Fantasy Baseball review: Taking off the Cubbie glasses
For the past several years, I've signed up to play fantasy baseball in an online league through CBS Sportsline. (Sorry MLB, which also has a nice fantasy game available on its site.)My team name is "Bricks & Ivy." (Sound familiar?) My team logo, left, is the famous "W" flag that flies over Wrigley Field after a Cubs victory.
Each year, I play with a couple of buddies from college and several other random people who find their way to our league, which is named "Steve Phillips Makes Me Sad." (I didn't come up with that name, although he kind of does. I think "Sunday Night Baseball" is going to be a little more painful to listen to this year. I hope I am wrong.)
In short, I'm not that good at fantasy baseball. I am an attentive owner and make sure to get injured players out of my active lineup and pick up pitchers who have two starts in one week. But it's never enough. I've identified two reasons why:
* I'm too partial to Cubs players. I call it "wearing my Cubbie glasses." Since I watch the team so much and am such a big fan, I tend to have an unrealistic view of how much Cub players can help me in relation to other players who are on teams I don't watch and/or don't root for.
Case in point: Last year I drafted Kosuke Fukudome. He got me a few points early on, but he faded hard down the stretch. Ended up dropping him in August. There were plenty of serviceable outfielders I could have grabbed before him.
* I tend to grab too many players from the same team. At one point last, I think I held five Yankees at the same time. When the Yankees began to tank last year, my team did, too.
I think I've taken care of both of those issues with this year's version of Bricks & Ivy. Only one Cub on my team: Derrek Lee, left. I was tempted to pick up Milton Bradley, but then I remembered my Kosuke mistake last year and talked myself down from it.
I also don't have more than two players from any team. And there are only four pairs on my 21-player team. Two each of Tigers (Polanco and Galarraga), Brewers (Braun and Hoffman), Diamondbacks (Webb and Jackson) and Dodgers (Ethier and Wolf).
A couple of other reasons that I think it could be an up year for B&I:
* I got the first pick in the draft this year. In past years, the first pick has been a virtual no-brainer: Either Albert Pujols or Alex Rodriguez. But neither of those names were at the top of the suggested draft lists this year.
That would have been Hanley Ramirez, left, from the Florida Marlins. I hesitated at first since he is a Marlin, after all. Plus, he's a middle infielder, which aren't historically big fantasy point producers. But I bit the bait and picked him up. We'll see if the hype was warranted.
* I noticed today that three of my five pitchers (Cliff Lee of the Indians, Francisco Liriano of the Twins and Brandon Webb of the D-backs) are scheduled to be Opening Day starters for their teams. So let's hope they can live up to the hype behind that and get me some wins this year.
Hey there
Good luck with your team this year, with both Hanley and Braun your offense is stacked. If you ever have any questions, I'd be happy to help.
- Toby
http://welcometotheshow.mlblogs.com/
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Cliff Lee is always a good choice. Do you think Fukodome will be better this year? I have him on one of my teams? And I agree with Toby your offense should be stacked with those too.
Melissa
http://clemsongirlbaseball.mlblogs.com
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I don't have much hope for Kosuke this year. But I hope I'm wrong. I don't think anyone in our league took him. If he starts out slow this year, I don't see Lou having much patience.
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