough to make me forget about Joe Mauer's injury :/

I had a 1-day version of that in my non-ILBB league yesterday, +21.5 pts in a 10-team league, jumped from 6th to 2nd.

offense is currently 11/20 but -3 nsb :<

Dud: getting your day's lineup set for one league and then forgetting to do the same for your other league, losing out on a really good day at the plate from some dude on the bench.

Dudder than Dud: doing a bunch of roster moves and thinking several moves ahead, and then forgetting to make lineup changes for that day in BOTH leagues.

Just curious, how do you guys deal with setting your lineup when one of your starting pitchers is facing 1 or more of your position players? Do you choose a side, like start the pitcher and bench the position players (or vice versa)? Do you hedge your bets and just start both? It seems like I always find myself watching an at bat where my it's bases loaded and my SP is throwing to Carlos Lee or something, and I'm disappointed no matter what the outcome of the play is.

I usually start both and don't realize the problem until it's "nice hit...ohhhh shiiii"

generally you need to pick a side and stick with your decision otherwise you're just encouraging those clubhouse cancers to lash out at your team.

Alright, I've been trying to be patient, but FUCK YOU DAVID ORTIZ. FUCK. YOU.

yeah hes a disaster esp when we count gidps

I would also say that he's disastrous in the key areas of batting average, slugging percentage, home runs, runs, RBIs, walks and net stolen bases.

Seriously though, I'm glad we don't track LOBs, because he is the absolute king of coming up with runners on 2B and 3B and striking out or grounding into a double play. That's like his main move. He did it twice tonight. Again.

It depends. If I had Tim Lince I would maybe sit my hitters, you know?

i don't treat it any differently than i would if i only had one of the two.
the problem is who to root for!

I usually end up rooting for the pitcher if there are runners on scoring position, because adding 3 ER and maybe not getting a W is way worse on the pitcher's end than a hitter striking out and lowering the team batting average by a .001

hey! fuck you person who picked up Cecil just as I was going to grab him! you can go to hell!

i hope Cecil is merely good as opposed to amazing.

I was all set to pick up Cecil yesterday but figured I had time to wait before somebody else (besides Thermo) would realize he's pitched really well in his last couple of starts. I figured I had to make too many difficult roster decisions (because of players that will be coming off the DL) without adding/dropping yet another player.

I always start both the hitter and the pitcher, except in more extreme cases (slumping hitter, completely unhittable pitcher). The hitter can go 2-4 with a run scored and not hurt your pitchers' line too much.

we've underestimated our enemies.