Fade's Fantasy Baseball 2009 "I Love You Guys" Thread

Yeah, quite a few pitchers have "phantom dual eligibility" of sorts in the sense that you can put them in the lineup as either SP or RP. However, that doesn't really matter at all when it comes time to count up the RP and SP games used. If a player starts a game, then he gets counted as a starter for that game. If he enters the game as a reliever, he gets counted as a reliever for that game. It's really the only way to handle things without creating a giant mess.

Anyway, I'll take out Gorgonzola and put in Bell for you. Good luck!

 

Wasn't aware you did that, got to give you a lot of props, that's a lot of work on your part. That right there could give you commish of the year, even over the guy who does the football, I know him personally, he is outstanding.

Thanks for setting me straight and adjusting my line-up for me...........even though it might be a little too late.........Mr. Sam I Am is taking it to me.....

 

For the record, I was cool with Gorzy starting over Bell.

 

I'm sure you are now, I really owe Fade for catching that one..........

 

With basically a 75 point lead and Sam done with his pitchers and I have 4 left still to pitch (needing about 20-25 points from each) I have an outside chance, albeit very, very, very slim.................

I have 4 pitchers who are now auditioning for 1 of 6 possible keeper spots, a guaranteed spot on my team with a huge contract, that includes Greinke, who could go from an 8th round pick (actually 12th if you include keepers) to top of my keeper board as well as a possible Cy Young Award (granted being one of my keepers holds a higher prestige in the baseball circles than a Cy Young). It's keeper or back in the draft pool for minimum dollars.........

Let's go out there everyone and win one for the ROOK!!!!

 

Yuck. My decision to stick to the horses that brought me is looking bad now. Jackson with the terrible start and Wandy's was pretty bad, too. In hindsight, I should have benched the struggling Jackson and hoped that Danks makes his Sunday start. My rotation has basically stunk all postseason, with my waiver pickup in Dice-K being my only consistent starter.

I'm reduced to hoping that Greinke misses the CG so I can get the save with Soria, and that Cain has a start like his last 3 losses and not like his more recent win. It would be too much to hope for the Nats to win a game vs Hudson.

 

No, I'd say your chances of winning are now quite good actually. Assuming your hitters keep pace, the question is can Greinke, Cain and Hudson combine to score over 50 points? I'd say the odds of that are very favorable.

Let's hope for a close finish, anyway.

 

Jimenez may have just earned a keeper spot with a solid outing, now Greinke, Cain, and Hudson your on the clock, let's get it done.......

 

13 point game now with Tim Hudson left to start (season average: 12.5). He's not a strikeout guy and not a guy to pitch deep into games, so it comes down to whether he can break the Braves' losing streak. Timmy - here's my plea to you. There's no way Rook will keeper list you - you know that, I know that. The season's basically over, take the day off, enjoy your offseason.

Bad games by Greinke and Cain, but both ended up fine for Rook because he got the save on the other end.

I'm disappointed in my team's epic collapse and not overly optimistic. In particular, I've gotten owned at the bullpen spots in the final week, 73 - 8.

 

First off Hudson, don't listen to Sam as he wants to get you for the cheap in the draft and not pay you for what you are worth. You need to go out there and pitch the game of your life and cement that place on my keeper list. Even replacing possibly Greinke who went out there and may have won the silly Cy Young, but left his keeper seat up for you to snag away.

Nathan one more save needed to catapult your team miraculously to the playoffs.

Either way and whatever happens, Sam it has been a good championship and still pretty confident you will have your third victory - but it feels good to see you sweat to the finish line.

 

The FAT LADY is singing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congrats Sam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess I try again next year...............that should be my new motto.

 

Congrats Sam! I was a fun season, but I really, really wish we could up the keeper list from 6 to 8. I'm in a 10 team keeper league started two years ago and we keep 11. Just sayin'.

Thanks again for all of your hard work in running this Fade. This is BY FAR my favorite fantasy sports league that I'm involved in.

3 championships for Sam? Just...damn. At least I won the Clutchfans Yahoo league for the second consecutive year. I think Fade came in 2nd?

 

We have a winner! The final score is as follows:

Rook: 168 + 152 + 162 + 161 = 643 (16/16 SP games used)
Aliens: 197 + 151 + 185 + 126 = 659 (16/16 SP games used)

Congratulations to Sam, who now has an unprecedented 3 championships in baseball! Looking over your team, I'm still not sure how you pulled this off, but congrats. You must know what you're doing having won this three times.

Good job to Rook for putting up a nice fight, but alas, the bridesmaid stigma remains.....

I'd like to have a round table discussion regarding some future issues with this league. I'll get that going within the next few days.

 

Oh man, did I ever sweat!! A great series Rook, it's got to be the closest ever. 659 - 643 is as close as it gets. It was lots of fun competing with you. I know you're gonna break through with a championship, soon!

Rollins and Ellsbury definitely earned keeper spots with their performances, and Mauer was already my best player. I should've stuck with the ancient Trevor Hoffman, who was once again my best pitcher, but thankfully it didn't cost me. I was lucky, once again, to win the baseball title. 3 times!!!!

I enjoy the keeper concept, I really do. I'm glad we're upping it to 6 instead of 4, because I have so many good players I'd like to hang on to. I could definitely come up with 8 keepers. But I don't think making that leap this year is a great idea. The worst 3 teams in 08 were the worst in 09. I want to make sure those guys have a chance to compete for the title next year and every year. It definitely wouldn't be a fun league if someone quit - 8 teams is already real small. I'd keep the smaller increment of 6 this next year with an eye maybe towards more keepers in the future.

 

I'd tell you the secret, but then I'd have to kill you.

Seriously, dude, Rook is right. You've outdone yourself as commish again... just a great job all season long. Thanks once again for running everything! Really appreciate all the hard work. I'm already looking forward to the next season (since my football team is tanking and I always suck in the hoops league).

 

Now that the pain of coming up short once again in the playoffs has worn off, here are some suggestions for next year, but as I mentioned Fade you do a great job with this league:

1. It would be better to start the playoffs a week earlier, so we don't go right to end of the season when players are rested/pitching rotations switched at the last second to either get ready for the postseason or end of the season.

2. A unique keeper idea that I heard of that really made the league a lot more active (especially in regards to trades/player movement) was to allow each team 8 keepers each season, 4 of which they will be labeled as franchise keepers. The other four would be just regular keepers, the difference being the franchise keepers can remain on your team the following year as keepers, while the regular one's cannot. In essence you basically have four guys on your team that will become free agents that you might want to look at dealing prior to the trading deadline or risk losing them all together in the draft. It was a unique twist (granted I probably didn't describe it very good) that really bumped up the year to year strategy and made you very active on the trade market. Just a suggestion, I thought was pretty interesting.........

If I think of anything else, I'll let you know.......but great job this season............

By the way Sam was right........Tim, Matt, Ubaldo you never had a chance to be my keeper..........and Greinke it is going to be a long off season for you, one that you will have to sweat it out to see what happens, because the commish doesn't need my list till right before the draft.....so we will see if I have calmed down by then to give you one of the last keeper spots.......

 

congrats Sam

 

Now that the season is over, we have some issues that need to be hashed out before next season. I would like to hear from everybody.

First of all, we had decided previously to increase the number of keepers from 4 to 6. That's a done deal. 6 players will be kept going into next year. I am assuming right now that everyone is coming back again next year, as I don't think the league could continue as it is if we lost anymore teams.

Now for the problems:

1. Playoffs going right up to the end of the regular season, when there are uncertainties regarding starters and some teams resting players for the playoffs.

This one is easily fixed. I can arrange the schedule such that our playoffs will finish a week or so before the end of the MLB regular season.

2. Lack of activity. I don't mean missed lineup submissions or team abandonment, which everyone has been relatively good with. The issue is that we did not have even one trade this season, which in my view is a problem since that was one of the main reasons we went to a keeper format in the first place. In my opinion, if the element of the poorer teams making deals to improve for the future and the competitive teams sacrificing the future a little bit for a chance to win now is not there, then we might as well go back to a redraft format. I don't know if it's worth giving up the excitement of a full draft if the fun from increased trading is not there.

Anyway, enough b!tching... let's try to find solutions. Some suggestions have been put forth and I'd like to hear how everyone feels about each one:

Suggestion #1: Increase rosters and starting lineups. This assumes that the lack of trade activity is due to the fact that we only have 8 teams in the league and that everyone is so stacked that making a trade is very difficult due to a lack of weaknesses. In theory, having bigger lineups will thin the player pool enough to create weaknesses, which will make trading easier.

If this suggestion is adopted, we would need to decide on how many new players are introduced. If I remember correctly, one possibility was:

1 Corner Infielder (1B or 3B)
1 Middle Infielder (SS or 2B)
1 Extra Outfielder (5 total)
1 Extra pitching slot (8 total) and increased SP/RP game limits)

This is open to change, obviously.


Suggestion #2: Introduce some sort of restriction on keepers. For example, 4 keepers can be kept indefinitely, but the others can be kept for only a 2-year maximum. This would force turnover to some degree as people will want to get something in return for their players instead of letting them go for nothing.

This idea sounds pretty cool, even if it does mean more work for me (which I don't mind). However, I think it would work even better if the number of players you could protect was smaller. I.e. you can protect 2 indefinitely, and the others can only stay on your team for 2 years. There would certainly be a flurry of trade activity in the off-season!


Anyway, please respond with your input on these suggestions, and any other issue that you think needs to be raised. Should we implement one of these? Both of them? Neither? Maybe you think lack of trading is not a problem at all? Whatever you think, I would like to hear it.

 

I like suggestion #1 for the reasons stated. Suggestion #2 I'm not sure I understand. You have 6 keepers but only 2 can stay on your roster more than 2 seasons? But you could trade those temp-keepers for other temp-keepers? In other words, say Rollins was a temp keepers and someone else had a similar SS (say, your Expos with Tulowitzki) who was a temp keeper. I couldn't protect Rollins even if I wanted to, but I could trade him for Tulowitzki (for up to 2 seasons before he, too, had to be dumped)? I guess that would create trades and that would be good, but it seems like a rather artificial mechanism to do that. Would you get to rotate the keeper protection on your guys, so last year's perma-keeper was this year's temp-keeper or vice versa? What about a guy who you've had on the roster for multiple years but as a drafted player, not a keeper? If you made him a keeper, would the 2 year rule start at that point?

 

I like both suggestions, however I would simplify #2, to make it easier on you and everyone else.

I would say you get a set number of franchise keepers (I would say 4) and a set number of temporary keepers (I would say 4) - so 8 keepers each year total.

I would only allow the 4 temporary keepers be safe for that year, the idea is to encourage more trading and 2 years complicates things. Now, for these 4 keepers you can keep them all year, but they will automatically go back in the draft (cannot make them keepers the following year) or you could look to trade them (if you do that, the guys you get back in the trade are eligible to be keepers the following year).

The franchise keepers you can make keepers the following year, either keeping them as franchise keepers or making them temporary keepers (replacing them with someone else as your franchise keepers - which in turn gives you one more year with that player.

Basically each year you can pick who you designate as which keeper category, knowing the one category is for only 1 year (I would not do 2, cause that would really get complicated down the road).

Using this format, would really require teams to be active and would make things very interesting. I think we would see more player movement and would require much more strategy.

Just my 2 cents........