Of Spot-Starts and Chasing Saves & Steals

Every year, there is always at least one category that I'm chasing. Most often than not, I end up not only never catching-up, but also ruining other statistics due to the desperation.

While chasing wins last year, I ended up absolutely exploding my ERA and WHIP - and went from a second place finish in 2007 to dead last in 2008. Sure, the no.1 overall pick is nice, but not when you've already traded away the pick hoping to win now. On Team Inchon, there is no tomorrow, only now.

The same win now mentality has prompted me to trade away all of my prospects - Lars Anderson, Andrew McCutchen, Matt LaPorta, and David Price - and my first round pick of next year. Yes, we are hanging on to the first place right now, but an injury here or a bad streak there and everything can fall apart.

In addition to having a solid everyday squad, one of the more risky business of fantasy baseball is spot-starting. Especially on days when there are just a handful of games and you'd like to see some action.

Kendry Morales at Rangers and Emilio Bonifacio at home against the Nationals worked out well, as they combined for 5/11, 3 R, 1 HR, and 3 RBI. I really wanted at least a steal from Bonifacio, but I had to be content with a run and a batted-in. Morales impressed with a dinger.

Speaking of steals, my plan of going with Podsednik may eventually backfire on me. I have benched Nelson Cruz - I won't get started on his major slump, for now - in favor of Pods and the result has been lukewarm. Sure, he's all right, but not amazing. He needs to swipe bags at double the current rate for me to be ecstatic about him.

Saves, saves, saves. After starting out way back in the pack in the category, I stand at bottom of the third tier, with about two to three points to be gained if my crew of new closers (and their teams) can get their act together.

Let me just say this: Thank God the Joe Beimel and Kip Wells disaster is over and we've all moved on.

BA Slumpin'

Three days after I had the following IM exchange with a friend/competitor in my 10-team dynasty fantasy baseball league:

inchon x: d00d, weak: my ba went from like 286 to 280 in the past week
swishernotabellyitcher: bad slumpin

My team's BA went up six points.

The break-down of the week-long slump is highlighted below:

Bengie Molina: 5/25
Mark Reynolds: 3/28
Chase Utley: 5/26
Alex Rodriguez: 2/18
Derek Jeter: 5/23
Ryan Braun: 8/24
Ichiro: 13/31
Nelson Cruz: 4/25

In the past three days the starting lineup has combined for 12/26, 10/28, 19/43 (in reverse-chronological order), restoring the team BA to .286, where it was a week and a half ago.

Launch Party on the Bench

On the day Team Inchon bats for a combined 6/38 for a lousy BA of .158 with just two runs, no homers, three RBI, and a stolen base, guess what type of production is left on the bench?

Mark Reynolds & David Ortiz combined: 3/8, 3 R, 2 HR, and 4 RBI

In an apparent child-like tongue-wagging response to my decision to bench them after their lack-luster first two games of the weekend series, both Mark Reynolds and David Ortiz homered, as their replacements (Derek Lee and Nelson Cruz, respectively) managed just a single run and RBI (News Flash: Nelson Cruz still refuses to show up since his huge May).

I have to admit that I've been pretty lucky this year with regards to Bencher's Regret. But then again, for the most of the first two and a half months of this MLB season, I had perhaps the shallowest bench in the league, with the DL-stints of Vladimir Guerrero and Alex Rodriguez, and prospects Andrew McCutchen, Matt LaPorta, Lars Anderson, and David Price taking up valuable roster space.

Well, here come the pain. Even before the two-homer launch party on the bench between Reynolds and Ortiz that I wasn't invited to, I nearly lost it when Yovani Gallardo gave up a three-run bomb to Brandon Inge. My original idea was to just start Verlander and hope for the best, but the Yovi-temptation was too much for me to deny.

Ummm, I think I very much preferred it when Gallardo was up by a run and would have been very happy to have taken the Gallardo win at 1-0 as opposed to the Verlander win at 3-2.

In the end, I just couldn't bare the thought of making the wrong win-call between Gallardo and Verlander. I didn't think I would have been able to handle a good but winless outing by Verlander and see an even better performance by Gallardo on the bench. In the end, I should have stuck with my initial gut-feeling of Verlander win at home, despite the temptation and the possibility of serious Bencher's Regret.

On the flip side to all these regrets and second guesses, Alex Rodriguez's two-RBI return to the starting line-up was mildly reassuring at best, while I was thankful that my Mariners got the win without scuffing the stats of Chad Qualls - thanks to Tony Clark's inability to catch the baseball with his glove.