Fantasy Baseball 2019 running thread

Well, the results of that have been interesting. Brad Keller was great for two starts, then got lit up and shut down for the rest of the season. Correa got hurt again and Stroman has been only decent. Osuna and Molina have been the best players I got in that deal.

I'm still very much alive for a championship. I'm still in the money in third place, but only 6.5 points out of first with plenty of time to go.

That said, I've been kicking around ideas about my keeper list. We can hold on to players a maximum of six years, though I don't have anybody close to that. Cap space is the real issue. We get $300 for the auction, with the cost of the our keepers subtracted. Keepers' salaries go up $5 each year. Last season, I had a decent keeper list and $174, which was about average.

One thing I've noticed is most of us end up spending between $50 and $60 on one big-ticket item in the auction, which brings me to the point. Freddie Freeman cost me $51, which would mean he would cost me $56 to keep. Sure, it's high, but the guy is gold in an OBP league and I'll probably spend that much on somebody. The question is, do I hold on to the overpriced star or hope I can get a similar player in the auction for a little less?

I've hpy five minor league guys who will cost me $9 total. The rest of my cap will be based on eight major league players. I've got two options in mind.

One is keeping Freeman. One has me holding on to Clevinger instead. He would cost $20, so that's a $36 savings against my cap. Just curious if anybody here has an opinion. I'll probably kick this around more when we have to make cuts by Jan. 1.

With Freeman
Freeman $56
Yoan Moncada $20
Yordan Alvarez (DH only) $6
Trey Mancini $9
Josh Bell $16
D.J. LeMahieu $7
Gerrit Cole $33
Josh Hader $18
Cap spent: $174
Available for auction: $126

Without Freeman
Yoan Moncada $20
Yordan Alvarez (DH only) $6
Trey Mancini $9
Josh Bell $16
D.J. LeMahieu $7
Gerrit Cole $33
Josh Hader $18
Mike Clevinger $20
Cap spent: $138
Available for auction: $162

Thoughts?

 

Said I wouldn't care about finishing 2nd in the regular season so long as I got a bye.

Got the bye, sure, but would have enjoyed the regular season title too.

Congrats, Sterling Silver, for slowly but surely moving up week by week to claim the regular season title and top seed.

Very happy to have Mondesi again. Good luck to everyone in the playoffs.

See you next week, Ray of Hope or Wombats.

 

This is the running fantasy baseball thread, not the one for our league.

I've been in more than one league with Sterling Silver and his teams are always good.

 

LOL a fantasy thread is a fantasy thead is a ...

I'll make sure to bunt against the shift next time.

 

I generally err on the side of having the extra cash available, unless I really love the player. If you're on the fence about it, I'd drop Freeman. I was actually in the same boat at the beginning of this season. I dropped Freeman, who was going to cost me $48, I think, and tried to get him back. I got outbid, and ended up nabbing Pete Alonso for $1.

My league is similar in that everybody ends up with a player or two in the $40-$60 range. I generally try to nominate guys early who I don't want, but who I'm reasonably sure will get drafted by someone. The goal is to try to chew up the other managers' salaries before nominating guys I really want. You never know when you'll luck into a stud at bargain prices because the other managers have overspent during the early frenzy on mediocre players.

 

That's how I play auctions, too, but with 15 teams it is tough to get everybody to run out of money with good players still available.

I don't have a great need at first base because I'm keeping Bell. It's about having an on-base machine who can hit 40 home runs. But when I look at it as a choice between Freeman or Clevinger and $36 in cap space, it's tough to go with Freeman. That said, it is a lot of fun having the league's best offense.

 

I need the opinion of the group here.

There are three teams tied for second in my dynasty league (of which I am the commish). Team A leads the tiebreaker by about 50 points over Team B. Team C has no chance at the tiebreaker. Team A and Team C are playing each other this week. Team C manager said in chat the other day that he'd rather see Team B finish third because the second seed gets a bye and he views Team B as the bigger threat. He said he is going to tank to allow Team A to get the bye week. Today, he is sitting Syndergaard and Buehler.

Do you view this as collusion or gameplay?

 

Is what the Dolphins doing today collusion or gameplay? lol

To answer your question ... it's strategy. Just win, baby. Just fucking win.

Or as someone I know says ... Play to win, Hate to lose, and Everything in between.

 

It is strategy, but no way in hell I would tolerate somebody tanking a week like that. It's one thing if he hadn't actually said it in chat, but you have proof that he's tanking. I'd want him gone.

Technically, it isn't collusion because you don't have evidence of Team A being involved some kind of deal with Team C. In collusion, everyone involved is guilty of wrongdoing. In this case, it is just the owner of Team C who is out of line.

 

I tend to agree with this. I told him as much, that discussing tanking to help the team he’s playing against is unacceptable.

Team A ended up blowing him away today anyway, so it ended up a moot point, but the open tanking doesn’t sit well with me. It doesn’t help that every headache I have in this league is because of this guy.

 

All the more reason to politely invite him to find his fantasy baseball fix elsewhere. I'm not a big fan of booting people from a league, but if you mess with the integrity of the game and you are dumb enough to talk about it publicly, it's time to go.

 

It's not any different than professional teams angling for lower playoff spots. The Pats did it when they stayed in the 4th seed to avoid the sixth seed. I think it was 2005. The Pats wanted to play Jacksonville and avoid Pittsburgh, which had the 6th seed. They didn't try their hardest against the Dolphins in Week 17. I think Cassel threw a 2-point conversion into the 15th row.

[EDIT] Weren't NBA teams doing this before the playoff seeding was changed to straight W-L record? Teams would angle for the 6th seed to face the weakest division winner.