The battle for Jose Fernandez - our 2014 fantasy thread!

aw man now i really wanna know cuz i have NO idea waht u mean by that!

Your hairy backs and voodoo are no match for my fortune telling.

i'd say your plan is more like relying on the tides!

Like the Blue Jays, it looks like I'm limping to the finish line.

a grand total of 70 different players on my roster earned points for me this season according to my team log. not sure if there were any guys i picked up and didn't play.

team log is interesting, here are my least valuable player awardees; @ least i knew to cut them quickly to strive as a 4/5th place team

Chase Headley 6 games played - 2/24 0R 0HR 0RBI .120OBP .083SLG
Daniel Nava 4 games played - 1/18 0R 0HR 0RBI .056OBP .056SLG
David Murphy 4 games played - 1/17 0R 0HR 1RBH .111OBP .059SLG -1NSB
Kolten Wong 5 games played - 0/13 1R 0HR 0RBI .188OBP .000SLG 1NSB

i'm just playing against the clock at this point – need to avoid a collapse for just 6 more days!

so i sat down a started figuring out how all those crazy trades i did panned out. but then i stopped because i got sad.
basically the two main keepers that i dealt, who were struggling at the time – caught fire. I got Cano for Marte and they have both hit roughly the same – so I would have been better off just hanging onto Marte. And for Shelby Miller I got Cliff Lee who had one horrible start for me before going on the DL. So that’s one pointless trade and one disaster. Trade three where I sent Seager and Calhoun – who have both performed about as well before and after the trade – for Ryan Zimmerman, who hit well for a week before going on the DL for two months; and Josh Hamilton who has been a total non-entity – is another disaster.

The only trade that worked out was when I had to find a replacement for Zimmerman, ironically, and dealt a collection of spare parts for Beltre.

Basically, had I just stood pat, I would be easily be running away with the league and still have a solid collection of keepers to pick from. Bleh.

ironically, i went to set my lineup just now and i see this in the side-bar:

Fantasy Medals:
Wheeling and Dealing
Successfully complete a trade
Won by: Barry
Date earned: July 2, 2014

fuck you.

my trades for marte and kluber really helped elevate me from 12th to 10th place

well - you've got Marte for something like 6 years now? where as I do not.

xpost

i think you still got the better end of that deal! i traded you a keeperable Kluber for about 4 or 5 starts from Garrett Richards, whose knee promptly exploded.

oh i know i got the better end of the deal, though i sure didn't think it was a coup at the time. i just wanted to keep somebody. anybody!

i didn't know klubs was gonna turn into scherzer, i thought he was kinda brandon beachy 2.0

too bad about richards, i figured it was a better deal for you considering how well he was pitching. must have carried my SP injury curse along with him. :/

oh no big deal! ironically i made that deal in an effort to shore up my hitting with pujols (who did just fine), but after that trade the rest of my hitters collapsed while my starting pitching finally got better, even with richards getting injured.

anyway at this point i'm just hoping to make 3rd place.

btw does anyone else feel like the innings pitched cap is too high? i've had a bunch of starting pitchers all year (to the point that the # of batters i've been able to keep on my roster has been thin) and i'm STILL going to end up way below the IP cap

i asked about that maybe two ago and everyone seemed ok with where it was back then (i think it *was* 1425). 1400 – where it is now – is the standard ceiling for most leagues and we have set-up guys going too.

lol wanna talk about trades lets talk about trades then

- I send Choo for Chris Davis (arguably I win but Davis was basically team poison so everoyne lost).
- I send Sonny Gray for Iwakuma and Doolittle -- kinda hoped better than a ~4 ERA from iwakuma (he's posted a 3.91 since I got him, and Doolittle only notched 10 saves -- not great). Down one keeper
- I send HJ Ryu for Hanley Ramirez, who posted 150 ABs in ~3 months. down one keeper
- I send Chris Davis, Javier Baez (KEEPABLE), Kimbrel (!!!) for Scherzer/Uehara. Scherzer decent but unremarkable. Good K's, bad rates. Uehara a total mess, 8 saves, ~5 ERA. Down THREE keepers.

Sum: down five keepers in the name of winning this year, currently battlnig to stay in 3rd. ;_; I stand behind my deicsions, they were good gambles, and I'm not COMPLETELY fucked on keepers next year, but... damn man. :(

ok. you made out worse than me. i'm glad i hung onto my top keepers tho: King Felix & Jose Fernandez. Jason Heyward to a lesser degree.

I love the trades this year. Super aggressive moves. The only way I built a winner last year was from two years of plowing elite stars into elite keepers.

Yeah, it was a good year for interesting trades in our league.

I traded for keepers at around the same time my offense finally caught fire, so I got better in the short and long term. I really fluked out with the timing of those trades. I'm not sure I have enough under-25 keeper eligible players though, but at least I have a real decision to make for next year, as opposed to this season when I had almost no keeper eligible guys left.

also you're closing in on me again. your sleeper agents have really fucked my shit up.

It'll take an epic collapse at this point. However, you are trending downwards -- don't doubt the tides!

I also couldn't help but notice that you rearranged some deck chairs on your roster in response to my rearranging of deck chairs on my roster. You're panicking!

i looked at my keepereligibles.xls and i think everyone has at least 5 eligible keepers, at least 2 from each category (assuming nobody dropped any since tuesday)

oh and thermo i will send that sheet when i get home, apparently i cant attach files in gmail at work so i workmailed it to myself and then i will go home and get it and send it blah blah blah

i was thinking - maybe a google doc that everyone can see would be the best way to go. great idea either way tho – thanks.

And streaming pitchers is not panicking!
Picking up Hosmer is panicking.

don't want to scare you guys but i moved up to ninth place the other night. #comeback

hah just emailed it and then read this, i will put it on google docs.

link

That's awesome, thanks!

Well - last day of the season. Good luck to everyone with their last-ditch, random free agent acquisitions!

How did you manage to get all your SP's teams playing meaningful games on the last day of the season, ensuring that all your best SP's would get the starts? There's no way you pulled this off without voodoo. I'm filing a complaint with the league commissioner ... oh, wait.

My bench guys are 6 for 7 with a HR so far today. R.A. Dickey as a spot starter seems to have worked out, and Cueto was great as usual, but I'm starting to think I'm not going to win the league this year. I'm hoping for a 4 HR game from Matt Kemp!

congrats Thermo!

i guess it's safe to say thanks! this is definitely the craziest single fantasy season i've ever had. and now that i went for broke, i'm going to spend the next year or two rebuilding.

Lucroy, Dee Gordon, and Neil Walker (i know right) were some fortunate grabs. Lucroy pretty much carried my offense (Ortiz too – but you expect that)

and i think this is the first time we have Canadians at #s 1 & 2 in the final standings!

Yes, congrats Thermo! You totally dominated down the stretch and left no doubt about who had the best team.

After five top three finishes in the past eight years (3x 2nd place, 2x 3rd place), I'm kind of wondering what it'll take to win one of these things ... I can't really complain though, because my keepers going into the year were so sketchy (except Kershaw) that I really thought this would be a rebuilding season for me.

2nd place and I couldn't even walk away with the Lightfoot Cup as a consolation prize? Tough league ...

well, you did land Kyle Seager for the next 3 years!

I have nothing bad to say about my keeper options for next year, that's for sure. I gotta take the next step one of these years though. Like the Blue Jays, I can't pull the trigger!

i was happy to land in 3rd place given that i was in 6th-9th for most of the year.

best surprise: Nelson Cruz. slugged .525 with 40 HR, 74 XBH, drafted in round 10
runner-ups: josh harrison and lucas duda, who i picked up down the stretch and were outstanding. oh yeah, and corey fucking kluber, who i drafted on a whim and traded away at midseason:(

encarnacion was kind of an odd pick at #2 (with miggy at #1 and fernandez at #3) i admit, but he delivered as i hoped he would: slugged .547, 63 XBH, 34 HR. he provided a little more power than miggy (and similar OBP) and jose fernandez had his terrible injury.

biggest disappointment: wilin rosario. i knew he'd be an OBP bomb, but i thought he'd still crank out 20+ HR with decent RBIs. nope! he's keeperable, but i'm on the fence.
runner-up: i drafted oscar taveras back in 2013, and played him way too much when he made it up to the majors this year. it was my fault for playing him, of course. and i'm keeping him in 2015, because i'm stubborn.

congratulations o mighty thermo!

my draft was terrible. my five keepers entering this season were harvey (injured but held onto nonetheless), matt moore (TJ surgery), beachy (TJ surgery), lincecum (terrible), and chapman (started injured, but then better than ever.) a bunch of other guys got injured and/or were useless (sabathia, avisail garcia, mauer, soriano, jackie bradley.) my best draft pick w/r/t value was doubtlessly morneau; i nabbed him in round 15 and he was great pretty much all season. the other good players i had were all either waiver wire snags (dickerson, mesoraco, richards) or acquired through trade (kluber, marte.)

my keepers next season are a lot better at least, i rarely traded before this season but once i realized there was no way to overtake the top three teams plus the fact that my keepers were all basically shit (except aroldis) i had to wheel and deal.

best surprise: Matt Kemp. I missed the beginning of the draft and was autodrafting with Yahoo's rankings. Kemp was chosen in the fifth round and I was pissed, but he rescued my offense in the second half.

best surprise from a decision I made: Denard Span, I got him on waivers after Zimmerman (I think) got injured for the 5849th time, he ended up becoming a full time player for the Nats (IRL) and was my most consistent player on offense from then on. Either him or Tanner Roark, I got him on waivers when (some SP got injured, can't remember who, I think they were all on the DL this year except for Cueto), he gave me 140+ IP, 15 QS, 2.64 ERA. I think I'll be rooting for the Nats in the playoffs.

biggest disappointment: Mike Minor. Pitched like an ace last year, never really got going this year.

Keepers: traded for Seager (thx Thermo!) and Ryu (thx Will!), drafted Cueto (thx autdraft!), Cashner and Paxton (who were injured for half the season but were great when they pitched). Rizzo had a breakout year and is just 25. Kershaw had an OK year.

My draft was putrid. Taking Votto with my first pick basically ended my season.

i took Dozier in both my leagues and dropped him after a slow first couple weeks. tuhrible GM.

and jose fernandez had his terrible injury.

i think you're confusing your teams. i grabbed Fernandez in the first round!

um - ok - i now realize you're talking about our draft and not your team! duh!

seeing E5 go at #2 really baffled me. he wasn't even on my short-list of guys i was going to aim for with #3 (tho i was assuming Fernandez would go #1 or 2).
either way – before the injury Fernandez was having a Cy Young caliber season. he'll be back well before the all-star break next year, joining Price and King Felix :D

your rotation is even better than andy k's outfield

I need to stick to one league -- always end up autopiloting both teams.

so i'm curious to know what everyone thought of having OBP and XBH this year?