Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball 2008

Sunday at 8 Central then. Hmm... I'll have to be there then, unlike last year, and unlike football.

I'm in I think. I usually suck at MLB fantasy, but that makes up for the rest of the things I'm great at.

Someone other than me created a league? I'm appalled.

Is Sarah going to get all the good players like in Football?

That was a fluke... don't you usually have the team that Jon fawns over? Oooooh Micah!

That's funny.

I just realized this- I'll be in Vegas for work. It kinda sucks, but then again, Vegas!

Although I could just pre-rank and allow it to auto pick my losers... just like always.

yeah maybe you could pre-rank it to select the Bears defense in the 3rd round like football

What would be the baseball equivalent of his ranking the players to take Bubba Franks with his number one overall pick? Nick Punto @ slot #8?

Reminder for people to sign up for this.


Interesting, (although they probably are deserving), but Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder are rated rather high in Yahoo's default rankings.

Didn't Fielder make news lately about a strange diet? I know the guy is large, but will it really make him more effective if he is more compact? Perhaps...

He went totally vegetarian.

He heard biofuels are all the rage.

I vote for later draft...I guess as late as possible...although not if its between March 21-26, as I will be in Florida. And since I will be there watching spring training, I feel that is a justifiable excuse for fantasy baseball, unlike Carl's lame Vegas excuse.

I fly to vegas at 3 central, then have a pre- tradeshow conference, then the show. It's at the Mandalay Bay conv. center.

Don't worry, I'll have one of the monkeys from the other thread do my rankings. No follow-up jokes needed, thanks.

You would stay at Mandelay Bay

I'll second the later draft, but do have it marked as this Sunday.

No, I'd stay at the Tropicana. Mandelay Bay is where Marty stays.

I know Sarah would prefer an earlier draft, hour wise. Of course it still needs to fit in her small window. 7-8 pm is probably pretty good.

I will change the draft time to Sunday March 16th and 9:00 Eastern time (that's 8:00 for you Central time suckers).

Well, I'm attempting to change it. It might be too late to change the draft date. I'll keep everyone posted.

They day before corporations are due? ..... I'll probably make the first half hour. I vote for a 7:00 CST start.

Yeah Scott, how could you not know that corporations are due the next day....just insensitive.

were I a dueling man, I'd challenge you to... a duel

as of now, it's still on for this Sunday, I'm trying to reschedule it, but Yahoo is giving me guff.

The Pack One organization is ready either way.

Where is everyone? Didn't we have 12 teams last year....if there are only 8 these are going to be some stacked teams

I'm holding out. Just got back from drill, take off for Vegas tomorrow.

just sign up....8 teams is lame.

Any word on changing the draft time?

New Draft Time!!!


Sunday, March 16, at 6:45 pm eastern time. I tried to make it a little later, but apparently there are no openings this late in the process. Plus, this will give Sarah enough time to finish the draft before she has to do the taxes for Menards.

SIGN UP PEOPLE. WE ONLY HAVE 8 TEAMS. 10 would be an ideal minimum. Don't make may name the yahoo usernames of those who haven't signed up yet, because I have a list; Jfantastic, I'm looking in your direction.

Carl can sign up now, and hopefully pay attention to his team for more than 3 weeks

If I could have my team from 3 years ago, my offense would be stellar (except for C):
C: AJ Pierzynski
1B: Adam Dunn
2B: Marcus Giles
3B: David Wright
SS: Michael Young
OF: Carl Crawford
OF: Bobby Abreu
OF: Grady Sizemore
UTIL: Barry Bonds

Pitching wouldnt be so hot though

I signed up, are you happy? Gosh. I can almost guarantee I won't be there, but I won't cry if I get a bad team. It's just the way it is.

I'm happy about the new time, kudos. Jon's not going to sign up, he never does. It takes away from the intensity of a 162 game season.

Did Jon really not play last year? I can't remember.

I seem to have made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. I could have spent a few more minutes setting my pre-draft rankings. Oh well, I will call it a victory if I rank in the top 66% this year (70% last year).

Jon has never done baseball.

Nutcan variety, that is. Matt actually brought fantasy sports to my knowledge back in like 1993 with some old time, paper-based fantasy baseball. I had the first pick of the draft and drafted Kirby Puckett. True story.

But I haven't done fantasy baseball since the 90s maybe. It actually would probably add to the intensity Sarah, and I don't have that kind of energy. Plus, I don't like the mixed loyalties that fantasy sports brings out in me. I enjoy the baseball season the way it is; I can cheer for the Twins and loosely wish the Cubs and Brewers well and that's it. I don't want to stress out about Adam Dunn's OPS and its affect on my internet ranking.

If I remember correctly, last year you guys opened it up to strangers to fill in extra slots in the league. So, that might solve this problem.

Yeah, I actually abridged that comment with "Edit: At least not Nutcan/Page 3 FBB." I don't know where that went.

Jon, you are clearly putting your own interests ahead of those of the NutCan family. Selfish.

Sounds alot like the creators of this site.

I'm going to have disallow that kind of behavior. That's like loosely wishing the Greeks and Persians well, or the Allies and the Axis, or the Vikings and the Packers. You need to pick one or the other or widen your range to say the NL Central in general.

I'm going to have to call you stupid. It would be perfectly reasonable for like a Dolphins fan to say they preferred that the Vikings and Packers do well. The fact that those two teams happen to be rivals have no bearing on anything.

I knew someone would call me on that. The fact is, when I started liking the Cubs they weren't even in the same league as the Brewers. I actually have a harder time choosing between the two these days, but historically the Cubs have been my second favorite team behind the Twins, so it comes fairly naturally to cheer for them even though I probably watch the Brewers more and follow what's going on with them more since the games and info are more accessible.
Anyway, I like both teams.

I agree. I like the Twins, but wish the Brewers well. I can't stand the cubs though.

I'm going to cry myself to sleep tonight

I've sent emails to some people from my other league last year... apparently everyone's to lazy to do one this year, or even sign up for this one. I'll bother them again.

can I do one bad team and one really bad team?

4 am? Couldn't sleep?

I do all my best posting at 4 am.

it was 2am in Vegas. I went to see some sights and stayed out later than anticipated.

what kind of "sights" were you seeing at 2am in Vegas....

sticking on that theme...my governor's had more hookers than all other nutcan governor's combined

Well, you don't know that. Maybe ours are just better at hiding their crimes than the guy who made a living prosecuting people for them.

I had seen Mystere earlier in the evening, and on the 2.something miles back to my hotel I stopped and checked out a few other hotel/casinos. It was really a pretty good time.

Scott- have you been going to any of the spring training games? Seems like you could go to any team's games, since most of them are in Florida- except the Brewers.

1. The Draft is still tonight?
2. Will there be any mysterious internet outages like in the Football Draft.

Yeah or will Yahoo delete all of our teams like football....that was sweet. Funny how the "commissioner" then ended up with the all-star team after they "put the teams back together." She probably video taped the draft, too.

"taped"? you sir are living in the mid/early 00's

I win the draft again!!!!

I think I would have won by picking Gomez with that last pick. I told Sarah I was looking for him but he must not be listed yet, she found him under listed after the G's, didn't tell me she saw him, and stole my pick. Some wife I have.

Why would I help someone I'm playing against with the draft? Besides I wanted him. Fair's fair Turk.

Except for steals, he probably won't even be that good (fantasy-wise at least).

he will be the best. have u seen him the last 2 games. A-Maz-Ing.

his OBP will suck but he'll have tons of steals

Whatever, he bunts, hits homeruns, steals, runs into walls, has an amazing arm, and is just awesome-o overall.

I don't see what's so amazing about that.

I don't get the scoring system. Why would I lose points. I didn't even play anyone in the Japan games. WTF.

because it is set up so that the Commish wins, no contest.

The majority of us are -9 points. I guess that shows us for not having players play in Japan!

All scoring is relative to the other teams/players/what-ever-you-would-call-us. For each of the stats our teams are ranked 1-10 and then given 10-1 points. (Unless people are tied, but think of it that way for simplicity sake.) So if one day you have 5 total homeruns and I have 4, then the next day you still have 5 and I have 6 you lose a point and I gain one. There are only so many points to be had, the players on your team determine how big a peice of the pie you get. Any points you get come at the expense of the rest of us and vise versa.

Points will swing dramatically early on and settle down later in the year.

More detailedly:

There are 55 points per category which are divvied up according to your place in that stat.
There are 550 total points.
The most any one of us can score is 100, which would mean you were in solo first place a top every single scoring stat.
The least you can score is 10.
It's a season long thing. Day-to-day scoring only serves as a progress report, of sorts.

Gotcha.

I still hate you though. gosh.

Rich Harden = SOD

It very well may.

Clarification.

How many pitchers actually get stats each day ...

Is it SP SP RP RP

or

Is it SP SP RP RP P P P ?

I don't remember the numbers, but if the gist of your question is "Do the 'P' Pitchers count?" the answer is yes. You can start starting or relief pitchers there. Anyone who's not "BN" is playing and starters with a "^" are expected to start that day.

I'm just trying to figure out Matt's strategy, It's odd.

What's odd about it?

I can't figure out if he is trying to build a consistent three plus pitcher every day team, or just likes obscure pitchers.

There's a maximum amount of innings you can have for the year, so I doubt it's the former. As for the latter, I'm sure he would pick up Johan Santana, if he were available. Gotta work with what's still out there.

There isn't squat out there until some of these people (talking to you, Morneau) get their heads outta their rears.

Uh, this is strange, I've never seen the Micahman sitting at the bottom of a fantasy sports Leage...

I still have no idea what's going on. I need to look up more strategy. I just assumed it was cumulative points initially.

*&^%*&%$#@$ Bill Hall.

I just traded (and by traded I mean free agent swapped) my 19th round pick for someone's 9th round pick in the 2nd week of the season, and if anything it was my guy who has health concerns. Hooray!

If your talking about Street, you can have him.

I think Hibbleton has it locked up already. Nice Harang pick.

I don't have Harang.

Hmm I could have sworn you said SOD.

Harden ... nevermind.

I am. And I will.

Who doesn't want a closer with a career 2.73 ERA and 1.04 WHIP? Well, I guess you and everyone else who apparently didn't put in a waiver request since I think I was 7th priority.

I would have put one in, but I didn't see him and I'm below you anyway.

Used goods.

Besides, he'll be injured in a week anyway.

I was interested but not for the #1 waiver priority. Jeremy's going to drop the future MVP at some point and I want to still have my #1 available.

Hey let's drop P Konerko on the same day he hits a grand slam. Brilliant.

You did that? wow, I coulda told ya... wait, no I couldn't.

I'm not too good at this, but I probably wouldn't have dropped him. Can I have him?

A question for Carl:

What were your reasons for making the trade with Micah? Unless I'm missing something, it seems to me that Micah got the better end of the deal by far.

That's a good question, and I can tell you what I told Micah-

I don't really have a lot of time to research this, but since it's Micah offering me a trade (and I trust him to make it worth my while) I was agreeing to it.

That and I was obscenely tired, I probably would have agreed to it anyway HAD I researched it and found out it was not in my favor.

I think I am doomed. I will draft much differently in the future.

It turned out to be a good move for Carlos- I'm up 15-20 points and three places in the standings since this trade. Never doubt... "Keep on Believing"

I will defend my own trade request here. I didn't then and still do not think that this trade was unbalanced in any way. I was looking for a little more offense and Carl clearly has a starting pitching deficiency, having only 3 starters at that point, only one of whom was performing. I acquired an increase in offense (and actually will take a big decrease in RBI's) and Carl acquired an increase in pitching. If Carl had counter-offered for any other pitcher besides Harang I most likely would have accepted, although I would have thought for a while about Vazquez.

I think this touches a broader issue in our leagues that trades have to be deemed fair based on draft-day status early in the season, and by exact production later in the season, and I think it is why there is a lack of trading overall in nutcan leagues, baseball or football. Yes I traded a 1st, 5th, and 13th round pick for a 1st, 2nd and 14th round (albeit a 14th rounder who was subsequently dropped). But I wanted hitting (particularily runs scored and stolen bases) and Carl wanted pitching.

This is the same type of trade that I made last year, in dealing Hanley Ramirez for Carlos Lee. To any outside observer, I lost big on that trade, as I traded a top 5 player for a top 25 player. But at that point in the season, I already had steals wrapped up, and was down in RBI's. And Chip N Dale (Brent?) had no steals and tons of RBI's. I think that trade is a major part of why we finished 1-2 in last year's league.

So that is my reasoning. If it's Rich Hill you have a problem with, I would have given up Bonderman, Lowe or probably Vazquez instead, but Carl was fine with Hill, who I imagine will have a worthwhile stat line at the end of the season. I would love to see more trading in our leagues in the future, as I think its fun and a great way to keep people interested for the whole season.

Also, sweet avatar, Carl. (Wu-Tang, not the monkey)

Diversify ya bonds....

What's this trade block thingie I see. And how do I use it. Turnbow rules.

Yep, insert Cameron now.

Dinoscores,

Please make realistic trade offers.

Thanks,

PackOne's fantasy team