Fantasy baseball diary?

[kaz]

Crept back up
Fourth Place
Bleach is second

[bleach168]

Gone
Tony Womack
Tim Salmon
Danny Patterson
Julio Lugo

New Player
Chone Figgins (free agency)
Justin Speier (free agency)
David Eckstein (waivers)
Ismael Valdez (free agency)

Three weeks into the season and my team sits locked in second place. I am 13 points behind first and 9.5 points ahead of third. I've been in second place for the entire week.

Injuries have kept my team from doing much the past 2 weeks. I've had Green, Sweeney, Womack, Salmon all miss games due to minor injuries. I'm still waiting for Nomar, Walker, and Kim to come back from the DL. I have rarely been able to field a full lineup and I'm now 23 IP under the full pace. I felt practically forced to drop Womack and Salmon just to get healthy bodies into my lineup.

Yet, I'm still in second place so I guess it's not all bad. Adjusting for the amount of innings I've underpitched, I'm about 8 points out of first place.

My starting pitching went sour. Instead of helping my ERA and WHIP, Beckett has contributed to the damage the rest of my staff is doing. My ERA now stands at 3.90 and my WHIP is at 1.27. With Contreras and Redding sporting ERAs over 10, I can't help but think it's going to get better from here on out.

Ismael Valdez is a spot start on Tuesday against the Expos at home. The Expos average about 2 runs per game and Petco is a pretty good pitchers park. Valdez is a veteran pitcher who should get the win which is all I'm really looking for here. He won't get me many strikeouts, but since I have 107 K's in 117 innings (best ratio in the league), I don't really care about that.

Lack of run support has made me last in the Wins category. My ERA is 6th out of 16, so it's just been some really bad luck. It's early, but it's already frustrating knowing that I could easily have 7 more points if things just went normal for me. Oh look, lucky me.. I have Zambrano facing RJ tonight in Arizona. What's with my pitchers continually facing opposing team's aces? I had Redding face Sheets twice and then Matt Morris, and Beckett has faced only #1 starters. ARgh... Contreras doesn't go up against other aces, but he never makes it to the 5th inning so whatever. I hate the Wins category.

All in all, I feel first place is definately in reach for me. All these bad things have happened to my team and I'm still in second place. Things I will look forward to:

1. A healthy team. I spent the last 2 weeks with up to 1/3 of my team not playing. That shouldn't continue.
2. Decent starting pitching. Beckett has a 3.91 ERA and 1 win. That can't continue, right? Contreras and Redding have to be at least mediocre, right?
3. Wins. If my ERA gets better, I certainly won't finish in last place in the wins category, right???
4. The first place team, Slepners, is being carried by Jermaine Dye, Moises Alou, Mike Lowell and Jack Wilson. His pitching staff is Vazquez, D-Train, Paul Abbot, Kenny Rogers, Shawn Estes, and Paul Wilson. His slumping players are Soriano, Baldelli and Kaz Matsui. But not sure you can call those guys slumping. I don't see myself losing to this team. His team is not that good, right? Right?!?

[NZF]

Man that 3 run shot by Salmon yesterday was sweet

Don't look over your shoulder Bleach, I'm making my move

[bleach168]

Gone
Ismael Valdez
Justin Speier
Tim Redding

New
Julio Lugo (free agency)
Rafael Betancourt (free agency)
Matt Stairs (free agency)

Well, one month into the season and I'm in first by 18 points. Still early in the season though.

Not much to say this week. I'll just comment on my position players.

C - Jorge Posada. Best offensive catcher in baseball. I'm happy Torre is batting him 6th now. That's where Jorge should be and it's a great spot to collect a ton of rbis. I'm expecting at least 110 from him this year.

1B - Mike Sweeney. Good numbers so far except he's only drawn 4 walks. Is this because pitchers are respecting Juan Gone's protection? Or is Sweeney being more aggressive? I'm not sure, but I don't like either possible answers.

2B - Junior Spivey. He's returned to his 2002 form. But best of all, he's in a great spot in the lineup which has lead him to collect 15 runs and 17 rbis. Podsednik and Jenkins should continue to do well and if Spivey continues to be in the 3rd spot, him and his owners will be rewared nicely.

3B - Scott Rolen. Best 3rd baseman if you consider A-Rod a shortstop. His homerun pace has dropped off a little but he's a streaky hitter anyways. Should still produce great numbers this year.

SS - Eckstein/Lugo. I've been platooning my SS position like a madman. I've had Womack playing SS a lot for me too until he got injured. Overall production has been okay. If Eckstein was 100% healthy, I would drop Lugo. I can't wait for Nomah to get healthy. I'm really sick of this bs.

OF - Shawn Green. Slow start but I believe his problem so far is that he's facing more lefties than usual. Milton Bradley is also weak against lefties so it seems to me that in late game situations, the opposing managers always bring in their lefty specialist to shut down Bradley and Green. I'd like to see Jim Tracy split up Bradley and Green with a righty like Beltre. Green's OPS vs righties is .999 and his OPS vs lefties is .588. I'm considering starting him only against righties. We'll see.

OF - Jeromy Burnitz. Great at Coors. Terrible on the road. I've been starting him only at home games so far so it's working out well. If you own Burnitz you should do the same.

OF - Matt Lawton. He's not a fluke. He came into camp in great shape this year and after a couple injury plagued seasons, he's looking to prove to Cleveland he deserves his hefty contract. He won't keep up his homerun pace, but I believe a 20-20 season is very realistic.

Util - Edgar Martinez. Old man Edgar's doing okay. It's not his fault that Ichiro can't get on base. Because he's like 87 years old, I can't expect him to put up numbers like last year, but he should have more than 6 runs and 8 rbis at this point. I put the blame on the players surrounding him.

Bench - Chone Figgins. Fastest player in baseball. This guy gets triples on hits where Edgar would get a single. I always find some excuse to get Chone into my lineup somehow. It's nice that he's versatile and can replace most Angels if they get injured. 500 at bats for Figgins would be SWEET. To top it off, Scioscia is batting him 3rd tonight! Having Vladdy as protection is just too much for me. I'm salivating at the potential numbers Figgins can produce.

Bench - Matt Stairs. He's a decent player when you use him against righties. He's likely a temporarily player for my team.

Bench - Larry Walker. A return around June 1st is likely. I hope he returns 100% but even if he does, he'll probably get injured again right away. Frustrating player to own, but I like the upside.

Bench - Nomar Garciaparra. My 1st round pick. My team doesn't need him quite yet and I'm happy Boston is being careful with him. I want him to return 100%. His return looks to be 2-3 weeks away. If I'm still in first place when he gets back, it's not going to be if I take first, but by how much will I take first.

[frog99]

impressive, looks like you might come out of this venture ahead. who is in second place?

[bleach168]

Felixstowe Flyers. He has a really good team too.

[BigLebowski]

You should have never dropped Wilson Alvarez. Did anyone pick him up? If not you should grab him again. Your original thought process was correct. He will have a starting job pretty soon. Even if he never gets a sniff as a starter he will help every team he is on.

[bleach168]

I dropped Alvarez really early. I think after his first outing. He didn't look too impressive to me. He sat in free agency for awhile and because I picked up Kim, I wasn't in a hurry to get Alvarez back.

But yeah, when he starts in LA, he should be a decent option. However, someone picked him up over a week ago.

[bleach168]

Gone
Matt Stairs
Julio Lugo
BH Kim

New
Tim Redding (free agency)
Willie Harris (free agency)
Bronson Arroyo (free agency)

Current Lineup:

C - Jorge Posada
1B - Mike Sweeney
2B - Willie Harris (filling in for Spivey)
3B - Scott Rolen
SS - David Eckstein (filling in for Nomar)
OF - Shawn Green
OF - Chone Figgins
OF - Matt Lawton
Util - Edgar Martinez
Bench - Jeromy Burnitz (plays over Edgar when at Coors)
Bench - Junior Spivey
Bench - Larry Walker
Bench - Nomar Garciaparra

SP - Josh Beckett
SP - Carlos Zambrano
SP - Tim Redding
SP - Bronson Arroyo
SP - Jose Contreras
RP - Danny Graves
RP - Jorge Julio
RP - Rafael Bentancourt
RP - Billy Koch
RP - K-Rod

I'm in first place by seven points. I didn't really lose any points, but Felistowe Flyers has gained a good amount of points in the past two weeks. The third place team, ran by Pedantic, is 21 points behind me.

Injuries to Posada and Spivey have kept my team from doing much this past week. My pitching staff is also hurting because I refuse to drop Contreras. At my current pace, I will finish 18 games and 22 innings below the max.

I want to spend a moment to talk about position scarcity. Pre-season, most people had shortstop as one of the deeper positions. But right now, it's only marginally better than catcher! Except for A-Rod and Tejada, every other drafted SS has disappointed. Guys like Jack Wilson, Julio Lugo, and Tony Womack have found themselves starting for more fantasy teams than should be allowed by the Fantasy police.

The reason for all these shortstops stinking to high heaven is because most of us overrated them. Guys like Jeter, Renteria and Cabrera were just plain overrated. People thought they were studs but they are solid middle round picks and nothing more.

Sleepers like Matsui, Reyes, Rollins, Crosby, and Berroa aren't panning out and probably never will this year. These guys are too unproven to expect anything. There's upside but not much else.

Which leads me to the most disappointing shortstop of all, Nomar Garciaparra. An injury that was only supposed to last a weekend has stretched into two months and counting. But there is hope here. Unlike the other shortstops, Nomar hasn't played badly this year because he hasn't played at all. But when he does, you're looking at a guy who averages 96/24/93/11/.323 !!! And during that time, he's averaged missing 33 games a year! And remember, he's played injured most of his career so I have no problem expecting near that kind of production when he returns. In a field of terrible shortstops, Nomar's value will easily be that of a 1st rounder.

I can't wait!

[CubsFan7724]

I hope your right on Nomar, I need him back some time this year . Have you heard any news when he will be back?