State Of The State -- MLB
As I mentioned in my basketball write-up, baseball thus far has been a mixed bag. I’ll start with the good: my most important team, the Main Event one is off to a strong start:
Everything there is going great except for (1) that Nutless Monkey Jeff Erickson (and my rival Tim Schuler) being in second place; and (2) our dire situation in saves. I can’t do much about (1) except root for murder-suicides among his players or at least severe long-term injuries/deadly disease, but (2) we have to address.
I drafted Paul Sewald in the fifth round, and he promptly, out of nowhere decided to strain his oblique. Incidentally, in contrast to the exaggerated “pandemic” that was covid, the oblique epidemic is real:
Sewald could be back in a couple weeks, so that will hopefully be a start. I drafted three other “closers,” including part-timer Jose Alvarado, Joel Payamps who didn’t get the job, and David Robertson who despite Jose LeClerc’s implosion is setting up Kirby Yates now. It’s something Dusty Wagner will have to deal with, though I don’t mind going eight starters early to build up wins and strikeouts and try to get three closers/quasi-closers later in the year.
Other than Shane Bieber balling out for two starts and then going down for the year (it could be worse), everything else is good. I passed on Shohei Ohtani in Round 2 for Yordan Alvarez even though I was pretty sure nothing would ever come of the betting scandal because I thought maybe it would affect him mentally. That was probably a mistake, but it’s worth pointing out had I taken Ohtani I would not have taken fellow DH Marcell Ozuna (7-22-11-.365) late in the 13th round.
Stolen bases might still be an issue — we need a lot from Jackson Chourio, Ha-Seong Kim and Trea Turner — since we have so many total slugs in the lineup, but they just need to stay healthy, and we can supplement here and there.
Okay, onto the bad. The BCLs are not doing well.
Ryan Garofalo’s team is in sixth, and from his constant bitching, you’d think I had drafted Spencer Strider, Bieber, Eury Perez, Hunter Brown and Devin Williams! But I’m not going to dwell on the sixth place one after two weeks.
It’s the one that’s in 2600th place out of 2736 teams. Granted, I might not exactly have drafted a set-it-and-forget-it overall champion, but we have only 14 pitching points. This is our staff:
Not so bad, and Sewald, who I have in all four leagues should be coming back soon too. So what’s the issue?
Here’s the performance of our bench:
Now much of this is just bad luck — Gray was on a pitch count for his first start and facing the Phillies, Severino had been shaky, etc. But leaving that much production on the table leaves a mark. (One underrated aspect of fantasy baseball is players — especially pitchers — who do well when expected (against bad teams, in good parks) and poorly when expected (against good teams in bad parks.)) It’s not just a player’s stats, but a player’s stats when you knew to have him active minus the stats when you knew to have him inactive.
In any event, I trust this team will improve and even win its league. How on earth is it going to do that? That’s Alex Puma’s problem, not mine. But it’s April 16, and I seriously expect an epic rags to riches story with this one, granted Bryce Harper has to start hitting.
It’s just a matter of ABC — Always Be Cashing.
. . .
Speaking of which, my daughter Sasha agreed to a Series A Round of 10 euros in the NFBKC playoff league, so we’re doing it.