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Season review for fantasy baseball keeper league

In my season-long fantasy leagues, I almost always decide against keeper or dynasty leagues.  Why?  I don’t like the commitment.  Join a poorly run league, or one with obnoxious competing managers, or one in which you pick up crappy players, and you’re seemingly stuck for life.  Well, something like that.

For some reason I decided to change it up this past spring and I joined a fantasy baseball keeper league.  The name of the league is “Legit Dynasty”, and true to its name, it’s a true keeper league.  In other words, you draft players once, and that’s it.  No limit on the number of players to protect.

This format created an intriguing angle that I haven’t experienced in any fantasy sports league.  In non-keeper leagues, you keep good guys on your team until they stop performing, they get seriously injured, or you need to stream hot players in the playoffs.  In the Legit Dynasty league, I had to evaluate players that I would drop to figure out how it would impact my performance next year, or maybe the year after.  This was especially the case with younger players; you don’t want to be the manager who drops the next Bryce Harper or Kris Bryant because of a temporary setback.

League Settings

Draft type Auction ($500 budget)
Teams 10
Scoring Head-to-head
Roster positions C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, IF, LF, CF, RF, OF, Util, Util, Util, SP, SP, SP, SP, RP, RP, RP, RP, P, P, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, DL, DL, DL, DL, NA, NA, NA
Batter Categories Runs (R), Home Runs (HR), Runs Batted In (RBI), Stolen Bases (SB), Batting Average (AVG), On-base + Slugging Percentage (OPS)
Pitcher Categories Wins (W), Saves (SV), Strikeouts (K), Holds (HLD), Earned Run Average (ERA), (Walks + Hits)/ Innings Pitched (WHIP)
Playoff teams 6

The Draft

When auction draft budgets are abnormal (different from the standard $200 budget), as they were with this league, adjustments need to be made.  Most cheat sheets or fantasy sites list auction values based on the standard $200 budget, and other players are likely to accustomed to values based on this budget from other fantasy sports leagues.

The savvy manager can use this to his advantage if he makes adjustments to determine player values as a percentage of overall budget rather than in absolute terms.   If a manager uses an auction budget cheat sheet that lists an auction price for the number one player at $50 using a standard $200 budget, then you know that the value of the top player is 25% of an overall budget.  But in in the league I was playing in, the budget was $500, which meant a reasonable price for the top player would have been about $125.

As you can see from my draft results, I was able to draft three of the top five overall players at pre-draft value or cheaper, which was a tremendous boost for my fantasy team.  Here’s how it went down:

1. (1) Mike Trout (LAA – CF) $103
2. (9) Mookie Betts (Bos – RF) $105
3. (11) José Altuve (Hou – 2B) $108
4. (30) Brandon Belt (SF – 1B,LF) $17
5. (44) Corey Kluber (Cle – SP) $36
6. (64) José Abreu (CWS – 1B) $28
7. (69) Robinson Canó (Sea – 2B) $25
8. (85) Yu Darvish (LAD – SP) $41
9. (164) DJ LeMahieu (Col – 2B) $6
10. (173) Salvador Perez (KC – C) $2
11. (180) Francisco Liriano (Hou – SP,RP) $4
12. (193) Jake Lamb (Ari – 3B) $3
13. (216) Jake Odorizzi (TB – SP) $1
14. (226) Dexter Fowler (StL – CF) $1
15. (227) Michael Brantley (Cle – LF) $3
16. (235) Marcus Semien (Oak – SS) $1
17. (239) Dylan Bundy (Bal – SP,RP) $2
18. (244) Trevor Bauer (Cle – SP,RP) $1
19. (252) Jerad Eickhoff (Phi – SP) $1
20. (267) Zack Wheeler (NYM – SP) $1
21. (273) Jarrod Dyson (Sea – LF,CF,RF) $1
22. (278) Kevin Siegrist (Phi – RP) $1
23. (282) Luke Gregerson (Hou – RP) $1
24. (286) Alex Cobb (TB – SP) $1
25. (289) Koda Glover (Was – RP) $1
26. (292) Corey Knebel (Mil – RP) $1
27. (295) David Phelps (Sea – SP,RP) $1
28. (298) Chris Tillman (Bal – SP,RP) $1
29. (299) Daniel Norris (Det – SP) $1
30. (300) Jeanmar Gómez (Sea – RP) $1
Unused $1

With Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, and Jose Altuve anchoring my team, I was able to then focus on other areas with plenty of budget left to spare.  Getting pitchers like Corey Kluber and Yu Darvish solidified my starting pitcher core, and other players like Jose Abreu, Robinson Cano, and D.J. LeMahieu provided very solid production in certain categories throughout the year.  Filling in other positions, Salvador Perez and Jake Lamb turned into surprising sources of power, though this was not necessarily something that I could have predicted with much accuracy.

Although it doesn’t always work, this stars and scrubs approach to drafting worked because I did not overpay for my stars.  I paid a collective total of about 63% of my budget for my first three players, any of which could have ended up as the top player in all of fantasy.  Normally, I would have expected to somewhere between 75% and 85% of my budget on three such players, so I received tremendous value for my money.

My approach did leave me exposed in some areas, particularly relief pitcher.  In my experience, this is position that can most easily be filled with pitchers off waivers during the season, so I predicted that it was not an urgent position to fill during the draft.  After the season started, I targeted players on waivers who could help me in saves or holds.  Since holds are more plentiful than saves, this was an easy stat to target.  I tried to put as many relief pitchers in my RP spots, P spots, and even SP spots (for those with SP/RP eligibility) so that I could accumulate saves and holds.  At the end of the season, I was in the middle of my league in saves earned, and at the top of my league in the number of holds earned.

Rest of the season

I had significant success during the season and I regularly won in my weekly categories matchups.  After getting trounced by my opponent 10-1 in the first week of the season, I went on cruise control.  I won quite a few weekly matchups, and at one point went 11 straight weeks of besting my opponents.  At the end of the regular season my record was 156-100-8 (.606 winning %) and was 10 games in front of the second place team.

Although my team had great foundational players, it did experience some turbulence, and I made some mistakes as well.  Darvish was mediocre at times and he did not bounce back quite to form as I thought he would.  Trout and Kluber and Michael Brantley were injured for long stretches of the season.  I dropped players that ended up as top-70 players, such as Whit Merrifield and Avisail Garcia (I dropped the latter to pick up Albert Pujols, only to drop Pujols a few months later).

When the playoffs came, I was the number one seed and got a Round 1 bye.  Evidently the party could not last forever, though, and I lost in the semifinal round by a score of 7-4 to the number five seed.  This was a devastating blow, but I managed to pull my team back together to beat my opponent in third place game by a score of 9-1.  I ended the season at #3, and importantly I ended the season in the money.

Looking to the future

Despite the loss in the playoffs, I think I had a very successful fantasy season.  It’s worth noting that the fantasy manager’s primary task is to make the playoffs since that is most directly the result of skill.  Winning a championship is less the result of skill and more the result of other factors.  Therefore, when I evaluate fantasy performance, I think it’s more important to see how I did at the end of the regular season than how I did at the end of the playoffs.

Because my team was stacked with high-performing players, I can look forward to next season with optimism.  I said at the beginning that I was not always a fan of keeper leagues because of the fear I would get stuck in a league I didn’t like.  After this past baseball season, I realize the opposite can hold true as well; I could benefit by hanging onto a great team with great players, which means I’m already one step ahead for next year.

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Scratching and clawing my way through the fantasy baseball playoffs

The fantasy baseball playoffs began for me last week in two leagues, and today I’d like to focus on one of my leagues (Old MLB Style Rules League).  I unfortunately did not do a draft review for the league, so I’ll do a generalized version of how the season has played out so far.

League Settings

Draft type Snake (3rd pick)
Teams 10
Scoring Head-to-head points
Roster positions C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, OF, OF, Util, SP, SP, SP, RP, RP, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, DL, DL, DL, NA
Playoff teams  4

The Draft

I came out of the draft with what I thought was a strong team compared to my league opponents.  Not only did I get a position player who could end the season as the #1 hitter in Kris Bryant, but I got a pitcher who could also very well end up at the top of the pitching chart in Madison Bumgarner.  Getting Andrew McCutchen late in the fourth round seemed like a value pick considering he was drafted as a top-three overall pick just a few years ago, but getting a top catcher in Jonathan Lucroy gave me competency at the hard-to-fill catcher position.  Here is how I drafted (* denotes player still on my team at end of the regular season):

Narnia Nitro
1. (3) Kris Bryant (ChC – 1B,3B,OF)*
2. (18) Madison Bumgarner (SF – SP)*
3. (23) Starling Marte (Pit – OF)
4. (38) Andrew McCutchen (Pit – OF)
5. (43) Johnny Cueto (SF – SP)*
6. (58) Matt Carpenter (StL – 1B,2B,3B)
7. (63) Jonathan Lucroy (Col – C,1B)
8. (78) Alex Bregman (Hou – 3B,SS)
9. (83) Adam Jones (Bal – OF)
10. (98) Addison Russell (ChC – SS)
11. (103) Craig Kimbrel (Bos – RP)*
12. (118) Danny Salazar (Cle – SP)
13. (123) Matt Harvey (NYM – SP)
14. (138) Kevin Gausman (Bal – SP)
15. (143) Brandon Belt (SF – 1B,OF)
16. (158) Dellin Betances (NYY – RP)
17. (163) Vince Velasquez (Phi – SP)
18. (178) Francisco Liriano (Hou – SP,RP)
19. (183) Jorge Soler (KC – OF)
20. (198) Sean Manaea (Oak – SP)

Things went downhill shortly after the season began.  Bryant did not hit for power early on in the season and was only a little better than average.  Marte was hit with an 80-game suspension in April which forced me to drop him.  In the same month, Bumgarner got hurt in a dirt bike accident and had to go on the DL for two months.  Lucroy, Matt Carpenter, and Johnny Cueto all had off years, and Alex Bregman did not materialize into the premier third basemen that I had hoped for.  And lastly, McCutchen started out so poorly that on May 23, he had a pathetic .200 batting average.  I ended cutting him soon thereafter.

Despite the troubles of my drafted team, several key pickups helped prop-up my team so that I enjoyed some early success.  Feasting on the waiver wire, I took Greg Holland, who provided me with a bounty of saves early in the season; Mike Leake provided wins and a low ERA through the month of May; Steven Souza, Mark Reynolds, Justin Bour, and Justin Smoak were cheap sources of power; and relief pitchers like Chris Devenski and Raisel Iglesisas also qualified as starting pitchers, which meant I enjoyed a sneaky source of points.  I also can’t forget Zack Cozart, Paul DeJong, and Whit Merrifield who ended up providing a lot of value for my infield positions.

Making the playoffs

By the middle of the season, my record was 8-3.  The rest of the season was mediocre, though, and my record at seasons-end was 13-9.  Several teams had surpassed me in wins and my season looked rather bleak.  In the last week of the regular season (September 3-9), I was the #5 team in the league and was about to get knocked out of playoff contention (only four teams made the playoffs).  A last-ditch push by my team, and a floundering by the #4 team, meant that I snuck in to the playoffs by the skin of my teeth.

I think my experience underscores one of the truths about season-long fantasy sports leagues.  The key goal at the beginning of the season is never to build a team that will win you your championship.  Instead, the key goal is to build a team that will get you into the playoffs.  There is a difference.  Once you get into the playoffs, things seem to change like night and day.  You’re no longer operating on the long-term mindset that you have at the beginning of the season.

In the first round of the playoffs (semi-finals), I faced CinciRedlegs, a team that went 18-4 during the regular season and that beat me convincingly three times already.   It was close to a David-vs.-Goliath match, and I knew I had to be scrappy in order to win.  To do this, I had to max-out my six weekly acquisitions by streaming pitchers who were starting on particular days when my regular starting pitchers were not playing.  This strategy requires some planning to implement, and the key is to start early in the week and pick-and-choose favorable matchups to maximize results (I use Fantasypros’ pitcher planner to help anticipate favorable games).  Chances are that the pitchers on the waiver wire who are available to stream are inferior to begin with and are potential liabilities on days when they play difficult opponents.  If you wait until the end of the week to start streaming pitchers your selection of players to choose from is really limited, and you also run into the problem of lacking enough roster spots for them.

I was able to benefit from the Cleveland Indians real-life baseball team’s ultra-long winning streak by streaming Indians pitchers, and by the end of the playoff week I had surprisingly built a comfortable lead in points over my opponent.  In the middle of the week, CinciRedlegs apparently took note of my push toward streaming pitchers, and he followed suit.  However, it was too little too late, and I held on for the victory in points.

On to the championship round

Having made it to the final round of the playoffs, I am continuing to stream pitchers with promising matchups.  In the one-week championship matchup, I am facing Water Boyz, another strong team that finished the season with a record of 18-4.  It will be a feat to overcome this opponent, but I have pulled out to around a 35-point lead as of today (Wednesday, September 20).

Streaming pitchers in this round presents a new issue because it’s the final week of the season.  During prior weeks, I would have a set core of good starting pitchers on my team that I would hold (Bumgarner, Cueto, etc.), and if I needed to stream a pitcher I would drop the worst starting pitcher on my roster.  But in the championship round, when I pick up a new starting pitcher, I tend to drop any pitcher who will not make another start for me for the rest of the week.  I am limited to picking up six players in any one week, so if I want to maximize the points my team can generate I need to hold just about any pitcher who will make another start before the end of the week.  This becomes tricky when I have to forecast whether or not a certain pitcher will make one last start before the end of the week, but I think it’s truly a way to maximize the number of points my team will put up.

We’ll see how all of this plays out in a few days.  I would not be surprised if Water Boyz comes charging back in the next few days given the strength of his pitching, and I have already used up four of six of my acquisitions for this week.  I anticipate picking up two more starting pitchers between now and Sunday when the season comes to a close.  Hopefully I’ll be able to hold him off.

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Fantasy baseball update for Week 7

Two months ago, I drafted in a 12-team auction draft league (5×5) in which I used my talent concentration philosophy without reserve. I got some big guns that evening, but unfortunately it left me with a gaping hole in pitching. Now that we’re one-and-a-half months into the season (Week 7), I thought I’d give an update about my team’s fortunes.

First, as the unfortunate owner of A.J. Pollock, I ended up starting off the season on a bad note. He cost me $38 in my draft, which was about 15% of my budget. I’m holding on to him in my DL spot, so at least he could give me two months of production at the end of the season, but otherwise it’s just a bad situation I can’t spend much time reflecting on.

As for my season in general, as expected my batting has flourished while my pitching has suffered. Here are my rankings in the 5×5 categories (12-teams):

  • Runs – 3rd
  • HR- 3rd
  • RBI – 7th
  • SB – 2nd
  • AVG – 4th (tie)
  • W – 3rd
  • SV – 10th
  • K – 3rd
  • ERA – 11th
  • WHIP – 10th

I am currently sitting in fourth place, but only 2.5 games behind the leader. Right now, I like where my team is at. Let me go through this in a business-like fashion by applying a SWOT analysis to my team:

Strengthsbaseball-931712_1920

The reason I love talent concentration is because of what it’s given me right now: two of the top give offensive players to date (Nolan Arenado and Bryce Harper), and three of the top fifteen (Josh Donaldson). The corrollary to talent concentration is that other talent will emerge on the waiver wire as the season progresses, and so with that said I was able to pick up Jackie Bradley Jr. and Ian Desmond off waivers. Those two are in the top-25 for batters right now, so my team’s offensive prospects are strong and should continue to give me an advantage over my opponents throughout the season.

Weaknesses

My pitching started out horribly, though it has improved modestly over the past few weeks. Out of the draft, Masahiro Tanaka was my ace, which tells you all you need to know. I ended up trading for Matt Harvey and Jason Kipnis in exchange for Jose Abreu and Matt Moore before opening day, but so far Harvey has sputtered. Since then, I have had to be aggressive on waivers and was able to pick up the following players who have been producing nicely thus far: Rich Hill, Chris Tillman, Adam Conley, Kevin Gausman, Jerad Eickhoff, Steven Wright, and Tyler Duffey. I was able to pick up so many pitchers by eliminating my bench players on the offensive side, and this is why I have been able to compete in pitcher categories such as wins and strikeouts.

Unfortunately, closers have not been as easy to come by as I had hoped for. While Steve Cishek and his 11 saves have been a pleasant surprise, my snag of Kevin Jepsen has been rotten. Since these are the only two closers on my team right now, I have been weak in the saves category. I hope that changes soon one Brad Boxberger, whom I picked up off waivers and stashed on my DL, comes back from his injury in a few weeks.

Opportunities

Opportunities lie in my pitching. I can try to trade at some point for a more established starter, or a well-established reliever, but at this point in the season I would like to see if someone already on my team develops into a top tier or even second-tier pitcher. I’m also betting on some other relievers to emerge during the season to take over as their teams’ closers, which could allow me to scoop them up without trading away a quality player. At the same time, I’m willing to punt a category like ERA or WHIP if that means I can consistently win in other pitching categories.

Threats

Right now my threats are minimal. Except for saves, my fantasy team’s production isn’t carried by one or two individuals. Therefore, an injury to a top player is unlikely to cause my entire team to falter. Once Boxberger gets healthy and resumes his job as the Tampa Bay closer, the threat of an injury to Cishek will pose less of a problem.

All in all, my season has progressed nicely. Although I do not yet have the number of wins in my league that I would like and still do not have great pitching, I think that the foundation of my team is pointed in a positive direction that can sustain me over the rest of the season.

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Fantasy baseball auction draft review for a 12-team league

The 2016 fantasy baseball draft season is upon us and I have taken in several drafts over the past week.  Last night, my Yahoo Pro League had its auction draft.  It turned into one of the worst drafts since my 2015 ESPN fantasy baseball draft, but this one soured for reasons that were out of my control.  More about that later.  Here is my team:

Budget $260
1. (5) Bryce Harper (Was – OF) $49
2. (8) Nolan Arenado (Col – 3B) $44
3. (11) Josh Donaldson (Tor – 3B) $46
4. (23) José Abreu (CWS – 1B) $35
5. (36) Freddie Freeman (Atl – 1B) $17
6. (38) A.J. Pollock (Ari – OF) $38
7. (97) Masahiro Tanaka (NYY – SP) $9
8. (117) Jason Motte (Col – RP) $1
9. (167) Billy Burns (Oak – OF) $5
10. (209) Steven Souza Jr. (TB – OF) $1
11. (229) Andrew Cashner (SD – SP) $1
12. (231) Mike Fiers (Hou – SP) $2
13. (236) Blake Swihart (Bos – C) $1
14. (242) Steve Cishek (Sea – RP) $1
15. (248) Robbie Ray (Ari – SP) $1
16. (253) Wei-Yin Chen (Mia – SP) $1
17. (256) Josh Harrison (Pit – 2B,3B,OF) $2
18. (258) Clay Buchholz (Bos – SP) $1
19. (263) Denard Span (SF – OF) $1
20. (266) Matt Moore (TB – SP) $1
21. (269) Ian Kennedy (KC – SP) $1
22. (272) Jedd Gyorko (StL – 2B,SS) $1
23. (274) Alex Wood (LAD – SP) $1
Unused $0

The stars

I practice what I preach in terms of talent concentration.  With five of my first six picks (Bryce Harper, Nolan Arenado, Josh Donaldson, Jose Abreu, and A.J. Pollock), I drafted top-20 batters.  With these players, I have a team core around which I will be able to construct the rest of my team throughout the season through waiver wire pickups and possible trades.

It was an expensive strategy since I spent $212 on these players, which was around 82% of my entire budget; however, chances are slim that I will ever need to drop any of these players because the probability of top production from them is very high.  Other managers who drafted more average talent for lower prices are more likely to drop their players at some point during the season, which means the dollars I will have spent on my draft choices will go further.

The scrubs

Despite my success with getting star players on my team, there is one gaping hole in my roster – pitching.  My top pitcher is Masahiro Tanaka, followed by Wei-Yin Chen, and then Mike Fiers.  These are hardly pitchers around which a championship can be built.  Further, my top relief pitcher is Steve Cishek, followed by Jason Motte.  So what happened?

Ideally, I would have pursued a top pitcher or two with my fourth or fifth pick in the low-$30 range.  As it happened, however, I was not able to get to my computer for the draft and therefore had to draft via my cell phone because a dinner I was at went long.  I couldn’t see who was still on the board or do analyses of my positions, so I had to draft based on intuition.  Further, during the few seconds after I got home, logged off my phone, and then was about to log on to my computer, my team autobidded $17 for Freddie Freeman.  I am not high on Freeman to begin with, and he also replicates some other stat categories that I already had.  Therefore, that pick more or less torpedoed my chance at getting my desired pitchers.

A few other picks of mine were auction bait; in other words, these were players I drafted after nominating them with the hope that some other team would take the bait and bid on them.  It’s a means of enticing other players to fill their roster with undesirable players so that they finish their drafts more quickly, and it also directs them away from certain player positions.  Jason Motte and Steven Souza were two such players whom I nominated despite not wanting them.  I will drop them soon and pick up alternative options very soon.

The strategy going forward

Right now, my pitching is my greatest obstacle.  If I don’t do something, this will drag me down throughout the season.  I spent the latter half of my draft trying to find pitchers with prospects of quality, assuming all things go well.  These are pitchers such as Mike Fiers, Wei-Yin Chen, Clay Buchholz, and Matt Moore.  I also picked up Robbie Ray because of his darkhorse potential.  Whether I hold on to him for the duration is up in the air.  Right now, I have nine starting pitchers on my team.  Going forward, I am going to hold on to as many as I can for as long as they produce, but I will start to trim them as needed.

I will also be in search of improving my relief pitching.  I have already put in a waiver claim for Fernando Rodney (dropping Jason Motte), but I would like to add perhaps two more relievers down the road.  Relief pitching seems to be one of the more volatile positions in MLB, so I can afford to wait and see how baseball rosters develop over the month of April.

Overall, I’m a bit displeased with my draft because of what happened when I wasn’t able to be at my computer for the start of it.  Nevertheless, with enough care and attention I should be able to overcome my team’s weaknesses and improve it through waivers.

 

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I was the champion of a fantasy baseball ghost league

They say that it’s lonely at the top.  In fantasy sports, it’s also lonely when you play in an abandoned league.  It’s the kind of league in which other team managers stop showing up to adjust their rosters, pick up or drop guys, or even visit the league page.  It’s a ghost league, and I just won mine.

That’s right, I was champion of a league, “oldmans hi scoring 7”, and I seem to have been the only one left visiting by the end of the season.  It was a small, six-team auction draft league (head-to-head) in which I was able to snag several top-tier players.  Here was my drafted roster:

1. (6) Andrew McCutchen (Pit – OF) $180
2. (9) Paul Goldschmidt (Ari – 1B) $119
3. (11) Greg Holland (KC – RP) $50
4. (14) Robinson Canó (Sea – 2B) $107
5. (18) Giancarlo Stanton (Mia – OF) $151
6. (20) Stephen Strasburg (Was – SP) $96
7. (32) Félix Hernández (Sea – SP) $113
8. (47) Devin Mesoraco (Cin – C) $8
9. (58) Jonathan Lucroy (Mil – C,1B) $8
10. (59) David Robertson (CWS – RP) $16
11. (60) Cole Hamels (Tex – SP) $27
12. (96) Evan Longoria (TB – 3B) $13
13. (122) Jorge Soler (ChC – OF) $1
14. (124) Alex Wood (LAD – SP,RP) $2
15. (125) Justin Verlander (Det – SP) $1
16. (127) Nelson Cruz (Sea – OF) $1
17. (129) Alexei Ramírez (CWS – SS) $1
18. (131) Phil Hughes (Min – SP) $1
19. (133) Marcell Ozuna (Mia – OF) $1
20. (135) Kole Calhoun (LAA – OF) $1
21. (136) Daniel Murphy (NYM – 1B,2B,3B) $1
22. (137) Fernando Rodney (ChC – RP) $1
23. (138) Brian McCann (NYY – C,1B) $1

I was fortunate to have a strong team from the beginning, and I started beating my opponents right away.  This continued throughout the months and I actually started to take quite a bit of a lead over my competition (we were all in the same division).  By season’s end, my record was 22-0.  This is the most successful I have ever been in a league, but of course I take it with a grain of salt.

Had other managers remained with the league, would I have won it all?  I would like to think so since my team was pretty strong, but I think I would have only gotten about 16-18 wins, rather than 22.  Of course, there’s no way to tell for sure.

Final Thoughts

I don’t really understand managers who quit on their leagues.  I can understand if managers don’t want to adjust rosters on a daily basis, but a few times each month is not unreasonable.  I’m going to stick with a league until the end, even if it means I’m playing against a team on autopilot.  Granted, the thrill of victory may not be that sweet, but it is still palatable.

 

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Second-place finish in my ESPN baseball league

The baseball season in my 12-team ESPN “Baseball Stars” league came to an end yesterday, and unfortunately my team came in second after losing to the champion in finals week.

As I wrote last week, my team recovered from a semi-disastrous draft back in March in which I failed to draft any real quality starting pitching.

After making the playoffs as the #3 seed, I knocked off my opponent (#2 seed) in the semi-finals.  I had a chance to knock off my opponent (#1 seed) in the finals and I was ahead of him with about three days left, but he was able to pull ahead by a huge margin within the final couple of days. My strategy of streaming starting pitchers backfired when I started Henry Owens (SP-Boston) on Friday, who then incurred negative 16 points for my team.  Meanwhile, my opponent relied on his quality starting pitchers (e.g. Chris Sale, Stephen Strasburg) to carry him through the playoffs.

I should mention that my opponent in the finals was a peculiar characters simply for the fact that he was a chronic streamer, constantly adding and dropping players throughout the season.  By the end of the season, he had completed 216 acquisitions.  216!  By comparison, I was the next closest in terms of activity with 100 acquisitions.  I don’t know if I have ever had an opponent who was so trigger-happy on the waiver wire as I had this season.  Normally, that kind of activity will get you into trouble, but this time it worked out for him.

Anyway, it’s a relief to be done with this league since I always felt like I was digging myself out of a hole, trying to keep my head above water.  A bad draft will do that to you.  I’m glad that I was able to recover and make it into the playoffs, though, so overall it was a successful season.