Friday, May 30, 2008

How Did I Get Here: Taking Stock a Third of the Way Through

In my Yahoo H2H keeper league, I find myself in second place, 1.5 games behind the Macafeys with nearly a third of the season in the books.  How did I get here and what do I do to stay competitive?  No matter how good your team looks at the end of the draft, there are always things that go right and things that go wrong.


What Went Wrong
1. Pitching
With my keepers and my first draft pick, I focused entirely on offense.  I figured that I'd build my offense and then fill in my pitching staff with a solid core of under-appreciated starters and closers.  The second and third starters I drafted were Rich Hill and Ian Snell, both of whom I was counting on taking the next step in their development.  Snell has taken a step backwards with 19 ER and 17 walks in the past month.  Hill's in AAA on the DL, trying to figure out what's wrong with his control.   Neither pitcher has performed even close to preseason expectations. 

I drafted Matt Garza in one of the final rounds of the draft, banking on his upside.  Though he has pitched well with an ERA of 2.52 this month, he pitched horribly in April.  With my starting rotation struggling to carry the underperforming Hill and Snell, I had to make cuts somewhere, so I dropped Garza before his recent resurgence.  The only reason I still feel glad about cutting Garza is the fact that up until his 10 K performance in his last game, he had a BB-to-K ratio of 20/19.  This last start is promising for him and his owners, but it did come against the Rangers who've struck out 4th most in the majors, so we need to see how Garza performs in his next start, which is against Boston, a team that's a bit more patient than Texas.  Garza's talented, but until he can consistently strikeout more guys than he walks, I don't believe in him for this year.

2. Hitting
I have a lot of hitters who've underperformed.  Mark Teixeira is behaving like his old self, waiting for the second half to unleash his talent.  Brian Roberts is running, but he's hitting more like he did in 2004, rather than he did the last few years.  Both Ryan Zimmerman and Jhonny Peralta are hitting for power, but neither is hitting close to the average that I had hoped.  Carlos Guillen has been hitting for good average, but he's not showing the power that I had hoped.  Kevin Kouzmanoff was horrible for a little over a month, but he does appear to be turning it around.  Josh Willingham was hitting great in all areas, but who knows when he'll be healthy to play.  I traded Xavier Nady for Austin Kearns before the season started in hopes that Kearns would thrive in the new stadium, but I had to cut him about a month into the season because he was doing so poorly.

What's Gone Right
1.  By working the waiver wire and not reaching for anyone, I was able to assemble a strong group of closers for very cheap.  I drafted Matt Capps and Brad Lidge as closers, and took a flier on Kerry Wood winning the closer's job in Chicago.  I picked up Jon Rauch off the waiver wire right before Chad Cordero went on the DL.  With four closers, I can usually win saves, and because we have a 9-start limit for pitchers each week, having a strong bullpen can help me in strikeouts, ERA, and WHIP.  I'm especially happy that I drafted Lidge, as he's performed far beyond where I drafted him.

2. Though my starting pitching has taken some hits, I've been able to stay competitive in the pitching categories by taking chances on pitchers that struggled early and were dropped.  I was able to grab Ted Lilly off the waiver wire after he was dropped for posting an ERA over 9 in his first four starts (I think I dropped Garza for him).  I also took a chance on Ervin Santana, remembering what he was able to do for my team a few years ago.  Both those pickups, along with the underrated Javier Vasquez (drafted) and Todd Wellemeyer and Justin Duchscherer (both off waivers) have helped me weather my early pitching problems.

3. After a poor start, Hunter Pence has been amazing, Brian McCann is looking more like the 2006 version, Carlos Lee is racking up RBI despite a low BA, Rick Ankiel is hitting better than I thought he would, and I was able to pick up Joe Crede for nothing during his hot streak.  

4. Of course in H2H, it's all about luck.  I haven't been dominating in any one category this season, except for HR and Saves.  But I've only lost one week so far and that was against one of the strongest teams in the league.  In H2H, you need consistency from your players, and for things to go right for you each week.  I've been lucky in that when some players on my team have struggled, other players have gotten hot just at the right time to help carry the load.

Where Do I Go From Here
I've been trying to move Brian Roberts because he's my only stolen base-threat and I'm near the bottom of the league in steals.  He's not going to help me win that category each week by himself.  My team just isn't built around speed.  If I can move him for a second baseman with some pop, I could better compete in the other four categories.  Yes, that does mean punting SB's, but I guess I was already doing that without meaning to.

I was thinking about moving one of my closers, someone like Wood or Capps while they still look better than they actually were.  Maybe moving Roberts and Wood for to a team that needed steals and saves for a good second baseman like Dan Uggla or Brandon Phillips.  But I think I'll hang onto Wood; there's no telling what could happen to any of my closers, and I may need all the saves that I can get as the year progresses.

Otherwise, I'm going to keep my eye on emerging players, especially hitters, and hope that Hill and Snell can figure things out.  Anyone got any tips?

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Why it's called "I Hate Matt Berry".

If you're stumbling across this blog for the first time, you may be wondering why I decided to title it "I Hate Matt Berry".

Short answer: I hate naming things and "I Hate Matt Berry" was one of the first things that popped into my head. (This does not bode well for any future children or pets I may or may not have; they'll most likely have names such as "It's too hot" or "I like pizza".) My thinking at the time was influenced by the spirit of the title of Dick Hyacinth's comic-related blog, "Dick Hates Your Blog".

Long answer: The spirit of my blog's title may be tongue-in-cheek, but while I have nothing against Matt Berry as a person, I can't stand his style of writing. He knows what he's talking about when it comes to fantasy sports, definitely more so than I do considering he's been playing fantasy sports since before I had internet, but I can't stand skimming through his ramblings to get to any serious nuggets of fantasy advice they might contain.

Now I know that his humor and his stories about his personal life work for some people (a lot of people in fact, considering it was the huge popularity of Berry's web site that got him the gig at ESPN.com), but reading tales about crazy girlfriends and discussing which Hollywood starlet is the hottest just doesn't work for me when I'm trying to get my fantasy fix. To strain a metaphor, I don't want all the garnish and fat that comes with my dinner, just the juicy steak that I crave.

I feel that there's a place for writing that takes into account the convergence between sports and pop culture, where we can discuss their similarities and relationship together; Bill Simmons does this very well for the same site. But as the Senior Director of Fantasy for ESPN.com, doesn't Matt Berry set the tone with the articles that he writes for the whole of the web site's fantasy content? When he contributes content that feels like more of a fit for Page 2, does that mean that Matt Berry is an odd fit for the Fantasy section at ESPN.com, or is this how ESPN.com feels that their Fantasy commentary should sound like?

Now the easy answer is that fantasy addicts like myself who prefer other writers to Matt Berry should just avoid his articles and take advantage of the wide variety of fantasy pundits featured on the site. And there are a lot of talented fantasy experts on ESPN.com, with a wide range of opinions. It's important for a premiere sports site such as ESPN.com to offer a variety in the opinions expressed because they are trying to reach the widest audience possible. Having writers like Matt Berry is important because they appeal to a large audience of fantasy-participants.

But it can be hard to ignore the effect that Matt Berry's personality has on the site, especially in the chats.  During his chats, Matt Berry tends to reward certain types of questions with his attention due to the chatters' ability to humor him or connect with his interests.  This tends to engender a chat where everyone is trying to sound like Matt Berry, to make jokes like Berry, to become a Berry clone.  It can make it frustrating for someone like myself, who just wants to read Matt Berry's answers to fantasy questions, to have to dig through running jokes about stalkers, Megan Fox vs. Anne Hathaway, or favorite TV shows.  It's all a lot of noise.  Sure it's entertaining to some, but not everyone.  

So the chatters who find themselves being rewarded for acting like Berry clones, they take it into other chats to try and make it work there.  They try to figure out what the chat host likes to talk about, they try to make jokes to get themselves noticed, and it can turn into a pathetic display of attention-seeking boorishness with everyone doing their best to be seen and heard.

This can be annoying if you are only interested in hearing a fantasy analyst's opinion about fantasy baseball.

Look, I don't want to excoriate Matt Berry for the style of writing that he's developed over the past decade.  I know how important it is to set yourself apart with a singular and unique voice, especially in the broad landscape of fantasy writing and analysis.  As The Talented Mr. Roto, Matt Berry has cultivated a brand that has helped him to rise to the elite levels of fantasy punditry.  This is ultimately not a bad thing, not in the grand scheme of things.

I just feel that so much of the fantasy analysis available on the web is flawed, not in the content per se, but in the presentation.  There is a lot of fluff out there, a lot of analysis that lacks depth, a lot of writers making their reputation by tearing down the opinions of other writers in order to build up their own.  I'm not accusing Matt Berry of any of these things; as far as I can tell, he is very professional.  But I wish that he would be more in-depth in his articles, and less broad.  I wish that when he makes grand and bold predictions, that he would take more time to back them up with solid reasoning other than just hunches.  Anyone can make predictions, but Matt Berry is supposed to be one of the best, so when he makes a prediction that differs with the opinions of others, I want to know why he feels he's right.  I wish he would take the time to write insightfully about 5 subjects, as opposed to generally about 50 subjects.

Again, I know that he's probably busy with his position as Senior Director of Fantasy, and he probably can't write the way that he wants to, but I'd like some fantasy analysis with a little more meat.  Less garnish and fat, more meat and potatoes.

So, I really don't hate Matt Berry, and I hope that he doesn't take my blog title personally because I know he gets a lot of flack from louder voices than mine.  It's just the kind of title you come up with when you're feeling cheeky and you don't think anyone's going to notice anyways, because who really reads this other than the 11 other guys in my fantasy league.  Who knew that it would lead to this?

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