18 April 1999: A New Fantasy League

Sunday, 18 April 1999:

A New Fantasy League

So today was the fantasy baseball draft. I'm in an entirely new league, having moved to a new part of the country, and this one has very different rules. The big differences are a completely different (non-rotisserie style) scoring system, and the use of a draft rather than an auction to grab players. I find that a draft tends to overvalue pitchers because everyone feels they need pitchers, need the best pitchers, and need consistent pitching. I'm not sure whether the best way to deal with this is to go along and overvalue pitchers, or to draft according to value and end up with weak pitching. It's especially interesting in this league where it seems like really awesome hitting should be able to compensate for weak pitching (which is much harder to do in standard roto-ball).

Anyway, I feel I drafted a pretty good team: Excellent hitting (bordering on awesome) with pitching that shouldn't suck, and may even be good. Here's my team:

	PLAYER                 POS   TEAM  ROUND                NOTES
	------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	Scott Hatteberg          C   Bos   (kept from 1998)     (on DL)
	Charles Johnson          C   Bal   18
	Jim Thome               1B   Cle   1
	Fred McGriff            1B   Tam   15
	Fernando Vina           2B   Mil   7
	Edgardo Alfonzo         2B   NYM   5                    (also 3B)
	Damion Easley           SS   Det   3                    (also 2B)
	Scott Rolen             3B   Phi   (kept from 1998)
	Ken Griffey, Jr.        OF   Sea   (kept from 1998)
	Rusty Greer             OF   Tex   (kept from 1998)
	Matt Stairs             OF   Oak   (kept from 1998)
	Jose Canseco            OF   Tam   9
	Johnny Damon            OF   KC    14
	Chili Davis             OF   NYY   11
	
	Dustin Hermanson        SP   Mon   (kept from 1998)
	Andy Ashby              SP   SD    2
	Omar Daal               SP   Ari   6
	Eric Milton             SP   Min   10
	Jose Rosado             SP   KC    12
	Sterling Hitchcock      SP   SD    13
	Jim Parque              SP   ChW   17
	Chris Brock             SP   SF    20
	Armando Benitez         RP   NYM   8
	Derek Lowe              RP   Bos   16
	Mike Trombley           RP   Min   19
	Paul Shuey              RP   Cle   -

I took over a team whose owner left the league, which is why I have keepers from last year.

I figure that any team whose offense is founded on Thome, Rolen, Griffey and Greer should be okay, and the supporting cast of hitters are very solid. The pitching is okay: Hermanson, Ashby and Daal should all be fine, and my relief corps looks find. Hopefully I can piece together a rotation from the rest which won't hurt me.

I actually think I have a good shot to do well this year.

It was a fun draft; it always is - I think I just get tired of preparing for drafts after years of playing roto. Moreover, four of the other 13 participants are members of the Boston Red Sox mailing list, which I've been part of since its inception (with brief hiatuses to, say, move across the country), so it was pretty neat to meet all of them. (Two of them independently said, "I've been reading your posts for years!") So it should be a good season.

Upon emerging from the draft I found that it was a gorgeous day: Temps in the 70s, and the humidity has basically disappeared. It was 7:00 by that point, and I noted with sadness that I would not be able to make it to the ocean before the sun set (maybe if I headed south to Santa Cruz I might have made it, but I've never been there and didn't want to try it). But perhaps this week I will make the pilgrimage after work sometime.

I had two messages from John on my machine when I got home, so I called him and we went out to a pub to have drinks (him beer, me coke) and some small portions of food (read: appetizers) for a few hours. John thinks I shouldn't be intimidated by the prospect of moving if I want to move farther north, since it shouldn't be hard to assemble people to help me move boxes, and hire some movers for the big stuff. He also suggested that I could move farther north, where he lives, and take my bike on the train south to Sunnyvale and then bike to Apple from there, which would be a decent ride without overworking me in the early stages of getting back into the swing of working. I know at least one person who takes his bike on the train down to work from San Francisco. So, that's an intriguing option.

He also supported my suspicion that the car break-ins a couple of days ago are more a sign of the fact that I now live in an urban area, rather than a specific problem with where I'm living, and that moving probably wouldn't fix that.

Anyway, I should have a couple of months before the landlord wants me to commit to a year-long lease, so that's some time to think about it. Right now I do need to concentrate on my car registration and driver's license, both of which I've been putting off due to moving fatigue.

I do feel a little better about everything now, though. I'll cogitate over the coming weeks.

Michael Rawdon (Contact)