Fantasy baseball 2017

Man, I just get everybody's best effort, week in and week out. I have now scored the second-most points in one of my leagues, yet I stand in eighth place at 6-8, largely because I'm second worst in points against.

I keep looking at trades to try to improve my team because I'm on the outside of the playoffs looking in right now, but really, it's hard to find any that make sense. It's difficult to trust that, at some point, all these points I'm scoring are going to pay off.

 

On the verge of acquiring Harper/Goldschmidt/Scherzer/Wood for Bellinger/Conforto/McCarthy/Matz. We've agreed on the players to be swapped, he likes the deal, he's just hesitating. He's in sixth place and can't decide if he wants to try to win this year or set up for next year.

Bellinger is a 25th rounder next year, Conforto is an 18th rounder, so those guys are pretty valuable keepers (Bellinger is the second-most valuable keeper behind Judge, who I previously traded).

 

Guy wants to see where the standings fall tomorrow and says he'll make a decision in the morning. He's likely going to remain in sixth place. Hoping he decides it's time to sell.

 

Kershaw out 4-6 weeks. Oof. That one hurts.

It's really the worst possible timetable for me with seven weeks left in the regular season. I'm at 7-8 and in sixth place, the last playoff spot.

Kershaw will be gone for all but probably the final week of the regular season, but return for the playoffs. So I can't drop him, but he won't help me for more than a month. I was really hoping he'd either be out a week or two, or for the rest of the season.

 

Are you sure you want to make that deal you talked about? It sounds like it would really hurt your keeper list and your prospects for this season are hurt by the loss of Kershaw.

It is always a tough balance in keeper leagues, but my keeper league's format is very different from yours, so I can take a more long-term approach.

 

Different league. Kershaw is in my dynasty league.

In the other league, we keep 6 guys and my basic theory is that keepers are overrated by everyone else. There's so much turnover even with 72 keepers. I can think of only a couple players who have spent more than two seasons on the same team.

Either the player has a lousy season and ends up back in the player pool, or the manager has a lousy season and trades a stud for keepers. For instance, I selected Syndergaard in the 21st round three years ago. He's now on his fifth team, even though he's still a 15th rounder next year.

Given that the payouts for winning the regular season and league championships is $600, I'm happy to sell off any and all keepers to stack the deck in my favor to try to win this season.

 

Yeah, very different from mine, with 14 keepers per team. Players often spend many years on the same team. One guy drafted Pujols as a rookie and held on to him until last year. I've had Felix Hernandez his entire career. It is damn tough to win without a strong keeper list.

That deal you mentioned makes more sense now that I realize you haven't just lost Kershaw in that league.

 

Had to slightly tweak the deal. The other guy lost interest in Matz and McCarthy after their recent struggles really dragged their numbers down from where they were when we first began talking.

Ended up shipping Conforto/Bellinger/Clint Frazier/Brent Honeywell in exchange for Harper/Goldschmidt/Scherzer/Wood. I love the deal and it really strengthens my pitching staff. He tried to come after Severino and Hamels, but I turned that offer down.

Now I have the strongest team in the league and the following keepers: Wood (25th), Severino (25th), Machado (4th), Ian Happ (25th), Bruce (12th) and maybe Dahl (21st). There will probably be some prospect who gets called up and gets hot, too, so I'll try to grab someone like that for a flier.

 

My roster in that league now looks like this:
C Ramos
1B Rizzo
2B Happ
3B Freeman
SS Machado
OF Harper
OF Trout
OF Bruce
DH Goldschmidt
BN Souza
BN Seager
BN Dahl

SP Scherzer
SP Wood
SP Severino
SP Hamels
SP Fulmer
SP Lester
SP Tanaka
SP Matz
RP Holland
RP Brach
RP Buchter
DL Harvey

 

Certainly good for a run at the title this year. I need to do something with mine. My pitching is solid, best among the contenders in the league, but I'm a bat or two short. Losing Turner really hurt my middle infield, but even with him I'd probably need one more hitter.

 

Yeah, Turner was a big blow. So good at a relatively thin position. Do you have pitching to spare? It's so hard to come by good pitching this season that you may be able to flip a mid-level starter for a pretty good bat.

 

I've been dangling starting pitchers for a while, but no luck yet. My hope was to get something for Ivan Nova, but his crappy outings last week didn't help. Maybe Duffy or Manaea can bring me something useful in return. I can easily spare one of those guys, especially with Felix Hernandez looking like he can at least be useful at the back of my rotation again.