Fantasyopolis

Building your fantasy sports team from the ground up.

In-Season Review

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Fantasy golf 2016 is hitting the home stretch

With a little over a month left in the 2016 Yahoo fantasy golf season, things are now “getting serious”. This week’s tournament, the Wyndham Championship, will probably not make or break any teams so I’ll have to look to future tournaments to make a big move.

Updated Fantasy Golf League Standings

I have been infrequently chronicling my season in two Yahoo fantasy golf leagues: Hackers Inc. and The Dunes 18 Go Low. They both started out with 40+ players, but because Hackers Inc. is an elimination league it has fallen to just a dozen teams remaining.

Here are the standings through Week 31.

League Winter (rank) Spring (rank) Summer (rank) Total (rank)
Hackers Inc. 2003 (2) 1817 (12) 1119 (2) 4939 (1)
Dunes 18 1927 (4) 1725 (11) 1001 (6) 4653 (1)

Since I last posted on June 22 at the end of the Spring session, I have moved up in the overall rankings by a few spots. However, my lead in both leagues is very fragile (I’m leading by 1 point in Hackers, and by 16 points in The Dunes). This means I have no real room for error during the remaining five tournaments.

The Wyndham Championship 2016

activity-1297139_640As I mentioned earlier, this week should not shake things too much. I say this because the top eight golfers are all available for a rostering in the A-, B-, and C-Lists. From the first group, I’ve got Ryan Moore and Rickie Fowler. From the second group, I have Patrick Reed and Hideki Matsuyami, with Jim Furyk and Brandt Snedeker in reserve. For the last group, I have Bill Haas and Jon Rahm.

Chances are that players from each of the groups will make the cut, and I would say that there’s a good chance I have at least one top-three player on my roster this week.

I’ll check back in at the end of the season or right before if things get interesting heading into the third week of September.

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Strategy for Yahoo fantasy golf summer session

The U.S. Open capped the spring session in Yahoo fantasy golf leagues. Fantasy managers now have twelve weeks of summer session left in the 2016 season.

If you are like me, the spring session ended on a h-o-r-r-i-b-l-e note and you can’t wait to get past it. All four of my B-List players failed to make the cut at the U.S. Open – players which included Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose, Brandt Snedeker, and Henrik Stenson. I’ve never seen such a collapse of talent, and the result was that this group generated a grand total of 16 points for my team. I should point out that Henrik Stenson technically withdrew from the tournament and didn’t miss the cut, but apparently he was at +10 through 16 holes in Round 2, so it was a long shot that he would be playing come Round 3. Fortunately for me, I did have eventual winner Dustin Johnson active in my A-List, but he was active for only two of his four rounds which limited his benefit for my team.

Ah, well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Updated Fantasy Golf League Standings

Here is where I currently stand in each league I’m in. They both started out with 40+ teams (the Hackers Inc. league is an elimination league, so it’s now down to near 25 teams).

League Winter (rank) Spring (rank) Total (rank)
Hackers Inc. 2003 (2) 1817 (12) 3820 (2)
Dunes 18 1927 (4) 1725 (11) 3652 (4)

As you can see, I missed my opportunity in the Spring to make a run. Still, I didn’t lose much ground. I’m currently 27 points behind the leader in the Hackers Inc. league, and 156 points behind the leader in the Dunes 18 league. I therefore have an opportunity to climb to the top in both leagues if I can string together some solid scores in the homestretch.

Strategy going forward

golf-880532_640My fantasy golf strategy at this point isn’t very novel: play my best players possible. Strategy in Yahoo fantasy golf leagues really comes into play early on in the season when choices need to be made about whether to activate top tier players for tournaments. Given that each player may only be played 10 times throughout the entire year, it’s crucial not to waste starts.

Now that we’re beginning the summer session, I no longer need to preserve starts. I want to play my stud players in tournaments whenever possible until they run out of starts.

Earlier in the season, I made strategic decisions not to use up all my starts with certain players. This meant rostering players who might be the #1, #2, #4, and #5 best players for a tournament, but passing on the #3 player to preserve his start. Now, I can afford to roster #1 through #4 to give myself the best opportunity to succeed.

Players who I would like to roster more often include Dustin Johnson (5 starts left), Rory McIlroy (3 starts), Justin Rose, (4 starts), Jason Day (4 starts), Brooks Koepka (5 starts), Jordan Spieth (4 starts), and Adam Scott (7 starts). As you can see, I was perhaps a bit too conservative when it came to starting some of these top players. It doesn’t do any good to have starts left over at the end of the fantasy golf season, so I’m going to make use of them whenever I can.

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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.