For those of you that play in fantasy baseball leagues on Yahoo!, the following image should be familiar.
Garrett Richards has been dropped in how many leagues after last night?
Yes, I have Garrett Richards on my team and after yesterday’s start in which he allowed 5 ER in 7 IP, I’ve had the honor of seeing this note in “My Fantasy Updates,” with the number of teams increasing as the day goes on.
Being a beat writer for a pro sports team can be a tough gig sometimes. As a former sports writer, I know first hand how hard it can be some days to come up with something to write about. Because of this, I don’t like to be too critical of other writers but when I see headlines like the ones I saw on espn.com and usatoday.com over the past couple of days, I just have to say something.
I was reading up on Tout Wars this year when I noticed that the leagues chose to make a pretty major change to the scoring – members opted to drop BA in favor of OBP.
Given that my main keeper league has never played with the traditional 5×5 categories, I welcome this change but I know that for many owners that use Tout Wars as a major research source, this change is a big deal. Now, I don’t necessarily want to argue that some scoring categories are better than others, or at least I don’t want to do that yet. First, I’d like to know what categories my readers use.
So, make sure you vote in the poll on the left side, and if you play with an non-traditional category let me know what it is in the comments. Once I get enough data, I’d like to talk about the benefits and curses of various categories.
Thanks in advance for helping me with this project and I look forward to hearing from you.
This is probably the hardest part of the offseason for me.
For months I’ve been looking at players, analyzing the numbers and trying to find new ways to make data talk to me in hopes of finding an edge over my league mates. And while I’ve not had any significant breakthroughs, my auction plans are in place and I have my targets decided.
But now that spring training games are underway, I have to remember not to let the results of these “games” interfere with the conclusions I drew over months of preparation.
Before you read any further, I want to make one thing clear up front – I’ve lost the ability to be rational about Justin Upton.
I read this article today on Deadspin and it got me thinking about some of my terrible fantasy baseball trades. I also know I’m not the only to make a crazy trade, so my question is this – what is the craziest/worst trade you’ve ever been a part of have seen go through in your league? Respond in the comments below.
By the way, in a non-keeper league I traded away David Wright after he had 0 HR, 6 RBI and a .244 BA during April 2007. To make it worse, I added Brandon Phillips to the deal and got Jermaine Dye and Adam Loewen in return. I am so lucky that wasn’t in a keeper league.
What we’re saying