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15 Jun 2009 |
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Tweet me!It has been a couple of weeks since my last update and at that time, I had a comfortable 15 point lead that grew even larger in the days following. Unfortunately, things change quickly this early in the season, and my team's recent performance is a reminder of how volatile the standings could still be.
Third place. Now down by 15 points! My team has lost 22.5 points since the last update on May 26. What happened? Well, for starters, my offense decided to take the last three weeks off. So far in June, my offense has hit a paltry .221 with the two lowest weekly run and RBI totals of the season, along with the third and fifth worst home run totals. My pitching has been ehhh, somehow posting a 3.73 ERA, despite a 1.45 WHIP. As has been par for the course in my fantasy baseball career, my wins luck completely sucked, with just 4 wins in 13 starts, even though that ERA should have translated into more wins. Brad Lidge's DL stint has hurt, especially since he was placed on it on a Tuesday, so I had a dead spot the rest of the week. Is it just me, or does every player get DL'ed at the beginning of the week, right after your lineup deadline passes? Next, Casey Kotchman was DL'ed, and this being an NL-Only league where fee agency is a wasteland, there was literally no one to replace him with. I was hoping to pick up who I expected to be his replacement, Martin Prado, but he was already rostered. For humor purposes, here is the full list of First Base eligible free agent hitters who have received at least one at-bat this year: Tony Clark, Brad Nelson, Frank Catalanotto, Miguel Cairo, and Doug Mientkiewicz. Seriously. Clark and Mientkiewicz are both on the DL now, and Brad Nelson isn't even in the NL or the Majors anymore, which makes me question why he even appears and is listed as a Brewer. That is the difficulty of Only leagues. If you have no replacement on your bench, no one is available on free agency and you know your player will only need the minimum DL time, basically your only course of action is to let that player sit on your active lineup giving you zeroes. Yippee. Next on the list of issues that has plagued my team in recent weeks is the loss of Ryan Spilborghs' starting job. Spilly cannot hit righties so from a real baseball perspective, this is fine. But being on the wrong side of a platoon is not the ingredient for a valuable fantasy player. With fellow righty who cannot hit righties Matt Diaz on my bench, at least I could start one of the two based on who is facing more lefties for the week. I could employ my own platoon, whoopee! Last, and I promise you this is the last one, is that even with Joey Votto DL'ed, as well as Edwin Encarnacion, Adam Rosales still is not playing every single game. The Reds obviously think so little of him that they are instead giving their catcher Ramon Hernandez starts at first base as Rosales plays some first and some third. If you can't even start him over Jerry Hairston at third base and cause your team to start your catcher at first, why even bother having him in the majors? Once Rosales is eventually demoted when Encarnacion returns, I will have another quandary on my hands on how to replace him. Of course if Lastings Milledge was never surprisingly sent down, I wouldn't have this problem! OK, enough about my slumping team, let's take a look at the recent transactions. A week ago I purchased Charlie Morton and Burke Badenhop for $1 each, immediately after Morton was traded to the Pirates. Sure enough, just a couple of days later he was called up to become a (hopefully) permanent member of the rotation. Morton has shown good skills in the minor leagues and could be worth a bit in a deep league like this. I thought Badenhop might get some starts with Anibal Sanchez hurt, but that hasn't been the case so far. He induces a good amount of ground balls, though that isn't necessarily a good thing in front of the terrible Marlins defense. This week I bid on nobody, but here is the rest of the action: Brett Carroll 70 Phenoms Fernando Nieve 150 Phenoms Barbaro Canizares 115 Phenoms Russ Ortiz 2 KFFL Dan Meyer 1 KFFL John Grabow 4 Zach Steinhorn Joe Beimel 6 Zach Steinhorn Aaron Miles 30 Dick Santino I am crossing my fingers that league leader Nick Minnix of KFFL activates Russ Ortiz! I had Dan Meyer on my potential bid list, but I have enough middle relievers that there really was no point in adding another one. I think the Phenoms were a little aggressive in their bid for Canizares as I figure he'll be sent down once Kotchman returns, or at least lose almost all his playing time. In fact, I just read that Kotchman is expected to return on Tuesday (woohoo!) so now his playing time is limited to possibly starting at DH against AL teams until interleague play is over. Then, his playing time is back to zero. Well that sums it up for this week, hopefully I will have some better news next update!
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