A Fantasy Virgin

In this, my 58th year on the planet, I’m doing something for the very first time. Yesterday I drafted a team for a fantasy baseball league.

Yes, I’ve managed to avoid taking part in fantasy leagues until now, even though a lot of friends and family members participate. I figured I never had time for it, or I don’t follow sports that intricately to be able to do well. Actually, I love sports, but what I love is the drama of the games, and following the rises and falls of a given team’s chances throughout the season; individual players’ stats don’t really excite me that much.

But the last two years, my friend Kurt has asked me to help out at his fantasy league’s draft. This league is less hands-on than a lot of fantasy leagues. You draft a team at the beginning of the year, and then your players’ cumulative stats for the year are calculated for the league’s standings; you don’t have to decide before each game who’s in your lineup or whatever. Once your team is drafted, the only work you have to do is preparing for monthly free-agent nights in which you can drop players who are hurt or underperforming, and add players who aren’t already on someone else’s team.

Helping Kurt on his draft day was fun, and this year, when a slot opened up, I jumped at the chance to have a team of my own.

The league has 12 teams; I drew draft position No. 11, which is fine, because the draft “snakes”; in the even-numbered rounds, the teams draft in reverse order, so I had positions 11 and 14, then 35 and 38, etc. The draft consisted of 21 rounds, so there would be 252 players drafted. This fantasy league uses only players on National League, which of course makes researching players a lot easier. Also, though, it means the last few rounds of the draft feature a lot of players most people don’t know anything about.

That would present an opportunity to do a lot of research, to get to know the universe of National League players and try to figure out who the best 252 are, and in what order they should be placed. Me, I’m a newbie at this, and I chose to rely on the “experts” at CBSSports.com, where there is all kinds of research on players, with stats and rankings by position. I made a list of what I consider the top 75 players in the league—that would get me through the first six rounds—and printed ranking lists, by position, of all of the rest of the players.

My rankings were based on three-year stats, rather than last year’s, which, in retrospect, may have skewed my team a little bit. I wound up with a lot of vets on my team, and few youngsters. There could be guys there who are twilighting their careers and I just don’t know it yet. I guess I’ll find out over the next couple of months. I did land some very good starting pitchers, so I hope to do well in the ERA and strikeout categories, if nothing else.

But hey, it’s my rookie year. I’m only here to gain experience. As the season unfolds, I’ll understand a lot more about what it takes to do well in this league, and on next year’s draft day, I’ll be better prepared.

The way the league works, your team has 21 players (eight pitchers, five outfielders, two catchers, one each at the other four infield positions, plus one “corner infielder,” who can be a first or third baseman, and one “middle infielder,” who can be either a second baseman or shortstop.) Those players are ranked according to their cumulative stats for the season in eight categories: batting average, home runs, RBIs and stolen bases for batters, and ERA, wins, saves and strikeouts for pitchers.

Not that you care, but these are the players I ended up with:

Pitcher: Max Scherzer, Jake Arrieta, Zack Greinke, Joaquin Benoit, Shawn Kelley, Fernando Rodney, Carter Capps and Hector Rondon.

Outfield: Kyle Schwarber, Jayson Werth, Jay Bruce, Andre Ethier and Franklin Gutierrez

First Base: Brandon Belt

Second Base: Neil Walker

Shortstop: Corey Seager

Third Base: Jose Reyes

Corner Infielder: Martin Prado

Middle Infielder: Howie Kendrick.

Play Ball!