Teams Update -- Week 2
I remember being on the RotoWire Vegas trip a few years ago, running into Brad Evans in the Vegas airport where we bought a couple bottles of liquor, then proceeded to drink most of it during the Stopa League auction (with generous assistance from auctioneer Jason Thornbury who was borderline blacked out during the last hour or so of the event.)
At some point, a sober Scott Jenstad (if I recall correctly, but it’s possible I’m conflating multiple years) said to the room something to the effect of: “Don’t forget to put in your NFBC FAAB bids for tonight.” It was as though he had said, “By the way, you’ll need to hike up Mount Everest in the next three hours with a 50-pound weight on your back.”
Of course, I could have just bailed on it entirely, but then why did I do all that research in February and March and agonize over each pick in my drafts? Why did I stay up late in Portugal to wait for that Rockies lineup to be set, why did I spend hours setting my FAAB bids every Sunday for 13 weeks? You can’t just bail halfway through because you’re drunk in Vegas and want to hit the sports book and smoke a cigar.
I think I wound up with the worst of both worlds — a very half-assed drunken job of FAAB, yet still derailing my Vegas momentum by going back to the room to make the bids. Never again.
. . .
It was a rough week for one of my teams, and I don’t envy Alex Puma for having to dig out of the hole it’s in. Our second and third picks, Justin Verlander and Michael Harris, respectively, are on the IL, and we just lost Oneil Cruz for the year. Plus, we had Lance Lynn and Chris Bassitt active for massive implosions. It’s still ridiculously early — and I still expect Alex to win the overall obviously — but it’ll take some high-quality work.
The other three teams are middle of the pack, and that’s good because two of them have Fernando Tatis coming back soon and one has Verlander.
Here’s the overall picture right now:
Everyone is doing the work, though, putting in bids and keeping on top of it. So far so good with my choices to run the teams.