Today's Fantasy Rx

After finishing 10th out of 12 teams during the inaugural season of FSICNL in 2002, we hoped to improve on our performance this season, particularly since the websites finishing 11th and 12th each season are not invited back the following year. As I mentioned in my review of this year's draft, we decided to focus on our offense by punting wins and strikeouts in favor of maximizing our finishes in the other three pitching categories since the league rules do not list any AB or IP maximums or minimums. Our goal was to place among the top four teams by finishing no worse than third place in saves, ERA, WHIP, and all five hitting categories despite only earning one point each from wins and strikeouts.

We failed to meet our expectations by a significant amount. Spending 12 of our first 13 picks on position players only netted us 42 of 60 offensive points rather than the 50 we targeted at the draft. While we led ERA and WHIP, we also understandably finished last in wins and strikeouts and only managed 4 points in saves due to our lack of any closer on our roster for the first two months of the season. At least we managed a 7th place finish, but we also only finished five points back of 3rd place, leaving us with a off-season of questions.

1. What happened to our 50-point offense?

We compiled a solid based of steals thanks to drafting Edgar Renteria, Aaron Boone, and Derrek Lee, and then we added Alex Sanchez is the 10th round and Tom Goodwin as a June free agent. Unfortunately, Sanchez's trade to Detroit prevented us from dealing him according to league rules. We then hesitated in responding to a trade offer for Tom Goodwin when he inherited the Cubs' starting CF job, and then he headed to the DL, a move that forced the Cubs to acquire Kenny Lofton, thereby closing our window of trading opportunity. Aaron Boone's move to New York similarly kept us from moving him, and the BA/RBI upside of Renteria and Lee kept us from dealing our other primary SB sources. We finished the season with 185 steals, 45 more than the second place team in that category, and our inability to move SB early in the year probably cost us at least 3 points in the power categories.

2. How did we only earn 30 points in the other four offensive categories?

We selected Jeff Kent 3rd overall ahead of Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols, and then we compounded that error by grabbing Jose Hernandez in the fourth round instead of Jimmy Rollins, Richie Sexson, Aramis Ramirez, or a closer. Our initial outfield included Moises Alou, Alex Sanchez, Brian Jordan, Bubba Trammell, and Gabe Kapler, and Matt Williams and Felipe Lopez shared time at UT. The lack of quantitative contribution from our outfield offset an infield of Lee, Boone, Mike Lowell, Kent, and Renteria, leaving us with 10 points in batting average but only 20 quantitative points out of a possible 36.

3. Why did we only manage 30 pitching points out of a possible 60 points?

Closers went faster than we expected at the draft and we never recovered. Our 9th round pick Byung-Hyun Kim managed 16 saves, and our 26th round gamble on Rod Beck turned into one of the best picks of the draft thanks to his 20 saves. Unfortunately, Brandon Villafuerte, who we selected ahead of Joe Borowski, contributed only 2 saves. We also missed opportunities to add both Tim Worrell and Jose Valverde as a free agents early in the year, and the latter especially hurts considering I recommended him in an article about a week before we should have drafted him. Adding even 14 saves would have given us four extra points, bumping us into a tie for third place.

4. Couldn't we have addressed these issues with in-season transactions? FSIC only allows teams one free agent a week, and we at least added several quality players, including Guillermo Mota, Tom Goodwin, and Oscar Villarreal. Unfortunately, we never found sleeper starters at outfield or catcher, and we also missed on a couple closers, not to mention almost every decent crossover player. We also spent most of the first two months of the season clearing out roster deadweight like Todd Jones, Joey Hamilton, John Patterson, Matt Williams, Jason Middlebrook, and Glendon Rusch, leaving us with little depth to deal. Our one move occurred at the trading deadline when we dealt Mark Redman and Brandon Larson for Morgan Ensberg and Eddie Perez. Despite his mid-season DL trip, keeping Redman nearly all year served no purpose, and our failure to move him for offense sooner, thereby fully committing to a bullpen-only strategy, cost us a first-division finish.

Fortunately, FSIC doesn't kick our websites who finish 10th or better, so we'll have another chance to prove our fantasy mettle against other fantasy sites next year. Despite the limitations of a straight draft format, we feel confident in our ability to properly execute the plan we bungled so badly this year. Congratulations go to Jeff Hobbs of Addict Fantasy Sports for his first place finish. While Mark Redman's weak WHIP negated the four wins he provided Hobbs' team, at least someone from our squad finished the year in first place. Hopefully next year we can send our entire team to the top of the standings.

Today's Fantasy Rx: My predictions for today's games(all times CDT):

7:00: Boston@Oakland

As we've called two out of three series correctly thus far, we're hoping to finish the first round with a 75% success rate.

The lesson from our 2003 FSICNL team is that we need to spend a decent amount of time discussing our specific draft strategy before each draft. Once the draft begins, we should not stray from our plan if at all possible.