2007 – Dynasty

PICKERING DYNASTY SHOOTER CUP CHAMPIONS

On the last Sunday of the baseball year I banished my wife from the house. Chase and I bunkered down with a six pack of diet coke, three bottles of milk and two frozen pizzas. At around 12:41 pm we entered the living room and we didn’t move until 6:14. We had two computers and a TV going at all times. We had stat tracker up and running, we had MLB Mosaik going and we had the Mets’ blundering loss to the Marlins on the tube.

Despite the fact that our lead was down to 0.5 at one point during the day Chase and I weren’t worried. The Baller man had 8 starters going and was in line to pick up a bunch of wins. The Sods were stealing bases and Cheese’s random spot starters were getting beat up like a piñatas.

At 6:14 it was official. All MLB games were done. No more statistics could be registered. The Dynasty was leading by 2.5 roto points and there was nothing that could change that. A year of stress and frustration was over. The Pickering Dynasty captured their first Shooter Cup and they did it in their first year in Pickering.

Looking back on the year is always something I like to do. Trying to learn from strategic mistakes is critical to getting better. I always start with a review of my draft.

When I left the 2007 OBFBL draft I was very happy. I felt like I had done enough to bring home the Shooter Cup. It turns out, I was right. The interesting thing about my victory is that it had nothing to do with my draft.

My draft was probably the worst draft in fantasy baseball history. A quick review of the players I drafted clearly shows what I mean.

1st Brett Myers Lost his job as starter – Out 70 days due to injury
2nd Curt Schilling Worst numbers of his career – Out 50 days due to injury
3rd JD Drew 11 HR 64 RBI – Worst numbers of his career – Out 20 games
4th Mike Piazza Worst number of his career – Out 80 games
5th Randy Johnson Missed 25 starts with season ending back surgery
6th Ryan Freel Missed 90 games
7th Scott Podsednik Missed 100 games
8th Bob Wickman Lost his job – becomes mop up guy in Arizona
10th Edwin Encarnacion Hit below medoza for April – sent back to minors
11th Mike Cameron Worst year in the last five
12th Kelvim Escobar Started poorly – traded for Roger Clemens
13th Ivan Rodriguez Worst year of his career
14th Jim Edmonds Worst year of his career
15th Pat Neshek Provided a solid 60 innings
16th Dave Dellucci Missed 110 games
17th Bartolo Colon Worst numbers of his career – Missed 15 starts
18th Brandon McCarthy Missed 15 starts – Terrible starting pitcher
19th Jason Lane Missed majority of season after being sent to minors
20th Seth McClung Missed majority of season after being sent to minors

Four things are clear after reviewing my draft:

1. I did not draft a single player that will be kept by anyone going into 2008;
2. I did not draft a single player that overachieved, outside of maybe Kelvim Escobar;
3. Every player I drafted missed significant time to injury and every player I drafted posted career worst numbers;
4. Clearly, I need a lesson on how to properly draft.

In addition to a poor draft and underperforming keepers the Dynasty also chewed through players like there was no tomorrow.

The Dynasty lost 5 closers to injury or poor performance (Chris Ray, Bob Wickman, Tom Gordon, Armando Benitez and Brett Myers).

The Dynasty lost 6 third baseman to injury or poor performance (Edwin Encarnacion, Ryan Freel, Chad Tracey, Scott Rolen, Bill Hall and Kevin Youklis).

The Dynasty lost Jason Schmidt and Randy Johnson to season ending surgery.

There were a number of other monumental busts, including Gary Shefield, Roger Clemens, Carlos Delgado, Dice -K and Johnny Damon. The Dynasty thought it was getting proven commodities with each of these players, instead the organization received frustration and annoyance.

Despite all of this the Dynasty were able to do the improbable and win the Shooter Cup. The Dynasty keepers were very good, despite not being great. Acquiring guys like Jimmy Rollins, JJ. Putz, Carlos Beltran and Bobby Abreu at the right time was critical. The explosion of Hideki Matsui and the steady play of Roy Oswalt, Juan Pierre, John Smoltz and Adrian Beltre kept the franchise in the hunt during bad times. Finally, the addition of Fausto Carmona, Matt Cain, James Shields, Mike Lowell and Manny Corpus helped propel the team up the standings and kept us there.

All in all it was a crazy year. A year filled with frustration and profanity directed towards the fantasy gods. In the end it worked out and the Dynasty have captured their first Shooter Cup. Hopefully the next one won’t be quite so painful.

Fantasy MVP for the year was David Ortiz. Down year in HR and RBI but still posted very good numbers.

Fantasy Cy Young was Johan Santana. Considering no other pitcher on my team went more than 115 innings it has to be Mr. Santana. His 15 wins and 235 k’s were critical to the overall success, even if it was a big down year.

Fantasy LVP for the year was JD Drew. In 150 at-bats you hit 2 homeruns and had 15 rbi. You will be the worst 3rd round pick I ever make.