It’s been a tough year in my Sim leagues, especially considering the optimism with which I entered my pair of Strat-O-Matic leagues and my Scoresheet squad as well.
And, I say that noting that I encourage all fantasy baseball players — particularly those who not only love baseball, but those who want to improve their fantasy game and savvy all around — playing a lot of different formats is good for our overall learning, irrespective of format.
For, surely, very often lights that blink for attention in one format, often can be similarly massaged in another format.
So, I play in an HOF Strat-O-Matic league comprised of 24 teams in which every three years we each draft 10 players out of the Strat-O-Matic Hall of Fame set. Then the remaining HOF undrafted players are thrown into a pool with players from a specific MLB season, and at present we are playing with the 1957 stats.
I had thought my team was pretty good, but after a 5-21 April, any thought of a successful year quickly fell by the wayside. What is weird there is now with 109 games completed, my team rests at 52-57, meaning we are 47-36 since April which is pretty good for a league where Eddie Murray platoons at first base. There are still nine games to report in this month and then roughly 36 more games, so who knows?
OTOH, how much sense does it make that Bob Gibson holds a 5-10 record for my team with a 4.42 ERA, with just 109 strikeouts over 153 innings with 26 homers allowed? Or Judy Johnson, whom I platoon only against lefties thanks to his .179-1-13 over 199 at-bats?
Then again, my 30-team regular season Strat team, The Berkeley Liberators, went into the season looking at the playoffs. In a shallow league, with strict player use rules, I have an outfield of Domingo Santana, Marcell Ozuna, and Steven Souza Jr. coupled with Yonder Alonso, Travis Shaw, and Eduardo Escobar as hitters. Add in a rotation of Zack Greinke, Alex Wood, Jimmy Nelson, Ervin Santana, and Dinelson Lamet (remember, this sims the 2017 numbers, which was a great year for all these guys), recognizing that virtually all these players logged 600-plus plate appearances, and this season had me licking my chops.
So, after a month, how we wound up five games under .500 is beyond me, and the team is almost up to that 50/50 line, so the post-season still is in the cards, but I have indeed learned that as much as I would like to outslug everyone, in this game, speed and defense make a huge difference. Not that I did not already know this, but the thought of all those homers and effective innings left me blind sided.
Still, I could not imagine that Santana (4-4, 17) and Nelson (3-5, 5.62) would get knocked around to the extent they have, but, still, defense and speed might be subtle factors within the game, but they are game breakers.
But, my poor Scoresheet team has not just been racked with injuries, but weirdness. Clayton Kershaw rests at 2-9, 2.96 as I average just 2.5 runs scored when he pitches, but since my main rotation— along with Kershaw — is Robbie Ray, Kyle Hendricks, and then the equally injurable Joey Lucchesi, Daniel Mengden, Andrew Triggs, Paul Blackburn, and now Brandon Morrow spending mega DL time.
Kershaw 2-9, though? Gibson 5-10? I just don’t know about anything anymore. Do you?
Still, there is something so enticing about really play GM from scratch, assembling, tweaking, building and rebuilding squads and something so satisfying when it all comes together.
And, the reality is none of these teams is out of it right now, so baseball, at the moment, remains optimistic.
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