[Lucky]

It appears I'm obsessed with SP this year. I always prefer them in drafts and trades but I'm being really hardcore and narrow minded about it this year. I keep thinking I need to improve my SP when I don't really have to. Case in point.

Erik Bedard
Brandon Webb
Felix Hernandez
Chuck James
Kelvin Escobar
Tom Gorzelanny
Tim Lincecum
Dave Bush
Nate Robertson
AJ Burnett (DL)

Yet I'm convinced I need more SP. I just grabbed Bush and Robertson to strengthen that. I put Teixeira, Pence, Holliday, Thome, and Berkman all on the trading block for SP. I was offered some crap deal for Holliday and countered with Chris Young for Holliday.

Why do I think I need Young? Am I crazy or do others see the same vulnerability I do? I'm 1st or 2nd in the league in W, K, ERA, and WHIP. I'm being crazy, aren't I?

[Jack Quinn]

you have Halladay and asked for Young, or you offered Young for Halladay?

[Lucky]

I have Matt Holliday. Offered him for Young. Which is the other side of it. My lineup is:

C - Piazza
1B - Teixeira
2B - K. Johnson
3B - Miguel Cabrera
SS - Hanley Ramirez
OF - Holliday
OF - Berkman
OF - Willingham
UTIL - Thome

Bench - Corey Hart (OF), Hunter Pence (OF), James Loney (1B)

I figure I can lose an OFer and still be fine, and there are free agents available I like and I'd open room for them if I got Young because I'd dump Bush or Robertson. So I don't think I'd be hurting my offense much at all by losing Holliday or one of these other big guns. But I can't for the life of me figure if I NEED to do it.

See, my think was I'm tired of Pence, Hart, and Loney riding the pine. I want to use them. But if I move one what do I move him for? I'm trying to get Upton for 2B but beyond a 2Baseman? SP seems the place to upgrade.

(My Relief staff is Putz, Capps, Gregg, Broxton, and Neshek with Brett Myers and Street on the DL, so I'm good there too.)

[Jack Quinn]

well, if you could move Holliday for Young, I would do that in a second. You can always pick up an OF through FA. Or, try packaging some combination or Pence, Hart and Loney for a starting OF.

From the looks of it, I would try and upgrade that staff, it's not terrible by any stretch, but it looks like it could be better. Then again, you don't have a whole lot of chips to work with either without weakening your offense.

Like I am one to talk, on paper my pitching should be stellar, so far this week I am 2-8 with an ERA over 3

[Lucky]

And ERA over 3 isn't exactly bad. W-L records are just life. Unless you grab good pitchers on winning teams with good luck there's no way to account for that. Your team is 4th in the league this week in ERA and would be higher except AA, Army, and I are kicking some ass. Of course the 4 of us are all facing each other and the 6th lowest ERA is more than half a run higher than yours. Solly comes in 5th but he doesn't count. Just real teams.

See, I don't like my pitching staff on paper. But when I look at it? I've had a team ERA of 3.60 good for 2nd in the league. 1.26 WHIP for 2nd. 1111 Ks for 1st by more than 100 Ks. And as luck would have it I'm 2nd in Ws. My pitching staff is a large reason I'm 1st in the league. But when I look at it I just don't feel comfortable.

Context is, I'm 1st. 3.5 ahead of 2nd and 10 ahead of 3rd. 4th place is 22 behind and there are only 5 teams above .500. So its a bad league I'm dominating. Which I think is why I'm paranoid of getting knocked out in the playoffs.

My buddy (3rd place) has Brian Roberts and BJ Upton so I'm trying to get 1 of them to fill 2B. But for some reason he refuses to move either without giving up a top 2B in exchange and Johnson doesn't pass. He's greedy like that. If I had a top 2B I wouldn't need one. But I also offered Pence for Chase Utley so see if that happens. I fear I might end up making too many trades and screwing myself. I fear I might have done that in the Keeper league.

[Attitude Adjuster]

Lucky, yopu know my answer already but I'll give it to you anyway. If you have offensive players eating away a spot on th bench right now, trade them for pitching. As long as you can fit all your starters into slots when they pitch, you can never have enough pitching.

[Lucky]

Yeah, that's generally my thinking. I'm just worried I move Holliday and then 1 or 2 of Hart, Pence, Willingham, and Berkman fail me. But 5 OFers is way too many, especially when Yahoo ranks all 5 of them in the top 100 of all fantasy players.

I can't for the life of me get a good deal though. I go to one guy and ask him what he wants for Upton or Brian Roberts. He won't give either up without getting another 2B in return, and Johnson isn't enough for that. I say "you're crazy." He won't take Holliday for Upton at OF because Upton might give him 1 2B start a week. Wants me to throw in a top pitcher as well. Matt Holliday AND a top pitcher? For an unproven 2B?

Then this other guys offers me Noah Lowry and Sammy Sosa for Holliday. Look, I can understand trying to screw people in trades. I can forgive it. Even when you've known me for 10 years and played fantasy baseball with me for 5 and know good and well I'm not that stupid. But geez, that's just insulting. So I offer the Holliday-for-Chris Young deal. He balks and counters with Joe Blanton and Kyle Kendrick for Holliday. C'mon! At least in that deal I'd get a worthy player in Blanton.

Its impossible to make a trade in this league. The guy who has Utley apparently doesn't check his team all that often so the commish told me not to expect a response. I know the guy and am friends with his girl, but she's in China. So damned if I know how to get ahold of this guy easily. And tracking him down for a fantasy trade seems excessive. Damn, I just want to unload 1 of my 5 top 100 players!

Its easier here where we're all trade happy.

[Jack Quinn]

I think trade happy is a bit harsh, I prefer "like to share the wealth" or something.

So lookit that, 2 games behind AA in the mighty Bananas Division and 4 out of the WC, looks like the firesale is on hold for another week

[Lucky]

Remind me to move the trade deadline up next year. I have this terrifying fear of the week before the deadline being 6 or 7 contenders dealing all their picks to anyone remotely out of it at the deadline. I imagine just watching the rich get richer until we're all forced to give in and trade our top picks just to keep from falling behind everyone else.

Pushing the trading deadline back a week or two should leave more people in it and men less out and out firesales.

[Jack Quinn]

so you're thinking the 17th then? Doesn't that leave like 3 weeks between the playoffs? I guess that would be enough time, I mean really, if you don't know within three weeks of the playoffs, you are either a fool, or in an amazingly competitive league.

And really, how many of our teams are really out of it? Solly and DMX, obviously, Army sits 9 back, is that too much to make up in, what do we have left, about 6 weeks? If so, then you have Gimmick sitting there 7 back. So really, are we looking at two or three teams that are really out of it?

And what are the odds that the league stays this competitive next year? I see the free league is just about already set for the playoffs already, there are some that are over 50 games out. Even if this was one league and not in divisions, Solly would "only" be 30 games out

[Lucky]

I was thinking the other way, the 3rd. But now that I look at the schedule it may not be necessary. Week 19 deadline means 5 weeks of play after the deadline. 6 weeks doesn't seem unreasonable but not necessary either. My thing is, that I worry about 5 or 6 owners firesaling and completely shifting the league. If 2 or 3 of the contenders start trading top 5 picks for top 5 talents then the rest of us might feel influenced to play the same game just to stay competitive. Then you have half a dozen super teams playing for the championship while half a dozen other teams are collecting a major control over the top part of next year's draft. It just feels bad to me. And if the league is less competitive it just becomes worse.

But 5 weeks isn't really a problem. Just seems like a fallout of our willingness to trade picks. And I like that part of the league so this is probably just something we must deal with. So there might be nothing worth doing. But its something for me to remember to bring up next season.

[DevSop]

I could get into all the rules my other keeper league has instituted just to stop me from doing things. One of the rules is that a team is only allowed to move 3 picks within the first 10 rounds.

[Jack Quinn]

well I made the playoffs in the free league, getting in via a tie breaker over Highlanders. Then I get my ass handed to me by Lopez. Not really surprised, I would kinda fade in and out on the free league, the fact that I made the playoffs at all is a miracle.

Not sure if I am going to do the free one again next year, at least not if it is done through yahoo, or if they do 18 teams again. It is just too damn hard to fill holes if someone goes down. I had to pick up Tim Redding as a starter, no one should ever have to do that. We'll see till next year

[Lucky]

11 HR, 19 RBI, and 17 R from Braun and A-Rod is kind of a trump card for me. What can I say? The two of them are sick and half an offense in and off itself.

I run the 18-20 team league exactly because its so hard. I'd never put money on it. That's insane. But its such a challenge I love it. I have friends who think 12 is too many and they're just greedy and lazy. They don't want to play anyone who isn't a guaranteed producer. But the 18-20 team league is just so fucking wacky. You play guys youd never expect to and you have to take chances on some real sleepers and prospects to win. I take great pride in regularly being at the top of the league. Its fucking work.

I have to admit, the pitching seemed especially shallow this year. I'm pretty sure I copied the stats over from last year so with 2 less teams that shouldn't have been. But maybe the league was just worse pitching wise this season.

I'm in 4 leagues. Finished 1st Regular season in C&B. Finished 3rd and just advanced into the 2nd round in the OO free league. Finished 1st and 2nd in my other 2 leagues and just finished byes. I'm not sweating the 1st place league but in the 2nd place one I'm playing the guy who beat me 11-3 2 weeks ago. Scares me quite a bit. Irony is that this is the guy who 6 weeks ago had to have his team locked because he was looking firesale his team for nothing and we didn't want him to fuck things up for the rest of us. Of course the bastard comes back to become one of the final 4.

[Jack Quinn]

I DO kind of like the challenge of the big league, you have to research a little more and really know the players. But with the C&B league grabbing all my attention, and hell no matter what happens, I had a BLAST with this this year, the free one was always put on the back burner. I was in it the whole time, so it wasn't as bad, but there were some that were out of it pretty quick, and that has to be kind of frustrating.

Maybe if it were split into divisions like the C&B one that would make it a bit more interesting, I know you are not thrilled with the divisions, but I love them. I say I am done now, but when spring rolls around again and baseball is in the air, I will probably sign up again. I am a sucker for this shit

[Lucky]

Oh I agree. Playing 4 leagues the 18 team league always sat at the back. I paid for the other 3. I regularly went weeks barely looking at the free league other than to set my pitchers and I missed quite a few of them. At 2:30 AM when I'm setting lineups before I go to bed its always the last one I check and always the one I skip if any. Like I said on the league board I can't believe I carried so many slumping players so long and they weren't the only ones. I just didn't pay the attention to realize these guys who weren't even on my radar in the other leagues were struggling so bad. I didn't even realize Embree was still on my team.

I lose track. I lose matchups because it. I think the biggest reason I pay attention is because I'm commish. And even though I've had to deal with maybe 2 things in 2 or 3 years I always figure I should keep an eye out. But like I said, I don't pay so I don't mind. There's a reason a prioritize the leagues and I kinda like having that one league I really don't care if I lose. That one is pure fun. Pride and money are on the line in the others and the keeper league offers more headaches.

Plus, I think the 18 team league is kind of a good resource for my real leagues. I put a guy on my 18/20 team league and he does well for me for 2 weeks, I start to wonder why the fuck he's available in one of my other leagues. Helps open my eyes and keep my radar wider.

I mean, I don't set a number for that league. 20 teams is the Yahoo max. In years past we filled it. This year we fell a little short. I dig it. But if people were really against that I could limit it next year. 3 or 4 years back we had 2 12 or 14 team OO leagues. But with B&C that seems excessive and in my mind having a free 12 team league just seems silly when I have 3 pay 12 team leagues. The 18-20 team league makes it unique so it gives me a reason to keep playing. But its basically a matter of demand. If 20 people want to join, we have 20. If 18 do, we have 18. If 14 want in next year it will be a 14 team league. Presuming I'm still running it.

[Lucky]

And thus begins that time honored tradition of thinking people give a God damn what your fantasy teams look like in leagues they're not in.

1st year of a 12 team keeper league, so no keepers this season.
C - Kurt Suzuki
1B - Nick Swisher
2B - Brian Roberts
3B - Miguel Cabrera
SS - Orlando Cabrera
OF - Alfonso Soriano
OF - Alex Rios
OF - Nick Markakis
UTIL - Paul Konerko
BN - Pat Burrell
BN - Ryan Garko

SP - Erik Bedard
SP - Chris Young
SP - Tim Lincecum
SP - Brett Myers
RP - Bobby Jenks
RP - Manny Corpas
RP - Brian Wilson
P - Jeremy Accordo
P - Rafael Perez
BN - Matt Cain
BN - Mark Buerhle
BN - Matt Garza
BN - Anibal Sanchez
BN - Shaun Marcum
BN - Carlos Villanueva

I went a little crazy on SP but I built up a ton of depth when a lot of teams are poor there. So I'm shopping a few of them now and hopefully I can move one of the two young Giants' aces for something big (just because their lack of Ws are gonna drive my insane). But if not I'm glad to have them in a keeper league. Sanchez should start the season on the DL so that will give me a chance to build up my bench. And if Villanueva fails to get a SP job that he can slot in as a 6th RP for me and I can get an edge on HLDs.

I would like a better C obviously and I wouldn't mind a better SS, but otherwise I'm quite happy with my offense. I got Markakis in the 9th (106 overall) which seemed much later than he should have gone (but maybe I'm just wrong on that) and I got Burrell in the 19th. For a league that has OPS I found it hard to pass him up.

Otherwise I feel like I have the hands down favorite team after the draft.


Oh that's right, I also got Konerko in the 14th. Which felt WAY too late to pass up and I've seen him projected in the 5th or 6th at some places.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

Eh I'm not in love with that lineup - where's the 40-50 HR hitter in it? That staff is tremendous though.

[Lucky]

Cabrera? Only 5 guys in baseball hit 40+ HRs last year and one of them was Carlos Pena so I really don't mind not having one of them. I do however have 4 30+ HR hitters in Cabrera, Soriano, Konerko, and Burrell and 4 20+ HR hitters all 27 years old or younger (Swisher, Rios, Markakis, and Garko). So I feel pretty safe with my power. All 4 of them are breakout candidates in my mind and Cabrera is jumping into a worlds better lineup (and Sori and Konerko might be getting a boost). So while there's no big lock, I like the balance.

Which is what I tend to try and do with offense. Getting Roberts gives me a solid SB core but its the 20 SB ability of Rios, Sori, Markakis, and O Cab that gives me confidence in winning that stat. I won't go into most weeks dominating these stats but I should be able to win them most weeks.

And yeah, the staff is stacked and either gives me a huge edge across one half of the board or gives me people to move for that big bat or SB guy.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

What are your keeper rules over there? Who's eligible?

[Lucky]

Anyone, no restrictions, no penalties. I tried to sell them on the "Top 5 Rds protected" thing but it was quickly rejected. I'm gonna try to sell them on a limit for years but this is a very cut and dry group that would have balked at most of our rules and habits.

Damned if I know who I'd keep. Cabrera, Young, Bedard, Markakis, Rios, Sori, Cain, Lincecum, Roberts. I dunno. Got a year to decide and trades to make.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

No restrictions? Good luck deciding on your list. That's filthy.

[Lucky]

TEAM THREE!

C - Kurt Suzuki (FUCK! I MUST STOP REFUSING TO DRAFT A CATCHER!)
1B - Adrian Gonzalez
2B - Jeff Kent (panic pick)
3B - Ryan Braun
SS - Hanley Ramirez
OF - Grady Sizemore
OF - Nick Markakis
OF - Brad Hawpe
UTIL - Cory Hart
BN - Jeff Francouer
BN - Felipe Lopez
BN - Mike Cuddyer

SP - Brandon Webb
SP - Justin Verlander
SP - Chris Young (I heart him)
SP - Javier Vazquez
RP - Bobby Jenks
RP - Mariano Rivera
P - Huston Street
P - Jonathon Broxton (I heart him too)
P - Kerry Wood
BN - Dustin McGowan
BN - Rich Harden
BN - Ubaldo Jimenez
BN - Homer Bailey
BN - Tom Gorzelanny

I don't know, I was all screwed up in this draft. I had #2 so I decided to go for Hanley. Then I decided to just try and grab a bunch of HR-SB guys so I could just lock of SB. Thus Grady, Braun, Markakis, and Hart. Plan was going good but I got all screwed up.

In the 18th Rd I realized Jeff Francoeur was still available. And even though I had little use for him and I don't much like him I was shocked and figured I had to grab him. Right? But my plan was to grab Howie Kendrick there. I didn't and when my next pick came around the best option I saw was damn Kent. Having Kent I then decided I needed to draft my backup in Lopez. This basically set me back 2 picks from my plan. Cost me a 2B I was comfortable with, cost me a C I was comfortable with. Cost me a couple of SP I wanted. Add in that I drafted Jenks in the 8th and Mo in the 9th and then in the 12th I decided to grab Street since I thought he should have been gone and I had noone I loved there. But I could have used that pick for something else since I got Wood in the 25th and Sherrill and Brian Wilson both went undrafted (they're gone now).

Mess of a draft. And I still can't figure if I'm missing something with Francouer and Cuddyer. As it is I'm debating dumping Cuddyer for a more useful player than a 6th OFer. But it sounds like Bailey is starting the season in the minors so I may just dump him. And it sounds like Wood is the Cubs' closer so that gives me 4 Closers and 1 HLD guy. So hopefully in a league filled with Yankee fans I can move Mo.



On a side note, this is Tuff Daddy Cool's league (OO poster and absent member here). He and I have to have been in 30 leagues together over the years. We run ideas past each other, we watch games together, we talk baseball all the time. For years we've sat in drafts and cursed at each other for taking our guys. And planned against each other because of it. But last night we didn't curse at each other at all. It turns out that we can both read each other so well at this stage that we can't piss each other off anymore because we can't surprise each other. We KNOW who we're picking. For the entire draft we were playing a game texting each other guesses for who we thought the next pick was and dropping hints and speaking in code in the chat.

At one point I drafted Corey Hart, really wanting Nick Swisher there. But I KNEW if I didn't take Swisher he would. So I pick Hart and this conversation follows.

Lucky: Damn it. I was torn there and I know John's gonna take my other guy next.
John: Maybe. I'm sloshing around some ideas.
Select Nick Swisher.
Lucky: There he goes.

Hell, we probably could read each other so well that we were tipped each other off with the game. But it was amusing to realize just how much we knew our habits. And as I said, after the draft we were talking and realized that we really didn't get mad at each other during the draft. And we realized, you can't "steal" someone from me if I'm positive you're already taking him. Its like getting mad that the guy with the #1 pick took A-Rod.

[The Jewish Cunthead]

I can read you pretty well too and I know how much you love Lackey, Young, and Broxton. It's a given you're going to draft at least one of those guys every year.

[Lucky]

Oh yeah, obviously if you play enough with someone you start to pick up who he really likes and what his methods are. I got Lackey for a couple of years under the radar but he isn't under the radar anymore (Tuff Daddy drafted Lackey, FYI). I got Broxton and Young for a couple of years before they really broke out, but now people know I want them. And as a result I had to reach in this league and in Tuff Daddy's draft to get Broxton. And its not like I'm shy about my opinion of players and the guys I love. I like to talk and make my predictions and give my opinions and all that. So if you just listen you'll learn what my draft sheet probably looks like.

I'm not a bad poker player but without a doubt my greatest sin is I like to talk and I don't have the greatest poker face.

But the two of us appear to have just gotten to a point where we can draft for each other. We really did know 75% of each other's drafts and were naming the guys before they were picked. Its wacky.