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Four Guys Who Are Killing My Fantasy Team

April 12th, 2008 · 1 Comment · Fantasy Baseball

Yes, I know. Nobody is interested in anybody else’s fantasy teams. Not even teams in your own league.

Fantasy teams are like family photos. NOBODY CARES except the people in the pictures. OK, I take that back: Fantasy teams are worse than family photos because not even other members of your family care about your ball team.

But does that stop us fantasy ball owners from whining? Of course it doesn’t. We need to share. We want others to feel our pain. OK, we just want to vent.

I’m going to type up the statistics I’ve collected on four of my top seven draft picks … guys who are KILLing me right now. And you, gentle reader, can move on to the next blog item … unless you find comedic value in the hand-wringing of somebody who takes his fantasy ball seriously.

Anyway, Prince Fielder, Troy Tulowitzki, Andruw Jones, Gary Sheffield. What is UP with those guys?

Those were my Nos. 2, 3, 5 and 7 picks, in that order. They represent 44.4 percent of my starting lineup.

Between them, they hit 126 home runs last year (50, 25, 26, 25, respectively).

What have they done for me so far?

Astonishingly little. Alarmingly little.

Collectively, they are 24-for-133 (.180) with eight doubles and 16 singles. That is, ZERO home runs and zero triples. They have scored only nine runs, driven in eight runs and two stolen bases. Yes, collectively.

Individually, it’s scarier. Tulowitzki hasn’t driven in a run this season — despite hitting in the 2 hole in Colorado. Jones hasn’t scored a run. Not one. Sheffield doesn’t have an extra-base hit.

OK, these four guys can’t be this awful all season. They just can’t. For one thing, their real teams won’t keep running them out there every day if they don’t get better. So there.

Odds are, they will improve enough to keep their spots in their real-life lineups, and that could present me with some real issues, if I continue to start them. Waiting for the “inevitable’ breakout.

Fielder: He went all veggie on us in the offseason. Doesn’t eat meat. OR fish. (Read about it here.) Now, that might be great for improving his chances of seeing age 70, but taking all that protein out of your diet … well, it apparently leaves a guy with warning-track power. Somebody, please, get that man a bag of Double Whoppers, stat!

Tulo: Sophomore Jinx? One-Year Wonder? Either one/both could be at play. He hit for average and power last year, and he’s doing neither this year. Maybe the National League has found a hole in his swing, and he’s being exposed. Perhaps he’s demonstrating he can’t deal with hard times. The truth of the matter is, I spent a very high pick (in a 12-team, both-leagues league) on a guy with only one full season. That probably was stupid.

AJones: I fessed up to the daftness of taking him with the 54th pick in a post below. Nobody in ball gave such clear signs of a sudden, massive decline as did Druw in 2007. He went from two 40-plus homer seasons to 26. His batting average nose-dived to .222 — 40 points under his career average. And his OBP fell to a wretched .311. Yet I decided he was going to get better in the Dodgers’ dysfunctional lineup operating in a pitcher-friendly park? I deserve this one. Oh, and he hit in the 7 hole last night; not likely he’s going to be scoring runs any time soon, with Blake DeWitt and the pitcher coming up behind him. Of course, he has to get to first base first, and that’s an issue when you have four hits and three walks in 10 games.

Sheffield: A bad man, someone I’ve never liked, and now he’s punishing me for putting him on my team. He’s going to be 40 soon, has been showing decline for a couple of seasons, yet I thought he could somehow magically get sucked up into the swirling vortex of offense that would be the Detroit Tigers and maybe pop out one more big season. Or at least one similar to 2007. That probably wasn’t all that likely, and that was before he tore a tendon in one of his ring fingers.

That’s my pain. I expect that, oh, no one got this far on this post. But I feel better having complained about it.

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1 response so far ↓

  • 1 Steve // Apr 13, 2008 at 10:50 AM

    I read the whole thing. Mostly because I have Prince & Sheff as well. Other guys killing me right now: Glaus, Thome, Ivan Rodriguez. Really, I wasn’t expecting much from Sheffield/Thome/Glaus/Rodriguez, just that they hit above the Mendoza line and knock out a few HRs and RBIs. But I’ve straight dropped Thome & Glaus at this point, and Sheffield and Rodriguez are on the bench. I have McCann, so it’s not a big worry, and I guess I’ll continue–like you and many others–to wait for the Tigers offense to wake up. (BTW, I’ve already traded Magglio, who I drafted high).

    As for Prince, as a Brewers fan, this has me really worried. I think something is wrong with his swing, because he is looking awful. Hasn’t anyone told him that he won’t get that big arbitration check unless he puts up some numbers?

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