TwoBlog

In 2006, I won the fantasy football pool. Still trying so hard to win the baseball pool, but that’s a different story. It’s clear to me that I’m a little better judge of football talent as it pertains to fantasy. Correction, I think I’m better in a dynasty environment were I can pluck out the talent early and balance it accordingly. I can’t wait until the baseball pool evolves into dynasty.

Oh yes, fantasy - a geek’s closest shot at managing a sport’s franchise. But hey, it’s fun, competitive and rewarding when one is successful.

Anyway, since 2006 I’ve had to retool my team by phasing out or trading off older talent that still has value and in return receiving young talent with upside that still has some current day value. It’s a hard task to not sacrifice too much of today to insure your team will be competitive down the road. I see too many owners in my league constantly tooling for the future at the expense of never having that team that will win in the now. After all, winning today is what really matters. What’s the point of always having that potential team that never achieves victory?

In 2007 I came OH so close to defending my title. A matter of mismanagement more than anything else. But the mismanagement comes from the fact that I had to make so many right decisions to squeak out the tight wins. My team simply wasn’t strong. A question of having too much young talent and not quite enough consistency to win.

This year is different. I have a great balance of youth and experience. And it is paying off. I am 1st overall at the halfway point. I know how precarious that can be, but for a single point in time I can say I’ve gone to places never before. Even though I won in 2006 and was close in 2007, I was never in the top 5 or 6 in the standings throughout the season. An underdog as you will. This year I am top dog and I got there last weekend by achieving something I’ve never done: top the century mark in points. Good thing too considering my opponent posted a healthy 73.5 which would win 95% of the time:

Now, always thinking about the future, I have a subtle weakness that I want to resolve: I have 2 WRs on the same team: Holmes and Ward. It is a weekly agonizing task to figure out which of the 2 to play on any given week. It is virtually impossible to determine who is going to perform better than the other as they are fairly equal.

It makes sense to peddle Ward on the market to a team contending for the championship this year. He is 10 years into his career and won’t really be part of anybody’s rebuilding effort. Therefore I would only get the most value out of somebody who appreciates his worth to help them TODAY. I have found one such candidate who not only is contending this year but is a HUGE Steelers fan. In return he has offered me Anthony Gonzalez (2nd year WR out of INDY) and a 2nd round draft pick. In my dynasty rankings I have Ward and Gonzalez virtually the same in value at this point in time. So on the surface the trade seems pretty good. Gonzo is a #3 reciever right now but if/when Harrisson goes bye-bye that will change since Manning believes in this young talent. This would certainly help my rebuilding at the minor expense of weakening my current WR strength. But the problem is that as a Steelers fan, he should be willing to give up more for the #1 WR and heart and soul of that team. A 2nd round pick is not that lucrative especially if he wins this season and ranks last in the draft order.

What I’m trying to get in addition into the deal is Brady Quinn for Vince Young. I have the volatile Young who just doesn’t project well. Quinn is a prototypical fantasy-type passing QB that is on the verge of coming out once the Derek Anderson experiment is over in Cleveland. I need to get this player from him now before he starts and the owner realizes his potential. I want to take that risk on. Unfortunately the owner is not interested in this part of the deal. But if he gets desperate enough I think I can work it. This weekend he is in tough and will likely lose. I will likely win especially if I can keep Ward for this weekend’s matchup. So my plan is to respond after the weekend and hit him up when is in a somewhat more desperate situation. Quinn is the man that will make this deal slightly more favourable in my direction albeit with some risk attached. But that is what needs to be done to be successful.

Here’s hoping.

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I just bought 14 tickets to any Blue Jay game. Price about 420 total = $30 a ticket. The retail price for the seats are $49 so if I do use them up I guess it’s worth the up front transaction. We already have 4 tickets going towards the Cubs/Jays game on June 14. Not a big fan of interleague play but the Cubs are a very good team worth seeing in person.

Anyway, I’m back! Should start to see more regular blogs coming up. I’ve been busy with spring clean, garden, etc. along with work. Have lots to talk about including my sudden surge in my yearly fantasy pool and the NEW H2H pool that I signed up for. Let’s just say that it’ll be a lot more interesting if I can get the guys to buy into a dynasty H2H or even (alas) Rotisserie format. Keepers add way more interest and even keep the bottom dwellers interested in the season from start to finish.

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Went to see the playoff hungry Bills (6-7) take on the lowly and history destined Dolphins (0-13) with my brother in law Joey. We loaded up the CRV with the Coleman, some propane, beer and jumbo hotdogs. Thermal socks, fleece and winter jackets as the temperature was expected to be a few degrees below freezing, windy and ‘precipitous’ (a mix of freezing rain and snow).

We left for the game at 8:00 am sharp with the hopes of being parked and tailgating by 11:00. We were bang on. There was little traffic and it’s unbelievable how easy it is to get to Orchard Park once crossing the border at Niagara Falls. It’s about 20 minutes from border to parking most of it on major highway.

Here’s a valuable trick for parking: When you get onto 179E/Milestrip Expwy, instead of following it to Abbot Road and finding parking in that mayhem, turn R onto McKinley Pkwy which is before Abbot Road. Then, turn left on Big Tree Road. Find parking on any one of the many houses that charge you only $10 (instead of $20) to park on their lawn. We parked on the right side of the road about 200m before Abbott Road intersection. I think it was 5287. Backed in so that the car was facing the road and ready to just boot it after the game. Benefits of this spot was: not a busy road after the game, close to a couple restaurants down the street in case you need to go the washroom. About 20 cars could park there so you get a mini-tailgate feeling. Or just meander over to one of the restaurant parking lots for a bigger experience.

We were able to pull out the rarely used picnic table that comes with the CRV and set up the Coleman to cook up the dogs. It was cold out but it was fun. Had a few beers and listened to the high-powered stereo they had set up on the porch to catch the pre-game.

About 12:30ish we packed up and walked to the game. About a 15 minute walk at the most. Unfortunately our gate was at the far back corner of the stadium so we had to navigate through all of the crowds to get there.

After entering the gates I found a quiet-ish spot and called home to confirm whether Galloway was playing for TB. I was in the playoffs and needed to make a change if he were listed as inactive. Unfortunately he was listed as active and I continued to play him instead of subbing in Marshall for DEN. I consider this THE mistake of my ‘07 run for the championship as it turns out this decision alone cost me a trip to the finals.

We had seats near the top of the stadium in a corner of the endzone. Not bad seats at all and well worth the price. The game was 24-0 for Buffalo by the end of the 1st quarter. Although Miami did score 17 pts, it ended up 31-17 and was never really in doubt. That gave me some time to watch the scoreboard and guess how I was doing in the pool. My guess was that after the 1st set of games, I had a fairly good lead.

On the way home (and yes it was that easy to get out of Orchard Park thanks to the primo parking location) we stopped at Jack Astors in Stony Creek to watch the remainder of the 4:00 games and then made it home by 9:00.

Yeah, it was cold and wet and windy, my toes were frozen but it was a fun day and can’t wait to go again. Earlier in the season would be nice but not necessary. Just looking for the matchups will be the deciding factor.

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First round of the playoffs and I’m ousted. My Fantasy Football team this year was much better than last and I still come up short. Granted I was a 2 point underdog to my opponent, and lo and behold, I lost by 2.5. But personally, I know the spread was wrong and that I should have been the favourite. I’d been scoring 90+ points the last couple of games. My team was finally injury free and was playing their potential as opposed to their woeful ways earlier in the season.

So I thought I was coming in hot. I ended up losing 78.7 - 76.5 Both scores are ‘decent’ but not spectacular. If I substitute Brandon Marhsall for Joey Galloway like I was oh so close to doing, I be sitting at 89 pts which would have easily covered. Hindsight, you are an evil temptress.

It turned out that the dagger was the Sunday Night game where Addai was up against the Ravens who had just played a great game against the Pats the week before and their defense was looking strong. Unfortunately Addai torched them for 2 2 RuTD and 1 ReTD totalling 20 pts and thus eliminating by 18 pt advantage. Considering how awful he’s played all season, you can qualify this as a miracle. I was beat by a miracle!

To salt the wound, the site made a correction this morning. I was losing 78.7 - 70.5 last night. This morning I had 6 pts tacked on due to a DTD by the Packers that was not factored in. Oh how that hurts.

I can go on saying “If only I had played x instead of y” but that will only turn my rash-plagued head even redder. Why do I have a rash you ask? Because I went to the Bills game yesterday (The torched the Dolphins 38-17 in a snowy debacle) while my fantasy team was building its soon to be negated lead.

Instead, it’s time to do some reflections while the sting of the iron is hot. Lessons learnt:

1) Pit your WR against the opponent’s complimentary QB. I had been doing this all season to great success. Why I didn’t play Marshall against his Cutler confounds me. I guess I bought into the hype that Galloway vs the Texans is a better matchup than Marshall against the 5th ranked pass defense of KC. If only I had pulled the last second trigger that I was agonizing over. If only the site had left the injury marker on him instead of removing it and giving him the OK from a decision standpoint. Arghh!

2) Continue to play the matchups. Even though I was victimized by my decision in #1, having a team that has capable players from top to bottom always means that a decision will need to be made that will leave points on the bench. Potentially more points on the bench than some other teams’ active players score in a week! So I have to play the matchups and as I saw this season, it usually works out in my favour. Unfortunately it wasn’t in the cards this time around. It is the most agonizing, yet the most alluring aspect of the game: The game time decisions. I think I’m very good at this and am quite grateful that I have such a well rounded team that I am forced to make these decisions week in and week out.

3) That being said in #2, I think I may be leaving too many points on the bench. That is, I think I’m ‘over’ balanced. I have 4 starting RBs. It is a great thing to have 4 top RBs in the league. But only great for insurance purposes. The past few weeks I’ve left 3 or 4 RuTDs and at least 400 yds on the bench. Meanwhile, I’m sitting with 2 very young, very talented, yet very unpredictable QBs in Schaub and (alas) Vince Young. This was a blaring hole in my output in my loss yesterday. With Schaub out due to injury I was left withough choices and forced to play Young vs. the Chargers. A wildcard situation in my mind. Feast or famine. Turned out to be famine with -0.5 pts on the board. Oh, ANY other QB would have gotten me about 4 points, ironically enough to win. So, although these QBs can (and most likely will) be very productive players, I need to go out and get some consistency/experience. Not an old guy who’s winding down, but a QB that is about 6-7 yrs on a passing offense (Carson Palmer? Hasselback?). Since I MUST drop 4 players to be able to hand over my 1st round draft pick (I made a trade for Brandon Marshall (does the irony get any thicker) for my #1 a few weeks ago), the obvious strategy is to do a bundle of sorts that will get me an upgrade. E.g. one of my RBs and WRs for a QB, or maybe a better fit: one of my RBs and Young/Schaub for a top tier QB. Hmm, that sounds more interesting.

The problem is that with my 1st pick next year being in the middle of the 2nd round, there won’t be any RBs to replace with. Not the end of the world. But when I think about what I’m going to have to drop: my kicker, my 3rd QB, my Eagles defense and ?? (likely Joey Galloway), I’m likely going to be trying to ‘regain’ some of these players back. I.e. recapture the Eagles as my 1st pick since they should be still around by then. Then recapture Galloway or upgrade depending.

The long and short is that I have a young strong RB staff, a very young and from the stats, the #1 receiving corp even though I don’t have any true #1 WRs. So, there is a chance for upgrade there. Trade Ward and Galloway or Ward and Young/Schaub for a #1 WR or #1 QB…..either way somethings got to happen before the draft so that I’m not just dumping Galloway for nothing. Plus, like I said, I’m overbalanced and would love to shift some of those bench points into the active lineup. I will assume more risk to injury if I can get more consistency into the lineup. I know that my deep bench was the only reason I was able to salvage a playoff spot, but I see that I’m always going to be dogfighting and never being the dominant team without adding another premium player to the roster at QB and/or WR. The draft is not going to be the solution here. I need the big off-season trade!!!

So, there’s the season. Over and done with ‘officially’. I’m going to torture myself this weekend by setting my line-up as if I were still alive and unofficially pitting it against the team I would have played had I not been robbed. It will be a tough outing (this is the textbook powerhouse team that I’m aspiring for) since that team averages about 95 points per outing. AVERAGING! I only topped 95 two times in my career! If I somehow win this game I am going to go ballistic and then retire. I simply could not handle the fact that by not playing Marshall was my downfall. A season should simply not come down to that minute of a decision! Come on! And if i ‘virtually’ go all the way and then win in the finals, I will be devastated.

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When I was in Vegas last May I bought a ticket from the NYNY Sporst Book:  The Cleveland Indians to Win the 2007 American League Championship.  The odds back then were 4.5 to 1.  So I bought a $10.00 ticket.  In fact it was the first of my many tickets I bought during my 3 day visit.  All other bets were single game bets on games that were going on at the time.  I paid out well on those games since I knew the pitching matchups.  Of the 10 or so bets I made I think I only lost 1 or 2 of them. 

But my Vegas luck ran out last night as the Indians pulled off the choke of the decade.  Up 3-1 in the series they proceeded to crumble with last night’s game thankfully ending their demise.  After winning their 3rd game they proceeded to get outscored 30-5 over the remaining 3 games.  They lost last night 11-2.  It was 3-2 in the seventh inning.  The vaunted bullpen was not so vaunted. 

Anyway, my ticket remains posted on my corkboard at work.  I was all ready to mail it in for $55 depreciated US dollars but now I’ll keep it as a reminder of how close it was to winning a very difficult propositional bet.

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Compare these nicknames to the names you see today in baseball:

Back then:

Willie ‘The Say Hey Kid’ Mays

Dizzy Dean

Joe ‘Ducky’ Medwick

Red ‘The Galloping Ghost’ Grange

Joe ‘The Yankee Clipper’ DiMaggio

Ted ‘The Splendid Splinter’ Williams

‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson

‘Goose’ Gossage

Wade ‘Chicken Man’ Boggs

Ty ‘The Georgia Peach’ Cobb

and my favourites:  Babe ‘The Sultan of Swat’ Ruth and Dennis ‘Oil Can’ Boyd

Nowadays, here are what we have to choose from:

Jeremy ‘Bondo’ Bonderman

Mike ‘Cammy’ Cameron

Ken ‘Junior’ Griffey, Jr.

Nook ‘Nook’ Logan

Orlando ‘O-dog’ Hudson

Alex ‘A-rod’ Rodriguez

There are some cool ones I admit:

Hideki ‘Godzilla’ Matsui

Travis ‘Pronk’ Hafner

Frank ‘The Big Hurt’ Thomas

David ‘Big Papi’ Ortiz

Ivan ‘Pudge’ Rodriguez

But really, the creativity has gone.  I think baseball was a much more ‘romantic’ thing back in the early days when the only thing you knew about the games and players you had to read in the papers.  Naturally these players were glorified and the writers intended to make heroes out of these players for the general population that were going through depressions, wars, etc.  Today, with the ability to see every game real time, there’s not as much need for write-ups and ’storification’ of games in the papers.

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The Fantasy Football league starts this Thursday. Last Wednesday we ran through our mini-draft to flesh out our keeper teams. I.e. dropped four players and drafted 4 new players to my existing 16 man roster. I didn’t have much to decide this year since 2 of my players (Keyshawn Johnson and Jake Plummer) retired and another player is a mere Tight End. The problem was the 4th player…which I needed to drop to get a draft pick in the first round, albeit the LAST pick of the 1st round since the franchise is coming off the 2nd consecutive year as champions. I reluctantly dropped my last year’s draft pick WR Greg Jennings who is probably going to be something special I’m sure now that I’ve dumped him.

It was worth the drop since I scooped up rookie-ish QB Matt Schaub for HOU, an up-and-coming franchise. All the RBs and stud WRs were picked up early as usual. Now I’m QB complete hopefully for the next 10 yrs. I finished my draft with a starter in Wes Welker (4th year and playing in NE) and a flyer rookie Terrell Owens type WR in Dwayne Jarrett (on another offensive upstart in CAR). I screwed up my last pick when I tried to find somebody, anybody to hold onto as a keeper RB for down the road. I jumped at the guy sharing loads with Ronnie Brown (Jesse Chatman) but quickly realized he doesn’t fit my strategy and dumped him onto the waiver wire and replaced with a rookie RB out of Denver in Selvin Young. Perhaps the next Terrell Davis? We’ll see, but definitely more upside than Chapman considering I don’t need to use him this year.

Clashing with my focus on the upcoming football year, the baseball pool is winding down. When I mean winding down I mean coming to a tumultous nail-chewing finale. For the past few weeks I’ve been wavering on whether I should throw the towel in and shut down activity or make the blockbuster trade and make a run for 4th, 3rd or possibly 2nd. Last week about the same time as the football draft, I crafted up a huge trade that I thought would give me the best chance to finish in the money. The downside is I mortgaged my future. I traded away the keeper stud of the year in Fausto Carmona. Owning him for cheap next year would certainly have given me a good headstart. I was agonizing over this decision. The downfall to the trade is that I still am not a lock for the $$ AND I now have lost my prime keeper.

As of today the 14 player trade has helped me. I sit in 4th by 4 points and off of 3rd by 3. I can achieve 4 pts in offense almost with certainty but will likely lose 2-4 pts in pitching. This puts me in a spot that is ‘likely’ to finish 4th and ‘possibly’ get third. But there are elements in play that can quite effectively put me out of the money.

The long and short of it is Carmona is no guarantee next year. I also have Billy Butler as a solid keeper so why not make a go at it when, after all, this is the point of an auction pool? One keeper allowed per year is not significant enough to sway the huge benefit I received in the trade. Now, if we had many more keepers the decision would have been much different.

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This has been a fairly good season for me this time around. I’ve pulled off a lot of mid-70’s rounds that has lowered my handicap to 5. Thanks to the local tech league I’ve been able to manage to get out about once a week albeit mainly at the Conestoga CC. I’ve posted good scores there but have no chance of beating the sandbaggers. With handicaps in place, if I shoot even par for the round I’ll come in with a net of -5. People have been coming in with -8 and up to -12 thanks to their ‘robust’ handicaps in the mid-teens.

Last Monday I had the full spectrum round. After 5 holes I was 10 over par. Normally I pack it in with a start that poor. This time around I pushed myself to finish well. I attributed 6 of the strokes to 2 very poor shots I made that put me into places from which I tried to make foolish recovery attempts. Otherwise I was playing fairly well around the greens.

I ended up shooting even for the remainder of the round finishing with a respectable 80 but nowhere near contention for the week.

On the baseball front: This weekend is the season ending tournament for the ball league. During regular season we whipped off 15 consecutive wins including 2 wins against the Flyers and one against the Farm Team. In total we finished 18-3 with the 3 losses coming in the 1st 6 games of the season.

This is DEFINITELY, ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY the LAST season I am going to play competitive ball. The will is gone and due to lack of play the frustration has set in at the plate. The finale is going to be somewhat bittersweet. Knowing it’s the last time yet not overly enthusiastic about playing.

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So,  I technically haven’t given up yet on my team.  But desperate times call for desparate actions.  Roger Clemens has come out of retirement and as a Yankee is an eligible free agent in the pool.  Disgustingly he will be paid on average about $1,000,000 per outing!  And the 44 year old will have the luxury of not having to travel out of town with the team for away games.  Only has to privately fly his way out to the parks where he is scheduled to pitch.

Regardless, this pitcher has remarkable value for my team and better yet a name that can draw some serious trade bait.  The problem is that this pickup is going to go for serious coin.  I need to figure out how much I want this guy and for how much am I willing to pay.  It will be a certainty that should I pick him up I will be hamstrung for any future pickups severely limiting my ability to pickup agents when players go down with injuries etc.

I’ll post the waiver results on Thursday when the week’s pickups are made….

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Blogging about the Jays game reminded me that I should say a few words about my ‘07 AL fantasy team.  Quite bluntly, I’m not happy with my team.  The reason has more to do with the fact that I went completely against my auction strategy and ended up with a roster of players I would’ve liked to have avoided. (more…)

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