The battle for Jose Fernandez - our 2014 fantasy thread!

Wooooo!
Opening day this year is March 30, so let's aim for a (Sunday) March 16th afternoon draft date. Will send everyone invites once league registration is open. If managers could post their keeper picks here by March 9th (seriously, please do this) that will give me a week to input them and set the draft order.

Because I feel a little dumber every time i look at AVG I plan on replacing it with OBP; which would make BB redundant so I plan on replacing that with XBH. I put a flier out on those stats changes on last year's thread and there was no complaints – but if anyone has an issue with swapping AVG & BB for OBP & XBH - now's the time to speak up.

Also, baring a change of heart, we have a manager departing this year. So any i love baseballors who want to join the fantasy league – there is a team up for grabs. ciderpress's keep eligible guy from last year: troy tulowitzki (29), jay bruce (27), jeremy hellickson (27), jarrod parker (25)... he also had the presence of mind to draft Manny Machado, Wilin Rosario and Greg Holland.

and as a reminder, here are the keeper rules:
• 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
• 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
• 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 (must happen right after the draft, so i can keep track of it)

I'll get the ball rolling with my picks:
David Price (28)
Felix Hernandez (27)
Starling Marte(25)
Jason Heyward (24)
Shelby Miller (23)

woohoo! this could obviously change pending terrible injuries, but for now i'm thinking:

oscar taveras (21)
wil myers (23)
stephen strasburg (25)
johnny cueto (28)
matt cain (29)

(i think i also have lance lynn and pablo sandoval as potential keepers)

christ, what a cast of future stars

brandon beachy (27)
asdrubal cabrera (28)
matt moore (24)
kyle seager (26)
brett lawrie (24)

i'm still reserving the right to swap out dom brown or chapman for a couple of these prized prospects.

maybe matt harvey too but he won't be back til 2015 so idk

jupton
fred freeman
chase headley
kris medlen

think thats all i got eligible, plz award me jose fernandez as compensation

i'll mail you the paperwork.

KISS THE RING, BITCHES is 22 characters, darn. need a more succinct team name.

Bish Boesch

Mike Trout (22)
Drew Smyly (24)
Andrew McCutchen (27)
Yovani Gallardo (28)
Prince Fielder (29)

terrible outfield

wow

Send SVs, Ks, ERA, WHIP, and especially K/BB -- a composite of last year's pitching staff looks exactly like

http://www.fangraphs.com/not/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/harrell.jpg

Freese in the Trap (new name TBA for 2014) will keep, as of today:

Carlos Gomez (28)
Clay Buchholz (29)

Bryce Harper (21)
Paul Goldschmidt (26)
Craig Kimbrel (25)

My bubble guy is Hyun-Jin Ryu who may replace either Buchholz or Kimbrel in the end. I'll update this thread if I decide as such.

STOKED FOR BASEBALL

ellsbury poly (new name forthcoming)

switching out harvey and chapman for lawrie and seager. can't imagine the latter two winning or costing me the league this season and would rather hang onto all my matts.

brandon beachy (27)
asdrubal cabrera (28)
matt moore (24)
matt harvey (24)
aroldis chapman (25)

pondering lincecum in exchange for asdrubal cabrera as well. *~~watch this space~~*

every time i see Seager's name - without fail - "Night Moves" pops into my head.

So apparently yahoo is creating an optional "NA" roster slot. Sort of like the DL but for guys in the minors, serving suspensions or on berreivment...
I'm on the fence on this one.

gentlemen...

quien es mas machado

yu darvish (27)
chris davis (28)
mat latos (26)
alex cobb (26)
evan longoria (28)

sad_trumbo.wav

jordan zimmerman 27
adam jones 28
billy hamilton 23
david robertson 28

i dont mean to mess therm up but id like to keep anther ?-26 not sure if i have one

^ if somehow allowed, i would be willing to trade a 0-26 y.o. player + a late round pick <-> a mid-round pick. i know i brought this up as something i would be happy to do BUT i don't think a conclusion was reached re: if (a) the commish was ok with it, (b) the league was ok with it, (c) the yahoo league system could even support it. anyway beats being forced to draft john macdonald. pedro alvarez (26) and salvador perez (23) are on my will-not-keep list, despite eligibility.

ALSO I want to amend my keepers after using my brain for a minute.

Freese in the Trap (new name TBA for 2014) will keep, as of today:

Carlos Gomez (28)
Hyun-Jin Ryu (27)

Bryce Harper (21)
Paul Goldschmidt (26)
Craig Kimbrel (25)

not crazy about the idea, tbh. it sort of punishes anyone who doesn't follow this thread in the offseason closely, whereas when the season is active we have yahoo notifying people of trades - and who's up for grabs etc (giving managers the chance to vote against trades they feel a lopsided).
and it also means I'd have to scour the fantasy thread to make sure I got all the keeper trades that happened between seasons.

i'm not so against it that if there was a wide consensus in favour of it I would fight it. but nobody else seemed to weigh in and I'd just don't want people feeling like they were left out of trade opportunities because they happened in January in a place they didn't realize they should be checking.

Fair enough, either way I wasn't going to keep these dudes but i figured might as well try to find them a good home/find my draft positions a better home

i think anyone who miscalculated on their keeper picks can view this as an opportunity to go all-in on Jose Fernandez and/or Tanaka!

league has been renewed – invites mailed out. if anyone is having trouble getting in, let me know.

draft is set for March 16th at 3 pm est. and new stats are set.

out of curiosity -- with the "less than 5 keeper" rule, how people get a fill-in they have to drop -- would it work to instead set the auto-draft players to the last rounds? or can you even do that? or does that even make sense?

hmmm - there might be a way to do this. once all teams are confirmed i'll be able lock the league and play with the setting.

Bish Boesch is now Ausmus Tietchens.

I'm going to go with

Beachy
Harvey
Moore
Chapman
and
Lincecum

"Lincecumlords" checking in

wow

i'm in btw, been debating over my keepers for a few days

Rich Homie Braun

carlos gonzalez (28)
derek holland (27)
brandon belt (25)
giancarlo stanton (24)
jurickson profar (21)

wait actually apparently holland is hurt so give me

carlos gonzalez (28)
matt carpenter (28)
brandon belt (25)
giancarlo stanton (24)
jurickson profar (21)

just for giggles, here was our first real round of drafting last year:

1. Justin Verlander
(Det - SP)
ellsbury poly
2. Matt Kemp
(LAD - OF)
Yeezus Montero
3. Albert Pujols
(LAA - 1B)
Quien Es Mas...
4. Robinson Canó
(Sea - 2B)
I Am Sasha K...
5. José Bautista
(Tor - OF)
CAIN
6. Adrián Béltre
(Tex - 3B)
Thee Tee Ohs
7. Cliff Lee
(Phi - SP)
Sad_Trumbo.wav
8. David Wright
(NYM - 3B)
Brick in the...
9. David Price
(TB - SP)
CarryOnMyHey...
10. Paul Goldschmidt
(Ari - 1B)
Freese in th...
11. Josh Hamilton
(LAA - OF)
alexi ohgodno
12. B.J. Upton
(Atl - OF)
Bish Boesch
13. Chase Headley
(SD - 3B)
emoji uehara
14. Adrián González
(LAD - 1B,OF)
mclouth lagoon

missing out on wright and price in order made me panic enough to reach for goldschmidt... feels good man

keepers are still harper / kimbrel / gogo / ryu / goldschmidt...

villar love triangle #1 2014

not gloating but that first round Lee pick was super risky yet worked out due to the unique scoring structure of the league. Injury aside, Verlander 1st round 1st pick was smart too, hard to get elite pitching in a 14 teamer.

just joined i need to get a new quality name together.

AIR BUD SELIG looking unsurmountable.

looks like possibly 5 guy from last year's first round might wind up being kept.

sorry therm, the last years draft feature is nifty and i found a youngster i missed:

sad_trumbo.wav

jordan zimmerman 27
adam jones 28
billy hamilton 23
david robertson 28

+

kenley jansen 22

he's 26!

would it work to instead set the auto-draft players to the last rounds? or can you even do that?

thanks for the suggestion - looks like this will work, which will make things a little simpler.
now anyone with less than 5 keepers can just select their extra pick(s) at the end of the draft.

oh bref said his debut was age 22 thought it was his age

w/ a name like kenley it's hard to believe he's older than 15 tbf

Brick in the Mauer (name possibly to be changed)

Ryan Zimmerman (29)
Clayton Kershaw (26)
Mike Minor (26)
Anthony Rizzo (24)

... and that's it, I don't have any other keeper eligible players to choose from. I had a bunch of guys turn 30 this year and I missed the draft last year!

didn't you trade away Strasburg aswell?

Yep - I have Strasbourg now. And he will do what I tell him to do. Or I will once again finish in 11th place.

I got back Rizzo in the Strasburg trade, so either way, I only would have had four keepers at the start of this season.

also, i've realized that going with cueto is probably not a good idea this year (chronically injured + changed his delivery after the last time his arm exploded). so i'm going to hope that sandoval will deliver another contract year performance (also he apparently lost 42 pounds this offseason, fwiw). my revised keepers:

oscar taveras (21)
wil myers (23)
stephen strasburg (25)
pablo sandoval (27)
matt cain (29)

panda=bsohl

pretty much

http://nbchardballtalk.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/350x11.jpg?w=350&h=259
http://nbchardballtalk.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/pablo-sandoval.jpg?w=480&h=640

had to google "bsohl"

if only it were ilhoops and i could name my team pau bsohl

last place shitty shitheads checking in

Buster Posey (SF - C,1B) 27
Elvis Andrus (Tex - SS) 25
Gerrit Cole (Pit - SP) 23
Homer Bailey (Cin - SP) 27
Desmond Jennings (TB - OF) 27

Tinker2Evans2Chainz checking in, but no final keeper decisions have yet been made.

yesssssssssssssss

Tinker2Evans2Chainz:

Madison Bumgarner 24
Gio Gonzalez 28
Jean Segura 24
Julio Teheran 23
Jonathan Lucroy 27

SUPER EMBARRASSED that I screwed up my team name, loss of brain cells or something. Tinker2EVERS2Chainz, rather.

also: you can't keep Lucroy – you picked him up as a free agent.

Well then who drafted him? I thought I took him:
Jonathan Lucroy (Mil - C,1B) Round 11, Pick 14

you took Granderson in the 1th round. "ellsbury poly" drafted him.
http://archive.fantasysports.yahoo.com/archive/mlb/2013/43463/draftresults?drafttab=team

he was dropped Apr 13 and then you picked him up on Apr 27.
http://archive.fantasysports.yahoo.com/archive/mlb/2013/43463/transactions?mid=4&filter=add

Damn, didn't even remember that. I guess I'll keep Dexter Fowler instead.

wait dont lock that in, might wanna keep Andrelton Simmons instead

nope on further reflection I'm tossing mr. defense back into the pool, Fowler it is

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. My team is large, it contains Bumgarners.

i realize it's too late for this now, but isn't including both XBH and SLG kind of rewarding the same skill twice?

hmmm, maybe not. i'm looking at the projections for Adam Dunn and Yadier Molina, and they're projected for almost an identical SLG (.438) even though Dunn is projected for 51 XBH to Yadi's 38.

in 2014 i am honoring my tradition of modifying another projection system to make my own personal system that makes absolutely no sense. last year's version was so successful that i ended up drafting josh rutledge two picks after Shin-Soo Choo and just before Napoli and Profar!

I don't think I've mentioned this but I have tried to tell 3-4 people irl about the name "lincecumlords" and collapsed into laughter

every time i look at the league and see that name i die

i just wanted to say that

yeah that's the best. i tried to explain Tinker2Evers2Chainz to my wife, who allegedly grew up a baseball fan with a nutty baseball-lovin' father, only to find out she'd never heard of the third-greatest baseball poem of all time. such disappoint.

i don't get it either actually. but, then again, i'm sorta dumb.

not much to get, kind of dumb actually, but here: http://www.1907cubs.com/tinkers-to-evers-to-chance.php

QUESTION is it too late to change my keepers y/n

it's still march 9!

side note, am i miscounting or is a team sitll missing?

thanks we're missing two, actually. there were 14 teams last year, and only 12 are up on the 2014 league so far. along the same lines, i'm wondering what their keepers are going to be.

embarrassing question i should have asked a long time ago: are the player ranking in Yahoo tailored to our league (ie, with holds, obp, etc) or are they standard 5x5 roto ranks?

one of those two isn't coming back (first post) but the other one i dunno abt.

I believe Jordan still has to sign up - as is tradition. And I think some else still needs to let me know their picks.
And go ahead if anyone wants to change theirs.
Aaand no - yahoo doesn't tayler the rankings.

*tailored

hi sorry for the late picks:

Carlos SANTANA
Ian DESMOND
Max SCHERZER
Chris SALE
Chris TILLMAN

(THEE TEE OHS)

okay I know it is March 10 but taking my shot here for Tinker2Evers2Chainz, if it is too late that's okay:

the Brewer in me cringes to say this but I'm gonna drop Jean Segura back into the pool and keep Austin Jackson instead

thanks either way

no problem. now we just need Jordan to turn up.

ok guys. keepers are set (last 5 rounds). let me know if i goofed anywhere:
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/13902/draftresults?drafttab=team

definitely having 2nd thoughts about (one of) my keepers already ;_; oh welllllll

now to make ridiculously complicated excel spreadsheet printouts to forget to bring to the draft where i will inevitably wing it

ya - if whoever has Melden wants to rethink that – i don't mind making that change.

*Medlen

heh, im stuck w/ him. no one else age eligible to keep :[
it'll be nice to plug him on the DL i guess

The draft order has been set already?!?

I have to in order to set the keepers.

i feel like we go through this every year, but isn't there always some surprise at draft time? like right now i'm listed as the second pick, but doesn't it get reversed at the last moment so that i would get the second to last pick instead?

i dunno, my memory's awful - anyone else remember this?

your memory is true. BUT that would happen when i entered the picks at the beginning of the draft – now that I have them at the end, the draft order will be the draft order. so you should be safe to decide whatever non-Jose Fernandez pick you'd like to go with!

i am definitely grabbing josh rutledge while he's still available, then

Bryan lahair is eligible right?

6th pick should be good enough for Kyle Farnsworth, unless somebody sells me out.

everybody pretending jose is #1 like there isn't a 600 pound miguelephant in the room

did you just come up with "miguelephant" just now?!

i did

and i wanted to use it so bad

I'm impressed.

i can't remember the position eligibility requirements for our league - is it 20 games at a position in 2013? 5 games?

Batters need either 5 Games Started or 10 Games Played at a position to gain eligibility. Pitchers need 3 Starts to gain SP eligibility, 5 Relief Appearances to gain RP eligibility.

i'm currently in spreadsheet panic mode because my made-up ranking system has drastically different results, in some cases, then the standard projections, and i go back and forth between thinking that's because i have now key unique insights or that i completely fucked up

xpost thanks will. for some reason i can't find that listed on our league's scoring & settingspage.

it's not on that page... i think it's yahoo standard -- you have to click on players -> position eligibility

oh crap it's this sunday? i need to study, i don't even know who jose fernandez is

just fyi i tried combinations of multiple z score projection system excel sheets, baseball monster, ziguana, and combinations thereof over the years.
last year i had two bloody maries at brunch, remembered draft 20 minutes before and worked through a guinness six pack during. best system yet.

my preferred system is a couple of tallboys and a respectable amount of pot.

may need it this year too. i'm pretty sure i know who the first two players taken are going to be – absolutely no idea who to take with the 3rd pick (if I'm right).

i'm pretty sure i know who the first two players taken are going to be

i'm second pick, and i don't see a clearcut choice for it, so be on your toes

i have eighth pick; I made 4 "buckets" of players, one of 8, another 11, another 13, and another 11, which basically guarantees me that i will have one from the top group, and one from the 2nd+1st group in the 2nd round, etc.

i have been maaaaaybe overthinking this whole thing.

http://i.imgur.com/fw2c5QU.jpg

LETS DO THIS

i feel like no matter what i do, i am making a mistake with the second pick

1 hour remains.

btw now i'm Jazzy Jeff Hornacek, for some reason

dying @ iwakuma jamaica aroma

4 people autodrafting.

:(

oh god i totally forgot about this!

your autodraft pick right before my human pick made me swear a record 3 times

of course this will change when i get impatient and start dropping young players, but as of right now, i have four keeper-eligible players age 27-29 for 2015, and ten 0-26 players. i might have to rename my team because NONE of them remember bizarre love triangle

hA - Will, just found you on reddit!

(recognized your hand-made spreadsheet!)

HAHAHA that very much shocked me. hopefully my history isn't embarrassing. (except i know it isn't bc all i do is make occasional baseball posts, fuck reddit)

all i do is bitch about my mayor, so don't worry!

Uhhhh mock drafting in the new ipad app is really fun

i'm at work right now so i can't check our league (it's blocked), but do any of you have thoughts on second catchers? it's kind of tough to figure out what to do with the other 30-40 games that your main catcher won't start. is a waiver-level backup catcher a net benefit if you use him for 30-40 games, or will their rate stats suck so bad that it actually hurts your team to use them?

I'd wait until you see how they actually play, no need to grab one now... you can always also try to ride the splits if it pans out, but that's a tough one of synchronize.

TO* synchronize. ugh.

i already called dibs on blanco the elder, so back off

I'm happy to not have that problem - Santana's averaging around ~620 PA last 3 years

Waiver-level backup catchers aren't worth it, IMO.

sorry I forgot about draft.. if any wants steals/speed, i need SP

which team name are you again?

my team is really slow so i might be willing to make an offer

i may offer u something too, as i seem to have drafted approx 17 SPs

Hosmertronix..

Bourn / Gardner / E Cab / Hamilton

just sent an email - hopefully it gets through

there's a lot of speed on the waiver wire, fwiw

Is anyone interested in carrying hot-shit SS prospect Carlos Correa? I need a keeper that's 27-29yo next year

if you bought low on matt kemp dont bother starting him today even tho he's been activated from the dl

http://twitter.com/Dodgers/status/452122727625662464/photo/1

shit

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkZDOaCCQAAbkMc.jpg

pft nevermind. puig is retarded

Ken Gurnick ✔ @kengurnick
Follow
Late arrival Puig scratched, Kemp starta in CF.

Five guys on the DL right now.

Not my best start to the season.

if it's cool with you guys i'm just gonna shoot myself in the head right now

my keepers:

aroldis chapman (DL)
matt harvey (fingers crossed for an epic return next season)
brandon beachy (tommy john redux)
matt moore (tommy john)
tim lincecum

oh and avisail garcia haha fml

i just had a look at your team. my condolences.

don't cry for me, I'm already dead

i have like 12 eligible keepers atm so lemme know if u need #firstroundproblems

Six players on the DL! (three of them keepers)

Baseball is great!

looking up at you all is not really refreshing, just kind of typical for me.

nice to see lawrie hitting the ball

28 Ks between Fernandez and Price tonight!

oops - 26 n/m

My team is in free fall, not sure what I can do other than wait for all my decent players to come back from the DL.

Just picked up Harang, he kicked ass again and I left him on the bench :((

i was tempted by harang, really would have liked to have a pitcher who resembles timothy carey on my squad, but i wasn't sure who to cut and i didn't believe in him 100%. he's looking great though.

Just hope he doesn't turn into a pumpkin until sale gets off the DL

i did pick up martin perez though. damn.

wow, this year same as last year -- top 3 in almost every stat, bottom 3 in the pitcher rate stats

yeah, i have been bummed with my starting pitching. Cain gets rocked seemingly every single time, and Strasburg either fans 12 batters with 2ER but somehow doesn't get the win, or gets destroyed in 3 innings by the florida fucking marlins

i had both cueto and lance lynn as keepers, and didn't even think about keeping them over cain, but :-/

7 for 10, 2 runs, 2 NSB, 2 XBH
BN position kicked some ass last night /flex

btw i'm feeling pretty great about my decision to take encarnacion with the second pick of the draft, rather than jose fernandez

1.99 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 47 K in 31.2 IP! and he's only 21.

my stupid rationale for not taking him: i wanted to play to win for this year, and i thought my pitching would be in decent shape with strasburg and cain leading the way (and anibal sanchez, who i picked up in the early-mid rounds). also i already have 3 players that will be under 27 next year that i thought i'd be happy keeping - wil myers, strasburg, oscar taveras. and also it seems like every awesome young picture ends up breaking their arm at some point and disappearing for a year or two.

so i thought i'd go with a relatively safe pick for production in encarnacion, conveniently choosing to forget about his wrist injury and the fact that i'm cursed

ya, i can understand that reasoning. but still – i was shocked that he fell to me. i figured 1 & 2 would be Miggy and Fernandez and then i had a list of ~8 guys that would have been ok options for #3 (including Ortiz who i got in the 2nd round). by draft day i was leaning towards Puig.

fucking cano

going from yankee stadium and the yankee line-up to Seattle... I was *not* going to touch him. had him behind Kipnis and Pedroia .

i panicked. panicked!

i think grabbing pujols in round 3 might make up for it. by "make up for it" i mean "keep me out of last place".

I can't believe Bautista fell to me, to be honest.

Scherzer's putting up a gem on the bench today - goddam day games >:| Losin' grasp on 1st

hahahahaha i took danny salazar in the 3rd round hahahahahha :(

aaand Cecil blows it hard and now i'm in 2nd - it's been fun

On cue, Harang turns into a pumpkin for my first start (against the same team he dominated last time on my bench) to the tune of a 17.36 ERA

heh, yeah that's always my luck too. this year i finally cut cueto and lynn loose, and of course they're tearing it up. and then if i finally ditched cain, i'm sure he'd be back to his 2009-2012 self within two weeks

If we still used errors for a stat, I'd probably be in 10th instead of 2nd due to Yan Gomes.

Shelby Miller is up for grabs.
He's keep-eligible for the next 7 years!

Speaking of young pitchers, anyone want a keep-eligible Danny Salazar? I am running out of patience & want to exile the 'zar.

but if anyone is interested in a *good* young keeper, hit me up! ;p

my... my feelings

-_-

top 10 ranked players

Tulo
Stanton
Cueto
Waino
CHARLIE BLACKMON
BRIAN DOZIER
Nellie Cruz
Alexei Ramirez
Puig
Goldy

ugh, can't believe i kept cueto for 3 years and then dropped him before this season. i figured with all of his arm injuries and change in his delivery that he'd be screwed. on the upside, i have cruz and didn't expect him to be so good!

ty adam wainwright for pitching an amazing game & more or less cancelling out my boneheaded decision to start TREVOR BAUER

i started Bauer too in my other league...
on the bright side, 8 Ks (through 4.1)!

My team started 1-17 yesterday, but ended up 11-38 with 4 HR, 8 R, 11 RBI (most of that was due to two players though).

My feelings toward my team the last month
http://i.imgur.com/MDbZAGZ.gif

I just saw Sasha Kuebel's name in the mlb draft names and had to spend like 20 minutes trying to remember where I knew the name from
answer: "I am Sasha Kuebel" team name from last year

...v well done

did i ever ask about the NA spots in yahoo? i vaguely remember mentioning it and nobody was interested... how about adding one for next year? lame idea? AWESOME idea?

I vote awesome

i thought i had asked - but don't remember getting much of a response. i'm fine with the idea, although a little worried it might lead to some prospect hoarding... but it's just one slot and with only 5 keepers anyways i guess it can't really get out of hand.

Manny Machado was on the waiver wire?!?!

i dropped him, hes frustrating and i have too many >26ers if im contemplating keepers so

But he's only 22!

i totally get dropping machado! he seems like the definition of 'better in real life than in fantasy'

esp. in an OBP league like ours

But you can keep him for the next seven years and he plays a position where offense is usually hard to come by.

He's having a down year but I thought he was still the consensus #3 pick for young player you'd build your team around, after Harper and Trout.

counterpoint - this season he plays 3B and his output is ranked behind jonathan schoop

it was just really hard to see me holding him all season, barely ever starting him, and keeping him over guys like puig/freeman/wacha/altuve for 2015

xpost
to each their own, but his preseason projections were for about .276/.321/.430 with 13 home runs, 61 RBIs, and 1 net stolen base. i understand that as he nears his prime he'll be doing better than that, and of course IRL he's added a ton of value with his glove, but i totally get any decision not to hold on to him for 3-4 more years waiting for his batting upside to show.

Not like you can't just draft the dude again next season either

And/or if someone else does you can instead pick _________ <-- insert player 30+ with high production here

If your other keepers are Puig/Freeman/Wacha/Altuve then I can see your point.

p'haps i shouldve tried trading him to you!

so i've managed to muscle my way into first and I intend to stay there – if anyone wants to overwhelm me with some 30+ talent for any of my keep eligible guys, please, offer away!

sent you a proposal ^_^

I SHALL OUTBID THEE ON OLD MAN TALENT

send yr old men to the LOVE ▲

Take a peek at my team, see if there's something you want. I myself was king of the mountain for a solid month in this heady game of thrones. now 8th in line to the high seat, i seek fresh blood and spurn all flesh that sags.

trying another trade, thermo -__-

i am in second place and would also consider trades. your -__- could turn to \^o^/

look at my team, i think i've got a few dece trading chips but i'd only want keepers!

these are probably the dudes that most of you would be interested in, i imagine?

mesoraco
morneau
cano
melkman
polanco
pujols
richards
k-rod
doolittle

maybe iwakuma? maybe hughes???

Still not sure whether I should be going for it or rebuilding.

to help you out, here are some keep eligible guys I have, in order of my willingness to unload:

David Price (only keepable for 1 year tho)
Shelby Miller
Kyle Seager (would need a 3B back)
Starling Marte
Johnathan Lucroy
Jason Heyward
Jose fernandez
Felix hernandez

Same thing, my team (x = 27-29 next year; + = 0-26 next year):

+Matt Adams
+Javier Baez
xCrush Davis
xHyun-Jin Ryu
+Sonny Gray
+Craig Kimbrel
xCarlos Gomez
+Bryce Harper
+Anthony Rendon
xPaul Goldschmidt

let me cast my fedora also into ye trade poole also
i'm looking for a SP, 27-29 -- no fatties

these are my keep eligibles and (age) next yr

Yasiel Puig (24)
Fred Freeman (25)
Mike Wacha (23)
Jose Altuve (24)
Yordano Ventura (23)

scratch 1 of those alsos btw

interesting trade, Barry. giving it some thought.

I accepted that trade will, I like sonny gray real estate.

I still have a slew of players I'm looking to part with for any other interested parties, basically everyone but chapman and harvey tbh. looking for keepers only though.

quite the trade orgy going on today!

still up for grabs (unsurprisingly): Shelby Miller.

i put a bunch of old guys on the block. how does an injured cliff lee sound? oh yeah!

jealous that omar(lins?) dumped his whole team.

ha!

sick burn

just got back from Canada Day weekend cottage trip. a lot of trades came and went, sorry to the offerers that i was away.
Still willing to unload impact players like Scherzer, Bautista, Uehara, Adrian Gonzalez for Keepers.

tried sending you an ilxmail, did it work?

got your trade deets, looking at them now

love all the trade activity going on right now.

got some dudes i'm gonna dangle for a good 27+ keeper:

garrett richards (#10 SP in fantasy!!!)
k-rod (#2 closer!)
pujols (the comeback kid!)
dickerson (mile high!)

under 27 keeper eligible:

matt moore (only 25!)
xander bogaerts (only 21!)

woo! slipped back into first just in time for the all-star break!

anyone not in 2nd place need a closer?

wait are you already writing me off?! i'm making a comeback!!! ;)

not without another closer you're not!

no way, what i need is for matt cain to stop sucking ass and for nelson cruz, chase utley, and encarnacion to simultaneously go into crazygod mode again like they did in May

heads up, karl, i sent you a couple proposals

cool! I'm at work right now but when I get home this evening I'll take a look and respond!

does anyone else get really excited at the prospect of a trade? i know i do

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ2hqQWIx64

fuckin cool, my moves didnt save again, two dope starts on my bench again >:(

ouch

top 15 offensive players in yahoo right now:

Trout
Goldschmidt
McCutchen
Stanton
Brantley
Tulowitzki
Altuve
Cabrera
Cruz
Abreu
Gomez
Rizzo
Encarnacion
Frazier
Jones

pitchers:

Hernandez
Cueto
Wainwright
Kershaw
Tanaka
Sale
Kazmir (mind still blown by this)
Price
Richards
Teheran
Lester
Kluber
Uehara
Ross
F Rodriguez

Zimmerman to the DL for 6-8 weeks. F.M.L.

and now Cliff Lee likely to miss the rest of the season. that 2/3 trades that have completely blown up in my face.

wow - and now three guys go on the DL in a matters of days, two of whom i had just traded for.
so fucked.

hey i jsut lost paul goldschmidt so merry fuckin xmas to all of us eh :(

I'd like to feel sorry for you guys ... but I still want to win!

wow... move over goldschmidt, because hanley, machado and degrom are joining you on the DL... WHATS UP 2014

I'm within ten points of the first for the first time this season. I'm not sure where the 10-15 point improvement is going to come from though. Like last season, I've fallen too far back in most of the hitting categories to make any kind of serious gains there.

If Ryu goes on the DL (looking likely) he'll be my sixth SP to hit the DL this season.

it looks like we are all going to be limping over the finish line.

despite my best efforts i've risen all the way to ninth place

very much enjoying Fiers 14.00 K/BB ratio so far today! (14 k through 6 innings!)

whoa

chris carter is the #1 ranked fantasy player for the last 30 days;
danny santana is #8

damn barry - your team's on fire. clearly the sleeper agents i sent over to you have plans of their own!

Yeah, I managed to sell high on my veteran players when I was way back in sixth place and not threatening to compete, then my entire team started hitting like freaks and everyone I traded away went on the DL. Sorry dudes!

Glad i shot down all those Garrett Richards trade offers!

Glad I accepted and got rid of the terrible Cory Kluber in the process! :-O

He was fine a few weeks ago! I examined him myself!

you've had a good little run for the last few weeks there, Barry... but it's all over. i've added Adam Dunn. you might as well just stop updating your lineup now.

Hey, the HR standings are tightly bunched and we're right in the middle of them, so it really might come down to one or two HR!

Speaking of HR, are the Cubs going to bring back Rizzo or put him on the damn DL already? I know that my pickup of Justin Turner is giving you nightmares (that's why you countered with Dunn) but I'd really prefer to have all my starters back.

one way or another Mr Rizzo will be neutralized for the remainder of the season!

YES

I can tell my grandchildren I was in first place for at least one day in 2014.

fuuuuuu.....

beware of the Curse of Doing Well. i, too, held first place for a day or two this year. then i traded away the future of my team for a set of used razor blades and a jar of rubberbands that are too small and dropped into 6th place overnight

I think Yahoo corrected yesterday's standings following the results of the suspended games. So I wasn't in first place after all? But now I am (again, or not)? Yay?

ya that was confusing.

i guess - you're kind like the George W Bush of our league – your first victory was under dubious circumstances at best, but this time around appears to be legit. for the most part.

;)

Are you trying to say that there will be a huge real estate/baseball statistics crash at the end of my term? That I will be bounced from the top of the standings in disgrace in the final week? It's on, dude!

almost the end of the season and I finally got Will. M's team name [/slow clap]. New Order threw me off the scent.

wha? what do you mean new order threw you off the scent?

uh. i thought it referenced Bizarre Love Triangle: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7uEBuqkkQRk

It does reference bizarre love triangle, that is why I am confused haha

What other (more clever) meaning does it have?

I was wondering the same thing! What else could it be?

Thermo, your team score has been following a periodic pattern since mid-season, with about a 3-4 week period of oscillation. This means you will be back down to 140 points by the end of the season and I should have no problem overtaking you.

Yes, this is my best "strategy" for winning at this point.

my strategy is that the top 3 all spontaneously fall apart and i ride the hairy back of lance lynn into the winners circle

mine revolved around voodoo dolls.

Your hairy backs and voodoo are no match for my fortune telling.

i've been collecting my tears since the ASB which i intend to throw into the yahoo servers and when they lose all of the info will say "guys i am pretty sure i was gonna win anyway"

i overthought it. thought it had something to do with T()mb()t.

lool

aw man now i really wanna know cuz i have NO idea waht u mean by that!

Your hairy backs and voodoo are no match for my fortune telling.

i'd say your plan is more like relying on the tides!

Like the Blue Jays, it looks like I'm limping to the finish line.

a grand total of 70 different players on my roster earned points for me this season according to my team log. not sure if there were any guys i picked up and didn't play.

team log is interesting, here are my least valuable player awardees; @ least i knew to cut them quickly to strive as a 4/5th place team

Chase Headley 6 games played - 2/24 0R 0HR 0RBI .120OBP .083SLG
Daniel Nava 4 games played - 1/18 0R 0HR 0RBI .056OBP .056SLG
David Murphy 4 games played - 1/17 0R 0HR 1RBH .111OBP .059SLG -1NSB
Kolten Wong 5 games played - 0/13 1R 0HR 0RBI .188OBP .000SLG 1NSB

i'm just playing against the clock at this point – need to avoid a collapse for just 6 more days!

so i sat down a started figuring out how all those crazy trades i did panned out. but then i stopped because i got sad.
basically the two main keepers that i dealt, who were struggling at the time – caught fire. I got Cano for Marte and they have both hit roughly the same – so I would have been better off just hanging onto Marte. And for Shelby Miller I got Cliff Lee who had one horrible start for me before going on the DL. So that’s one pointless trade and one disaster. Trade three where I sent Seager and Calhoun – who have both performed about as well before and after the trade – for Ryan Zimmerman, who hit well for a week before going on the DL for two months; and Josh Hamilton who has been a total non-entity – is another disaster.

The only trade that worked out was when I had to find a replacement for Zimmerman, ironically, and dealt a collection of spare parts for Beltre.

Basically, had I just stood pat, I would be easily be running away with the league and still have a solid collection of keepers to pick from. Bleh.

ironically, i went to set my lineup just now and i see this in the side-bar:

Fantasy Medals:
Wheeling and Dealing
Successfully complete a trade
Won by: Barry
Date earned: July 2, 2014

fuck you.

my trades for marte and kluber really helped elevate me from 12th to 10th place

well - you've got Marte for something like 6 years now? where as I do not.

xpost

i think you still got the better end of that deal! i traded you a keeperable Kluber for about 4 or 5 starts from Garrett Richards, whose knee promptly exploded.

oh i know i got the better end of the deal, though i sure didn't think it was a coup at the time. i just wanted to keep somebody. anybody!

i didn't know klubs was gonna turn into scherzer, i thought he was kinda brandon beachy 2.0

too bad about richards, i figured it was a better deal for you considering how well he was pitching. must have carried my SP injury curse along with him. :/

oh no big deal! ironically i made that deal in an effort to shore up my hitting with pujols (who did just fine), but after that trade the rest of my hitters collapsed while my starting pitching finally got better, even with richards getting injured.

anyway at this point i'm just hoping to make 3rd place.

btw does anyone else feel like the innings pitched cap is too high? i've had a bunch of starting pitchers all year (to the point that the # of batters i've been able to keep on my roster has been thin) and i'm STILL going to end up way below the IP cap

i asked about that maybe two ago and everyone seemed ok with where it was back then (i think it *was* 1425). 1400 – where it is now – is the standard ceiling for most leagues and we have set-up guys going too.

lol wanna talk about trades lets talk about trades then

- I send Choo for Chris Davis (arguably I win but Davis was basically team poison so everoyne lost).
- I send Sonny Gray for Iwakuma and Doolittle -- kinda hoped better than a ~4 ERA from iwakuma (he's posted a 3.91 since I got him, and Doolittle only notched 10 saves -- not great). Down one keeper
- I send HJ Ryu for Hanley Ramirez, who posted 150 ABs in ~3 months. down one keeper
- I send Chris Davis, Javier Baez (KEEPABLE), Kimbrel (!!!) for Scherzer/Uehara. Scherzer decent but unremarkable. Good K's, bad rates. Uehara a total mess, 8 saves, ~5 ERA. Down THREE keepers.

Sum: down five keepers in the name of winning this year, currently battlnig to stay in 3rd. ;_; I stand behind my deicsions, they were good gambles, and I'm not COMPLETELY fucked on keepers next year, but... damn man. :(

ok. you made out worse than me. i'm glad i hung onto my top keepers tho: King Felix & Jose Fernandez. Jason Heyward to a lesser degree.

I love the trades this year. Super aggressive moves. The only way I built a winner last year was from two years of plowing elite stars into elite keepers.

Yeah, it was a good year for interesting trades in our league.

I traded for keepers at around the same time my offense finally caught fire, so I got better in the short and long term. I really fluked out with the timing of those trades. I'm not sure I have enough under-25 keeper eligible players though, but at least I have a real decision to make for next year, as opposed to this season when I had almost no keeper eligible guys left.

also you're closing in on me again. your sleeper agents have really fucked my shit up.

It'll take an epic collapse at this point. However, you are trending downwards -- don't doubt the tides!

I also couldn't help but notice that you rearranged some deck chairs on your roster in response to my rearranging of deck chairs on my roster. You're panicking!

i looked at my keepereligibles.xls and i think everyone has at least 5 eligible keepers, at least 2 from each category (assuming nobody dropped any since tuesday)

oh and thermo i will send that sheet when i get home, apparently i cant attach files in gmail at work so i workmailed it to myself and then i will go home and get it and send it blah blah blah

i was thinking - maybe a google doc that everyone can see would be the best way to go. great idea either way tho – thanks.

And streaming pitchers is not panicking!
Picking up Hosmer is panicking.

don't want to scare you guys but i moved up to ninth place the other night. #comeback

hah just emailed it and then read this, i will put it on google docs.

link

That's awesome, thanks!

Well - last day of the season. Good luck to everyone with their last-ditch, random free agent acquisitions!

How did you manage to get all your SP's teams playing meaningful games on the last day of the season, ensuring that all your best SP's would get the starts? There's no way you pulled this off without voodoo. I'm filing a complaint with the league commissioner ... oh, wait.

My bench guys are 6 for 7 with a HR so far today. R.A. Dickey as a spot starter seems to have worked out, and Cueto was great as usual, but I'm starting to think I'm not going to win the league this year. I'm hoping for a 4 HR game from Matt Kemp!

congrats Thermo!

i guess it's safe to say thanks! this is definitely the craziest single fantasy season i've ever had. and now that i went for broke, i'm going to spend the next year or two rebuilding.

Lucroy, Dee Gordon, and Neil Walker (i know right) were some fortunate grabs. Lucroy pretty much carried my offense (Ortiz too – but you expect that)

and i think this is the first time we have Canadians at #s 1 & 2 in the final standings!

Yes, congrats Thermo! You totally dominated down the stretch and left no doubt about who had the best team.

After five top three finishes in the past eight years (3x 2nd place, 2x 3rd place), I'm kind of wondering what it'll take to win one of these things ... I can't really complain though, because my keepers going into the year were so sketchy (except Kershaw) that I really thought this would be a rebuilding season for me.

2nd place and I couldn't even walk away with the Lightfoot Cup as a consolation prize? Tough league ...

well, you did land Kyle Seager for the next 3 years!

I have nothing bad to say about my keeper options for next year, that's for sure. I gotta take the next step one of these years though. Like the Blue Jays, I can't pull the trigger!

i was happy to land in 3rd place given that i was in 6th-9th for most of the year.

best surprise: Nelson Cruz. slugged .525 with 40 HR, 74 XBH, drafted in round 10
runner-ups: josh harrison and lucas duda, who i picked up down the stretch and were outstanding. oh yeah, and corey fucking kluber, who i drafted on a whim and traded away at midseason:(

encarnacion was kind of an odd pick at #2 (with miggy at #1 and fernandez at #3) i admit, but he delivered as i hoped he would: slugged .547, 63 XBH, 34 HR. he provided a little more power than miggy (and similar OBP) and jose fernandez had his terrible injury.

biggest disappointment: wilin rosario. i knew he'd be an OBP bomb, but i thought he'd still crank out 20+ HR with decent RBIs. nope! he's keeperable, but i'm on the fence.
runner-up: i drafted oscar taveras back in 2013, and played him way too much when he made it up to the majors this year. it was my fault for playing him, of course. and i'm keeping him in 2015, because i'm stubborn.

congratulations o mighty thermo!

my draft was terrible. my five keepers entering this season were harvey (injured but held onto nonetheless), matt moore (TJ surgery), beachy (TJ surgery), lincecum (terrible), and chapman (started injured, but then better than ever.) a bunch of other guys got injured and/or were useless (sabathia, avisail garcia, mauer, soriano, jackie bradley.) my best draft pick w/r/t value was doubtlessly morneau; i nabbed him in round 15 and he was great pretty much all season. the other good players i had were all either waiver wire snags (dickerson, mesoraco, richards) or acquired through trade (kluber, marte.)

my keepers next season are a lot better at least, i rarely traded before this season but once i realized there was no way to overtake the top three teams plus the fact that my keepers were all basically shit (except aroldis) i had to wheel and deal.

best surprise: Matt Kemp. I missed the beginning of the draft and was autodrafting with Yahoo's rankings. Kemp was chosen in the fifth round and I was pissed, but he rescued my offense in the second half.

best surprise from a decision I made: Denard Span, I got him on waivers after Zimmerman (I think) got injured for the 5849th time, he ended up becoming a full time player for the Nats (IRL) and was my most consistent player on offense from then on. Either him or Tanner Roark, I got him on waivers when (some SP got injured, can't remember who, I think they were all on the DL this year except for Cueto), he gave me 140+ IP, 15 QS, 2.64 ERA. I think I'll be rooting for the Nats in the playoffs.

biggest disappointment: Mike Minor. Pitched like an ace last year, never really got going this year.

Keepers: traded for Seager (thx Thermo!) and Ryu (thx Will!), drafted Cueto (thx autdraft!), Cashner and Paxton (who were injured for half the season but were great when they pitched). Rizzo had a breakout year and is just 25. Kershaw had an OK year.

My draft was putrid. Taking Votto with my first pick basically ended my season.

i took Dozier in both my leagues and dropped him after a slow first couple weeks. tuhrible GM.

and jose fernandez had his terrible injury.

i think you're confusing your teams. i grabbed Fernandez in the first round!

um - ok - i now realize you're talking about our draft and not your team! duh!

seeing E5 go at #2 really baffled me. he wasn't even on my short-list of guys i was going to aim for with #3 (tho i was assuming Fernandez would go #1 or 2).
either way – before the injury Fernandez was having a Cy Young caliber season. he'll be back well before the all-star break next year, joining Price and King Felix :D

your rotation is even better than andy k's outfield

I need to stick to one league -- always end up autopiloting both teams.

so i'm curious to know what everyone thought of having OBP and XBH this year?

Interesting! I actually really like both of them.

I can't remember if I ever asked this before, but: why the 7x8 pitcher bias?

since the league started we were kind of just adding or taking away stats we liked/didn't like and i was usually trying to keep balance as an afterthought to just having the stats we wanted.

with pitching – the way I look at it – we have two kind of "sole focus stats": holds and saves. we have set-up guys and closer for mainly their holds and saves. while they contribute to ERA, Ks and get the odd W etc – we add them with mainly holds and saves in mind. and with hitting, i view SB in a similar light. some players can contribute to all categories – but a lot of the time we keep an eye towards someone who can just swipe bases to keep us competitive in NSB and those guys are not going to contribute much to RBI, HR, SLG etc.

so it boils down to pitching & hitting having 6 "core" stats each – and then 2 outlier stats for pitching(HLDs & SVs) and one for hitting (NSB). to my mind, this keeps things fairly balanced.
i'm totally open to suggestions tho, if anyone thinks we could do better.

oh! and the other thing i want to resolve before 2015 season starts is the "NA" slot. it's a thing now and someone was asking about it and i'm sort of on the fence. it makes sense in that you can slide a guy who takes personal time or gets demoted in there and not have them wasting a roster spot. however, with our league i'm worried it might lead to "rookie hoarding" to a degree. basically i don't want prospects to be out of reach for teams because half our league pounced on draft day and was able to snag all the top-teir prospects due to come-up in soonish. either way i'm undecided and wouldn't mind feedback.

How many NA spots are allowed? If it's only one or two, I don't see a problem. People can hoard all the rookies they want on draft day, but we still only get five keepers.

no way i would do more than one.

Yeah... the other thing is it wouldn't actually add a round to the draft, so you'd still be filling the bench spot (the one opened up by moving a prospect to the NA slot) with an unkeepable player. As is, you can still stash rookies and hope for the best (I did it with Buxton who I dropped due to injury, and Baez who I traded due to lol-title-chase). If anything it kinda evens the "keeping-players-who-didn't-play" field between active and inactive players, if that makes sense (people who kinda quit after a couple of months are FAR more likely to keep their blue-chip prospects, since they didn't bother dropping them).

That said I think it's a neat idea but I'm not gonna be RA RA NA-SLOT CHAMPION, just seems kinda fun. I'll be happy either way, this is one of my favourite fantasy leagues! (huge thank you for running it again this year!)

oh and re: the 7x8 thing... what would you say to replacing Hold and Save with (Hold+Save)? Or alternatively, drop either W or QS? The latter makes a bit more sense to me, since putting big value into all relievers is kinda fun and what makes the league so unique. Wins are kinda goofy anyway, QS is starter-specific, and W is just starter-friendly (due to innings pitched).

i kinda like it when relievers score you the occasional vulture W. :s
Hold+Save is an interesting idea tho.

yeah one of my favorite things abt fantasy is when you have two starters going and they win and then two of your relievers grab the W and suddenly you're flush! usually this happens on the same day as a 2 for 37 from your hitters (2 singles.)

I also forgot to thank you for running the league again Thermo. Thanks!

I always liked QS. Hold + Save is an interesting idea.

yea i also think holds+saves is a cool idea..i think maybe 2 yrs ago saves were prohibitively hard to find mid-to-late in the season and idk if they deserve to have that much value alone

ok - so looks like, barring yahoo adding some new stats, we'll be merging SV+HLD and adding a NA slot.