Fantasy Baseball Journal—No Panic, But Getting Proactive

I’m managing two fantasy baseball teams this year, and neither has started the season very well. I know, I know, it’s still early, no need to panic, and yada, yada, yada.

I agree, and I’m not panicking, but… I am fairly certain just sitting on my hands waiting for things to turn around is not going to work. I want to be proactive getting these teams to start moving up the standings. So far, I haven’t been very proactive.

See, I’ve kind of checked out on my teams a little since the season started. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still stayed on top of things setting the lineups, and moving guys out who are injured and checking the matchups for my pitchers.

What I haven’t done is stay on top of the hot start free agents. I haven’t tracked every at-bat or inning pitched by my players to see who or why they are performing up, down or right at expectations. I haven’t gone over the standings with a fine tooth comb to know what stat categories I’m doing well in, and which I need someone to pass me the Pepto.

I did go on a family vacation for week though, which helped contribute to the checking out. We had a great time. Thanks for asking.

Now it is back to business though—time to be proactive.

Since I admittedly have been a bit out of touch with what is going on, my only choice is to essentially start at ground zero. I need to review my team performance so far, and work out from there which players need to hit the bricks and who I should be replacing them with.

As I mentioned, I have two teams going. One is a 15-team 5X5 roto mixed league, and the other a 12-team 6X6 roto mixed (traditional 5X5 plus OPS and Holds). The 15-teamer I’m the commish, with weekly starting lineup and transactions, while the other league has daily transactions. I’ll look at the weekly one first giving a position-by-position review, starting with the infield.

C Russell Martin, Mike Napoli, Chris Snyder, Jason Varitek—Note this is a start-two catcher league, so this position is fairly important. Martin was the injury risk coming into the season, but he’s been fine and head-and-shoulders above the other three.

Jeff Mathis has been hot with the bat, and Napoli has not, so Napoli is getting limited AB and not doing much with the ones he has. Snyder isn’t great, but with D-backs Miguel Montero to the DL and out 4-6 weeks, Snyder gets more time in the short-term. I can’t argue with Varitek’s numbers, except it is only happening once a week. Maybe he’ll play more since David Ortiz is struggling big-time.

Thought: Probably shouldn’t hold four catchers. Hate to dump Varitek but it is hard to justify holding him given the extremely limited playing time.

1B Miguel Cabrera—Hitting .350 with a couple homers and 11 RBI, doing everything expected of him. If not for my first round pick I’d probably be wallowing towards the bottom of the standings instead of treading around the middle.

2B Brian Roberts, Akinori Iwamura—Took a shot on Mr. Glass Roberts who was seemingly over his spring training back problems, but then promptly injured himself sliding into second base, now out until late April. Good thing I had Iwamura as a backup who has been okay with a couple dingers but the .250 AVG is a little tough to swallow.

3B Mark Reynolds, Casey Blake—Reynolds is all or nothing early, hitting under .200 but with 3 HR. Yikes, 15 strikeouts on 40 AB. Blake is manning my CI spot. He’s hitting well but getting regular days off given he’s older than I am. Okay, not quite, but it’s close, and that isn’t a good thing.

Thought: I feel I’m going to need an upgrade for Blake this season. He’s hitting well now, but he’s old, he’s consistent but consistently average, so if an upside option is available I’d better make room for him.

SS Alexei Ramirez, J.J. Hardy—Ramirez is on a four game hit streak bringing his AVG up over .200, finally. Prior to that of course Ramirez’s performance is a lot more dismal—a complete dead weight on the roster. Hardy has been a pleasant surprise. Hardy currently occupies the MI position. I need Ramirez to turn it around and Hardy to at least keep it up, which could be a tall order for these two.

Thought: With Roberts out I have no speed in my infield. Iwamura has a single stolen base, and then goose eggs for the rest of the infield except Roberts with two.

Okay, that is it for the infielders. The overall review seems to fit well into where I’m sitting in the standings—it is a very middling group. Some pieces are really good, and more are rather bad.

At this point I am left hoping Roberts can come back and play some significant time without injury, and see what I can track down on waivers to at a minimum give me some options at corner and middle infield positions instead of carrying an extra catcher.

I failed to mention but this league has no trading, so duping a fellow owner to help turn my trash into treasure is not an option.

Next I’ll cover the outfielders, pitchers and see what I can figure out to be more proactive with this team, and get it going like The Jeffersons—moving on up. Now if that doesn’t show my age, then I don’t know what will.