How do we get Taylor Swift into fantasy baseball? Your 2024 ILX Fantasy Thread! (also, there is an opening for a new manger!)

we're at 9 answers so far and it's weirdly very interesting lol

baseball fans, tell me what to do. i am faced with an agonizing choice for my 27+ keepers.

one of them is cody bellinger, who is definitely going to be MVP in 2024, chance of regression = 0.0000000001%
the other? JACK FLAHERTY OR AMED ROSARIO
goddammit

on the other side, i will obviously keep Eury Perez. then, i must pick 2 of francisco alvarez, lars nootbaar, hunter greene, and everybody's favorite little big guy who runs fast, alejandro kirk. i'm going with lars nootbaar just because i like to root for the home team, and i've seen him do some very athletic things so i believer in his potential. so
FRANCISCO ALVAREZ OR HUNTER GREENE

speaking from experience, get off of Jack Flaherty's wild ride asap

I’m smelling a comeback player of the year award for amed rosario!

smell the rosarios!

formerly A Moon-Shaped Pujols, now obviously:

Honey Nut Chouri◎s
20 CHOURIO
26 LODOLO
26 HOERNER
29 AROZARENA
29 HELSLEY

ok - 11 respondents. think it's safe to call this one...

9 vs 2 in terms of picking a new date.
Most preferred date was a tie between the Sat 16th and Tues 18th; and a tie between Tues 18th and the OG date for what most people found workable.
Highest rage score, after the "none" option: Sat 16th.

So looks like our new date will be Tuesday the 18th starting at 7:30 est. apologies to the two managers that had that date as their least favourite option.

I will change the league setting shortly; and anyone with outstanding picks, please get them in my mid week next week.
i should prolly get a mod to edit the initial post as well.

Tues the 19th?

FFS. yes. Tuesday the 19th. sorry about that.

trying to do too much this morning.

apologies to the two managers that had that date as their least favourite option.

if i finish in last again this season i'm going to blame it on this!! ;) ;)

no worries, and there's a chance i could join for at least part of it (aka do the draft in the background of a band practice lol)

could always do a little pre-ranking (esp if there are young guys you'd like to target) and then join in part way to fix whatever mess the auto draft left you with.

i was the other person who ranked that at as my least favorite option but it's OK, should still be able to join

appreciate all efforts made to accommodate the rescheduled draft

good news - looks like Votto No Get Enemy will live on under the stewardship of clemenza! i think this might be his first foray into fantasy nerdball?

That spreadsheet looks like hieroglyphics to me, but I'll tentatively give it go. No guarantee I'll last. Thanks for the invitation.

baseball fans, tell me what to do. i am faced with an agonizing choice for my 27+ keepers.

one of them is cody bellinger, who is definitely going to be MVP in 2024, chance of regression = 0.0000000001%
the other? JACK FLAHERTY OR AMED ROSARIO
goddammit

on the other side, i will obviously keep Eury Perez. then, i must pick 2 of francisco alvarez, lars nootbaar, hunter greene, and everybody's favorite little big guy who runs fast, alejandro kirk. i'm going with lars nootbaar just because i like to root for the home team, and i've seen him do some very athletic things so i believer in his potential. so
FRANCISCO ALVAREZ OR HUNTER GREENE

EURY PEREZ
HUNTER GREENE
FRANCISO ALVAREZ
AMED "MVP" ROSARIO
CODY BELLINGER

fuck, oops, sorry for including that text at the top! i meant to delete before posting my keepers:

EURY PEREZ
HUNTER GREENE
FRANCISO ALVAREZ
AMED "MVP" ROSARIO
CODY BELLINGER

lars nootbaar has fractured his ribs. i am sorry lars.

clemenza, i predict that you'll have a great time doing this, if you participate! and if nothing else you can race me for the cellar

Stumbling along blindly here, will help from Thermo, but these will be my keepers:

Grayson Rodriguez (24, P)
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (25, 1B)
Bryson Scott (26, 2B)
Corey Seager (29, SS)
Sean Murphy (29, C)

I'll change my team name as soon as I think of a good Ball Four connection.

Grant BallFour?!

Ok, since i don't think we are in danger of adding or losing any more managers, i am going to lock the league and will post the draft order later today.

i think there is just one last manager that needs to get their selects in and then i can start plugging those bad boys in.

Lets try to get final keep selects in by the 14th.

Is this still valid or out-of-date?

(I would like to see a larger sample of more than 2IP of ST pitching before I lock in a keeper lol)

14th is still good. I’ll probably enter the picks over the weekend - I just want managers to have some time to double check I got everything right.

Billy Childish Bambino:

Juan Soto (25)
Spencer Strider (25)
Triston McKenzie (26)
Kyle Tucker (27)
Willy Adames (28)

Mind blowing that Soto is only 25

ok. draft order is set:

1 Giolito Shuffle
2 Satanic Frelick in the Attic
3 The Worst Players in Baseball
4 The Guns of Buxton
5 Newcombes On de Blok
6 A Moon-Shaped Pujols
7 Votto No Get Enemy
8 Send Nootbaar
9 Ohtani Dancer in my Hand
10 Dascenzo Corbusier
11 Corbin Burnesen
12 Billy Childish Bambino
13 Morning Alonso!

oh man the pressure of the #1 pick (and back-to-back picks after that). not that i'm complaining.

Changed my team name to Steve Barber and a Cast of Thousands (rendered a bit differently on Yahoo to fit the 30-character maximum). Bob Locker, Ball Four: "Boys, today it looks like Steve Barber and a cast of thousands."

I love these team names, have fun everyone. Whoever gets the most dodgers, let me know so I can root for you

So do we have 2B again as an off cat or ... ?

Not really a lot of input on that front - so same as last year.

Einstürzende Baumgarten fka Dascenzo Corbusier

Julio Rodriguez (23)
Jarred Kelenic (24)
William Contreras (26)
Rafael Devers (27)
Zac Gallen (28)

He lives!

However, almost 30 years after throwing my last pitch, I have developed a torn rotator cuff, delaying my return to the field another season.

Devastating. But this bodes well for Tarik Skubal as the clear #1 on the squad

selects have been input. everyone have a look and double check i got everything right:
https://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/41654/draftresults?drafttab=team

Einstürzende Baumgarten--love that!

yeah i love that name too. in fact a couple of times i have wanted to tell ppl about how great that name is irl but then i keep realizing that the fantasy baseball music pun game is a venn diagram with a brutally tiny sliver

like my gf has listened to a bunch of EN due to her old roommate but i don't wanna be like "ok so there's this guy named madison bumgarner"

I will always have a soft spot for yanc3y's first year ILXFBB team name: "My Bobby Valentine"

Devastating. But this bodes well for Tarik Skubal as the clear #1 on the squad

Officially his role to lose.

Einstürzende Baumgarten--love that!

Thanks. That was the name I wanted the first season I played, but Yahoo's character limit back then didn't allow it (so I settled for the Cerutti Column).

Team names understood only by music nerds, and premium young talent sentenced to a decade on mediocre squads: my fantasy baseball legacy.

like my gf has listened to a bunch of EN due to her old roommate but i don't wanna be like "ok so there's this guy named madison bumgarner"

There's this guy Ross Baumgarten!

https://jewishbaseballmuseum.com/images/player-cards/a-c/Baumgarten-1983-Fleer-PittsburghPirates-(front)jpg.jpg

Of course...I associate him with the White Sox and all those good young starters they had at the time, but I was thinking of Bumgarner too.

There's this guy Ross Baumgarten!

I THOUGHT I WAS IN THE SLIVER BUT I WASN'T IN THE SLIVER

Einstürzende Baumgarten = COLLAPSING TREE GARDEN

did we determine that it's impossible to get yahoo fantasy to show a list of ALL available players (i.e., both batters and pitchers, in expected draft order, with the selected keepers taken out)

I need lots of help on this, so I made one up myself using a Sporting News list--anyone who wants to, feel free to use it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18sbWAGuT1QwQLqILaUSXmF8WfUMg-vjhGSMQbPp_I8U/edit?usp=sharing

For yahoo, I don’t think there’s a way to view pitchers AND hitters together

sometimes these guys will surprise you, such as me picking up Spencer Strider on a whim right before he entered the Braves rotation in 2022. sometimes they're Logan Allen.

xpost clemenza, yep. i imagine there could be some strategy with it, too - on any given day, even in a deep league like ours, there are at least half a dozen SPs who are available as free agents, and sometimes one or more of them have quite favorable matchups. even relatively mediocre major leaguers are capable of kicking ass on any given day. in contrast, there's the typical fantasy starting pitcher spot on the roster where you just play them every time their spot in the rotation comes up, even when they're going against a team that hits really well, or on the road on a rainy day, etc, just because you need those innings.

however - i don't intend to spend any time doing that. my thought is to just scan the list of available SPs, spend about 10 seconds thinking about it, and then let jesus take the wheel

- and also i guess i'm just going to try it with one spot in the rotation rather than the whole rotation. although...now that i think about it, another advantage of streaming multiple pitchers would be you'd open up more roster space for batters?

or not? i have no idea. and yeah i can imagine it going really poorly as well, a la thermo's experience this year

i've had mixed results from streaming. it's almost always going to end up in mixed results because you end up streaming a lot of young/rookie pitchers (because the established pitchers are claimed or known to be bad) so you're working based on SSS and unpredictable matchups and luck. often what i do is start out with a set rotation, but if a pitcher is struggling i'll drop him and stream for that spot until i hit on someone who seems like a good shot for the future, then i'll hold on them until they prove me wrong.

you can definitely get lucky and find some stud pitcher that no one has heard of. of course then he's not going to be keeper-eligible for you anyways, which sucks too.

That would definitely require 10 minutes every morning at least, and I'm sure, like most everyone in this league, aren't up to that. If we were playing for cash, maybe a different story!

aren't = I'm not

(Says the guy who devotes 20 minutes most mornings to Immaculate Grid.)

Season post-mortem:

R1.12: Zach Elfin = met expectations
R2.15: Marcus Semien = bust
R3.38: Alex Bregman = bust
R4.41: Max Fried = bust
R5.64: Spencer Torkelson = bust (demoted to minors)
R6.67: Shane Bieber = bust (season ending injury)
R7.90: Teoscar Hernandez = met expectations
R8.93: Nolan Arenado = bust
R9.116: Josh Naylor = exceeded expectations
R10:119: Nathan Eovaldi = exceeded expectations
R11.142: Nestor Cortes = exceeded expectations
R12.145: Willson Contreras = bust (season ending injury)
R13.168: Chris Martin = bust (anxiety induced IL stays)
R14.171: Andrew Kitteridge = exceeded expectations
R15:194: Jack Suwinski = bust (demoted to minors)
R16.197: Noelvi Marte = bust (spent 1st half of season suspended for PEDs, since activated he has been... not good)
R17.220: Tommy Edman = dropped immediately, was out half the season

Keepers:
Juan Soto: met expectations (#4 overall)
Kyle Tucker: bust, missed half the season with a "bruised shin"
Spencer Strider: bust (arm fell off, traded him for James Wood)
Willy Adames: exceeded expectations, certified stud
Triston McKenzie: bust, dropped him after his long recovery from "alternative to TJ treatment"

oh this looks fun let me do it too

1. (13) Kevin Gausman BUST. 4.09 ERA, ranked around 200, only 150 Ks
2. (14) Zack Wheeler (PHI - SP) GREAT. He'll hit 200 Ks with quality rates, goood enough for a top-3 pitcher
3. (39) Yandy Díaz (TB - 1B,3B) BUST. Has mostly ridden the bench and almost gotten dropped a few times, always manages to pick it up just enough to stay
4. (40) Andrés Giménez (CLE - 2B) BUST. I reached for him due to his age, but he was expected to be top-100 at least. All rates down from last 2 years, only 8 homers so far :(
5. (65) Brandon Nimmo (NYM - OF) FINE. Was bust for a while, but picked it up big time lately.
6. (66) CJ Abrams (WSH - SS) FINE. bordering on ANTIBUST for much of the season, but fell way off in the second half. I got him for steals (and AT a steal in this round) and he's young so I can keep him.
7. (91) MJ Melendez (KC - C,OF) BUST. I cannot remember why I drafted this bum in this round. Insane.
8. (92) George Springer (TOR - OF) BUST. long gone from my team. one of the worst players in baseball i wanna say this year?
9. (117) Shane Baz (TB - SP) BUST-ISH. Got dropped, expected more, but he wasn't... AWFUL. K/BB was trash though
10. (118) Carlos Rodón (NYY - SP) FINE. neither exceeded nor failed to meet expectations. which made him one of my best pitchers lol
11. (143) Carlos Correa (MIN - SS) FINE. hard to fault him considering i got him down here and never dropped him. tolerable
12. (144) Tyler O'Neill (BOS - OF) GREAT. Better than expected and keeper eligible. was REALLY good for a month there, fat lot of good it did me
13. (169) Taj Bradley (TB - SP) GREAT. or at least when i look. when i don't look he absolutely implodes lol. surely i will look at his aggregates and not just "follow my gut" when i keep him next year ah shit ah fuck
14. (170) Colt Keith (DET - 2B,3B) WHO CARES. cut him early because i needed another position, named my team after him, saw he got picked up so i am sure he's thriving now.
15. (195) Aaron Civale (MIL - SP) WHO CARES. drafted late and dropped early.
16. (196) Max Scherzer (TEX - SP) WHO CARES. thought i was clever drafting an injured guy for when he came back, he came back, was fine and then got hurt again lol
17. (221) Samuel Basallo (BAL - C) WHO CARES. minors stash

KEEPERS
David Bednar (PIT - RP) BUST. Probably one of the most damaging bums on this team, absolute bust
Jhoan Duran (MIN - RP) BUST-ISH. did not meet expectations, but tolerable
Ronald Acuña Jr. (ATL - OF) BUST. great until he got injured RIP
Nathaniel Lowe (TEX - 1B) BUST. i dropped him, but keeping two 1Bs was not a great position anyway
Pete Alonso (NYM - 1B) FINE. almost met expectations. can't keep him next year tho lol.

BUST: 8
BUST-ISH: 2
FINE: 5
GREAT: 3
ANTIBUST: 0
WHO CARES: 4

(I made a category called antibust for anyone who was REALLY good at value but i ended up with 0 of them)

i'm happy to be the HYUNDAI TEAM TO BEAT. tbh i didn't care about coming last for the longest time but now that someone is trying really hard to finish ahead of me i'm kinda motivated to ruin that. also going first to worst is awful(ly funny)

also i updated the keeper sheet. link is somewhere upthread

okay --

1. (11) George Kirby (SEA - SP) He has been TOTALLY VERY GOOD, he was great up until recently and then he like most of my pitching completely fell apart
2. (16) Tarik Skubal (DET - SP) INCREDIBLE -- very happy with this guy
3. (37) Royce Lewis (MIN - 3B) BUST for me, but I did trade him with some regret for the excellent Jose Ramirez, so it worked out.
4. (42) Xander Bogaerts (SD - 2B,SS) BUST -- never again, this guy is replacement level at this point.
5. (63) Christian Walker (AZ - 1B) GREAT -- injury aside, he's been terrific
6. (68) Christian Encarnacion-Strand (CIN - 1B) BUST -- this guy was supposed to be hot shit, not total shit
7. (89) Jarren Duran (BOS - OF) AMAZING -- I drafted him based on something I always look out for, which is a high number of doubles coupled with some over the fence pop and speed. i was banking on a breakout and it worked.
8. (94) Christopher Morel (TB - 2B,3B,OF) SUCKS -- he's somewhere in the Rays lineup now, striking out a lot.
9. (115) Justin Verlander (HOU - SP) COOKED -- he was okay for awhile and i only cut him due to a lack of room when everyone started getting injured, now he's just bad.
10. (120) Edouard Julien (MIN - 2B) SUCKS -- was hoping for a solid middle infield and despite a week or two where he was very good, he was a disaster.
11. (141) Griffin Jax (MIN - RP) GREAT -- i don't typically draft many RPs, glad he was one of them though.
12. (146) Joel Payamps (MIL - RP) NOT GOOD -- he wound up being ok for someone else for awhile but he's back on in the free agent pool now
13. (167) Mitch Keller (PIT - SP) GOOD - drafted, sucked, dumped, picked back up in time for a really helpful run of quality starts. Now he's back to hit or miss.
14. (172) Mitch Garver (SEA - C) BUST -- the first of about half a dozen catchers i went through
15. (193) Trevor Story (BOS - SS) BUST -- i was banking on something better than a wrecked shoulder and lousy hitting, not necessarily in that order.
16. (198) Clayton Kershaw (LAD - SP) BUST -- held onto him forever only to watch him wash out
17. (219) Tyler Rogers (SF - RP) GOOD -- he wasn't good for awhile so i dropped him and picked him up again, he's been helpful.

KEEPERS
18. (224) Yordan Alvarez  (HOU - OF) GREAT - I made what might've been a useless parallel move in trading him for Ohtani, but I was maybe not going to keep him anyway due to leaning more towards Skubal, Kirby, and Duran.
19. (245) Freddy Peralta  (MIL - SP) NOT AMAZING - He was ok but I traded him for Glasnow. Probably a lose-lose deal.
20. (250) Fernando Tatis Jr.  (SD - OF) MEH - it feels like ten years since he was a top 3 consensus player but i'll keep him in 2025.
21. (271) Corbin Burnes  (BAL - SP) GOOD - he was on many lists the top ranked pitcher coming into this year, so he was a bit disappointing.
22. (276) Corbin Carroll  (AZ - OF) BUST but then AMAZING - I was really lucky to pick up Profar early on because he picked up CC's considerable slack. It looks like he's fully back now, but it might be too late for me.

My work here is done.