Fantasy Baseball, 70 Games Down

The past 10 games have been a real rollercoaster of emotions, mainly for me, culminating in what should be the final three for the remainder of the season. It is starting to look like the 1st place team is untouchable, although Andrew disagrees, and the Sports Optimators will be trading barbs and places in the standing for some time.

The biggest personal tragedy for me was losing out on the Stephen Strasburg Lottery by one position in the standings. I had dropped to fourth with Brett Anderson heading for the DL, but the team in fifth had an ace up their sleeve with Daisuke Matsuzaka DL eligible. Disaster also struck when one of my favorite bathwater sources, Troy Tulowitzki, broke his wrist and will be out at least 6-8 weeks. The only upside to the past week or so was some managerial magic, and crazy luck, when I managed to transform Brett Anderson (DL), Rich Harden (DL, thank God), and Wade Davis into Matt Latos, Mike Pelfrey, and Zach “I May Be Clinically Depressed Again” Greinke. The Davis-Greinke trade seems lopsided, much like my Ibanez-Upton swap, but until Davis got shelled twice in a row it didn’t look so bad. I’m rolling the dice that Greinke and Upton wake up in the second half and keep me in the money.

Maybe next year Stephen, when I'll have to pay $40 for you.

I wasn’t the only one pulling off some transaction magic as Andrew managed to jettison the shaky Ricky Nolasco in exchange for Andrew Bailey. Andrew likes to ride starters, get a big lead in Ks (which he has), then trade for closers. Sadly he has not had a lot of low budget closer luck like I have, even though Frank Francisco cost me a sup move, so Andrew is now on his 5th closer (Frasor, Gregg, Capps, Bailey, Lidge) and relying on Brad Lidge to help him out. At least he didn’t pay $15 for Lidge, and I will never have him again. Andrew definitely has the most solid core of starters, especially with Haren coming around, and he thinks it will only be a matter of time before his staff if #1 and putting him top of the league.

I'm shocked Andrew has forgotten about this.

The World Cup has done a great job of keeping me distracted, sometimes its good to ignore the standings, but once the Cup is decided I have a feeling I’ll be right back to giving myself a heart attack over every Jonathan Sanchez meltdown.

Current Status
Bert - “Well Dude, we just don't know.”
Andrew - “That's a great plan, Walter. That's fuckin' ingenious, if I understand it correctly. It's a Swiss fuckin' watch.”