bricap's Journal

In the auction/head-to-head league, I'm in dead last place. In head-to-head, if you start off poorly, it is extremely difficult to recover. I had some disastrous draft picks. Carpenter was hurt, and it took awhile to play itself out. Barfield had a horrendous start. I ended up cutting him for Brandon Phillips, but the damage was already done. Glad he was still unclaimed. Young and Sheffield had horrendous starts. Ibanez had an injury and I never knew. Glaus got hurt immediately.

With no third basemen available, and a team that couldn't hit water if it fell out of a boat, I traded Verlander and Papelbon for David Wright and Dontrelle Willis. I knew I'd be cutting Willis soon, but I needed a third basemen badly. I figured I could still find guys on the waiver wire as the season wore on. Wright started slowly for me, but he's been pretty solid lately. I had plenty of other inquiries from people trying to buy my slumping stars at the low.

The auction team is:

C V-Mart
1B Carlos Pena
2B Brandon Phillips
3B David Wright
SS Michael Young
OF Gary Sheffield
OF Matt Holliday
OF Reggie Willits
Util Raul Ibanez
Bench Carlos Delgado

SP Roy Oswalt
SP John Maine
SP Justin Germano
SP Mark Buehrle
SP Jorge Sosa
SP Rodrigo Lopez
SP Jeff Francis
RP Billy Wagner
RP Matt Capps
RP Brad Hennessey

DL Jason Bergmann

So there have been a lot of changes to this team in only two months. I think the team is ready to start doing something soon. I am only 13 games out of the last playoff spot, with 10 more weeks left after this week until the playoffs, so there is certainly hope.

As for the Roto team, I had a lot of the same problems. As my starting pitching was abysmal, I loaded my team up with ace middle relievers so I could lower my WHIP and ERA. Before I did that, my team was dead last in both categories. Now my team is near the top in both categories. I lead the league in saves, despite not having drafted a single guy who was named closer as of draft day. I don't think this league has had a single trade yet. Not sure if people are trying or not, but that's how it's been. My auction league loves to make trades, though.

Anyway, here is what my roto team looks like now:

C Jorge Posada
1B David Ortiz
2B Dustin Pedroia
SS Michael Young
3B Garrett Atkins
OF Gary Sheffield
OF Adam Dunn
OF Raul Ibanez
Util Kevin Youkilis
Bench Josh Barfield
Bench Casey Kotchman
Bench Scott Podsednik

SP Chris Young
SP Justin Germano
SP John Maine
RP Al Reyes
RP Jonathan Papelbon
P Alan Embree
P Pat Neshek
P Scot Shields
P Rodrigo Lopez
Bench Derek Lowe
Bench Chad Billingsley
DL Jason Bergmann
DL Chris Carpenter

So this team has changed somewhat, also. Youkilis was a huge addition. He had great average and was scoring a lot of runs in that lineup in Boston. Sheff and Young caught on fire, and Posada is performing way above expectations. All this allowed me to sit Atkins while he was slumping. The bullpen, as I said before, has been instrumental in mounting this comeback. This team is in third. It's still a long way to catch the first place team, but I think this team has a good shot at competing for it. All that despite being in the cellar for much of April, and one of the most competitive waiver wires I've seen since playing FBB.

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