The Baseball Diaries May 24
Hello everyone and welcome to my Baseball Diaries. This article is going to recap the previous night’s performance of my team as well as one of my competitors. The goal is to give a bit of insight as to why the players were selected and maybe some roster configuration tactics. No matter how good of a fantasy player someone thinks they are, no one can predict the future. All we can do is use our best judgment and sound strategy to be successful. So in lieu of handing out player picks, I present to you my Baseball Diaries.
My Team
Lackey, John
Lyles, Jordan
Koehler, Tom
With my 1st round and the entire buy in on the line these are the guys I rolled with as my P’s Friday night. Even in hindsight this is odd for me. I never play Jordan Lyles as I am not a believer yet. I had some extra cap left over though and “upgraded” from Charlie Morton. Lyles did fine. Lackey is another guy who seldom makes it on my fantasy teams. I just couldn’t spend a ton on pitching and his price seemed fair for a matchup with a struggling team. Koehler would have been the guy I trusted most in this bunch and that didn’t work out so well. He actually cost me a pretty big day around the industry with that horrible game. But that’s what I get. He is still Tom Koehler and I won’t trust him again anytime soon.
Jones, Adam
Moss, Brandon
Adams, Matt
I spent an extra $12K at hitter over my opponent and it showed in the result. He torched me at pitching but I made up for it with a 50-20 edge in hitting points. I played the Orioles trio against the young pitcher and it hit. I spent on the red hot Moss against a righty and he muscled out a home run. I highlight Matt Adams here because this was more of a mind game pick. I say that because in the 2 previous games he used the underpriced Matt Adams. So with Adams being underpriced again, and having a solid matchup and history with Homer Bailey I thought for sure he would use Adams here. I plugged in Adams and had money left over. I had enough money to afford Dee Gordon as my utility instead of Adams, which is who I wanted to play. However I opted for Adams because I knew he had big game potential and didn’t want my opponent using him without me and running away with this game. So that bought me the upgrade to Lyles over Morton, which wasn’t a real upgrade at all.
His Team
Hernandez, Felix
Sanchez, Anibal
Morton, Charlie
He spent big on pitching by using ¼ of his entire team’s salary on Felix. Felix had a nice game, but even with that, was it enough to justify that much money? Tough call in my opinion. You like those guaranteed points from the King but on a night where there is so much offense to spend on it’s a difficult decision to make. The Sanchez pick was solid, especially with the Ranger injuries right now. And of course he went ahead and rolled out Morton against me and saved a little salary there. Morton is a solid pitcher at home and Washington isn’t lighting up right handers anymore without Harper and LaRoche in the lineup.
Gordon, Dee
Cabrera, Miguel
Gonzalez, Adrian
Well there was my Dee Gordon pick. It just landed on his roster while I got stuck with HIS Matt Adams pick. That’s what happens when you try to overanalyze this stuff. Gordon came right out and stole 2 bases in his first AB and set himself up for a monster game. I felt fortunate that in the midst of that Tiger explosion last night against the Rangers, Miggy was held to 4.25 points. That could have been much worse. Also I highlight Adrian Gonzalez because this was the play that scared me most when I first saw his roster. In that small park against that pitcher, I thought Gonzo had a huge game coming. I felt I dodged a bullet there.
It takes 1 glance to see what he was doing with this roster and it was smart. It’s a H2H game, so he spent heavy on pitching, which worked. Then on offense he picked 1 guy he though had the best shot at a big game and spent on him. That guy was Miggy. Then he took 2 high scoring left handers for the Dodgers to attack Hernandez, who struggles with lefties. After that he went straight value and filled in with guys who had salaries that just didn’t seem right, like Kubel and Chris Johnson sitting in that $2,500-$3,000 range. Good strategy, it just didn’t pay off on this 1 night.