{"id":7306,"date":"2013-08-28T13:50:46","date_gmt":"2013-08-28T17:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com.\/?p=7306"},"modified":"2014-09-24T09:02:39","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T13:02:39","slug":"2013-fantasy-baseball-post-mortem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7306","title":{"rendered":"2013 Fantasy Baseball post-mortem"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Verlander<\/a>

Verlander just killed me this year. Photo unk via rumorsandrants.com<\/p><\/div>\n

My standard disclaimer; this is a whole huge post kvetching about my 2013 Fantasy Baseball team. \u00a0If you don’t play fantasy, feel free to skip this 3,000 word missive. \u00a0I’ll insert a “jump” line here so that RSS readers don’t have to see this whole massive post \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My fantasy team was god-awful this year. \u00a0Just everything went wrong that could have gone wrong. \u00a0Even though the season isn’t over, for me it is; i’m in 9th place out of 12 teams and 13 games out of 6th place in a league where playoffs only extend to the first 6 finishers. \u00a0And i’ve exhausted my season limit on transactions.<\/p>\n

In April I posted a review of my drafted Fantasy team<\/a>. \u00a0My personal summary was that I had a ton of pitching, a weak infield, and that I had missed on a few guys that I really coveted pre-draft.<\/p>\n

Lets take a look position by position at who I drafted and how they did. \u00a0Later on I’ll review who I cycled through over the course of 65 transactions during the season, and who I ended up with after hitting the league-limit on transactions (trust me, I would have kept cycling if I could).<\/p>\n

(Any stats or Yahoo rankings are as of Late August 2013 and may have changed slightly by the time you read this. \u00a0If you read this … in fact, I’m probably the ONLY person who’s going to read this post, so I consider it a completely cathartic expulsion of all the bad vibes this year’s fantasy baseball experience has brought).<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. 1st round (#8 overall): Matt Kemp<\/strong> OF-LAD.\u00a0 Yahoo ranked #5, rank for the 2013 season: 720. \u00a0 720!! \u00a0Just a huge disappointment.\u00a0 I traded him mid-season for Zach Greinke<\/strong> and Alex Gordon<\/strong> to a guy in the league who was trying a very specialized strategy focusing on specific categories.\u00a0 I feel like I fleeced him in this trade, given that Kemp has spent most of the season on the D\/L while Greinke and Gordon have given decent value since the trade. \u00a0This is now the 2nd year in a row that Kemp has destroyed my fantasy team after having me pick him in the first round (he was 1-1 last year) and it will not happen again.<\/li>\n
  2. 2nd round (#17 overall): Justin Verlander<\/strong> SP-Det.\u00a0 Yahoo ranked #13, rank for the 2013 season: 218.\u00a0 For the second year running, I managed to draft a fantasy stud starter the year he completely crashed (last year it was Tim Lincecum<\/strong>).\u00a0 Verlander has been rocked over and over.\u00a0 On draft day I debated back and forth between Verlander and Clayton Kershaw<\/strong> at this pick, and selected Verlander with the thinking that Detroit was an improved team that would win more games and get Verlander close to his 24 win season two years ago. \u00a0Didn’t happen. \u00a0Meanwhile Kershaw if possible has\u00a0overperformed and is currently Yahoo #3 on the season.\u00a0 What kills me is that I went away from my own oft-repeated strategy: always get an NL pitcher over an AL pitcher (pitching against other pitchers batting is worth at least half an ERA point and at least 30K’s a year).<\/li>\n
  3. 3rd round (#32 overall): Yoenis Cespedes<\/strong> OF-Oak. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #27, rank for 2013 season: 197. \u00a0His flashy appearance in the Home Run Derby has basically derailed his season; he was injured for a while and has been hitting about at the Mendoza line the whole 2nd half.<\/li>\n
  4. 4th Round (#41 overall): Jason Heyward<\/strong> OF-ATL. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #30, rank for 2013 season: #277. \u00a0But 277 doesn’t even come close to describing this guy; he was ranked in the 800s for basically the first 12 weeks of the season. \u00a0He hit .121 in April and .178 in May<\/a>. \u00a0 So I frigging dropped him; Atlanta fan-boy Joe in our league picks him up and amazingly he started hitting. \u00a0The moment I dropped him Heyward started hitting: .312 in June. \u00a0He was down in July and hot again in August before the scary HBP ended his season. \u00a0Basically I got below replacement level performance out of my 4th round pick while others got the benefits of his few weeks of good performance.<\/li>\n
  5. 5th Round (#56 overall): Yu Darvish<\/strong> SP-TEX. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #46, current 2013 season rank: #14. \u00a0Welcome to the SOLE player on my entire fantasy team drafted in the top 10 rounds who over-performed as compared to his ranking coming into the season. \u00a0The sole guy. \u00a0Darvish has been great all year, not much else to be said.<\/li>\n
  6. 6th round (#65 overall): R.A. Dickey<\/strong> SP-TOR. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #54. \u00a02013 seasonal rank 369. \u00a0Dickey proved to be an unbelievable waste of a 6th round pick. \u00a0 His K’s were down, his ERA up, his losses up. \u00a0He got routinely pounded night after night, ballooning my team ERA. \u00a0I dropped him, picked him back up after a couple of decent starts in July, promptly got burned again, and dumped him for good. \u00a0He sits on waivers as we speak.<\/li>\n
  7. 7th round (#80 overall): Kris Medlen<\/strong> SP-ATL. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #68. \u00a02013 season rank 266. \u00a0Another guy who didn’t come close to replicating his 2012 performance. \u00a0I thought I was getting a steal with Medlen in the 7th round. \u00a0Instead I dropped him for a bit, only to bring him back after a couple of decent starts. \u00a0He finishes the season on my team but was awful from a fantasy perspective all year.<\/li>\n
  8. 8th Round (#89 overall): Carlos Santana<\/strong> C\/1B-CLE. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #75, 2013 rank 168. \u00a0Santana has been more or less a disappointment, having flashes of brilliance while mostly being a mediocre catcher. \u00a0I did some waiver wire diving for catchers here and there but end the season with Santana, my original drafted catcher.<\/li>\n
  9. 9th Round (#104): Ike Davis<\/strong> 1B-NYM. \u00a0This is comical: Yahoo ranked #85, 2013 rank #951. \u00a0He’s ranked lower then a lot of players who literally did not play a game this year. \u00a0Davis spent half the season in the minors and is hitting .205 on the year. \u00a0Great pick. \u00a0 Inexplicably one of the other guys in the league picked him up and has carried him the whole season.<\/li>\n
  10. 10th Round (#113): David Freese<\/strong> 3B-STL. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #95, 2013 rank #413. \u00a0Freese hit .163 in April<\/a> and then an empty .299 in May and I dropped him, looking for more production (which I found in spades; see below for the team I ended up with). \u00a0Still, a severe disappointment for this guy. \u00a0 His 2013 OPS is fully 120 points lower than it was last year.<\/li>\n
  11. 11th Round (#128): Sergio Romo<\/strong> RP-SF. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #136, 2013 rank #86. \u00a0 Great value here from Romo, who solidified his role as the Giants’ closer and at the time of this writing has 31 saves.<\/li>\n
  12. 12th Round (#137): Rickie Weeks<\/strong> 2b-MIL. \u00a0Yahoo ranked 105. \u00a02013 season rank: 894. \u00a0 \u00a0Yeah, to say that Weeks has bottomed out would be an understatement. \u00a0He’s gone from being a top 4 round fantasy player to being season-long waiver wire material in 2 years. \u00a0His OPS has now dropped 5 consecutive years. \u00a0In my own defense, this was a complete flier and I wasn’t expecting Weeks to be the next coming of\u00a0Hank Aaron<\/strong>, but I was hoping for some production.
    \n<\/strong><\/li>\n
  13. 13th Round (#152): Casey Jannsen<\/strong> RP-TOR. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #231, 2013 rank #140. \u00a0This has turned into a pretty good pick; I got lucky on two closers this year and Jannsen was one of them.<\/li>\n
  14. 14th Round (#161): Danny Espinosa<\/strong> 2B\/SS-WAS. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #154, 2013 rank #1233. \u00a0You read that right: Twelve Hundred and Thirty three. \u00a0 The lowest ranked player I could find for the year was 1411. \u00a0 That is how poorly Espinosa played this year. \u00a0As Nats fans know, the team finally pulled the plug on him, sent him to Syracuse where by all accounts (especially from David\u00a0Huzzard<\/strong>‘s column today about Syracuse and how hopeless Espinosa looks<\/a>) Espinosa is closer to an outright release than he is to regaining a MLB spot. \u00a0Sad.<\/li>\n
  15. 15th Round (#176): Jarrod Parker<\/strong> SP-OAK. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #178, 2013 rank #179. \u00a0Parker is performing right where he was expected to perform … but not for me. \u00a0 He had a 7.36 ERA through his first 6 starts<\/a> in April and I dumped him. \u00a0 Since then? \u00a0He’s been pretty good. \u00a0Of course. \u00a0 He’s like the 5th player so far that I sat there and awful April performances only to watch him turn it around for someone else on a waiver wire pickup.<\/li>\n
  16. 16th Round (#185): Brandon League<\/strong> RP-LAD. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #220, 2013 rank #412. \u00a0League was a shot-in-the-dark stab at picking the Dodger’s closer from a muddied pre-season situation, and for a while he was the closer. \u00a0But a 5.48 ERA eventually got him demoted out of the closer spot. \u00a0I dropped him at that point and he is now a mediocre middle reliever, basically useless in fantasy. \u00a0Meanwhile someone else had been carrying LA’s new closer so I lost out.<\/li>\n
  17. 17th round (#200): Edinson Volquez<\/strong> SP-SD. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #1135, 2013 rank #1369. \u00a0I picked Volquez because he was the #1\/opening day starter for San Diego despite his poor ranking. \u00a0In my defense, I dropped Volquez before the season even started for\u00a0Paul Maholm<\/strong> once it became clear how poor Volquez had become. \u00a0For his part, Volquez was 9-10 with a 6.01 ERA in San Diego’s cavernous stadium and was DFA’d and eventually flat out released this month. \u00a0Has an opening day starter ever been released before the season was over? \u00a0Probably; but its got to be rare. \u00a0Maholm ended up being a very good starter for a while; I dropped him after he tailed off performance wise and he remains on waivers after a D\/L stint with mediocre numbers on the year.<\/li>\n
  18. 18th Round (#209): Alexi Ogando<\/strong> SP\/RP-Tex. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #254, 2013 rank #362. \u00a0Ah Alexi. \u00a0The injury plagued starter looked great in April, hurt himself in Mid-May, and then got 5 more starts in late July\/early August before getting shelved for the year. \u00a0I carried him through his first D\/L stint but dropped him when he only got one June start in. \u00a0Someone else beat me back to him for his last 5 starts but no matter; by that point he was clearly ailing and wasn’t the Ogando we remember. \u00a0Hard to complain about 18th round pick-ups; any production is good.<\/li>\n
  19. 19th Round (#224): Brandon Belt<\/strong> 1B-SF. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #184, 2013 rank #137. \u00a0Slow start, barely played, hit .235 for April and I dumped him for the hot-hitting\u00a0John Buck<\/strong>. \u00a0Belt was dropped and pickedup a couple times, especially when he’d get really hot. \u00a0A very streaky hitter, he’s got an OPS of 1.100 in August<\/a> and someone just grabbed him for a stretch run. \u00a0Its hard to deal with part time\/streaky players and I’m not calling my losing out on Belt’s performance a mistake, considering the production I got from his waiver wire replacements.<\/li>\n
  20. 20th Round (#233): Wade Miley<\/strong> SP-Ari. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #233, 2013 rank #265. \u00a0 His seasonal numbers look good, but they hide an ugly month to month split on Miley. \u00a0In May he was 1-5 with a 7.34 ERA<\/a> and I dumped him. \u00a0In July he was 4-1 with a 1.59 ERA and I grabbed him back.<\/li>\n
  21. 21st Round (#248): Vinnie Pestano<\/strong> RP-CLE. \u00a0Yahoo ranked #263, 2013 rank #491. \u00a0I took a last round flier on Pestano because the Cleveland closer situation was unsettled; Pestano lost out and was the setup guy, so I dumped him the first week of the season. \u00a0He was eventually demoted to AAA and remains there now.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n

    So, for those of you reading along, you may have noticed that a lot of my initial drafted players underperformed. \u00a0Here’s my original drafted team with their Yahoo O-rank (Yahoo’s pre-season draft ranking) and their actual performance to date: Red means they underperformed, Blue means they overperformed, and bolded players are those who spent the entire season on my roster:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
    Round\/#overall<\/td>\nPlayer\/Team<\/td>\nYahoo 2013 o-rank<\/td>\nYahoo Actual 2013 rank<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    1st round (#8 overall)<\/td>\n\u00a0Matt Kemp OF-LAD<\/td>\n5<\/span><\/td>\n720<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    2nd round (#17 overall)<\/td>\n\u00a0Justin Verlander SP-Det<\/strong><\/td>\n13<\/span><\/td>\n218<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    3rd round (#32 overall)<\/td>\n\u00a0Yoenis Cespedes OF-Oak<\/strong><\/td>\n27<\/span><\/td>\n197<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    4th Round (#41 overall)<\/td>\n\u00a0Jason Heyward OF-ATL<\/td>\n30<\/span><\/td>\n277<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    5th Round (#56 overall)<\/td>\n\u00a0Yu Darvish SP-TEX<\/strong><\/td>\n46<\/span><\/td>\n14<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    6th round (#65 overall)<\/td>\n\u00a0R.A. Dickey SP-TOR<\/td>\n54<\/span><\/td>\n369<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    7th round (#80 overall)<\/td>\n\u00a0Kris Medlen SP-ATL<\/td>\n68<\/span><\/td>\n266<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    8th Round (#89 overall)<\/td>\n\u00a0Carlos Santana C\/1B-CLE<\/strong><\/td>\n75<\/span><\/td>\n168<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    9th Round (#104)<\/td>\n\u00a0Ike Davis 1B-NYM<\/td>\n85<\/span><\/td>\n951<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    10th Round (#113)<\/td>\n\u00a0David Freese 3B-STL<\/td>\n95<\/span><\/td>\n413<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    11th Round (#128)<\/td>\n\u00a0Sergio Romo RP-SF<\/strong><\/td>\n136<\/span><\/td>\n86<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    12th Round (#137)<\/td>\n\u00a0Rickie Weeks 2b-MIL<\/td>\n105<\/span><\/td>\n894<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    13th Round (#152)<\/td>\n\u00a0Casey Jannsen RP-TOR<\/strong><\/td>\n231<\/span><\/td>\n140<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    14th Round (#161)<\/td>\n\u00a0Danny Espinosa 2B\/SS-WAS<\/td>\n154<\/span><\/td>\n1233<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    15th Round (#176)<\/td>\n\u00a0Jarrod Parker SP-OAK<\/td>\n178<\/span><\/td>\n179<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    16th Round (#185)<\/td>\n\u00a0Brandon League RP-LAD<\/td>\n220<\/span><\/td>\n412<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    17th round (#200)<\/td>\n\u00a0Edinson Volquez SP-SD<\/td>\n1135<\/span><\/td>\n1369<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    18th Round (#209)<\/td>\n\u00a0Alexi Ogando SP\/RP-Tex<\/td>\n254<\/span><\/td>\n362<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    19th Round (#224)<\/td>\n\u00a0Brandon Belt 1B-SF<\/td>\n184<\/span><\/td>\n137<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    20th Round (#233)<\/td>\n\u00a0Wade Miley SP-Ari<\/td>\n233<\/span><\/td>\n265<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
    21st Round (#248)<\/td>\n\u00a0Vinnie Pestano RP-CLE<\/td>\n263<\/span><\/td>\n491<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

    That’s right; exactly four (4) of the 21 players I drafted out-performed their Yahoo rank. \u00a0FOUR! \u00a0And most of these guys badly, badly underperformed.<\/p>\n

    You might see where this is going: with all these underperforming guys, I churned and burned on the waiver wire extensively. \u00a0Only 6 of the 21 original drafted players spent the whole season on my team (another two were drafted, dropped and picked back up).<\/p>\n

    Lets look at who I cycled through by position through the course of trying to improve upon my awful draft:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Catchers:\u00a0John Buck, Carlos Ruiz, Jason Castro, Jarrod Saltalamacchia<\/strong>: Buck I grabbed during April while he was just fantastically hot, dropped him right at the right time when he cooled off, and he’s stayed on the waiver wire ever since. \u00a0I grabbed Ruiz right as he came off his PED suspension but he just never got it going this year so I dropped him quickly. \u00a0The other two guys had hot weeks and were quickly dismissed. \u00a0Eventually I just stopped chasing Catchers and rode out Santana.<\/li>\n
    • First Base:\u00a0Chris Johnson, Brandon Moss, \u00a0Chris Carter, James Loney, Mitch Moreland, Adam LaRoche<\/strong>: Most of these were trying to grab the hot hand, especially Moss, Carter and LaRoche. \u00a0Moreland was good for a while but was felled by injury, else I would have kept him.<\/li>\n
    • Second Base:\u00a0Jedd Gyorko, Howie Kendrick, Kelly Johnson, Brian Dozier, Brad Miller, Nick Franklin<\/strong>: I especially liked Gyorko’s potential but he struggled for a while. \u00a0Most of these guys were just hot-week pickups.<\/li>\n
    • Shortstop:\u00a0Jhonny Peralta, Brandon Crawford, Dee Gordon, Jimmy Rollin<\/strong>s:<\/strong> Gordon got demoted, Rollins just hasn’t performed this year. \u00a0Peralta was my SS for a while but I replaced him when he took his season-ending suspension. \u00a0There was so little on the SS waiver wire that for several weeks I played without a shortstop whatsoever.<\/li>\n
    • Third Base:\u00a0Yuniesky Betancourt, Nolan Arenado<\/strong>: I tried to play Arenado, the big-time Colorado prospect, when he came up but he wasn’t performing. \u00a0There’s fewer transactions here because I eventually settled on a long-term excellent 3rd baseman who finished the season for me (see the last section).<\/li>\n
    • Outfield:\u00a0Lorenzo Cain, Matt Joyce, Will Venable, Geraldo Parra, Rajai Davis, Leonys Martin, Cody Ross, Alejandro De Aza, Robbie Grossman<\/strong>: Lots of hot-hand waiver wire plays here. \u00a0Joyce was a fantasy stud recently but did very little this year. \u00a0Ross was going great but suffered a season-ending hip dislocation. \u00a0De Aza was streaky. \u00a0Davis wasn’t the greatest hitter but got a ton of steals.<\/li>\n
    • Starters:\u00a0Paul Maholm, AJ Griffen, Matt Garza, Kevin Gausman, Jason Vargas, Michael Wacha, Tyler Lyons, Tyler Skaggs, Jacob Turner, Gerrit Cole, Zack Wheeler, Scott Kazmir<\/strong>: as discussed above I got Maholm before the season started. \u00a0I tried to stay way ahead of the curve on big-name prospect callups (Gausman, Wacha, Lyons, Skaggs, Turner, Cole and Wheeler) to a lot of inconsistency. \u00a0Gausman’s fastball was amazing but he got pounded. \u00a0I hung onto Cole and Wheeler a long time and they’ve pitched well, but not “well” in a fantasy perspective. \u00a0My biggest mistake here was giving up way too early on Garza; his first 3 starts were bad, I dumped him and suddenly he turned into a top performer.<\/li>\n
    • Relivers:\u00a0Trevor Rosenthal, JJ Putz<\/strong>: both of these guys I picked up during closer transition times for their teams and in both cases I chose the wrong guy and quickly dropped them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      So, who did I end up with after so many transactions? \u00a0Here’s my final team:<\/p>\n

        \n
      • C: Carlos Santana<\/li>\n
      • 1B: Eric Hosmer<\/li>\n
      • 1B: Justin Smoak<\/li>\n
      • 2B: Brian Dozier<\/li>\n
      • SS: Erik Aybar<\/li>\n
      • 3B: Pedro Alvarez<\/li>\n
      • OF: Wil Myers<\/li>\n
      • OF: Yoenis Cespedes<\/li>\n
      • OF: Alex Gordon<\/li>\n
      • OF: Carlos Gomez<\/li>\n
      • OF: Nate Schierholz<\/li>\n
      • SP: Justin Verlander<\/li>\n
      • SP:\u00a0Yu Darvish<\/li>\n
      • SP:\u00a0Zack Greinke<\/li>\n
      • SP:\u00a0Corey Kluber<\/li>\n
      • SP:\u00a0Tony Cingrani<\/li>\n
      • SP:\u00a0Chris Archer<\/li>\n
      • SP:\u00a0Wade Miley<\/li>\n
      • SP:\u00a0Kris Medlen<\/li>\n
      • SP:\u00a0Alex Wood<\/li>\n
      • RP: Sergio Romo<\/li>\n
      • RP: Casey Janssen<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

        Pedro Alvarez<\/strong> and\u00a0Carlos Gomez<\/strong> have turned out to be my two best players by Yahoo ranking on the year; both waiver pickups. \u00a0Though I will freely admit that the incredibly streaky Gomez drove me crazy, to the point where I asked Jamos (the league manager) to relax the “can’t cut” list so I could drop him. \u00a0Alvarez is leading the league in homers, so that’s been great. \u00a0Eric Hosmer<\/strong> and\u00a0Justin Smoak<\/strong> are former highly touted prospects who have struggled but really broke out this year. \u00a0I targeted\u00a0Wil Myers<\/strong> before the season and grabbed him a couple weeks before the super-2 deadline hit to ensure I got him and have not been disappointed.<\/p>\n

        Greinke and Gordon came over via the Matt Kemp trade and have done decently; Gordon struggled for a while but got hot as of late, and Grienke has come around after missing time early in the season.<\/p>\n

        On the pitchers, i was well aware of who\u00a0Tony Cingrani<\/strong> was but let him pass when it seemed like it was a spot-start. \u00a0Unfortunately for me, he then stuck around to cover for the injured\u00a0Johnny Cueto<\/strong> and I missed a ton of high-K starts. \u00a0I’m skeptical that\u00a0Alex Wood<\/strong> can keep it up, but so far so good.<\/p>\n

        Biggest waiver wire mistake; I was sitting there at my computer staring at\u00a0Yasiel Puig<\/strong> when he got called up and decided not to spend a transaction on him. \u00a0Super, big mistake.<\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

        \n

        My overall poor team offense led to my downfall; I only maintained a winning record head-to-head in one offensive category (Homers). \u00a0Week after week my team batting average was in the .220s; it remains .236 for the year, just a ridiculously low average for a fantasy team. \u00a0On the pitching side I was dominant in Wins and Ks as expected with so many starters, maintained a winning record in saves despite only having 2 closers, but otherwise was mostly sub-near .500 in the other categories. \u00a0 This is where the poor outings from my drafted starters really hurt.<\/p>\n

        I finished the year winning 4 straight weeks, including a weekly win over the dominant #1 team, so this final team isn’t half bad. \u00a0Too late though to mean much.<\/p>\n

        Overall thoughts\/Strategy for next year: my draft was part unlucky and part poor. \u00a0I over-drafted starters and outfielders, which led me to be too thin at other positions too early. \u00a0 I’d like to get better closers for next \u00a0year, but that’s tough with a 12-team league and so much churn of closers over the course of a year. \u00a0There’s such great value in finding starters later in the draft; in my successful years I drafted nearly every position player first, then got starters and closers the entire second half of the draft. \u00a0I think I will return to this strategy. \u00a0I need to go back to NL-only pitcher focus.<\/p>\n

         <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        My standard disclaimer; this is a whole huge post kvetching about my 2013 Fantasy Baseball team. \u00a0If you don’t play fantasy, feel free to skip this 3,000 word missive. \u00a0I’ll insert a “jump” line here so that RSS readers don’t have to see this whole massive post \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2592],"tags":[184,874,1951,804,1912,1264,1943,1668,1212,1216,1939,1942,1924,912,1644,1665,1263,1751,1920,426,500,1957,135,1752,1605,1946,589,415,1955,1950,1221,1940,686,1458,148,872,1734,1938,803,1334,1686,1945,513,1492,1200,413,44,1941,1788,1937,1573,277,131,1948,145,1953,688,1956,1944,1947,840,802,781,493,1664,1952,477,1052,316,1739,1261,1954,1856,1669,1178,1303,1949,393,300,1486,254,1825],"class_list":["post-7306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","tag-adam-laroche","tag-aj-griffen","tag-alejandro-de-aza","tag-alex-gordon","tag-alex-wood","tag-alexi-ogando","tag-brad-miller","tag-brandon-belt","tag-brandon-crawford","tag-brandon-league","tag-brandon-moss","tag-brian-dozier","tag-carlos-gomez","tag-carlos-ruiz","tag-carlos-santana","tag-casey-jannsen","tag-chris-archer","tag-chris-carter","tag-chris-johnson","tag-clayton-kershaw","tag-cody-ross","tag-corey-kluber","tag-danny-espinosa","tag-david-frese","tag-david-huzzard","tag-dee-gordon","tag-edinson-volquez","tag-eric-hosmer","tag-erik-aybar","tag-geraldo-parra","tag-gerrit-cole","tag-howie-kendrick","tag-ike-davis","tag-jacob-turner","tag-james-loney","tag-jarrod-parker","tag-jarrod-saltalamacchia","tag-jason-castro","tag-jason-heyward","tag-jason-vargas","tag-jedd-gyorko","tag-jhonny-peralta","tag-jimmy-rollins","tag-jj-putz","tag-john-buck","tag-justin-smoak","tag-justin-verlander","tag-kelly-johnson","tag-kevin-gausman","tag-kris-mdelen","tag-leonys-martin","tag-lorenzo-cain","tag-matt-garza","tag-matt-joyce","tag-matt-kemp","tag-michael-wacha","tag-mitch-moreland","tag-nate-schierholz","tag-nick-franklin","tag-nolan-arenado","tag-paul-maholm","tag-pedro-alvarez","tag-ra-dickey","tag-rajai-davis","tag-rickie-weeks","tag-robbie-grossman","tag-scott-kazmir","tag-sergio-romo","tag-tim-lincecum","tag-tony-cingrani","tag-trevor-rosenthal","tag-tyler-lyons","tag-tyler-skaggs","tag-vinnie-pestano","tag-wade-miley","tag-wil-myers","tag-will-venable","tag-yoenis-cespedes","tag-yu-darvish","tag-yuniesky-betancourt","tag-zack-greinke","tag-zack-wheeler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7306"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7935,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7306\/revisions\/7935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}