Dear Mr. Fantasy, play us a game (Fantasy Baseball 2013!)

Something to make us all nerdy…

Anyways, opening day is March 31st… usually we do the draft one or two Sundays before that – so lets set draft day on the 24th. If that afternoon is a problem for enough people I'm fine with moving it up a week. And, as always, I will need to manually input our keepers so please let me know your picks by March 10 (it takes a while to input all the things).

We have two retiring managers: polyphonic and mayor jinglebells – so both their teams and the keepers that come with are up for grabs. we also have one new manager, Will, joining us – so you have dibs on picking which team you'd like to inherit. I'll post both teams keep eligible guys for you and other potential new managers shortly.

Last bit of business is changes to the stats… there seems to be some popular support for changing or removing either fielding % or GIDP. If managers could post their thoughts/suggestions I'm fine with altering things if some sort of consensus can be reached. Personally I'd prefer to just dump one of them (don't want too much change from one year to the next) and I can't think of any hitting stat I'd rather see in there instead.

I will post a recap of the rules and a link to our league shortly, managers should be getting an invite in their emails later today.

Oh, also – congrats to last year's winner, Z S, who put an end to polyphonics' dynasty!

da 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)

there seems to be some popular support for changing or removing either fielding % or GIDP. If managers could post their thoughts/suggestions I'm fine with altering things if some sort of consensus can be reached.

i'd be cool with dumping both of them, and i'm ambivalent about adding one (or two) to replace them. if there's a fun/unique stat that we could use instead, sure, but otherwise we may as well just make things a little more simple.

i think i'm gonna be pretty bad this year. i lost robinson cano (he's 30 now), and i got rid of shelby miller at the worst possible time (held on to him all year as he struggled in the minors, ditched him just before he found jesus and finally made it to the majors).

i can't do the 24th

polyphonic's keeper eligible guys:
Eric Hosmer
Carlos González
Craig Kimbrel
Bryce Harper
Brandon McCarthy
Salvador Pérez

Mayor Jingleberg's:
Daniel Bard
Matt Wieters
Alex Gordon
Matt Kemp
David Price
Howie Kendrick
Dee Gordon
Chase Headley
Paul Goldschmidt

Damn, Kemp, Price and Headley, not bad!

but mianly, lol @ Bard!

ok, league is set up...

http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/43463
password: vorpedminds

right now the draft is scheduled for 2:30pm sunday the 24th. mr crunch cannot do that day - if a few more people are unable I can move it up to the 17th. also the time is flexible too, if that helps.

i can't do the 24th

― johnny crunch, Monday, February 11, 2013 10:57 AM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i can't do the 24th either.. unless it's 9pm EST or something real late.

and to kick off our keeper picks, here are mine:
Starlin Castro (23)
Jason Heyward (23)
Felix Hernandez (26)
Ian Kennedy (28)
Cole Hamels (29)

ok... so would the 17th mess with anybody's schedule??

i'm having some trouble remembering who i originally drafted, who was traded to me, and who i picked up off of waivers.

earlyish on the 17th would be okay w/ me, but can't commit to anything late afternoon ->

17th much better, anytime (for me).

Hmmm, is there an easy way to view trade transactions from last year?

oh, duh. just found it: http://archive.fantasysports.yahoo.com/archive/mlb/2012/40397/transactions

yup - that's what i used to confirm poly and mj's keepers.

17th is good, any time @ all

Do keepers go at a specified time in the draft, or off the top, or off the bottom? I suppose it's off the bottom since people who don't keep 5 get "fillers."

Is it possible to get a list of the guys that are under 25 who aren't keep-eligible (ie. guys I could plan to draft so I'm not surprised by the lack of kids in the draft)? I imagine all of these answers will inevitably pop up somewhere, just want to make sure.

My e-mail address is at gmail.com, and it starts with "magacid" -- should I sign up now or is there a special thing I have to do to inherit a team?

I am still trying to figure out which of those teams I want to inherit, hopefully I'll know a bit about the format... but gosh those are some sexy keepers on both teams.

And afaik 17th is ok for me, I might be playing actual baseball irl that day (!) but I do that every Sunday, I can take a break. Later is probably better for me but really I'm new so I don't get ot be picky and that's ok by me.

I wrote most of those questions about 20 xp's aog so I see now that I can find the answers myself to the second line at least.

also blowing my mind seeing the age of some of these dudes, i knew they were young but goddamn. j-hey's 23? what am i doing w/ my life?

(oh and post #100 in a row I'm sorry) but when I said "later is better for me" re: mar 17 date, to be more specific, the best for me is either morning til 1pm, or 6pm til midnight... but again, i won't cry if not

My keepers (age on opening day in parentheses):

Lance Lynn (25)
Pablo Sandoval (26)

Matt Cain (28)
José Reyes (29)
Johnny Cueto (27)

think my draft this year might have to focus on rebuilding a little. my keepers are aging out.

Is it possible to get a list of the guys that are under 25 who aren't keep-eligible (ie. guys I could plan to draft so I'm not surprised by the lack of kids in the draft)? I imagine all of these answers will inevitably pop up somewhere, just want to make sure.

i'm not sure that it is possible, but if it is, i'd be interested in the same list! drafts in this league are always kinda funny because they start off with a bunch of oldsters rather than, say, mike trout.

the way i've done it for the past few years is to just keep a big spreadsheet of all players, and then manually go in there and delete everyone who has been named as a keeper. depending on where you get your original spreadsheet from, it might already include date of birth. so once you manually delete out the keepers, you can just sort by age to see who is still available and under 25 (or under 29)

i sold out for the glory of 1st runner up so i only have 4 returning players, the rest of those assholes are dead to me

melky (28)
j upton (25)
sergio santos (29)
miggy montero (29)

Bish Boesch keepers (unless something drastic occurs prior to the deadline):

Greinke 29
Fielder 28
Gallardo 27
McCutchen 26
Trout 21

Do keepers go at a specified time in the draft, or off the top, or off the bottom?

i have to manually input the picks in the first 5 rounds - so technically our draft will start in the 6th round (hence me asking for keepers well ahead of time to allow me time to input 84 names into the draft fields). i should also point out (sorry if this adds to your confusion) that when I randomly do up the draft order, being last means when the actual picking starts in the 6th round, you will be picking first since the order "snakes".

My e-mail address is at gmail.com, and it starts with "magacid" -- should I sign up now or is there a special thing I have to do to inherit a team?

Just click the link to the league page I posted and enter the password – you should be able to sign up there (let me know if you can't).

I am still trying to figure out which of those teams I want to inherit…

You'll have to research their specific ages yourself, but let me know asap… you don't want any other possible new managers to swoop in and snag the better one (no one else has spoken up yet, mind you)!

Andy, you are a bastard for grabbing Trout in the draft last year. seriously.

not only that, but sticking with him when while he was in the minors. you brilliant fucking bastard.

keeping

joey votto (29)
troy tulowitzki (28)
jay bruce (26)
jeremy hellickson (26)
jarrod parker (24)

r.i.p. dustin ackley

There we go, I'm in. I'm Pagandroids.

I shall graciously take the team left by Polyphonic, and these shall be my keepers:

Bryce Harper - 20
Salvador Pérez - 22
Craig Kimbrel - 24
Carlos González - 27
Brandon McCarthy - 29

Checked 'em all, that's their ages & they're all born after March 31. It hurt to leave Price, Kemp & Goldie on the table but THAT'S BASEBALL!

lol hosmer

i still believe

I'll pay him some more mind if he ever gets his babip to not be babullshit

jeez, if the world somehow doesn't explode in the next 10 year, it could be 2022 and Will's team will still have Harper on it.

there won't even be fantasy baseball in 2022, holodeck baseball will ahve taken over

Hunter Pence - 29
John Axford - 29 - b-day is 4/1 ;)
Chris Perez - 27
Michael Pineda - 24 - kinda sad mostly sad
Elviz Andrus - 24

looking more now, appears brandom mccarthy isn't on the team i inherited? am i looking @ the wrong page?

you're totally right, he was dropped. my bad - if this is a game changer, feel free to switch the team you're taking over.

i was thinknig of swapping for buchholz but ughhhhhhh... i think i will switch teams. hurts to drop harper tho.

Paul Goldschmidt (25)
Matt Wieters (26)
Matt Kemp (28)
David Price (27)
Chase Headley (28)

"ellsbury poly" reporting for duty

keepers:

jacoby ellsbury (27)
asdrubal cabrera (29)
brett lawrie (23)
aroldis chapman (25)
matt moore (23)

i'm the former omar fwiw

formar

On my old team I think Dustin Pedroia was also keeperable. I got him via trade, not waivers.

Oof gosh. I can't keep flip-flopping though... I'll stick with what I just picked, and best of luck to whoever takes over your very very sexy looking team.

oh - i thought he was too old for keepin'! again, it was my mistake so flip-flop away if you like, sir.

OOF. Okay. Here goes. Final answer.
Harper, 20;
Perez, 22;
Kimbrel, 24;
Cargo, 27;
Pedroia, 29.

Starting pitchers be damned.

i may flop back to Frieri again on this news :-/

@MikeDiGiovanna: #Angels Closer Ryan Madson had soreness after pen session Feb. 1, hasn't thrown in 10 days.

I probably can't make the draft on the 17th. Would have preferred the 24th FWIW.

ok new team name should dejinxify me

My outfielders (and Zimmerman, finally) have been carrying my offense lately so the +7 games is definitely a problem. My biggest problem is that it'll be really hard to gain any more points -- I've basically maxed out in pitching, and I'm well behind the next highest team in almost every offensive category. My best case scenario is to hold on at ~ 160 pts and hope that your team blows it. 20% odds is probably about right.

FIRST.

I still can't believe my offense woke up when my best two players went on the DL. Ewing Theory? I was hoping to hang onto second buntil Pence and Zimmerman somehow became the two best players in the NL.

i had to look up this "Ewing Theory"

FALL BACK

i had a dream the other week that Billy Hamilton had 7 steals in one game. last night he went 3 for 4 and put up 4 steals. i'll take it.

8 games, 9 steals

i just watched the video, holy crap the last one was on a pitchout.
[/not hyping him as 2014 tradebait]

very much regret starting Ian Kennedy.

So that's that then. Too bad the season didn't end on the 15th. I had a nice two day run in first.

sorry man

http://i.imgur.com/YpEs9AQ.gif

taking tiger stadium (by strategy) (sanskrit) found a shoebox of my old mixtapes?

The Fat Lady on Lonborg

OF

when you gave me that tape that night i thought i meant something to you </wipes tear>

Alex Rios hit for the cycle last night.

Too bad we ditched the cycle and no-hitter categories, this could have been the start of my miracle comeback.

THANK YOU BASED DONALDSON

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2840661/cwspileon.gif

congrats sanskrit!

http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2840659/cwslulz.gif

fuck...
http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/2840659/cwslulz.gif

TOTAL DOMINATION

thanks its been real. lots of teams with interesting keeper options for 2014.

yeah, i'm already dreading the decision on who to ditch between matt cain, johnny cueto or pablo sandoval in my 27 and up category.

none of which are Donaldson, i've noticed!
xpost

and i'm going to have to decide who to drop between Starlin Castro, StarlinG Marte and Heyward. :(

rip starlin castro

i'm dropping my team off a cliff. congrats sanskrit!

I think my 5th slot has to either be Kimbrel, RYUUUU or Everth Cabrera... tough tough tough. :|
Other 4 are Harper, Goldie, Buchholz, and GoGo so pretty happy there. :)

Ya - my other under-27 is Shelby Miller, so at least I have that going for me! (now that Felix is graduating to 27+)

Michael Wacha will also be available next year. I know that's probably not a household name yet but he's gonna be goooooood

puig & jose fernandez avail. theyre p good, carried me to 8th place

Congrats sanskrit! It was fun trying to chase you down all summer.

Congratulations Sanskrit!

http://imgur.com/4wS4xUM.jpg

And thank you Yahoo auto-draft for grabbing me fourth place.
Next year I'm def. employing a more Yahoo!ish strategy: more tried-and-true (boring) veterans.

Not sure I even have enough keeper-eligibles tho :|

what are the rules on off-season hot-stove trading keepers for draft spots? because i have 7 and i cant keep them all, i could help a brother out for some dope pixxx

err i have 8 or 9 maybe even

um. no one has asked me about this before. not sure i can change up draft spots, tbh.

fyi i am out for real next year, i thought i could work up the interest to keep up with it this year but it didn't happen yet again. letting you all know early so you can find someone to take over my team if you want. its been fun.

i know in other leagues (on yahoo) you can actually trade draft spots as long as it's an equal number of draft spots, but itd also require the league to be set up in a certain way i would guess so no big deal if it's too much of a pain in the ass (especially since this is some weird meta-yahoo winter meetings nonsense i am proposing).

so, you could trade someone a keepable player for, say, that persons second round slot?

yeah, for example in a keeper hockey league last year i traded lundqvist + my 16th round pick 2014 for nabokov + a 6th round pick 2014 or something like that. i think the trade was a little more complicated than that but you get the idea.

also, fun: looking through players you dropped and picked up to see how much of a goddamn impatient maniac you are.

some of my highlights:
Uehara -> Maholm
Pedro Alvarez -> Chris Carter (only to pick up Alvarez a week later, making him unkeepable)
Jason Castro, picked up for 6 hours only to drop for Yasmani Grandal wtf
Bartolo Colon -> Tanner Scheppers
Eric Hosmer for a week, only to drop him shortly before the 2nd half

there were good picks too but they're far less fun to look at tbh

on closer inspection, auto-draft didn't pick anyone under 28!
Left with an open <26 slot

*≤26

a tip on checking player ages:

type your player's name into google and it will show a bio without having to press return

Or just have your assistant do it, that's what I do

i think my most regrettable drop was Jeff Locke.

and (i think) it looks like if we were to have tradable draft slots i would have to manually input the order of each round of the draft! that may be a little more work than i'd care for.

although - i would not personally have a problem with trading keep-eligible guys straight up. so long as the convos happened here where i could track of who was going where. but it think i might want some input from other managers on this one first, tho.

also, sad to hear that ciderpress. i'm going to make any possible new manager agree to use the original team name, Whole Camels.

i meant to mention the real champion is Carry On My Heyward Son

i dont how many of you remember ILB's Felicity but when I showed her the league that was her favorite indie guilt bermanism.

awww. i wish she'd come back.