A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

fantasy baseball

Notes from my Noodle: April 4 edition

As many of you know, I’ve been on Flickr for several years. I use it as a spot to share my photos and such. Flickr has this thing called “Explore.” Basically, it’s the top photos of the day as determined by Flickr’s secret algorithm. Nobody seems to know how it works. But there are some amazing photos on there, as well as many not-so-great ones.

One thing I’ve always notices is the people seem get out and comment a lot, driving traffic to their photos.

Though I try and search Flickr and comment as much as possible, it’s not a daily habit.

So color me shocked when I got a comment on one of my recent images from someone saying they had viewed the image on Explore. Score! I have wanted to get on Explore for a long time — and thought I had photos that would make it there before — but it was this one that did.

Waffle House!

It got to No. 358. But later when I checked, it had dropped off. Flickr giveth and Flickr taketh away. No biggie. I got to Explore. So that’s cool enough.

On a side note, I did tweet that I got on it and gave the ol’ @ to the Waffle House and the Waffle House twitter guy/gal re-tweeted me, so I have that going for me. Which is nice.

The algorithm on Flickr is pretty silly, anyway. But I got Explored. Can’t take it away, buddy!

****

I’ve received a postcard through Postcrossing a while back. I just noticed it on the desk and that I hadn’t registered it.

I should probably do that, eh?

****

This two blog thing is tough!

I love this blog, I really do. And I’ll never give it up. But it’s been tough to come up with ideas when I’ve been pushing myself to make sure the other blog (Rattling Chains) is really up and running.

We have several people now writing with us, including 2009 World Champion Avery Jenkins and two others with journalism backgrounds. We’re taking it seriously over there in hopes of making a daily destination for disc golfers.

We’ve worked to make it a really sweet site with great content and a solid look. I’m trying to get it on the Internet news sources, too, in hopes of driving some traffic.

If you’re a disc golfer — or are interested in the game — peek at it over there and see what you think!

****

The fantasy baseball league I am in is drafting tonight.

An auction draft, online.

This should prove to be interesting. A lot of interesting names were left off keeper lists, so I imagine it should be pretty wild to see where people go with their teams.

****

Baseball season opens tonight. Well, it kind of already did with the Mariners and Athletics playing a pair in Japan a week or so ago.

But tonight is the official opening night.

Marlins (blech) vs. Cardinals (double blech).

The Phils open tomorrow. That’s when I’ll get pumped. The good news is — baseball is back!

Fundraiser: I am, again, trying to raise money for the Relay For Life. If you donate to me — even a small amount — you will be entered to win a super-sweet quilted scarf. Click here for all the information!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook! 

 

What fantasy sports do to my mind

This lonely softball is how I feel whenever I do fantasy sports. Alone with no chance at winning my league championships!

I say every year that this is my final year in fantasy sports.

Seriously.

Each year, I donate my money (note that I didn’t say pay my fee) to the league pool and get swamped. In the end, with free agent fees and all that, I watch some bucks fly out the window.

Thankfully, I have a partner in the fantasy football league. Alas, we’ve not had any luck.

I’ve read reports that say millions of people play fantasy football each year. Which means throughout the season, people scour statistics, argue over players, sometimes cheat and do anything else to get ahead and win.

(Seriously on the cheating. I was once in a league where the people who ran the league changed rules mid-season, which, of course, benefited them in winning. That’s not just cheating, it’s stealing as people paid into these leagues to have a fair shot to win).

In my two main leagues this year, baseball and football, things aren’t great.

In baseball, I thought I had an excellent team. I really did. But early injuries hammered me and I never recovered. Then, there was a two-week stretch in the summer where I just ignored the team. That never helps. So, I finished last. I then lost in the first round of the John Maine Toilet Bowl Championship bracket.

Before, I continue, the John Maine Toilet Bowl Championship is a fantastic part of our league. Let me give that story.

For the first couple years of our league, Rod had drafted John Maine each year. As anyone now knows, he was an awful, awful fantasy pitcher. A lot of promise, nothing to show for it. Anyway, when Maine went on one of his awful slides, Rod would try and pawn him off on anyone he could for whatever he could (nobody would take the bait). Then it became a situation where Rod started proposing crazy trades (which made it funnier). You know, trades like Maine for a Ryan Howard or something. It became a long-standing joke in our league.

Flash forward to last year, Rod and I were at a baseball card show. We found a John Maine autographed baseball card for cheap (shocker!) and got it. The plan is to get it in a holder with an old, beat-up ball and give that to the winner of our annual Toilet Bowl Championship (the bottom four teams).

Anyway…

Let’s just say that I got absolutely hammered this year — in the season and in the one playoff matchup I had.

My week-by-week schedule and results. Click for larger look.

Now, I love baseball. By far, it’s my favorite sport. But fantasy baseball is tough. You have daily lineups to play with. Different moves to make. And the season is really, really long. We are a keeper league, too, so it makes the draft that much more interesting because there are fewer players out there.

But once your team starts a large slide, it’s hard to keep up with it. Next thing you know, you’re at the bottom of the league and there’s nothing that can be done.

We are a 7X7 league (seven offensive categories, seven defensive) in a head-to-head league. Though there’s a matchup set between me and the lone other person not playing for anything, it doesn’t really count. So, in all honesty, my team finished a whopping 85-237-14 this year.

You saw that right.

In head-to-head matchups, I went 2-22. That is correct. Of 24 weeks in the season, I won twice. That’s not enough to make me want to stay. I tried to have fun with it. I changed my team name to “Crying Seamus.” I did a lot of leprechaun-style posts. But it got to the point where it was silly.

I had a solid team. They just never seemed to do anything when the others did. I still can’t figure out, either, how I have so many good starters and none of them ever seemed to pitch twice a week. But teams I faced, it always seemed like their pitchers did. I also had a ton of closers and never seemed to do much in the save category.

Do you see why I am considering giving this crap up??

Football is worse. I’ve actually won my league before. So I know it can be done. The problem is, this sport is way more frustrating than baseball because I am not so much a major football fan as baseball. In baseball, I know most people. In football, not so much. See, I’m a Colts fan. That’s the way I think. Outside of them, I know major people. Some of the smaller people, not really.

So the draft is usually interesting.

The past two years, I’ve taken the line that many have done to win our league. Get a major quarterback, running back and wide receiver and run them to the title. I did it last year. Nothing.

I did it this year and it started out very bad. See, my quarterback — every year — is Peyton Manning. We’re an auction league, so I can outbid and overpay for him every year.

This year was no different. Though my gut said he might not play this year with his injuries (the gut is starting to look good), I went beyond the price I had in mind for him and paid $27 for him (we have a $105 salary cap).

I followed my heart and my hopes.

Yeah, that worked out well. My other two biggies weren’t bad in Adrian Peterson and Greg Jennings. And my backup QB is someone I took with the last pick of the draft for $1 — Cam Newton. Not bad. He’s helped a ton and won me the first week as well as should have helped win me the second week. THAT leads to my final point about fantasy football.

Setting your lineup is a crap shoot.

When you don’t have game breakers, your situation is usually something where you take a guess based on matchups or gut feelings. Yep. I did that in week two.

I put Cincinnati’s Jerome Simpson in my lineup. (If you are a football fan, you might see where this is going).

Then I took him out.

For Devin Hester. Seriously.

I figured maybe, at least, Hester could bust a return or something. He scored me one (1) point.

Simpson had 18 fantasy points.

I lost the week, 128-119. Do the math.

This week, I did the same (though it didn’t matter), just in running backs. I sat Cedric Benson (6 points) for BenJarvus Green-Ellis (1 point). Yeah, that was a great move, eh? It didn’t matter as I got beat, 108-72 (neither team has anyone playing tonight). The season is still long, so I am not out of it. But this is frustrating already!

So goes my life in fantasy sports. I hate it. It’s frustrating. It’s annoying. And it’s not worth doing. Really.

That’s it folks.

This is my last year in fantasy sports.

Seriously.

Oh, and when does the keeper list have to be in for baseball?

***

Reminder! Contest going on! I am holding a contests this week. It runs from Sept. 25- to 12:01 a.m. Oct. 2. You can see all the details on the contest post. Enter for your chance to win!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook by clicking the button on the right side of the page!

Playing the game of supply and demand

For those of you who participate in fantasy sports leagues, I’m sure you’ll understand where this post is coming from.

Especially if your league has two key components — an auction/salary cap and keepers.

Our baseball league is set up this way. For the draft, it’s auction style and each team has a cap of $260. However, each team is allowed to keep up to 10 players (and in the years we’ve done this draft, everybody has always kept 10 players). The way we do it is that you take the player’s salary from the year before and add on a certain amount. So if you have a player who made $4 or more last season, you add $3 to the salary. If he made $3 or less, you add $1.

That can start to add up, but it can also make for some very valuable keepers and steals.

It also makes the draft a very interesting place to be.

We held our draft Sunday morning. This year, we made it so all keepers had to be e-mailed in before the draft, so we skipped right past that part, which was very nice. That’s when the fun begins.

See, depending on who you keep, you know what positions you need. But say you need a catcher and six of the eight teams already kept their catcher. The odds are, you can do well with things. But, if just three teams kept their catchers and those players are the top three catchers available, things start to get interesting. Depending on the position, people can pay over-market value for players in a hurry.

Lets use me as an example.

I needed a shortstop. With two teams keeping shortstops (Derek Jeter and Troy Tulowitzki were the lone players kept that that position). That meant, of those in the eight-team league, six of us were in the running for the top shortstops.

The FIRST person of the draft nominated was Jimmy Rollins.

Being a Phillies fan, I had wanted to see if I could get Rollins. Though he had a tough season last year, he’s in a contract year and he appears to be healthy. Rollins could have a strong year and being he’s quite key to the Phillies, I thought he might be worth the risk. Though he’s always been one of the top defensive shortstops in baseball, our league doesn’t measure that — it’s based on hitting and pitching. So for me to get value out of Rollins, Jimmy has to hit.

So what’s market value? According to the cbs.sportsline website (which we use for our league), Rollins should be about $26 in a mixed (NL and AL) league with a $260 cap.

I ended up paying $17.

Is that good or bad? Who can tell. But being he was the first player thrown out, there were still some stellar shortstops remaining, so I think I got a fair price for Rollins. Later in the draft, I was looking for an outfielder and bid on Tampa Bay’s Ben Zobrist, who I’ve long been a fan of. I ended up paying $17 for him, too, which I think is over market value. But being he came out late, I had to overpay to get him as the top players were becoming harder and harder to come by.

That’s where the supply and demand comes into play.

Consider this — if you bid on several players and lost out on them. You have far more pressing needs than some others. AND, you likely have more money remaining for your cap. But, with players disappearing, the supply is not going to meet the demand.

Hence your economic lesson with fantasy baseball.

Let’s take a look at a few.

Cleveland catcher Carlos Santana is solid. He’s one of the best young backstops in the game. And, he was projected to cost about $16 or so.

He went for $26 in ours because it was late in the draft and several people still had pressing needs for a starting catcher.

Players like Atlanta’s Jayson Heyward ($25), San Francisco’s Mat Latos ($16), and Michael Young ($16) were some players who went over their market value during the draft. Young closers like Atlanta’s Craig Kimbrel ($10) and Matt Thornton ($17) of the White Sox went way over-market because people needed closers at the end, so they went all-in with the hopes of getting something special with these guys.

That being said, if you wait in the wings, you can get some steals when people fill their spots. Players such as Rickie Weeks, who is listed to be worth about $20 in a league set up like ours went for $1.

We also have a snake-draft at the end of the auction, where each team drafts 10 more players in a traditional setup. For keeper purposes, each player is awarded a salary of $3, but that doesn’t count against the initial $260 cap.

This is where there can be some interesting picks and steals. Sometimes people think about the long-term and draft someone who might be on the disabled list with the idea of stashing him and using him later or as a keeper.

For example, I had the No. 1 pick in the snake-draft this year. That was because I finished last in the league last season. So I took a flier on Stephen Strasburg, the young phenom pitcher of the Washington Nationals who is out the majority of this season following Tommy John surgery. However, with all the hype surrounding this kid and how well he performed last year before getting hurt, I figure he might be worth snagging and keeping for the future.

In the end, who knows how it will work out.

The players in the snake-draft could be awesome and someone you selected for $40 could end up getting hurt in the first game and being out for the season. It’s always a game of chance with fantasy baseball, but it’s interesting to see unfold. Only time will tell how it all pans out.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.

Everybody’s working for the weekend…

Ah yes, the weekend is upon us, isn’t it?

I am spending my Friday working, to an extent. It’s work for me, anyway. I have a goal of sending out five applications today and I have a pretty good start on it, so I’m taking a small break to write my daily blog post. The cover letters are starting to flow a little better today, so that’s good. Maybe I’ll start hearing back from some of these places. The big thing is tweaking the resume a little for each gig.

Ahh well, enough of the job stuff.

What’s on the calendar for the weekend for all of you?

The weather here is supposed to be cold. Brrr. In the mid-to-upper 30s, but sunny. So that’s not too bad. Still, I’m ready for spring to be here. I could even deal with temps in the high 40s for a little while. At least that makes me think spring. As I look outside now, it’s been back and forth between sun and clouds and some snow flurries and squalls.

Spring sure would be welcome.

Still, this weekend seems to have a few things on tap.

Originally, this weekend was supposed to be our fantasy baseball draft. Some people had things Saturday and some Sunday. So we pushed it back to next weekend, which comes after the season starts — but that’s OK.

So, time to re-plan.

Today, I’m finishing these applications and probably going to throw a few discs to practice a little bit. I’m hoping the weather kicks in soon as I’d like to hit a few courses and start playing some disc golf. With the days being longer with light, it’s easy enough to put in the job stuff for several hours in the morning and early afternoon and then head out to play a round or two of disc golf.

The annual road rally in our area is Saturday, so I think I am going to head to Walton on Saturday and watch some cars buzzing around the back roads. I haven’t taken photos in a while, so it would be nice to take some shots, especially with my camera and zoom lens back from Canon. I’m excited to get snapping again, but some better weather would be nice to really push me to get out and shoot. That and finding some new spots. I can only take so many photos of the local covered bridges… and I love covered bridges!

On Sunday, I’ll head to the annual March baseball card show in White Plains. Unfortunately, I won’t be in a position to spend too much, but I think I can afford to split a box of cards with the person going with me and maybe grab a few odds and ends that I’ve been looking for/at. I haven’t done much by way of cards recently, so it will be nice to see some new products.

… I’d also like to kind of get mine all together and in holders, too. Some of my more recent finds haven’t been put in holders, so I’d like to do that and get it all set. Then maybe I can do what I’ve wanted to do for a while and that’s organize my cards somewhere online so I know what I have etc.

My hopes for Sunday:

  • A few bargain game-used or authentic autographed Phillies cards
  • Game-used or autographed cards of players I used to cover when they played in Oneonta (or other teams).
  • A hobby box of cards

As many who know I collect know, I don’t look at these as an investment of sorts (though if I need to sell down the line, I hope they sell well!), it’s more of a collection of certain players and cards that I want to nab.

Hopefully I can land some at decent prices.

Maybe I can even grab a cache or two on the way down to White Plains or on the way back. That would be nice as well. Even a park-and-grab or two would work for me.

That’s my weekend — how about you?

More later!