Reminder Why Letting the CPU Auto-draft Your Fantasy Team=Bad

This year I really had no interest in my fantasy team. Kind of growing out of fantasy sports I think, but this year especially I didn't want to research at all. In fact I got the idea that I cared so little I would just let the CPU at CBS auto-pick my entire draft without even ranking my players.

Just a note here.We keep 5 players a piece and I had Pujols, Braun, Ryan Zimmerman, R. Weeks, and A Gonzo as my 5 going in so I was pretty well off in that regard.

Anyways, pull up a chrome step stools and listen to my tale. I have played fantasy long enough to know what the trend was going to be by making this decision, but sometimes you need the reminder of just how awful that trend really is. First off we are in a category H2H league and we don't go by points. We have 20 categories and every category is worth a W/L so nothing is really a huge boost to go after categories like all the Roto leagues are set up, and basically how players are ranked for Roto and points leagues.

You know what the rends are. The CPU deems Saves and SBs as the most important categories there are. Closers are typically all ranked in the top 30 in the rankings. I assumed I'd get 4 pretty great ones, but alas I got Wilson, Bell, Uhera (?), and Sale (?) as my 4 RPs selected. Sale is ranked higher than almost all of the hitters on my team for some reason.

SBs was the main culprit of my draft. The CPU drafted 9, that's right 9 (1) players who are projected to steal more than 20 bases. The first player selected for me in the 6th round (first non-keeper round) was Ichiro. Not that I mind this. Why he got dropped in a 60 keeper league is surprising, but he hurts in a few categories in this league, although in H2H his plethora of hits in a season more than make up for his lower OPS numbers.

After that it was all downhill. I received Furcal, D. Span, Brian Roberts, Andres Torres, Shane Victorino, COCO CRISP, and some due with the last name Young (or some dude that got sent to the minors already). Number of these guys I am happy with. Brian Roberts. I would not have drafted one single player her e in this list if I had been there unless it was a last resort at SS, or something.

Rest of my hitter picks were Kurt Sukuki at C, Y. Molina, Mike Aviles.

At SP I didn't get one drafted until the 11th round...LOL It was Trevor Cahill. He was one of my 5 SPs that were drafted and include Daniel Hudson, Brett Myers, Colby Lewis, and Edwin Jackson.

So kids, it is apparent that the people who run fantasy websites have no ****ing idea what they are doing unless it is a ROTO league.

CBS Screwed our Fantasy Baseball Keeper LEague

We have been at CBS for 3 years now for our fantasy baseball keeper league and have had very small problems with things in the past, but the one we have this week is beyond forgiveness. Besides having to wait for car insurance ads to load and what not when you go to the site, it is clearly the best keeper format on the net.

Anyways, during the AS Break they decided to do some sort of maintenance project on the program. No warning of course, which Yahoo! DID give everyone. Not a huge deal, but what they did to our league is unforgivable, and it has yet to be fixed several days later.

Apparently they deleted EVERY single transaction we have made through out the year. By this I mean, everyone that is on your team now is the team they consider you having in Week 1. In fact it was even worse than that. Only the people you actually had in your starting line up last Monday was considered to be on your team all year. For me, I had benched my entire pitching staff on Sunday because in the head to head match up it made no sense to lay anyone. So...every single week of the season, and every head to head match up I had, my pitching stas are zeros all the way down.

Our standing are completely screwed up now. Take me for instance. I had no pitching stats for the year, so as you can imagine I am in last place by a very large margin. We have 20 categories in this league so you can guess that it shows me about 100 games out of 1st.

The biggest problem is that we are getting very close to our trade deadline. People who were on the cusp of the playoffs, and those out of it don't really know where they stand. Do you throw in the towel and play for next year, or do you try to push for a playoff run? Impossible to know with out knowing where you stand overall. IT isn't like I paid attention to my record overall week to week. All I cared about was if I was in the playoffs, or not.

Suffice to say, this pisses me off to no end. This happened to us in a football keeper league on there too a couple years ago. That situation wasn't as bad because it was early in the season, and football rosters are much easier to do than baseball as they are only done weekly.

It has been a week and no change. A few days I think we could ahve lived with, but at this point it is going on a week. Probably stopped about 10 people from making any trades as well, and basically screwed everyone out of a week of dealing before the trade deadline.

My Baseball Fantasy Draft 2008

Well, I had my fantasy draft Sunday for baseball. I did something I never do this year. I actually drafted some closers. I can't believe it myself. My pitching staff is pretty terrible, but I am not worried. I build it later as the season goes. I have an Ace in CC Sabathia, so I can build it from there. All I did was draft these guys late and just pull everyone I could get that was going to have a solid K rate and more than 150 Ks on the year. That is how I am shedding positive lighting on my draft.

There were quite a few comeback options in the draft this year, and I pretty much took them when they were there. Guys that would have been keepers a year or two ago. Other than Jason Bay I probably picked up 2-3 of these guys at least.

Stat categories:

Scoring for Batting Categories
2B - Doubles
BA - Batting Average
H - Hits
HR - Home Runs
KO - Strikeouts (Batter)
OBP - On Base Pct
R - Runs
RBI - Runs Batted In
SB - Stolen Bases
SLG - Slugging Pct

Scoring for Pitching Categories
BBI - Walks Issued (Pitchers)
CG - Complete Games
ERA - Earned Run Average
K - Strikeouts (Pitcher)
Kd9 - Strikeouts per Nine
L - Losses
QS - Quality Starts
S - Saves
W - Wins
WHIP - Walks + Hits / Inning

Keepers going in: Albert Pujols, CC Sabathia, Adam Dunn, Ichiro, Manny Ramirez.

Not going to put these in order. I can't remember and i'm not going to copy/paste them from the draft because I have to delete everyone elses' picks to do it. One thing I had was 6 of the first 37 picks in the draft with trades in the preseason so you can see some of the reason with the hitters I have. A couple other notes about this league and draft. This is a mostly Tiger fan league, and I wanted Aramis Ramirez as my first pick, but I picked #2 and the first guy took him even though he has Miggy already as a keeper.

C-R. Hernandez (came to camp in great shape, one of my late picks)
1B-Pujols (keeper)
2B-Kelly Johnson (real happy with this acquisition. Expect a lot from him)
SS-Tejada (Got him in the 2nd non-keeper round. Big year in Houston expected)
3B-Blalock (HAving a great spring, and I gamble on him every year. This is the year!)
OF-Manny (keeper)
OF-Ichiro (keeper)
OF-Dunn (keeper)
UTIL-Curtis Granderson (#2 overall non-keeper pick. Went on DL day after draft, but not a long stretch. Had to do it in this league. On DL right now)
UTIL-Carlos Pena (2nd round non-keeper pick. Former Tiger so people had doubts. Think this was a steal)
BN-Cuddyer (Got him real late. Last few rounds.)
BN-Andruw Jones (Nobody wanted him so what the hell. I'll take 35-40 HRs and 100 RBI form a guy who is out to prove last year was a fluke.)
BN-DeRosa (garbage fill in player. Probably drop him when something better comes along)
BN-Alexei Ramirez (didn't actually draft him. Picked him up because he is potential and will play 2B and OF)
BN-Todd Helton (steal. Late teens. Monster in with these settings)


SP-Sabathia (keeper)
SP-Bronson Arroyo (His 2nd half last year was solid. Consider first half an abboration)
SP-Bonderman (Meh...Tiger league. Maybe he has a chage up)
SP-Jeremy Guthrie (lol..who knows. Opening day for O's.)
SP-Wainwright (Could be cgood. Could suck. Worth a shot)
RP-Wagner (HAd to. It was late. monster K rate)
RP-Francisco Cordero (same as Wagner. High K Rate)
RP-Gregg (Really late. Great K rate)
RP-Open (meh)
BN-Jon Lester (coin flip)
BN-Jason Bergman (coin flip)
BN-Jason Schmidt (Worth a shot. LAst year sucked, but he isn't that far removed from 180Ks and sub-4 ERA. 2006. Not sure how long he will be out.)

Clearly my pitching will need work, but I have 3 hitters on my bench that would start on any other team. Pitching is a crap shoot anyways. There will be plenty of surprises in the free agent pool as the season goes on. With hitting like I have I really don't need to get a ton from my pitching to win H2H in a given week. Just need to run a few categories and eat the hitting ones. Saves, K/9, and Ks may be good for me most weeks. Wins/losses BBI, ERA, and WHIP are a crap shoot.

Fantasy Baseball Almost Ready to Roll

My keeper draft is going to be Sunday (yeah...Easter...ask the commish...lol) and I don't really have the keepers I was hoping to get this year. They aren't bad, but a couple of them are getting close to needing some sort of medicare supplement insurance.

I went in with 8 guys I thought were keepable. Brain Roberts, Manny Ramirez, Ichiro, Brandon Webb, CC Sabathia, Justin Verlander, Adam Dunn, and Albert Pujols.

I traded Roberts and Verlander for the #2 non-keeper pick, and the 2nd pick in the 3rd round. I gave back a 6th rounder and the last pick int he draft to even picks up. I felt the trade was fair and that it is going to help me significantly in the draft. I won the league last year so i have the last pick in the draft. With the trade I will have 6 of the first 37 picks however. I put myself in a good position as I got into the beginning of the 2 rounds I had the last pick in. Now I have the 2nd and last picks of the 1st and 3rd rounds.

Trading was sparse this year so i wasn't able to trade away one of my 6 remaining keepers. I could have, but I wasn't willing to trade them for a mid round pick. Having the #2 overall pick and so many early picks there was no reason to. The deeper the draft is the better for me considering I have so many early picks. Another 3rd or 4th rounder, or another keeper worth player in the draft? I'll take the latter every time.

Some people would disagree with my keepers, but I'll explain why I kept the guys I did.

Albert Pujols-I cannot drop him. I don't care what the constant injury reports say. Even if he gets injured at some point this year his value is high enough that I can trade him to a team that is out of it. My plan is to stack my team enough that even if he does I can keep him for next year.

The other 4:

Dunn
Ichiro
Sabathia
Manny

Dropping:

Brandon Webb

You could make a good argument as to whether I should have kept Webb, or CC, or both. When it came down to it, there was no way i was going to keep 2 pitchers. In fact I didn't even want to keep one. Most teams don't keep pitching anyways so there are plenty in the draft. We never know what pitching will give us either so odds are pitchers are going to kill you if you keep them. I kept CC because he has a higher K rate, and we use K/9 and Ks in our league. He is also in a contract year. They are very comparable and Webb will never have a scoreless innings run like he had last year. Both play for teams that should give them close to 20 wins. I suppose you can argue that CC has much tougher competition, and that being in the AL should automatically disqualify him, but I disagree when I look at the Ks that I need and almost everything else being virtually equal.

Manny, Dunn, Ichiro-Two of these guys are getting older. I do not care. They still produce. They always produce. They aren't that old. Let me let you in on a championship caliber team fantasy secret for continued dominance in fantasy leagues. I believe this is the #1 secret to keeper leagues in fantasy baseball.

Fantasy Secret #1:

Young players with potential are not as good as proven vets that produce and a bunch of draft picks. Even in the draft there is no reason to waste your early picks on guys with 1 great year because it is a keeper league. You can pick others up with later picks and take risks, or pull guys off the free agent pool when they get called up and hope to strike gold. They come along every year. 3 years sustained production should be your minimal criteria for drafting a guy early in a keeper league. Not youth.

I never keep a player more than a couple years anyways. Why would I waste a keeper spot on a guy that I am not sure will produce? I don't. Braun would never be on a keeper team of mine this year. I'd rather have Aramis Ramirez. I know he will produce. I'm not so sure about Braun. Besides that I can get Aramis for much less and probably another player on top of that who will produce a significant amount as well in a deal if I traded Braun away because Braun is ranked ridiculously high. People actually go by ranks that likely don't even base themselves on YOUR LEAGUE STATS. That means my team is stronger overall and I either have more players that are keepable, or more draft picks to build a CHAMPIONSHIP team. Not a few nice young players who could be total busts, and a bunch of mediocre players because I took a ton of risks while passing on sure things.

If you do strike gold with a 3 month youth wonder in free agency in a keeper league. Trade them for veteran keepers and rape those that think that youth is the way to win. You will have more keepers to trade in the off season, more draft picks, and a much stronger overall team that you know will produce. Don't fall into the youth trap. A 30 year old stud with 5 years of production is going to win 9 times out of 10 compared to a 23 year old who played a monster 2nd half last year. They say sophomore slump for a reason. This is why.

Ichiro is a slow starter. Don't go by his spring. If you can trade for him early, do it. He always gets hot about 2 months in. You can steal him almost every year.

Manny came into camp early? No way. Good shape? No way. Team option to get paid again? Yes way. That means it is as close to a contract year as Manny can get. Last thing he wants is to hit free agency when he has the monster option with the Red Sox. Even if they don't exercise it he needs to have a monster year to get re-upped. Manny is Manny anyways. He's cheap this year too I'd imagine. Laugh at people who take lesser Flavor of the Month players in the draft. Same goes for guys like Sheffield, Magglio, and many others. Don't be a youth idiot. Especially in single season leagues.

Dunn may strike out a lot, and have a low BA, but we use 10 categories. OBP, SLG, HR, RBI, Runs more than make up for the couple of stats he doesn't get me. Besides hitters are harder to get than pitchers. Outfield is the most kept position every year so if you don't keep it you won't get this kind of production. The IF positions are much nicer to have if you have the monsters, but if you break it down the difference between the top 1-2 players there and everyone else is huge. After that not so much. People don't trade away those Top1-2 guys either so you stack whatever you can elsewhere on the offensive side.

Baseball Fantasy Team Update

So i guess I should show what my team has transformed to by this point in the year. After dressing up my room a bit with some silk trees I finalized another trade and I think that my team is going to sit like this for the time being. We have until the 15th to make trades so I may do another one, but I think I'm pretty happy with my team so at this point, with maybe only a closer to add towards the deadline.

Line up:

Posada, Jorge C NYY
Pujols, Albert 1B STL
Roberts, Brian 2B BAL
Youkilis, Kevin 3B BOS
Renteria, Edgar SS ATL
Burrell, Pat OF PHI
Matsui, Hideki OF NYY
Suzuki, Ichiro OF SEA
Dunn, Adam U CIN
Ramirez, Manny U BOS

Pitching:

Verlander, Justin SP DET
Webb, Brandon SP ARI
Buehrle, Mark SP CHW
Harang, Aaron SP CIN
Arroyo, Bronson SP CIN
Marmol, Carlos SP CHC
Sabathia, C.C. SP CLE
Wang, Chien-Ming SP NYY
Hoffman, Trevor RP SD
Lidge, Brad RP HOU
Neshek, Pat RP MIN
Walker, Jamie RP BAL

Bench:

Theriot, Ryan 2B CHC
Thomas, Frank DH TOR
Willits, Reggie CF ANA

DL:

Blalock, Hank 3B TEX
Ray, Chris RP BAL

This is where my fantasy team is so far...

The league I'm in is over at CBS and we have had it together for 4 , maybe 5 years now. We keep 5 players every year and trade during the of season if we so choose. So this year I had some pretty good keepers going in, with a few extra early round picks in the draft. I kept. Albert Pujols, Ichiro, Matt Holliday, Carlos Lee, and Travis Hafner.

Normally I would have made quite a few trades by now, but I've only made one at this point. I traded Lee, Jason Hirsch, and Andy LaRoche for Hideki Matsui, Ben Sheets, and Torres (Pirates closer). Seems to be working out OK. Sheets had a nice game today. We paid to get in the league so we win some cash and a house marker, or trophy or something if we take the league.

Here is my current squad:

Hitters:

Posada, Jorge C NYY
Pujols, Albert 1B STL
Roberts, Brian 2B BAL
Lugo, Julio SS BOS
Hardy, J.J. SS MIL
Holliday, Matt LF COL
Matsui, Hideki LF NYY
Suzuki, Ichiro RF SEA
Blalock, Hank 3B TEX
Hafner, Travis DH CLE
Cuddyer, Michael RF MIN
Ibanez, Raul LF SEA
Thomas, Frank DH TOR

Pitchers

Arroyo, Bronson SP CIN
Harang, Aaron SP CIN
Sabathia, C.C. SP CLE
Buehrle, Mark SP CHW
Lilly, Ted SP CHC
Owings, Micah SP ARI
Sheets, Ben SP MIL
Zito, Barry SP SF
Jenks, Bobby RP CHW
Okajima, Hideki RP BOS
Torres, Salomon RP PIT
Wheeler, Dan RP HOU

This guy is on the DL which is why I have that Boston relief pitcher until i find someone else.

Tracy, Chad 3B ARI

JJ Hardy from the Brewers

Where did this guy come from? I've been riding him all year now in my baseball fantasy leagues and he is just pounding the ball. Got him off waivers as a back up for Julio Lugo, but he is playing too well to bench. I actually started playing Lugo at 3rd because I've had some injuries so it works out well.

People are burning up their network cables to trade me for the guy right now, and I guess i should make the move if someone wants to give me a stud for him. This can't hold up. I may swindle someone out of a #1 pitcher with this guy somehow. I can live with out his production, but i will be very happy to stockpile pitching for the 2nd half I can trade for some stud bats.

HArdy is doing this (through 164 ABs on May 16):

53 hits, 13 HRs, 39 RBIs, 28 Runs, .371 OBP, .629 SLG, and a .333 average

Look out A-Rod. This guy is the true Fantasy MVP so far...lol

CBS Sportsline Fantasy Baseball

I'm in a few keeper leagues for football and baseball, but there really isn't a good place to have one of these leagues because you can't have your team up all year, or trade draft picks with out having to do it manually. Players will need to have another manager make picks for them during the draft so you have to rely on Instant messaging during the draft which is a big pain in the ass.

CBS actually allows you to make trades of picks and keep your team all year which is the reason we use it, but it is far from perfect. Most of us still contend that we would much rather use Yahoo! if they added the keeper feature to the mix and would gladly pay for it since we pay for it now at CBS.

The football league we had this year was a disaster at the draft. The day of our draft it wouldn't run at all so we had to postpone it. Some people couldn't even make it to the draft after that and when we did do the postponed draft it didn't run at all either. Well it did, but it took us hours to get it over because half the managers couldn't see if it was their pick or not. I guess they needed some sort of power supply repair. CBS did make up for this though and basically made our keeper league free in football last year. We are also offered a discount for next season so they do realize we had a difficult experience and are making up for it.

As for baseball it has always run fairly smooth. This year was no different. It is the only place that could have done what we needed it to do. I would have been in serious trouble had we not been there since I traded a bunch of my draft picks. The draft went fantastic and no problems existed.

Fantasy Baseball

I had my fantasy draft for my baseball keeper league on Sunday and I think I just hit the jackpot. I did absolutely no preparation for the draft this year like I normally would so I thought I would be in trouble. I planned on just mailing it in really and it turned out much better than I thought. My private Mailboxes are completely full of trade offers now since I stole all the pitching in the draft. We kept 5 players as keepers and I ended up keeping 5 hitters so I just drafted pitching. I didn't get crap for closers, but I typically don't draft any anyways since it is possible to get at least 2 or 3 off of waivers during the year and it is only one category.

C-Posada
1B-Pujols (keeper)
2B-B. roberts
SS-Lugo
3B-C. Tracey
OF-Ichiro (keeper)
OF-C. Lee (Keeper)
OF-M. Holliday (keeper)
Util-T. Hafner (keeper)
Util-R. Ibanez
BN-A. Beltre
BN-R. Ibanez
BN-H. Blalock
BN-P. Polanco

SP-C. Sabathia
SP-B. Zito
SP-A. Harang
SP-B. Arroyo
SP-K. Milwood
RP-B. Jenks
RP-Neshek
RP-some guy
BN-M. Buehrle
BN-J. Contreras
BN-T. Lily

Hank Blalock is a fantasy Gem this year

Hank Blalock was once ranked in the top 20 I believe in fantasy baseball and seems to have fallen off the map. The guy in many cases I've seen hasn't even been ranked in the Top 20 of 3rd basemen this year. The guy is under 25 years old and has monster potential. Hitting behind Michael Young who is a batting average champ contender every year and a great all around hitter this guy could be incredible this year and a great, great value for you in the draft. More seasoned players may think of him as a decent option still, but many have just given up on the guy. I'm here to tell you that I think he can be a monster steal in the draft this year.

With 3rd base being very strong i would see if I could get Blalock later on and stack my pitching staff and other fielding positions until you think you can snag Hank.

Cabrera looks to shake his walks on the wild side

Cabrera has all the talent in the world, but he is so damn wild. This guy can go and strike out 12 and allow no runs, while the next game he pitches he will walk 7 and get shelled. This article tries to claim that he is trying to control himself a bit more, but I have my doubts the guy can put it all together.

Daniel Cabrera looks to turn over a new leaf after leading the majors with 17 wild pitches in '06. (Getty Images)
Daniel Cabrera, sometime ace, sometime project, is Baltimore's giraffe among housecats, Big Bird among Orioles. read more...

Fantasy Baseball Bust of the Year

My fantasy baseball bust of the year is going to be Jose Reyes. I like the kid and he has great talent, but all rankings seem to have this guy sitting in the Top 3. I don't get it. Short stop is stacked this year and anyone that has to use their pick ont his kid in the top 5 is going to cost themselves IMO. I don't see him having a better year than last year. In fact I see him struggling quite a bit and I see me getting him for shit 2 months into the season from whoever drafted him.

2nd Base is pretty week in fantasy baseball this year

There is nobody. Other than Chase Utley you haven't much to choose from. Soriano now only qualifies int he outfield so you have to really consider ignoring 2B in the draft n my opinion. If you can snag Utley you are one lucky SOB, but the postion is likely going to be best suited for finding your man in the free agent pool this year I think.

Other than 2nd base it seems like the reast of the positions are stacked. Short stop in particular looks better than it has for years. Pitching has a lot of rookie sensations from last year, but I consider pitching a crap shoot unless you have Santana or Carpenter.

Fantasy Baseball

I'm so unprepared this year. I'm in a couple keeper leagues and we do a lot of trades before the draft normally, but I'm just not into it yet. I haven't studied my cheat sheets or done my annual Excel Spreadsheet breakdowns yet. I only have a couple weeks left to get in and pull off some deals to pick up some better draft picks and get my 5th keeper.

Right now I'm looking at my keeper list and I do have 5, but I want to get one more. I'm going in with some pretty nice ones. Pujols, HAfner, Ichiro, Carlos Lee, and i have to decide between Jimy Rollins, and Ben Sheets as my 5th. I'm trying to package the 2 for a better keeper. I actually did make one trade. I dealt Miguel Cabrera for Ichiro and C. Lee and moved down about 4 slots in the draft for the first round. I want to pick up another high pick I think though, or another Top 20 guy I guess by packaging some of my leftovers.