NFBC Weekly Profile - Michael Cortese

[Tom Kessenich]

Michael Cortese had a simple rule he planned to follow this year in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship’s Auction Championship.



Put in the time to get the dime.



In other words, if he wanted to secure the $15,000 prize at the end of the season he had to be willing to put in the preparation time before the season began. So Cortese dove in with full force.



“I read or re-read everything,” he said. “Ron Shandler. Bill James. More Shandler. Baseball America. (RotoWire’s) Jeff Erickson. Fantasy411. The ESPN and CBS guys. I read the guys on the NFBC message boards like Shawn Childs and Mark Srebro. I also listened to a lot of podcasts.”



So far, all of that hard work has paid off in a big way.



With eight weeks of the NFBC season nearly in the books, Cortese finds himself sitting atop the Auction Championship standings. But don’t tell Cortese he’s in first place with more than one-third of the way through the season. The last thing he wants to do at this time of the year is begin watching the standings and reveling in where his team may be.



“Ever since our first weekend in the top spot I made it a habit to never look again,” he said. “In fact, I’ve made a habit of not looking at the overall standings. Just talking about this team almost seems like bad form, something akin to breaking the ‘talking to your pitcher during a no-hitter’ axiom.



“I even had to fight off the very real urge to take this opportunity to rhapsodize endlessly about our meticulously designed, well-crafted (auction) strategy and its flawless execution and implementation. On the other hand, this could probably be the closest thing myself or my partner Tom (Shannon) may get to a 15 minutes of fantasy baseball fame so I fear the karmic repercussions that could arise.



“Also, not looking at the overall standings basically allows me to avoid becoming complacent or worse – lazy. I think I can speak for Tom and myself when I say that being in first place at any point in the season however fleeting it may prove to be is quite a thrill.”



The key now is staying there. One of the primary keys to Cortese and Shannon’s team elevating itself to first-place status in the Auction Championship has been its starting pitching. Not only did they secure a staff ace in Roy Halladay but several other starters have opened the season effectively, thereby bolstering the rotation significantly.



“The unexpected performances of Mike Pelfrey, Shawn Marcum and Ricky Romero have helped us solidify the all important strikeouts, WHIP and ERA categories,” Shannon said. “While we liked those guys as sleepers to say we expected these kinds of early returns would be a stretch.



“In addition, Mike had the foresight to go after Netali Feliz late knowing that saves were around the corner. That has been huge for us.”



Combine the strong pitching with quality top-tier players such as Carl Crawford, Ichiro Suzuki, Robinson Cano and Adam Dunn and the formula has resulted in a first-place surge for Cortese and Shannon.



The 30-year-old Cortese lives in Princeton, N.J. and works as a recording engineer and producer. He was first introduced to fantasy baseball by his father when he was 10-years-old and began seriously playing four years ago.



This is his first year in the NFBC and with a first-place team through eight weeks of the auction season, it’s only natural to speculate on whether his team has what it takes to finish the year where it currently resides.



“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t (think about winning the championship) but having won and lost leagues on the last day or game of a season and seeing 118 games left on the schedule I try not to think about it at least not with regard to the overall prize,” Cortese said. “This being my first season with the NFBC I tried to keep my expectations especially low.



“Making my entry fees back was and still remains my primary goal, regardless of today’s standings. Tom, on the other hand, watches the daily screen like it was the baby monitor on the last baby panda cub in China, is already picking out our matching wave runners.



“Take one look at our team and I'm willing to bet you'll find more than one team's fair share of career year pace in that bunch. So though we're very pleased with our results and hope our skills at the draft and team management going forward stand up it would be dishonest not admit that even we are kind of surprised.”