Every man’s Fantasy

Defensive Specialist,

Love your website!

Baseball season is over in Australia so many of us turn to the Majors for our fix of baseball. I am a big fan of Pete Moylan of the Atlanta Braves. I was wondering if you play fantasy baseball and what your team is like?

See ya

Dylan

Dear Dylan,

Thank you very much for your email.

Ahh fantasy baseball. The Defensive Specialist must admit that he battled his fantasy sport demons for a number of years. Managing baseball, basketball and football teams became time consuming and all encompassing. The turning point came when the Defensive Specialist was asked to join a fantasy NASCAR league. The Defensive Specialist really has no appreciation for motor sports whatsoever which made the Defensive Specialists procrastination of actually joining the league particularly alarming. It was at this point that the Defensive Specialist realized that he had an addiction and had to heal himself. With no medical assistance the Defensive Specialist went cold turkey and quit all forms of fantasy sport once and for all…or so he thought.

Before we continue into the Defensive Specialist’s abyss of addiction, it’s prudent to evaluate exactly what fantasy baseball is and how it came about. In most versions, players manage imaginary teams based on the real life performance of major league players. The stats generated by these players are allocated points and it is the points that determine the victor. Fantasy baseball is the oldest form of fantasy sport with early incarnations appearing in the 1960’s.

The most popular form of fantasy baseball is Rotisserie (or Roto), which was developed in 1980 by Daniel Okrent (the name came from a NYC restaurant La Rotisserie Francaise). His game was based on the current performance of players, meaning that ‘owners’ had to manage playing time and carefully monitor statistical performance. The advent and popularity of the Internet allowed fantasy baseball to evolve further with automatic scoring and the ability to manipulate various rules and aspects of the game. The accessibility that the Internet affords has seen fantasy sports explode in popularity although baseball is no longer the most popular form due to the time constraints as a result of a 162 game schedule.

The Defensive Specialist didn’t fall off the wagon as a result of a dalliance with fantasy baseball unfortunately. No, the beast that pushed the Defensive Specialist back into this world was actually Dream Team (Australian Rules Football fantasy game)*. Once the Defensive Specialist got a taste for the juice again, it was inevitable that he’d find his way back to fantasy baseball.

* For those of you brave enough to join the Defensive Specialist’s Dream Team league, you’ll have noticed that despite being an addict, the Defensive Specialist still put up a radical score.

With the itch back, it was with no hesitation that the Defensive Specialist accepted an invitation to play in a new fantasy baseball league in early March. The league appeared to be filled with knowledgeable and passionate baseball people and the Defensive Specialist was no match for the temptation. One of the most important and exciting parts of playing fantasy baseball is preparing for the draft. It is this time period that is critical in developing a competitive unit. In some hard-core leagues you often have a live draft where players log in and take turns selecting players, or better yet, all meet up to perform the draft together.

If that sounds totally dorky, you’re absolutely right.

The league the Defensive Specialist is in featured people from all around Australia and the globe so an auto draft was required. An auto draft sees the computer randomly assign selection order and then players are snapped up based on where they are ranked. Now this is where things get uber nerdy so break out your pocket protector and get ready! In most leagues, the host (e.g. Yahoo fantasy Sports or ESPN) will pre rank players based on their fantasy values. For the most part, you could stick with these rankings and have a decent team, Hard core players (or geeks) actually evaluate these rankings and adjust them accordingly to give themselves a different draft order. For example, if you had an inkling that a starting pitcher may be hard to come by and you believed that Roy Halladay is the best guy out there, you’d move him up your draft board so that when your turn came around you’re more likely to be able to make the selection.

So how did the Defensive Specialist’s team shape up?

Pretty damn good.

Are you surprised?

The Defensive Specialist logged onto his team and noticed that he had the number 1 ranked player – Albert Pujols on his squad. After a quick prayer of thanks to the baseball Gods, the Defensive Specialist looked at the draft results and noticed that he actually landed the second pick of the draft! It transpires that the guy with the first pick actually thought he wouldn’t get it and ranked Joe Mauer his top player. Now getting Joe Mauer is not a bad piece of luck, but snagging Albert Pujols is a gift from the heavens.

After a cold shower to calm down the Defensive Specialist began poring over his team looking for any structural weakness. It is important to remember that fantasy baseball is scored on statistical data. Your team needs to have good figures across all categories. So when evaluating your team, you want to make sure that you have a good balance. The first thing that jumped out at the Defensive Specialist was a total lack of relief pitchers – saves are a scoring category and the Defensive Specialist had 2 guys who combined for 4 last season.

The Defensive Specialist quickly made the league aware that he was looking for a closer and stat! Of course, the minute you say you’re looking for something, you get bombarded by crappy trades that if they happened in person, you’d probably punch the person for insulting you like that. The worst was the offer of Bobby Jenks for Kendry Morales. Any time you can get an obese closer with a bleached goatee for a 30 homerun / 100 RBI first baseman, you have to give it serious consideration. Of course the Defensive Specialist rejected it along with an abusive email.

The Defensive Specialist got to work shaping his roster, scouring the free agent pool looking for a closer. The pickings were slim but once word hit the wires that Houston Street was out of action for the Rockies, the Defensive Specialist pounced on his replacement - Franklin Morales. A trade offer then hit the Defensive Specialists inbox. Ryan Franklin, BJ Upton and Placido Polanco for Kendry Morales and Orlando Hudson. The Defensive Specialist had done his research on Franklin and knew that he had fallen into the closers role last year with St Louis and put up 30+ saves. There is a chance that he won’t even hold his job but there are times that you need to take a risk. Now if Bossman Jnr (BJ) can reach his considerable potential (last year he posted 42 stolen bases), this deal could be a real winner for the Defensive Specialist. If Franklin loses his job and BJ sucks like last year, then the Defensive Specialist will be less than impressed.

As for the rest of the roster, the Defensive Specialist hitched his wagon onto the huge upside of Matt Weiters behind the dish. Of course Albert Pujols will man first base with Polanco at second. Shortstop is manned by the Cubs Ryan Theriot and Kevin Youkillis has dual eligibility for first and third. In the outfield the Defensive Specialist has the corpses of Vernon Wells and Alfonso Soriano as well as the aforementioned Upton and Nick Markakis. The bench is filled out with Cody Ross (outfield), Chris Davis (1b / 3b- serious power potential….and strikeouts), Sean Rodriguez (unbelievable spring training – lets see if it carries over), Geovany Soto (catcher) and Juan Uribe (ss/2b/3b/ overweight).

Offensively, a solid mix across statistical fields.

On the mound the Defensive Specialists squad is headlined by Clayton Kershaw and supported by Matt Garza, Javier Vazquez, Roy Oswalt, Mark Buehrle and the wildcard Wade Davis. In relief the Defensive Specialist has Franklin, Morales and Luke Gregerson. The Defensive Specialist has to admit that he still has concerns over his relief corps but normally during the season saves are something that you can stumble across.

All in all the Defensive Specialist is pretty happy with how his team looks and is extremely confident heading into the fantasy season. Of course all that could go out the window the minute one of the big dogs goes down.

The Defensive Specialist is keen to hear about how your fantasy team is shaping up. Fire your team in for discussion ASAP to thedefensivespecialist@gmail.com

Coming next week the Defensive Specialist sits down with NSW Patriots General Manager – Eddie Bray for a deep and meaningful discussion about how his franchise is shaping up leading up to the launch of the ABL.

Now if you’ll excuse the Defensive Specialist, he needs to put some preparation into his draft board for the upcoming fantasy golf season!