Chasing the NFBC - A Fantasy Baseball Blog

[Sebadiah23]

Yikes is appropriate!



In my second main draft, a team which is 250 spots below my other team, I got annoyed that a guy two picks before me kept taking targets of mine early, and virtually everyone I took instead at those moments was a big bust. Not to make an excuse- the mistakes were no one's fault but my own. But there is a luck element of who you randomly get selected to draft with. Not necessarily in their skill level per say, but in their similar targets and tendencies. That is pure luck. Perhaps the stars aligned right for you in New York, far past the Pujols debacle. Pujols is just one player after all and is not the reason you are in the top 5.



-Craig

[Glenneration X]

Ugh. I love my girls with all my heart, but God do I hate overnight feedings.



Craig, what you say above is so true...but it works both ways.



For instance, I ended up targeting Aramis Ramirez during several drafts this year if I missed out or passed on the group of 2nd tier 3rd basemen (Youk, Zim, Panda, Reynolds) typically being drafted around the 2-3 turn. I thought Aramis represented decent value in the late 3rd, early 4th as he typically could be counted on to put up similar numbers to those projected for those mentioned earlier, but was going a good round or two later due to injury concerns. It also was an enormous drop in my mind to the next tier of 3rd basemen.



For my NYC Main Event team, after drafting Pujols, Lincecum, & Victor Martinez in the first 3 rounds, I felt Aramis represented a perfect 4th round pick. He'd further strenthen the BA/power edge I was creating and give me another quality bat at another scarce position. I was desperately hoping he'd drop to me in the 4th. As the 4th round progressed, he was passed on pick after pick falling past his projected ADP to the 12th pick in the 4th round. He was one pick away and I was sure he was mine. Not to be, the team sitting immediately to my right grabbed him with the pick right before me. I hate when that happens, I was dumbstruck. I took the full minute to compose myself before eventually choosing the next player on my list....Adam Wainwright. I think that worked out OK.



OK, time to try to get a little sleep before the next feeding.



Glenn



[ September 26, 2010, 02:07 AM: Message edited by: Glenneration X ]

[Da bears]

Good stuff Glenn!



Great season and best of luck the rest of the way.

[Sebadiah23]

Short Round: What is NFBC?



Indiana Jones: Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory.

[Glenneration X]

Team Management & FAAB II - The Sequel (Worst than the First)



Sometimes things are out of your control and go bad. What can you do? Sometimes things are in your control and you make the wrong decision. Those are the times that really suck.



Over the five previous weeks prior to this one, I had started four closers as often as I could. It helped me move up in a category that I had a lot of room to move. However whenever you start that many relievers, you risk bleeding points in wins & K's. With the horrible decisions alluded to in an earlier post on which starting pitchers to start & sit adding to the bleeding, I felt the need to start turning the tide in these categories right away. Still, I also needed to keep moving up in saves. I made a decision to go with a more balanced 6-3 starter to reliever split this week, see where I ended up at the end of the week, and then decide if I needed to go all in on one or the other category for the season's final week.



I've been regularly starting Uehara, Hensley, Franklin, & Gutierrez in recent weeks. With this new game plan, I needed to sit one, but which one. I looked at their schedules to find whose team was playing six games vs. seven. I looked at their teams & who they were playing to try & guage who'd get the fewest save opportunities. I came to my decision. I would sit Juan Gutierrez.



Juan Gutierrez then went out and racked up FOUR saves this week. All the relievers I ended up choosing to remain in the lineup earned the same four....combined. Make a different choice and add three saves to the chase. 3 saves equals 20 points to the cause. Great job once again.



Today was the final FAAB of the season. SB's is the one offensive category where significant ground is still available for me to gain. As also alluded to last week, the stable of speedsters I've assembled to make this move has recently taken hit after hit. Crisp, EY Jr., Bonafacio, & Brantley all lost time this week due to injury. Though EY has returned & Bonafacio & Brantley should be returning to starting status this week, Crisp is out for the year & the other three missed time due to leg injuries leaving questions to how much running they will be doing even when in the lineup. Last week when I was bitching about losing out on Carlos Gomez (a blessing in disguise), I had just found out about the Crisp & EY injuries moments before the FAAB deadline & the Bonafacio & Brantley injuries had not even taken place yet. At least this time, I had the full week to find reinforcements.



Amazingly, three different players were available in the free agent pool who had started running like mad this week. Peter Bourjos, who I had picked up & then dropped earlier in the season when he was batting about .100 and not running, was all of a sudden getting on base regularly and stealing whenever he did. Jason Bourgeois was covering for the injured Michael Bourn and stealing even more than Bourn had been. Jarrod Dyson was recently called up, placed at the top of the lineup, and was stealing every chance he could. There was a bevy of riches from which to choose. I had $2 left to spend. At first, I planned on going all in on all three hoping I'd get at least one. However after further analysis, my thinking changed.



I reviewed who in my league would potentially bid on these Judy's. I saw only one team that I figured would waste a bid, the same team that outbid me on Gomez last week. I tried to think along with him. That team had $3 left in FAAB. He bid $3 on Gomez last week when noone had bid even $2 on that type of player in weeks. It had always recently been either a $1 bid or a bid way above what either he or I had remaining. He didn't go all in on Gomez, he bid half his available FAAB. He also knew that someone had bid the same $3 and lost out on Gomez. I figured if he wanted another speedster, he'd bid $3 again to assure he'd get him, maybe if he wanted two, he'd bid $2 on one and the remaining dollar on another. No way, he'd feel the need to risk going for all three.



I decided there was the opportunity for me to grab two of these players. Honestly I NEEDED two. The injuries referenced earlier had really hurt my prospects of moving up in this category. One player would help, but two might have the impact I need to get back in that race. I decided I would bid $1 on each of these players, hoping that the other team bids on none, bids all $3 on one as he did last week, or at worst bids $2 on one to guarantee one, and another $1 on another. If he went with the last scenerio, I'd still end up with one of the speedsters, the same as I would if I had bid $2 on each as originally planned. I even threw Brent Lillebridge into the contingencies so I'd still get a 2nd potential speedster no matter which scenerio above took place, though I felt his impact would be significantly less than the others. I needed this plan to work.



When I opened the Waiver History, I found that I was awarded Lillebridge, and only Lillebridge. My nemesis had done exactly what I had done, split his bids into three $1 bids and bid on all three players that I had. I lead this league so obviously he is beneath me in the standings. I was tied on all three bids, all by the same team, all the same type of player, all three awarded to his team, not mine. Amazing.



Looking back, he probably did the same research I did, figured I was the only person who would also be bidding on these players using the same analysis (or by reading this thread), and figured if I went all-in with my $2 on one of the players, he'd still get two, and if I went $1 he'd get all three. He got all three. I give him credit. I give myself none. I was outplayed and badly and the cost could be tremendous.



Craig, you had asked me in an earlier post in this thread what were my five biggest FAAB misses of the year, five players that I was outbid on. Right now these three players are numbers 1, 2, and 3.



What happened with Gutierrez was out of my control, what happened in FAAB was...I change my mind, they both suck.



Glenn

[Schwks]

I looked at your bad team, and it was so obvious, I thought it was a waste to comment on it. That said, I liked Kemp a lot this year and he was a consensus first rounder. I wonder how many teams were able to recover from his mostly painful, Rihanna filled season. (lesson learned stay away from the guy on the celebrity dating scene)

[Glenneration X]

7:05PM. The first pitches are being thrown for the first games of the last week of this year's fantasy baseball season. For me, the most exciting season yet.



Going into this final week, my Main Event team trails Mr. Jupinka by "only" 192 points. It leads David Longood's team by 51 1/2. Lineups are set.



I was torn between playing it safe with a balanced lineup in the hopes of securing my position in 2nd place or risking dropping in some categories by going all in on others in a last ditched long shot effort to catch Jupinka.



The late Wainwright injury news helped me make my decision on the pitching side. I had previously decided to start all eight of my remaining starters figuring that it would give me a chance to move up in 2 categories instead of one. The extra available innings a starter gives you would also potentially allow me more of a chance to move up a bit in the ratio categories as well. However after the late reports, I didn't want to risk getting nothing out of Wainwright's spot. I also re-thought starting Drabek against the Yankees. A rookie pitcher with control issues and a 90 pitch limit against the most patient lineup in the game just seemed too certain a recipe for disaster. So a 6-3 mix was meant to be, with Gutierrez once again the closer left on the bench (hopefully that decision works out this time ). Three relievers with 21 potential save or vulture win possibilities. Six starters with seven chances to win & rack up K's, too bad that one of them won't be with Wainwright.



On the offensive side, I decided what the hell. I can't move up in the power cats, so I started every available speed guy I had on my roster and sat anyone who in all likelihood wouldn't contribute in that category, with no regard for who was the better player. That meant Kendrick over Derrick Lee, Bonafacio over Neil Walker, and Espinosa & Lillebridge over Alex Gonzalez all in the lineup along with Roberts, Brantley, Cargo, Rasmus, & even Pujols all started with the hopes that they can throw in some steals over anything else. I would have even started Crisp over Wells or Guerrero if I had heard that they'd potentially use him as a pinch runner similar to the Bourne news. Hopefully, I can make one more surge up the steals standings while holding ground in all others.



So there it is, the lineup for the final push. Good luck to Steve, David, Mark, Ken, Chris, et al this final week that'll decide where we all finish in the Overall. Also a good luck to everyone else in their final push for a league championship or league money spot this week. It's been a fun & exciting year, hopefully the last week is just as much.



Glenn

[Glenneration X]

A quick note on an interesting software phenomenon I noticed this morning while checking out my team stats.



Due to the late Wainwright news & the resulting last second rethinking of lineup strategies, I was forced to make lineup transactions right up to the deadline. I'm guessing that my last transaction must have been saved at the exact moment of the deadline or possibly in the seconds immediately following the deadline causing a bit of a software glitch.



Right now, my lineup shows Kyle Drabek as the starter with Uehara on the bench the first half of the week, but Uehara in the lineup with Drabek on the bench the second half.



Now this would actually be good for me if it were allowed to remain as it would allow me to stream a starter the first half of the week, and still get save opportunities the second half, so I'm OK with it staying as is.

However, I doubt my competitors would agree. Obviously, this needs to be corrected and quickly as Drabek starts tonight.



I informed Greg & Tom of this occurrance earlier today via private E-mail and typically would have just left it at that as I'm sure they'll make the correction as soon as they're able. However, with so much on the line, I thought it best to have full transparancy so that there were no questions of impropriety.



I will abide by whoever is decided should be in the lineup, Drabek or Uehara, I just would like the decision made as quickly as possible and obviously before Drabek's start.



Glenn

[Glenneration X]

OK...issue resolved and quickly.



It's apparant that I missed the deadline on switching Uehara in for Drabek by a few seconds and Drabek it is.



Maybe it's the Fantasy Gods doing me a solid as Drabek goes out and pitches a perfect game against the hated Yankees tonight starting my last second push to a championship! Or maybe he just gets blown out.

Either way, time will tell.



Thanks Greg for handling this right away.



Glenn

[Sebadiah23]

Cool story about the bidding war for SB guys. I can't believe you have no chance of moving down significantly in power categories. I haven't looked but you must be way up in the stratasphere there for SBs alone to counter-balance HR and RBI.

[Glenneration X]

I think there's little as frustrating in this hobby of ours as those rare times that one of our own closers blows a save costing a win for one of our own starters. As I watched my own Mets smack around John Axford last night (winning for the first time ALL YEAR after trailing after 8 innings), my WCOFB Main Event team had to endure the quadruple hit of a blown save, a lost win for Randy Wolf, & hits to both ratio categories. This was the centerpoint of a pretty crappy night across the board for all my teams still in contention for money spots.



In the NFBC Main Event hunt, the Kyle Drabek technical glitch I mentioned yesterday turned out NOT to be a gift from the Fantasy Gods, well that is unless it was a gift to Mark Srebro & David Longood. I woke up this morning to find that the 100+ point lead I had going into this past weekend had now completely evaporated as Mark has pulled ahead of me by 4 points and David only trails me by 1/2 of one. My chase of Jupinka now moving from life support status to near terminal, my emotional focus is quickly shifting to the battle for 2nd place, a battle that is turning into one that is both extremely exciting and tense.



In the WCOFB, one day after Professor Childs stated in his weekly article how happy he was that a player like me has worked his way into 5th overall, he personally soared past me like I was standing still dropping me down to 6th. I liken it to the hunter who tells the deer how shiny his coat is before pulling the trigger.



In the Hot Tub, I'm back to chasing Mr. Doughboys as my pull into a tie for first lasted only one day and I again trail him by a single point. This one should go down to the wire.



In the Original Slow Draft II, I can't seem to shake BillyWaz as he pulled into a tie with me for the final free entry spot at one point last night before dropping down to a point behind by night's end. Another ridiculous battle that should go down to the end. Billy, don't you win enough money in football?



In the WCOFB NYC Invitational, my good friend Rob Gutmann moved ahead of me by a point and 1/2 in our back & forth battle for the last money spot there. Remember that name everyone, it's one I'm sure you'll be hearing a lot of as he continues in this High Stakes hobby after a solid first year.



My longshot bids for the last money spots in my Super league & with my only "contending" Online Championship team are on it's last legs. Though I've increased my point total in both, so have the teams in the last money spots. I just don't think I have either the goods or the time to pull either of these miracles off.



With only 5 days left in our season, today may be the most important one of the entire year for me. With pitching the key to any move I can make in either of my Main Event Championship runs, I have the majority of my remaining starters on the schedule today.



I have Lincecum, Cecil, Chacin, & C. Young going for my NFBC team.

I have Verlander, Kennedy, & McDonald going in the WCOFB.



Today will go a long way towards determining where I end up in both of these contests. I'll be monitoring every second of it. With a few of these games going this afternoon, I don't anticipate a productive day at the office.



Good luck to everyone else I'm battling in these contests and all my leagues, just not too much.



Glenn



[ September 29, 2010, 08:33 AM: Message edited by: Glenneration X ]

[Glenneration X]

The following few posts are a quick recap of one day in the emotional roller coaster a fantasy baseball player goes through in the midst of a pennant race.....



Part I - Pre-games



6:30am - Wake up to discover that your Main Event teams in both contests have dropped in the overall standings.



11:00am - Find out that Brian Roberts won't be playing for your NFBC team today.



12:00pm - Find out that Albert Pujols won't be playing for your NFBC team today.



12:30pm - Find out that Vlad Guerrero won't be playing for either of your Main Event teams today.

[Glenneration X]

Part II - Day Games



2:00pm - Find out that the Dodgers have shut down Clayton Kershaw for the year and your pitcher, Jhoulys Chacin will be facing Carlos Monasterios instead.



2:30pm - See Chacin go out and give up a 2nd inning grand slam to Matt Kemp and lose anyway.



3:00pm - See that your pitcher, James McDonald went out and held the Cards to one run on 5 hits and toss in 7 K's.



3:OOpm - See him leave the game down 1-0 after 6.



4:00pm - Notice that the Cards held on for a 4-1 win with your closer, Ryan Franklin pitching the ninth.



4:05pm - Check the box score only to find that Franklin entered the 9th with a 4-0 lead and he was the one who gave up the Pirate run.



6:00pm - See that your NFBC offense started the day 1 for 19.



6:00-10:30pm - See your offense go 11 for 25 the rest of the night.

[Glenneration X]

Part III - Night Games



9:30pm - Watch Koji Uehara pick up a save for your WCOFB team.



9:31pm - Remember that he's on the bench for your NFBC team ($#&*^ Kyle Drabek glitch!!!)



7:00-10:00pm - Watch Justin Verlander get staked to a lead, start to falter, and end up losing.



7:30-10:30pm - Watch Brett Cecil get staked to a lead, start to falter, but end up winning anyway.



10:00-1:00am - See Chris Young win and give up no runs.



10:00-1:00am - See Tim Lincecum win and toss in 11 K's finishing up a day that adds three wins to the fantasy cause.

[Glenneration X]

Part IV - Post Games



1:00-6:00am - Sleep.



5:30-6:00am - Get woken up by nightmare of falling out of the top 10 in the NFBC.



6:30am - Race to laptop & check standings to discover that you've moved back into 2nd place in the NFBC.



This season can't end soon enough for me. I don't know how many more days like that I can take.



Glenn

[Glenneration X]

Brett Myers line for tonight - 5.2 innings, 14 baserunners, 8 earned runs. Ugh.

Not really aiding the cause with that effort.



Really could have used him coming through tonight.

Especially with Carpenter, Lee, & Volstad all pitching very well so far for Mark & David's teams. Ahhh well.



Can't really complain though. I wouldn't even be in the position I'm in right now without Myers big bounceback and production this year. Still, sure would have been nice if he could have given me just one more quality start.



Glenn

[Cocktails and Dreams]

So there are no live standings over here? That would add a lot of years on my life.

[Glenneration X]

Chad, no live overall standings. It definately made for some restless nights this final week. Last night was one of them.



Yesterday's slate of games was not a good one for my NFBC Main Event team. It also represented the first time all year that I paid real attention to the players going for a competitor's squad. Typically, my entire focus is on my own team. I can't make FAAB or lineup decisions for my opponent's team (unless they'd like me to ), so I usually don't worry about their rosters or who's going for them or how their players are doing. I just check the standings everyday. Given that this is a rotisserie and not head to head format, I just focus on the ten categories and how to optimize my own lineup to provide the most impact any given week for any given team for those categories. However well my competition did will just reflect itself on the next morning's updated standings. Yesterday all that changed.



Coming off Wednesday's big night for my team, I had moved back into second about 140 points off of Jupinka's pace, creating leads of about 35, 60, and 100 points over Mark Srebro, David Longood, & Chris Plouffe respectively. Still, I was uneasy.



4 of my remaining 6 starts were burned that night. I only had 2 closers in the lineup partially due to the Uehara decision. I had nowhere to rise in any of the power categories. EYII was shut down for the year (after contributing a final 0 for 4 Monday night, thanks), Brian Roberts was missing games due to the flu, & Ozzie Guillen was starting 100 year old Omar Vizquel instead of giving Brent Lillebridge any late season playing time, all combining to reduce any impact I could make in steals. I didn't see where I could gain any additional significant number of points. Short of a Quahogs collapse of epic proportions, there was no way I was catching Jupinka, but honestly I've known that's become a pipe dream for several days now. My realistic hopes had shifted to holding onto 2nd, but when looking at the lineup I had for the remaining 4 days of the season, I realized I might need help.



I scanned the lineups of Gekko & Longood and what I saw made me even uneasier.

Mark had set up his hitting in similar fashion to what I tried to do, loaded up with speed, the one hitting category he also can make up some ground in. Of course, he was much more successful in getting the players in his lineup to do so than I was. He also had 4 starters remaining, Carpenter, Gio, Porcello, & Dempster, along with three closers. Mark was much better prepared to make another run that I was. If his team did what it was set up to do, I knew I was in trouble.

When reviewing David's lineup, I saw that even with Wainwright in his lineup and being skipped, he had SIX remaining starts scheduled for the week including Cliff Lee & Volstad last night. With the impact six quality starts can have on four categories, I knew that my 60 point lead on him was shaky at best.



I needed Brett Myers to have a quality start last night. Just as much I needed Mark & David's 2 starters each not to have them. I watched. Myers got blown up. Carpenter, Gio, Lee, & Volstad all pitched great, three of them winning. My lead over Mark turned into a deficit, my lead over David shrunk, and to make matters worse, Chris Plouffe's team, the one team I didn't watch, shaved 90 points off my lead on him last night and is now within 10.



As we head into the final weekend, I don't have a lot left going. My competitors do. You better believe I'll be watching. Tonight I'll be rooting heavily against Porcello.



Glenn

[Head 2 Head]

I am sitting in 15th place - 80 points will put me in 10th. Adam Jones, my only player that has gone, went 3/4 2 runs 4 RBI assuming I am the only team with stats - I move up 30.5. No way of knowing where I actually stand until the morning.

[Glenneration X]

Originally posted by Glenneration X:

OK...issue resolved and quickly.



It's apparant that I missed the deadline on switching Uehara in for Drabek by a few seconds and Drabek it is.



Thanks Greg for handling this right away.



Glenn Again in the interest of full transparancy....



It was discovered today that the Uehara for Drabek lineup transaction was made on time and verified by time stamp on the transaction log.

The Uehara glitch was actually caused by a minor software malfunction that affected the way Uehara was designated by STATS and affected other managers besides myself over the past two weeks.



The move has now been corrected by Greg and Tom.

Thanks for helping get this right guys. I appreciate it.



Glenn

[Gekko]

Originally posted by Glenneration X:

OK...issue resolved and quickly.



It's apparant that I missed the deadline on switching Uehara in for Drabek by a few seconds and Drabek it is.



Maybe it's the Fantasy Gods doing me a solid as Drabek goes out and pitches a perfect game against the hated Yankees tonight starting my last second push to a championship! Or maybe he just gets blown out.

Either way, time will tell.



Thanks Greg for handling this right away.



Glenn so the issue was resolved and it was decided by the Commish office ON TUESDAY that drabek was the player who should be in your lineup.



now on Friday, it was decided by the commish office that their initial investigation was wrong and uehara should be active??



sorry to be a negative nancy here, but there are thousands of dollars on the line and this kind of stuff is getting pulled?? and the commish office doesn't even notify anyone other than the owner in question? WTF is going on here?



[ October 01, 2010, 08:36 PM: Message edited by: Gekko ]

[Glenneration X]

Mark, I personally discovered the time stamp today after setting my lineups for the weekend. It clearly shows that I had in fact indisputably gotten the Monday transaction in on time and Uehara should have been in my lineup. When I forwarded the information to Greg & Tom, they correctly reversed their original decision. I had accepted their original decision without argument assuming that it was determined that the transaction was late. It was now apparant that it wasn't. The legal & correct lineup is now in place.



Since the software glitch that created this issue first came up, I've wanted full transparancy because no matter what the decision, I wanted everything out in the open with so much on the line. That's why I posted the updates here. Nothing's changed, just the right decision is now in place and I believe that's all we could hope for no matter who the decision benefits.



Glenn

[Gekko]

Originally posted by Glenneration X:

Mark, I personally discovered the time stamp today after setting my lineups for the weekend. It clearly shows that I had in fact indisputably gotten the Monday transaction in on time and Uehara should have been in my lineup. When I forwarded the information to Greg & Tom, they correctly reversed their original decision. I had accepted their original decision without argument assuming that it was determined that the transaction was late. It was now apparant that it wasn't. The legal & correct lineup is now in place.



Since the software glitch that created this issue first came up, I've wanted full transparancy because no matter what the decision, I wanted everything out in the open with so much on the line. That's why I posted the updates here. Nothing's changed, just the right decision is now in place and I believe that's all we could hope for no matter who the decision benefits.



Glenn what criteria did greg use to make his first ruling that drabek was to be in your lineup??

[Glenneration X]

I can't honestly say. Maybe he also wasn't aware that there was a time stamp. However, now that it's been discovered, it's clear what the correct lineup is. As they say in poker, the cards talk.



Glenn

[Money]

You're a class act Glenn. Thanks for the blog, I've enjoyed reading it everyday. Very exciting ending no matter who wins and finishes second. You each tried your best and have proven why you're in the elite of the fantasy baseball world.....