MoFo Fantasy Baseball 2021 - Regular Season

I literally Googled that to make sure you were joking.

Success!
But the season being what it is….it wouldn’t be surprising if it came true

Lindor to the IL. And he was really starting to heat up; the topline numbers finally coming in line with the underlying ones.

There's honestly just no precedent for this, at this point.

It’s no longer a comedy. It’s a tragedy.
Last week Acuna, now Lindor, although Lindor shouldn’t keep him out for that long.

This is pretty great:

I actually left off the kicker: I already had a backup for him, but literally had to drop him the same day Lindor got hurt.

I will add Betts to the list with a hip problem, and yes, he was just starting to go 3/4 and 4/4 etc. with some power turning on (finally). No word yet on the imaging results, but he was in obvious pain Saturday.

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Got him in another league, and yeah, he's finally played up to his usual level the last few weeks. Sounds like he's gonna be fine though, thankfully.

11 out of 12 years Yoda made top 3.

And the other was 4th, yeah.

That's very much in danger, though. I just don't think there's really a plausible way to withstand losing your top five picks, a few for extended periods. It'll be pretty cool if it happens, I guess, but methinks this is just a cursed year.

Any griping and doubt I voiced about drafting Trea Turner in the first round have been silenced completely. Probably the best first rounder Ive ever had on a roster. I remember why I drafted him now, I had got him when he was first called up to the bigs, and was immediate dynamite. Chris Taylor and Matt Olsen have really surprised me, but Jesse Winker has predictably cooled. He may have another surge in him though before seasons end.

Old man Cutch aint what he used to be but is still a damn good fantasy relevant ballplayer. Longo my balls.

It is so much fun following these guys year after year. Robbie Ray has been on my roster for several years now and until this year he's always been a decent k guy and that's about it. Sometimes tho, the lights just come on and something clicks. And then its just a fun ride to watch. He stays healthy and hes gonna end up better than a lot of frontline starters this year. Good for you Robbie Ray! That's the only way to say his name btw... you have to say the whole thing... loud.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

Yeah, pretty wild. Pitchers do that sometimes, just take literally years to figure something out, and then it clicks. I noticed his control was improved in spring training and wondered if a breakthrough was coming, but his record of control issues was so long that it was hard to buy in a small sample. Half a dozen other guys flashed the same thing and it ended up being a blip.

The low-key interesting thing is whether the new ball has something to do with it. Given the number of players we're seeing just randomly have career years, sometimes well past their primes, I'd say that's happening a fair bit. It's rendered a lot of historically meaningful indicators kinda useless in the short-term, since there's no precedent for screwing with the ball this much.

While the conversation seems to have eased into casual chatter, how do you all keep track of everything? Are you mostly focused on a preferred team and a select few players, or are you all actually aware of and familiar with every team and most every player relative to all others? Are you catching news highlights that get your attention to then say to yourself, "Oh... I need to watch that guy for the next three years" and it just builds from that?

I've never much cared for baseball but have made myself watch a few games this month with the Astros. Granted I'm not invested emotionally or historically so my experience is nothing to go by. Having caught maybe five games of the one team I've caught maybe two or three names that are sticking based on performance. I recognize a few other faces when up to bat, but couldn't tell you their names or positions. I HAVE noticed one or two players in the opposing teams, but while I'd be interested in how, say, this one guy, Pinder, is doing in his games, I just don't have the motivation or time to chase more than what I'm already barely able to do for just the one team.

One of the announcers the other night commented that baseball is a local game. Locals root for and follow their local team but don't really track other teams and their progress. I'm very loosely paraphrasing there so don't beat me or the announcer up for my misrepresentation. But it all made me curious. You all are like the ONLY people I know that follow baseball on any level so why not ask you?

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"My Dionne Warwick understanding of your dream indicates that you are ambivalent on how you want life to eventually screw you." - Joel

"Ever try to forcibly pin down a house cat? It's not easy." - Captain Steel

"I just can't get pass sticking a finger up a dog's butt." - John Dumbear

lol. I sit back now and only hope I've not burned through whatever good credit I may have had in the thread for any random smart ass comments I may have made, for that post to be taken seriously.

*fingers crossed*

It's not really plausible to track everything, but sometimes I come pretty close, particularly when I'm in contention late in the year. I'll literally pore over weather reports sometimes, when it's really down to the wire. But that's like the last two weeks of the season, usually.

In the first half of the year I end up looking specifically for a) genuine breakout guys and b) good players underperforming their career stats and/or peripherals.

A lot of owners, I think, just kinda glance around and pickup whoever had a good game the night before and see if it continues, though. Most of the time that doesn't work out, obviously, but if you happen to hit big on one or two it can win you the year all by itself. That seems to work better now than it used to, too, for whatever reason.

I think any moderately engaged owner definitely knows way more about the sport as a whole, beyond their local team, way way more than they would if they didn't play fantasy, though.

Meanwhile, both Trout and Bregman ran the bases yesterday. It sure would be nice to get my two best hitters back soon.

RUB SOME DIRT ON IT BOYS

The only strategy I use is the one where I refuse to use any players from the home team. The Mariners are not a real baseball team and no one should support them. Other than that I just give them lots of steroids... the cream and the clear. This game is hella easy when you cheat!

If I can be serious at all tho. I have been reading Scott Pianowski on Yahoo for as long as the league has been running. Is it 12 years now? Yeah, I think 12 now... anyway. I owe any kind of success I have at this to him.

And I've said this before but about idk... 5 years ago maybe? Yahoo added this great new spreadsheet stat tracker. It allowed me the freedom to not spend so much time tracking Individual players and focus more on my team trends and my key areas that need work.