Baseball is berry berry good to me.
| Category: General, Sports and Wine | 2 Comments
Spring is here. Fellow Midwesterns realize this because every time they wander outside they don’t curse fifteen times before they reach their unfrosted cars. It also harkens the arrival of baseball, or beisbol for my Latino readers. World Baseball Classic nonwithstanding, I have always had a hard time getting into baseball because spring training is fairly lame, April doesn’t count as teams are barely finding out who they are, and May is always a busy teacher month. This means that I don’t start paying attention to baseball until June, just in time to witness the Cubs start to flail about in their annual swoon. This all changed three years ago when my good friend Frank the Tank invited me into his fantasy baseball league. Now I look forward to spring training because it means fantasy baseball is coming, and I’d better start paying attention. For those that are uninitiated, we hold a draft during spring training in which we choose players we think will have the best stats in certain categories (such as RBI’s, runs, home runs, on-base percentage, etc. for hitters, and wins, K’s, ERA, SV’s, etc. for pitchers) Whichever team of drafted players scores more points per week wins. It’s a little more complicated than that, but my 2.8 readers are bored already, so we’ll move on.
This year we decided to do a live-draft in our league, (as opposed to autopick) which puts a lot more pressure on us because we have to really think about who to take and when. And then there’s the intangibles; do I draft Barry Bonds? When do I draft a closer? A catcher? Fantasy sports blogging has exploded, and the talking heads have tons of ideas about who to take and when. I made it simple for myself; take a hitter, then take a pitcher, and keep flip-flopping. Since I have to fill position spots, it actually worked out pretty well. The scary part is that I went young. Really young. Last year I got burned with a ton of old guys (Palmeiro, Bagwell, and Tino Martinez) to name a few. My team has tremendous potential, but they also may fall flat on their face. This is also known as me pretending to know what I’m doing in fantasy sports. Here’s my team, along with some notes on them:
1B: M. Teixeira
2B: M. Giles
3B: T. Glaus
SS:C. Barmes
OF: A. Jones, A. Huff, B. Giles
C: M. Barrett
Util:L. Overbay
Bench: N. Swisher , R. Baldelli, N. Johnson
Comments: With the exception of Giles, all of my hitters are under 30 years old. Baldelli, and Barmes are coming off season-ending injuries. Teixeira had a monster season last year, and I’m hoping he can repeat it. I’m worried about Glaus and Overbay, but I think if they can pull off a whole season, it could be good news all around. Also, did Andruw Jones catch lightning in a bottle? So many ways the hitters could go. Time will tell. (This ends my obvious genius analysis of my hitters. I admit it, I ran out of steam after linking all those players. Moving on…)
SP: C. Carpenter, C. Lee, Z. Duke,
Carpenter is an easy choice– Cy Young and all… of course I’m nervous about him not being able to repeat it. Cliff Lee did well for me the second half of last year, and he’s now the ace of the Indians. He should have another solid year. Duke and Santana are coming off of solid rookie campaigns. Sophomore slump? What’s the worst that can happen? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you because I’m talking strategy with Jerome Walton. My closers are solid. Period. I’ve already had trade offers. Lame trade offers, but they were there.
Alright, my brain is obviously on spring break. Have a wonderful Opening Weekend, and go Clint Barmes!
