deeplyshallow // fantasticality

fantasticality

Gettin’ to be that time of year again. Spring training’s just three weeks away, and plenty of late-offseason deals are being made. Erik Bedard’s a Mariner, Johan Santana’s a Met, Curt Schilling’s … broken. You can smell the green in the air. And I’m not talking about the grass.

Just as much as I look forward to the start of the season, I look forward to the kickoff of fantasy baseball. Last year I played for the first time in Yahoo’s system. I’d never played at all, so I learned as I went, and some of my early strategies didn’t pan out. I wasn’t able to make up for the setbacks, and finished the season in fourth place.

The real disappointment was the league I played in, though. One of my coworkers created it, and we decided to make it a company-only league. Aside from the two of us, just two of our coworkers, and one former coworker, joined. One of them invited their boyfriend, and I invited my cousin, and with seven teams, we started the season. The draft went fairly well; I landed a few of my key players and seemed to be off to a great start. But the start of the season was, for a couple of players in our league, also pretty much the end, as they lost enthusiasm for the game and settled for a roll of the dice, abandoning the day-to-day management of their teams. By the end of the season only three of us were still playing, trades were impossible because other players weren’t participating, and so forth.

It’s easy to look back and track my own flaws: I didn’t understand the pitching system immediately, and made a few bonehead movies that kept me from making some early progress. That was probably the biggest. But right behind it was the problem of my team, which I was very pleased with.

My pitching staff, on paper, looked terrific. I had six starters and two closers — the problem starts right there, but it gets worse. Johan Santana was my big win of the draft, along with Chris Carpenter; the rest of the starters were rounded out with veterans who didn’t perform quite as I’d hoped: Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Mike Mussina and Barry Zito. Carpenter went down for the count early in the season (and, rumor has it, may not even pitch til mid-summer ‘08). Santana threw well almost all season, but struggled with poor run support. Smoltz was a workhorse, Glavine was a game-winner but not a strikeouts leader, and Mussina and Zito had problems throwing in the right directions.

I traded quite a few players throughout the course of the season, but my initial batting roster was a joke. A couple of good kids in the mix, but mostly some tired old farts. The solid choices, and the ones I hung onto for the rest of the season, were Alex Rios, Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer and Torii Hunter (note to self: try not to recreate the Twins lineup again this year). All three had solid seasons with a few dry spells. The rest of the crew underperformed so spectacularly that I traded most away in the first week or two: Adrian Beltre, Aramis Ramirez, Jim Thome, Pat Burrell, Michael Young, J.D. Drew, A.J. Pierzynski and Craig Biggio. I wouldn’t have gone far with that mix.

I also went nostalgic with a few choices — Biggio, for sure, but he was the most lightweight of my old-school heavies. I picked up Frank Thomas, hoping for an ‘06 repeat — he disappointed in that regard — and Ken Griffey, Jr., who started slow but put together a surprisingly healthy season.

Thing is, this year I know how the game works, and I’ve been paying closer attention to the trades and numbers. But what it really comes down to is that old gut feeling. I’d still pick up Biggio, just for the hell of it, if he was playing this year. I’m anxious to get the season rolling. I’ve got a few asses to kick to make up for last year.