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Wednesday, September 19, 2007

A Few Things I Learned About Baseball Playing Fantasy Baseball

So my fantasy baseball season has ended. I finished sixth in the regular season, fifth in the playoffs. Kinda disappointing, but not too bad considering this was my first real season playing and I didn't really get into a groove until shortly before the All Star Break. It's unfortunate that my season ended when it did though; my team was in the midst of a nice little offensive hot streak.

  • Catchers suck (except for Jorge Posada and Victor Martinez. And Brian McCann. Seems like the guy hit a home run every game he played against my team. He must have upwards of 90 on the year, I swear). Not only do they not play every day, but when they do, they are consistently outperformed offensively by players at every other position.


  • Except second basemen. They suck too. Unless they’re named Chase Utley. Beyond that, it seems like even the best second basemen are average, at best.


  • It is freakin’ hard for a starting pitcher to get a win (unless you’re Josh Beckett, who seems to get a W every damn time he pitches). Seriously, out of an average of 32 starts, a pitcher that gets 20 wins is considered phenomenal. And until this year, I didn’t truly realize just how hard it is to get 20 wins, even if you’re a good pitcher. There are roughly about 5,682 ways for a starter to not get a win, even if he pitches magnificently. Poor run support. Lousy defense. The bullpen biffs his lead. Rain delay. He leaves before his team pulls ahead. Seriously, it’s a wonder any pitcher gets more than 10 wins in a season. Wins are one of those stats that seem almost unfair in the way they are determined by so much more than just the abilities of the one player who accumulates them.


  • No player is ever healthy for an entire season. Which is not to say that every player goes on the DL at some point. But jeez, it seems like everyone, at one point or another, missed a few games, at least, due to some minor injury (or “flu-like symptoms”).

  • It is possible for a team to score 10+ runs and have one or two players contribute to the offense in no way, shape, or form. With nine guys on a team and, say, 15 runs scored, it’s gotta be statistically impossible for the one or two guys to not participate in some way, right? Especially if one of those guys is usually the driving offensive force on the team? Wrong. Nothing more frustrating than a team having an offensive blowout and someone on my fantasy roster go 0-4 in the process. I mean, you have to try pretty hard to suck that bad, don’t you? But it’s possible.

Yeah, I'm looking at you,Vlad

  • 30 home runs a season really aren’t that many. The accepted seasonal benchmark of a good home run hitter seems like a lot, until you play fantasy baseball and, while desperate for a home run, watch mystified as your 30+ homer guy goes weeks without one. You’re thinking, come on, this guy hit over 30 home runs last year. He’s a Home Run Guy. Why does he keep grounding out to the first baseman? Then I stopped and thought about it. Assuming someone only hits one home run a game, 30 homers in a season means 132 games without a home run. So they can, in an entire season, be expected to hit a home run in just under 19% of their games.

  • There are a lot of good players the media never talk about. Look, when I play against the fantasy team that has Alex Rodriguez, and I lose the offensive categories, it’s like, duh. It’s frickin’ A-Rod. What do I expect? When I lose out to teams because they have Garret Atkins or Brandon Phillips hitting ten RBIs in a game, I’m going, who? Brandon Phillips? Oh, he plays for the Reds. But the Reds Not Named Ken Griffey Jr. suck. A team that is notorious for sucking shouldn’t have a player on it that routinely wipes the floor with my team offensively. And if they do, then someone should damn well mention it so I can revise my expectations.

1 comment:

  1. You forgot:
    A baseball player will almost always give you exactly what you need a week after you needed it and at a point when, for whatever reason, it won't help you anymore. (Unless his name is Justin Morneau, in which he'll go an entire half season of not giving you anything remotely close to what your team may need.)

    ReplyDelete

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