Sunday, September 18, 2011

Evan's Stolen AK

Like some in the UPL, I'm in a couple of different leagues each fantasy season.  One of those leagues is run by my buddy Pat, and Roland once described it as having some of the craziest scoring of any league he'd seen.  How so?  Well...  take a gander:

Offensive Positions:
C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, OF, OF, UTIL, UTIL UTIL

Offensive Scoring Categories:
R, H, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI, SB, BB, K, AVG, OPS (BB scored by most, K by least)

Pitching Positions:
SP, SP, SP, RP, RP, RP, P, P, P

Pitching Scoring Categories
W, CG, SV, BB, K, HOLD, ERA, WHIP, K/9

So...  yeah, there's a lot of things that can go right, or wrong, or screwy at any given time.  Add in 5 bench spots, and a 10 team league, and you get a few different strategies that could emerge all of which would be driven by a combination of factors such as draft, waiver watches and luck.  My draft, as you'll see, was a bit of a mixed bag, which led to me being much more active on the waiver wire than I would've liked to have been.  I drafted 7th, and these are my results:

1.  Miguel Cabrera
2.  Alex Rodriguez
3.  Buster Posey
4.  Josh Johnson
5.  Jay Bruce
6.  Mike Stanton
7.  Jered Weaver
8.  Elvis Andrus
9.  Matt Thornton
10.  Gio Gonzalez
11.  Gordon Beckham
12.  Craig Kimbrel
13.  Brett Gardner
14.  Aroldis Chapman
15.  Johnny Venters
16.  Jon Sanchez
17.  Joel Hanrahan
18.  Manny Ramirez
19.  Luke Scott
20.  David Ortiz
21.  Edwin Jackson
22. Chris Sale
23.  CJ Wilson
24.  Gavin Floyd
25.  Jim Thome

So, obviously, my team at the end of the season doesn't really resemble that at all.  Manny was busted for steroids and out by the end of the second week.  Posey exited early with a season ending injury.  Josh Johnson was dominant, then hurt.  Luke Scott flashed the kind of inconsistency that drives me insane as a fantasy team owner.  Thome was hurt and ineffective early.  And my plan to have the closer/setup guys for teams that I expected to do well only half-worked, as Thornton and Sale struggled early and both were dropped by week 4.  Veneters / Kimbrel were lights out, though, and Hanrahan did well while fill-ins Rauch and Isringhausen provided clutch saves before falling off.  The following players were longtime contributors to the Stolen AK, picked up off free agency:

SP.  Michael Pineda
SP.  Derek Holland
SP.  Matt Harrison
SP.  Brandon McCarthy
2B.  Dan Uggla (post All Star Break)
3B.  Brett Lawrie
3B/OF.  Alex Gordon
OF.  Logan Morrison

I also was somewhat active on the trade front, executing 3 key trades:

3B Alex Rodriguez for 2B Dustin Pedroia (June 4)
2B Dustin Pedroia and SP Jered Weaver for 1B Prince Fielder and SP Mat Latos (June 17)
3B Alex Gordon for OF Brett Gardner (June 24)

The only clear "win" trade for me was the A-Rod for Pedroia trade.  In both of the other two, I traded productive players (dominantly productive, one could say) for players who were on a hot streak that was unsustainable.  In the end, though, Prince Fielder's power and Brett Gardner's speed provided enough of a boost to carry me over in key stats during the Championship week.

That's right kids, its time to crown Evan's Stolen AK's ass. 

Now if only I could carry this over into the Jimmy Dix Longballs' 2012 incarnation. 

1 comment:

Chairman said...

Uh. You were who we thought you were?

And I believe that I called the scoring retarded. You're going head-to-head with categories, not with points. You run points, you can do whatever. But to have 2B, 3B, and CG as stat categories? I imagine you'd have weeks when people would win 1 to 0 in CG or 3B, or have 0 - 0 ties. That just seems lame.

So, I guess, congrats on winning the Special Olympics :-)