The Longest Fantasy Baseball Story Ever Told - Part Two

We last left off this story right after the draft. A lot of people believe that a strong draft is the way to build a championship team. I believe that the draft is the first chapter of a long book, and I will trade my mother if I think I can get good value.

So the first thing that I did after the draft was get myself a real shortstop and got Chris Owings. I also took advantage of 3 DL spots, so I could add Derek Holland and pick up Tanner Scheppers to start for my team on Opening Day. I added Tyler Skaggs and immediately dropped him after his first start. So, yeah, my early pickups did not pay off, but the 25 pickups didn't start until halfway through week one, so I was still fine. I did manage to pickup Nate Eovaldi early on who had some good moments before falling apart in the second half, but he would stay with my team for a very long time.

Halfway through the second week of the season, I was convinced that Ryan Braun was not going to be healthy enough to tap into his power potential and began my efforts to trade him. It would take me nearly two months to trade him, but it would be worth it when it finally happened.

Anyway, things were going shockingly well for my team in the standings. Nate Eovaldi and Chris Tillman helped lead my pitching and carry the team to victory in Week 1. After that, both Jose Abreu and Justin Upton had four home runs to help my offense carry me to a victory in Week 2. In Week 3, BJ Upton's three steals and multi-homer weeks from Votto, Moustakas, and Braun helped me enough to pull off a tie. In Week 4, Jose Abreu hit five home runs, and Chris Carter added three in what may have been his only valuable week during the first half of the season. After the first month, I was 3-0-1.

I also wisely Brandon McCarthy twice in this span, but don't worry, I would drop him before he actually got things turned around and started dominating. I did pick up Hector Rondon who solidified my relievers and also Drew Hutchsion who had some nice moments throughout the year. Unfortunately, my luck was about to run out.

In Week 5, my offense completely shit the bed, and my pitching wasn't much better. In Week 6, we got a lot of strikeouts and home runs but didn't do much else for another loss. In Week 7, Hutchison, Tillman, and Tanaka all threw complete game shutouts, but that was still only enough to get me a tie.

Week 7 also marked Danny Salazar being sent to the minors who I replaced with Jaime Garcia. I immediately tried to trade him for an underperforming Pablo Sandoval. The owner told me that it was close, but he needed a solid third base option in return. A few days later, I noticed that David Freese was coming off the DL. One minute after adding Freese, I made an offer of Freese and Garcia for Sandoval which was enough to get the job done two hours later.

I traded Jaime Garcia and David Freese for Pablo Sandoval.

I turned two free agent pickups into a hitter that was just about to get over his cold streak and hit very well for the rest of the season, so that worked out well.

Still, things were not going so well in the standings. Pablo Sandoval did help in his first week with multiple homers, and Justin Upton added three to get me my first win in a month. After that, I didn't have enough to win despite double-digit strikeouts from Tillman, Hamels, Greinke, and even David Robertson.

I was ten weeks into the season, and my team was 4-4-2. If the season ended today, I was in the playoffs, but there were a lot of holes in my roster and the guys that I bet on just didn't seem to be paying off. I was ready to make a change, and change was going to be drastic.

Tune in next time for part three of the longest fantasy baseball story ever told.

The Longest Fantasy Baseball Story Ever Told - Part One

With the end of the regular season comes the end of fantasy baseball. This was probably my proudest fantasy baseball season, as I managed to buy, sell, and compete all at once. I don't do drugs, so trades are what I imagine crack would be like. I managed to make seven trades this season, and that doesn't even include the trades I made before the draft to move up and down as I bought and sold picks from other sports. With that, there are three important things to know about this league.

1. We have a baseball, basketball, and football season, so we can trade guys between sports. We compete in the individual sports and compete for an overall championship as well.
2. We are introducing keepers this year. Very limited, as you can keep two guys for each sport, and it costs two rounds higher than when the guy was drafted. Free agents are ineligible.
3. You are only allowed 25 free agent acquisitions throughout the entire season. This makes every move way more stressful than a normal league and adds way more strategy to the free agency process. There is no streaming pitchers every week, but maybe you can make a Sunday pickup to put your team over the edge.

There is only one place to start this story, and that is with my draft. After you see my draft, you will understand why I had to make trades. Anyway, here is what I was able to acquire (Note: There were trades before the draft that altered some of my picks, so that is why I did not pick until 19):

19 Carlos Gomez, Mil OF  
23 Evan Longoria, TB 3B  
26 Joey Votto, Cin 1B  
38 Justin Upton, Atl OF  
54 Zack Greinke, LAD SP  
78 Masahiro Tanaka, NYY SP  
83 Wilin Rosario, Col C  
91 Matt Cain, SF SP  
98 Cole Hamels, Phi SP  
115 Chase Utley, Phi 2B  
126 Jose Abreu, CWS 1B  
134 Jedd Gyorko, SD 2B  
139 Danny Salazar, Cle SP  
146 B.J. Upton, Atl OF  
150 David Robertson, NYY RP  
163 Leonys Martin, Tex OF  
179 Koji Uehara, Bos RP  
187 Chris Tillman, Bal SP  
198 Chris Carter, Hou 1B  
235 Jose Veras, Hou RP  
246 Mike Moustakas, KC 3B  
259 Ubaldo Jimenez, Bal SP  
270 Josh Johnson, SD SP  
283 Edwin Jackson, ChC SP  
294 Derek Jeter, NYY SS  

The highlights obviously start with my first pick, Carlos Gomez. An outstanding player in all categories and before I go on about him, I should mention my first trade:

I trade Carlos Gomez and an 8th round football pick for Ryan Braun and a 15th round football pick.

My analysis of this trade: Whoops. I thought Ryan Braun's wrist was healed and I'm not a huge believer that PEDs make a large difference. I stand by the latter, but the former was just poor research on my part.

Other lowlights include my Joey Votto pick which did not work out. I was targeting Stanton there, and he got scooped up right before my pick. I was heartbroken and immediately trying to trade for Stanton, especially since I was living in South Florida at the time so I attended multiple Spring Training and regular season Marlins games. It never came to fruition, and Votto's most positive contributions was when he was only occupying a DL spot instead of starting.

Matt Cain wasn't very good, as I was targeting Anthony Rizzo with that pick, but since I already had Votto and was targeting another first baseman later in the draft, I didn't really need him. Gyorko and Salazar were two young players that I expected to take steps forward, but they both decided to jump backwards instead.

Finally, my last six picks were all dropped within the first six weeks of the season, but to be fair, I only drafted Jeter as a joke since it is free to add guys before the season starts. I replaced him with Chris Owings.

But there were highlights. Greinke, Tanaka, and Hamels were all great values that could lead my starters and Robertson and Uehara were great closers to get later on. As for hitters, the only real highlight was Jose Abreu. That was a great pick, but it may have been my only great pick, as only the biggest fanboy of Chris Carter would actually have held onto him throughout his entire cold streak to be paid off for when he became red hot during the second half of the season.

Looking back, this is a solid team. A good pitching staff that is going to have to carry a disappointing offense. But this is the longest fantasy baseball story ever told, so we'll get into that next time.