Anyone here (beside Child of the Light and PDiddie) a fantasy baseball fan?
I am. And, since I have many teams (9) I get both the Fantasy Baseball Blues and Fantasy Baseball Gloating.
I'll start with the gloating:
4 of my teams are leading or among the best on their leagues.
With "Babel Blabbers" I built the team around the SS and played the Oriole card, and insofar it's coming out great. My starting team is Victor Martinez, Sean Hillenbrand, Brian Roberts, Miguel Tejada, Melvin Mora, Scott Podsednik, Chone Figgins, Lew Ford and Vinny Castilla (as utility). Starters are Rodrigo Lopez, Jeremy Bonderman, Odalis Perez, Jeff Suppan and Carl Pavano.
I also downplayed closers, having picked saves only by my "cousin" Danys Báez, so I'm only trailing on saves and WHIP (but I got Gagne on the disabled list, and will recover some ground)
"Banquo's Ghosts" and "Sodom Salt Statues" are leading their leagues, with players like Dontrelle Willis, Jason Varitek, Pedro Feliz, Carl Crawford, José Mesa and Brandon Lyon.
"Children of Santo" has a .630 record on a very tough head-to-head league, and boasts an almost entirely Latin roster. I built it on pitchers like Johan Santana, Freddy García, Orlando Hernández, Esteban Loaiza, Carlos Zambrano, Mariano Rivera, Francisco "Superchamo" Rodríguez, Luis Ayala and Francisco Cordero; and has been helped players like Ramón Hernández, good ol' Vinny Castilla, Feliz, Juan Uribe and others.
Now the blues:
"Tomateros" didn't look bad in the beginning: Oliver Pérez, Al Leiter, Greg Maddux, Brian Lawrence and Loaiza were the starters, Armando Benitez, Mariano Rivera and Jason Isringhausen, the closers. With Victor Martinez, Jim Thome, Moisés Alou, Richard Hidalgo and Lance Berkman, it had power. Alfonso Soriano, Matt Lawton and César Izturis gave it some speed. Then there was the ever-present Vinny (easy late round pick).
Thome slumped before going DL, Berkman was DL until recently, so was Alou. Martinez is still in a slump and so is Hidalgo. Oliver Perez is unrecognizable, Maddux and Loaiza don't get wins even when they pitch well, Benitez is practically off for the season and Isringhausen also fell to the DL. I'm dead last... and as I get better I'm almost 30 points behind the 9th place in a league of 12.
It doesn't get much better with "Aztec Mummies", another Latin team. I had 2 first basemen: Carlos Peña and Rafael Palmeiro, both batting below .200 and with very little power, Oliver is hurting my ERA and WHIP, and Benitez's injury has me fighting with my nails for such fantasy irrevelant players as Julián Tavarez and Jorge Julio. "Aztec Mummies" are also last, even if a more honorable manner.
Other stories welcome. Mutual help would be appreciated.