No One Cares About My Fantasy Team

Back in April, I wrote this:

I've mentioned multiple times that I have been in the same fantasy/rotisserie baseball league since 1992. I have won the league just twice during this time in 2014 and 2016. My team is off to an amazing start where I'm in first place in 8 of the 10 categories and have a huge lead in overall points. Since it is only April, I figure there's no way that my team can keep up this pace. My apologies in advance to Mookie Betts, Fernando Tatis Jr., Elly De La Cruz, Zac Gallen, Tyler Glasnow, and William Contreras who I expect will all get injured in the next few months.

Sure enough Mookie Betts, Fernando Tatis, Jr., Xander Bogaerts, Zac Gallen, Javier Assad, and now Tyler Glasnow have all been on the injured list. J.T. Realmuto, who I acquired in a trade, is also hurt.

Except for Assad, all of these players are or have been all-stars. Somehow, I'm hanging on to first place with guys like Hunter Goodman, Brett Wisely, Donovan Solano, Michael Toglia, Kyle Freeland, and the corpse of Chris Taylor, all playing prominent roles on my team.

Still, if some of these guys get healthy, I like my chances. (Please come back soon Mookie and Fernando!)

Random Ramblings: April 2024 Edition

I'm in several different soccer referee groups and receive countless emails per week from assigners looking for referees to work games. Instead of countless, I decided to see how many I actualy receive per week. From Monday, April 8 at 12:01 AM through Sunday, April 14 at 11:59 PM, I received 63 emails about working games. 63!!

We're now at the halfway point of Passover where I question the amount of food I have for the remainder of the holiday. Sure, I probably eat more fruits, vegetables, and eggs during Passover than the rest of the year and that's easy to get, but I'm never sure if I have enough matzo, macaroons, or Molly's Passover cakes, which is what my kids eat for breakfast during the holiday. We're also at the point where there is limited or no Kosher for Passover foods at most local grocery stores. By the way, the Molly's cakes aren't going to make it to Tuesday!

I miss the days when you could transfer your balance on one credit card to a brand new credit card with no transfer fees and at 0% APR for a certain period of time. It seems like every credit card company now charges a 4% transfer fee on the amount of funds transferred. 

I've mentioned multiple times that I have been in the same fantasy/rotisserie baseball league since 1992. I have won the league just twice during this time in 2014 and 2016. My team is off to an amazing start where I'm in first place in 8 of the 10 categories and have a huge lead in overall points. Since it is only April, I figure there's no way that my team can keep up this pace. My apologies in advance to Mookie Betts, Fernando Tatis Jr., Elly De La Cruz, Zac Gallen, Tyler Glasnow, and William Contreras who I expect will all get injured in the next few months.

I don't think it's an overstatement that Woodland Hills High School has one of the best public high school theater programs in the country. This year's show is "Wonderland," and WHHS is one of only two high schools in the country to perform this pilot musical based on Peter Pan. Check out the story/video about the show by WTAE.

Random Ramblings

I have a lot of things on my mind, so it's time for a brand new random ramblings. 

* At Sunday's Grammys, the Philadelphia Orchestra won the Best Orchestral Performance award defeating the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh & Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra among others. Mark your calendars for Sunday, April 24th when the Pittsburgh Penguins travel to Philadelphia to take on the Flyers. This is clearly a revenge game and bigger than hockey! If things aren't settled on the ice, look out for July 28-31 when the Pirates host the Phillies. I expect the entire city of Pittsburgh to rally around and support the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra against their foe across the state!

* My fantasy/rotisserie baseball league had its 32nd draft over the weekend. I wasn't in the league during the first year, but this is my 31st year in the league. It's amazing how much this league and the other people in the league have been a part of my life. And yes, I wrote about my two championships here and here and hope to write about another one in October.

 

* We're looking to go to Canada this summer, so I needed to renew my passport, and we had to get passports for the kids. Passports are really expensive! It's like the US government doesn't want you to leave! Since the kids' passports expire in 5 years, we are definitely going to go somewhere else internationally before then. I don't care where or when, but we need to get use out of these passports. Just for fun, here's a passport photo of me, probably around the time of when I started in the baseball league. What a shirt!

* Luigi had kindergarten orientation recently, and I have mixed reactions to this. While I can't believe that he's going to start kindergarten this fall, I am really looking forward to not paying for preschool anymore. The next day, I took The Moose and Pedro Tulo to the elementary school where they spent the day with the before and after-school staff during a teacher workday. Luigi was with me since I dropped off his brothers before taking him to preschool. He thought he was going to stay and continued to ask me where Pedro Tulo's former kindergarten teacher, who he met the day before, was. Unfortunately, he wasn't close to saying her name correctly, and I had no idea what he was talking about. A bit of a meltdown occurred as I got him back into the car and during the drive to preschool. He absolutely loves his preschool, but he's ready to go to school. And of course, he was completely fine when I dropped him off.

* If you couldn't get "Fancy Like" or the Cheers theme songs out of your head after hearing Applebee's commercials, I give you Robert Palmer's "Simply Irresistible" or "Simply Irresist-A-Bowls" 

Have a nice Opening Day!

Random Ramblings

* I discovered that Paw Patrol and popsicle sound exactly the same when being said by my three year old (Pedro Tulo), leading to much confusion.

* I'm glad that my kids (and I) don't watch Barney and especially Teletubbies. 20 years ago, I feel like this would have been unavoidable.

* After working as a soccer referee for a few games over the weekend, Ziggy decided that he had a much better use for my bag.

* When my six year old (The Moose) plays soccer, he winds up on the ground a lot. Either he gets knocked over or just manages to fall on his own. I mention this because I've watched Jake Guentzel of the Penguins be on the ice a lot during the Stanley Cup playoffs. If my son is trying to pattern his soccer game after Guentzel's hockey game, I'm fine with that based on the results. By the way, this is a cool article written by Guentzel about being an 11 year-old and seeing Phil Kessel play in college and now playing with him a decade later. He also seems to have made a new friend with Nick Bonino's daughter.

Great series. Excited to keep playing. Maze is pumped about her play date with the hottest Penguin in town @jakenbake20 @Shop412 #GoPens pic.twitter.com/FowPXGvKLj

— Nick Bonino (@NickBonino) May 11, 2017

* On the topic of soccer, I'm the coach of my son's team and despite the season starting on April 1st, there have only been two games because of rain and spring break. So frustrating.

* Finally, I received this trophy for winning my fantasy/rotisserie baseball league.

I think CBS patterned the bobblehead guy after Adrian Gonzalez of the LA Dodgers.

Sean's Fantasy Baseball Championship

I know that you don't care about my fantasy baseball team; however, since this is my blog, I feel the need to document my recent title. Enjoy! (Or skip this post and scroll down to read others.)

After being in the same fantasy/rotisserie baseball league since 1992, I finally won in 2014. I wrote about my historic victory from two years ago and noted that I traded my future to win the championship. It was entirely worth it. (The Pittsburgh Pirates might also want to try this sometime.) In 2015, I went in an entirely different direction. Knowing my team wasn't going to win part way through the season, I traded many assets for cheap keepers. I finished in 11th place out of 12 teams but felt optimistic about the 2016 season.

In the auction league draft this season, I spent big money on Jake Arrieta, Ben Zobrist, Stephen Strasburg, Yasmani Grandal, and Andrew McCutchen. With my team challenging for 1st place, I acquired Ryan Braun and Carlos Gonzalez. Free agent pick-ups of Keon Broxton of the Brewers and Alex Dickerson of the Padres were pleasant surprises. I also got amazing production from holdovers Freddie Freeman, Justin Turner, DJ LeMahieu, Freddy Galvis, Ichiro, Tanner Roark, and Tony Watson. In addition, I really enjoyed watching Jameson Taillon came up from my and the Pirates the farm systems to pitch well.

So now, I've won 2 championships in 3 years and along with 2nd place finishes in 2011 and 2012, that's 4 top-2 finishes in 6 years. Olli Maatta of the Pittsburgh Penguins is also Finnish. In my mind, this is a fantastic run. Considering the amount of time I've spent reviewing baseball box scores, trying to select free agents, and contemplating trades (I probably need to spend more time on draft preparation), I'm quite proud of this accomplishment. This ranks up there with other life accomplishments.

Anyway, thanks for making it all the way through this blog post. Stay tuned for future posts about my new role as soccer coach for my son's U6 team, my long-awaited thoughts on Paw Patrol, and my hope to get media credentials for the 2017 Academy Awards. Yes, really.

Random Ramblings

There are times when I have a lot in my head that I want to share with the world (or at least the four people that still read my blog), but individually, this is not enough for a blog post. So please indulge me as I share my latest random ramblings.

1. My five year old (The Moose) signed up to play soccer this spring for a seven week season. Unfortunately, it rained nearly every weekend, so many games were cancelled. Last Sunday, we were all set for a make-up game. As we got The Moose into his shin guards, socks, and cleats (no easy tasks), I checked my email before we left. It turns out that the game was cancelled since it was too hot. I get that these are little kids, but it is still frustrating that my son only played 3 games in his first season. Fortunately, he doesn't seem bothered by this as he plays some sort of soccer almost every day at his preschool.

2. My cell phone tracks my steps when it is in my pocket. (I think this is what a Mandy Moore song was about.) My goal each day is 10,000 steps, and I usually end up in the 8,000-11,000 range. Last Friday, as I volunteered to help with Celebrate Fairfax festival set-up, I walked a whopping 28,000 steps nearly all during the 9 hours I was on site. Wow!

(Here's a video of the very random Mandy Moore reference)



3. I've been in a fantasy/rotisserie baseball league since high school (I may have mentioned this before) and am currently 2nd out of 12 teams this season. A new owner (currently in 3rd) pestered me with ridiculous trades over the past week, so I finally decided to make my own ridiculous trade offer back. I figured I would ask him for Colorado OF Carlos Gonzalez, one of the top players in the National League and certainly not someone you would trade if you're looking to win this season, for some prospects. Some very good prospects, but again, why would he trade away someone that will help me and hurt him this season? To my surprise, he said yes. A few days after the deal went down, I'm still uncertain about this move. If I win the league this year, it's a great trade. If not, I'm going to have some major regrets.

4. Before taking The Moose for a haircut the other night, he told me "You only have a little bit of hair left." Yeah, thanks, I already know this.

5. Finally, I took a picture of my two year-old's crib before he (Pedro Tulo) went to sleep last night. I have no idea how he sleeps in there.

Victory!

In the spring of 1992, George Herbert Walker Bush was President, the Pittsburgh Pirates were coming off of back-to-back National League East division championships and the Pittsburgh Penguins were about to win their second Stanley Cup title. Meanwhile, I was a high school junior and joined a NL-only/auction/keeper rotisserie baseball league with some friends. Please note that I wrote rotisserie baseball since there was no such thing as fantasy baseball back then.

At the time, we (and be we I mean someone else in the league that was not me) calculated stats by hand by looking through baseball box scores in the newspaper. I think we called the league Commissioner each week to make transactions. The entire league spread out for college but we still returned to Pittsburgh for live auction drafts and maintained correspondence by e-mail. We even hired a guy to do stats for us. It truly was exciting to get weekly e-mails with the standings.

After college, I moved to San Diego but stayed in the league. I wasn't able to attend the drafts, so I must have drafted by phone or via Instant Messenger.

Over the years, the league moved online to Commissioner.com and then Sportsline until the company was bought out by CBS Sports (who still thinks Vance Worley pitches for the Minnesota Twins). With much of the league starting families, live drafts became more and more difficult. Now everything is online, and we can see stats updated live.

In my 23 years in this league, I never won. There were some near misses including losing on the final day of the season one year. I also made arguably the worst trade in league history when I traded Gary Sheffield at the beginning of a MVP-caliber season for Deion Sanders and an ancient Dale Murphy. Yes, this league has been around a long time. I also traded Benito Santiago for a can of Coke. Dave Clark was a regular fixture on my team during the 90s, and I once drafted Roberto Meija who I nicknamed Meija & fries since I thought fajita and Meija sounded similar and why wouldn't you want fries with a fajita?

Now, in the 23rd year, I can finally write that I've won the league. I'd like to thank Russell Martin, Freddie Freeman, Doug Fister, Jordan Zimmermann, Kyle Lohse, Miguel Montero, Eric Young (who the Mets never seemed to want to play), Matt Garza, Luis Valbuena, Addison Reed and even the injured Troy Tulowitzki and Pedro Alvarez for being on my team all season. Maybe the addition of Pedro Tulo to my family was the good luck charm.

I also mortgaged any type of future by trading cheap keepers (ex. Tanner Roark & Alfredo Simon), super prospects (ex. Andrew Heaney & Kris Bryant) and nearly all of my minor league draft picks (yes, this is a super-geeky league) for players like Ryan Howard, Ben Revere (who was awesome), Aroldis Chapman, Adam Wainwright, Kenley Jansen, Adrian Gonzalez and Madison Bumgarner (who I hope pitches horribly in the Wednesday wild card game against the Pirates).

If I created a bucket list, winning this league would certainly be on it. Well, I can now cross this off the list. Now, I'm going to go out and buy Yoo-Hoo just so I can pour it over my head to celebrate! And yes, I have no problem including this song to end this post.

Catching Up

In case you were wondering, here is what’s going on in my life. My child recently turned 18 months (more on this soon), and I’m spending way too much time with fantasy sports. I’ve written about this several times, but I have been in one fantasy baseball league for 20 years, or more than half of my life, and in that time, I’ve never won this league. At approximately 9:00 PM Eastern time, I was in position to earn my first championship via a tie-breaker; however, Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers pitched an incredible game causing me to fall into second place. This is an auction league with keepers, salary caps and minor league drafts, so the fact that I finished 2nd place two years in a row in a 12-team league is pretty impressive. With that written, winning this league is on my bucket list!

Now I can turn my attention to fantasy football where I am in 6 leagues this year. My records are 3-1; 3-1; 2-2; 2-2; 1-3; and 0-4. I might be in too many leagues, but I have a hard time saying no when someone asks me to join a league.

In other news, Teddy finally won the Presidents race that occurs at every Nationals home game. Back in 2007, I wrote the following:

Anyway, the big story is that Teddy Roosevelt has never won a race. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln always win. My guess is that the Nats are saving a Teddy win for a big moment, either the last game at RFK, the first game at the new stadium, or if the Nationals ever sell-out a game, which could happen this weekend against the Baltimore Orioles.

Or when the Nationals make the playoffs. Anyway, the DC media is treating Teddy’s win as a major story. Enjoy information about the race in The Washington Post which includes a quote from an 8-year-old kid who played hooky from school in case Teddy won the race. Boo to the parents for letting this happen. I’m fine with a kid missing school for a playoff game, but missing school to see a mascot race is absurd.

After numerous Express Fail posts by me, an Express Fail went national! [Deadspin]

Finally, since the baseball regular season is over, let's look at how I did with my 2012 Pirates predictions:

1. Over/under wins: 72.5 Correct - 79 wins
I'll go over. It's March, so of course I'm optimistic now.

2. Andrew McCutchen batting average in the 2012 Regular Season: Over/Under .280 Correct - .327

I'll go over on this one too. I think McCutchen will have an amazing season.

3. Andrew McCutchen - Total HR's in the 2012 Regular Season: Over/Under 25.5 Incorrect - 31

While I do think McCutchen will have an amazing season, I think 20-25 home runs is realistic.

4. Andrew McCutchen - Total Stolen Bases in the 2012 Regular Season: Over/Under 25.5 Incorrect - 21

Over.

5. Neil Walker - BA in the 2012 Regular Season: Over/Under .275 Incorrect - .280

I'll go under on this one. No real reason why.

6. Pedro Alvarez - Total HR's in the 2012 Regular Season: Over/Under 17.5 Correct - 30

The big money deserves to go on the under, but I'm one of the few remaining Pedro supporters. I'll go over.

7. Garrett Jones - Total HR's in the 2012 Regular Season: Over/Under 15.5 Incorrect - 27

I'll go under only because I'm banking on Pedro playing well meaning less playing time for Jones with McGahee getting significant at-bats at 1st.

8. Jose Tabata - BA in the 2012 Regular Season: Over/Under .280 Incorrect - .243

Over. I think Tabata will hit around .300.

9. Joel Hanrahan - Total Saves in the 2012 Regular Season: Over/Under 35.5 Incorrect - 36

Under. There will be fewer save opportunities for Hanrahan since the Pirates will constantly win games 10-2!

10. Erik Bedard - Total Wins in the 2012 Regular Season: Over/Under 8 Incorrect - 7

Over. I predict more wins for Bedard in 2012 than Correia in 2011.

11. Josh Harrison walks: Over/Under 9 Incorrect - 10

This is the toughest prop on the board! I'll predict under, but barely.

12. Team bunting attempts: Over/Under 1000 Correct, but I didn’t actually count this.

Over, but I'm not going to actually count this during the season.

Shockingly (based on my record picking NFL games), I went 4-8.

Sean's 2009 Fantasy Baseball Teams

If you're ever going to get a flat tire, I highly recommend that it happens on I-66 Eastbound between Courthouse and Rosslyn on a late Sunday afternoon when the weather is perfect and you can maneuver your car into the shoulder on an exit ramp. Thanks to the Virginia State officer and AAA guy who were both extremely nice and arrived quickly. I wish I could write something funny here, but my tire is being fixed as I type this, and there's not much else to the story.

Meanwhile, I participated in my second of two National League-only fantasy baseball league drafts this weekend and figured that I would share my results. I know that no one cares about other people's fantasy teams, so that's why I included the flat tire story above. Anyway, these are both keeper leagues which is why I have Hanley Ramirez at $19.

Here is my roster in the league I really, really care about (this is the 19th year of the league and my 18th season in it; I have never finished in 1st):

Bengie Molina C SF $10
Yorvit Torrealba C COL $1
Adrian Gonzalez 1B SD $34
Casey Blake 3B LA $13
Bill Hall 3B MIL $9
Mike Fontenot 2B CHC $10
Miguel Tejada SS HOU $15
Jeff Keppinger SS HOU $3
Garret Anderson OF ATL $7
Brian Giles OF SD $7
Raul Ibanez OF PHI $20
Fred Lewis OF SF $4
Nate McLouth OF PIT $15
Utility - Chris Duffy OF MIL (Yes, the same Chris Duffy, Pirates fans) $1

Chris Carpenter P STL $6
Josh Johnson P FLA $10
Paul Maholm P PIT $5 10
Ross Ohlendorf P PIT $4
Jake Peavy P SF $36
Mark Prior P SD $1
Jon Rauch P ARI $7
Max Scherzer P ARI $10
Jose Valverde P HOU $30

The bigger money league (this is year #6 for me; no wins in the league either):

Chris Iannetta C COL $4
Ivan Rodriguez C HOU $6
Derrek Lee 1B CHC $23
Pedro Feliz 3B PHI $6
Travis Ishikawa 1B SF $18
Jeff Baker 2B COL $10
Hanley Ramirez SS FLA $19
Miguel Tejada SS HOU
Rick Ankiel OF STL $10
Jay Bruce OF CIN $12
Juan Pierre OF LA $7
Ryan Spilborghs OF COL $5
Chris Young OF ARI $15
Utility - Pedro Alvarez 3B PIT $5

Dave Bush P MIL $7
Ryan Franklin P STL $4
Jair Jurrjens P ATL $7
Hong-Chih Kuo P LA $1
Paul Maholm P PIT $6
Johan Santana P NYM $41
Ian Snell P PIT $6
Huston Street P COL $10
Todd Wellemeyer P STL $10

I ended up leaving $16 on the table in this league. Ugh.

Is it bad that I have 3 Pirates on each team (not including John Grabow and Ross Ohlendorf as reserves in my second league)?

Have a flat tire-free Monday!

Weekend in Jersey

I spent the weekend in New Jersey for my annual fantasy/rotisserie baseball league draft. This year marks the 17th year of the league and my 16th year as a team owner (I have never won). I’ll write more about my team momentarily, but the draft weekend is one of my favorite events of the year. I enjoy the strategy (or for me, the lack thereof) in preparing for the draft, selecting the players and then spending the next five months following the players. More importantly, this is an opportunity to catch up with friends, many of whom I have known since high school or even elementary school, since I rarely see many of these folks any other time during the year.

As a special treat, a few of us traveled to Atlantic City on Saturday night. I spent most of my time playing Three Card Poker at the Tropicana. After quickly being down $80, I recovered to be up $120. I ended the night up $40, which basically covered most of my gas for the weekend. While I am very happy to finish ahead, I should have played Double Attack Blackjack since my friends seemed to do very well there.

This was my first trip to Atlantic City. While I certainly enjoyed gambling for a few hours, I’m not sure if AC is a place I would go for more than a night. I can spend an entire weekend in Vegas not only gambling, but going to shows, shopping and watching sporting events in the sports books. It did not seem like there was much to do in Atlantic City besides gambling, especially in cold weather. Although one thing AC has that Las Vegas does not is a crazy clock in the Wild West Casino that you could only “understand if you are drunk.” (Inside joke that is not that funny.)

As for the draft itself, while I know no one cares about other people’s fantasy teams, I still wanted to share the stars of my team:

Miguel Cabrera (Marlins)
Juan Pierre (Dodgers)
Jeff Kent (Dodgers)
Xavier Nady (Pirates) – Nady really is not a star, but he’s a Pirate, so that’s good enough for me.
Chad Cordero (Nationals)
Dontrelle Willis (Marlins)
Roy Oswalt (Astros)
Chad Tracy (Diamondbacks)
Takashi Saito (Dodgers)

I have a good feeling this year. As the saying goes, 16th time is the charm!

Fantasy/Rotisserie Baseball Advice Needed

It is that time of year again. Over the next few weeks, I will spend hours reviewing my fantasy baseball teams, searching through fantasy baseball magazines and websites and creating (or not creating) draft strategies. As I have written here countless times (I could probably count the number but I don't feel like it), I have never won a fantasy baseball (or football) league despite being in one league since 1992 and beginning my fourth year in another. Therefore, I think I need to change my strategy. In the past, I have relied only on fantasy magazines, free portions of websites and written notes. This year, I am thinking about using spreadsheets and actually having a computer at the draft. Plus, I am considering signing up for a fantasy/rotisserie website.

This leads to my question. Does anyone out there have any websites they would recommend? (Please note that I realize that some of my league mates read this site, so I understand if they do not want to reveal their sources.) There are dozens of websites out there like The Talented Mr. Roto, RotoTimes, RotoWorld, Ultimate Fantasy Sports, etc., etc, and many seem fairly expensive. I have no idea where to start. Any advice?