Well, that's that.
The ups and downs of a 162-game season yielded all you see before you: five respectable finishes, but not a single championship. It happens.
If I had to take just one overriding lesson from this season -- and you always learn lessons, whether in victory or defeat -- it'd be this: more hitting, less pitching. I knew it already. I preached it to all of you. But now, I believe it even more.
You can always find breakout pitchers if you make even half an effort, but if you don't draft the hitters you need, you might never get them.
I could write a whole column on the subject -- already have, probably will again -- but in keeping with the spirit of this column, let's move right into the specifics. Believe me: I have plenty of other reasons for my successes and failures.
Hopefully, my experiences will help you steer toward the former and away from the latter next year.
12-team mixed Rotisserie (2nd; 5x5 Score: 86.5)
I had a shot. I had a real shot, even leading the league with three weeks to go in the regular season. But in the end, I had too many opponents hot on my heels in too many categories.
I had a well-rounded team, but I didn't have enough big-name stars to help me pull away. So during the precarious final two weeks, when really nobody knows what's going on, too many of my players sat too often for me to maintain my lead.
And I only made it worse.
If you've paid close attention to this column all season -- which is a laughable idea, I know -- you might notice my roster looks wildly different now than it did at last check-in. Things got a bit loopy in the final week, as tends to happen in Rotisserie leagues, particularly ones without benches. Teams realized they had big enough leads in certain categories that they could cut some of their biggest producers in those categories, or they decided they didn't want to take any chances on players dealing with debilitating slumps or injuries. I did the same.
The madness resulted in me adding Johnny Damon, Josh Hamilton, Matt Cain, Jonathan O. Sanchez and Brian Duensing and dropping Paul Konerko, Will Venable, Edwin Jackson, Brian Fuentes and Carlos Marmol. I had a chance to gain ground in strikeouts and wins, man. Had to maximize those two-start weeks.
Of course, the biggest risk I took was with Damon and Hamilton -- Damon because the Yankees had already clinched and Hamilton because he had just missed a few weeks with a back injury. And of course, neither move paid off. Both players sat most of the week, giving me nothing but zeroes and little chance of gaining ground in any offensive categories. Lesson learned.
Or perhaps not. I wouldn't necessarily advise doing what I did with players like Damon and Hamilton in the final week, but I didn't have much choice. I needed to gain ground quickly and didn't see any obvious sleepers, so I went with the big names, hoping to catch lightning in a bottle. It didn't work, but hey, at least I went down swinging.
But enough about the final week. Nothing we can do about it now. Let's sum up the season, shall we?
My pitchers carried me most of the year even though I didn't select my first one until Round 8, when I took John Lackey. (How many times have I said it? You don't need a surefire ace to have a top pitching staff.) My finish is actually pretty amazing considering how badly I botched the first few rounds. Listen to these dandies:
I took Jose B. Reyes in Round 1, who obviously got hurt and didn't contribute nearly the stolen bases I'd hoped. I took Dustin Pedroia in Round 2, who wasn't exactly a bust but didn't in any way compensate for the power I passed up in Round 1. I took Kevin Youkilis in Round 3, who turned out fine. I took Dan Uggla in Round 4 in what I knew right away was the dumbest pick I made in any of my drafts this season. (I got caught up in a run and didn't realize we were only in Round 4 until immediately after I made the pick. I spent the rest of the draft thrashing around at my desk in total disgust and frustration, as some of my co-workers can attest.) I took Shane Victorino in Round 5, who turned out fine but didn't help my growing shortage of power. I took Aubrey Huff in Round 6 and Ryan Ludwick in Round 7 -- both complete busts -- before turning my attention to pitching in Round 8.
See? It's not all about the draft.
Gordon Beckham deserves some consideration for team MVP for the way he stepped in for Reyes, but ultimately my vote goes to Kendry Morales. I had no pure power hitters, little chance for homers, but by claiming him off the waiver wire in late May, I ended up placing fifth in the category.
Maybe if I draft a little better next year, I won't have to rely on a waiver claim.
10-team mixed Head-to-Head -- keeper league (3rd, eliminated in playoffs; 14-9)
You can go into the playoffs with the best record, the most points and all the confidence in the world, and with just one week, it can all go out the window.
Not much to say here. Nothing to lament, no lessons to learn. I had a good year, but a bad week. In Head-to-Head baseball, sometimes that's all there is to it.
Not to take anything away from the team that beat me. All four playoff teams finished 14-9, so I didn't secure the No. 1 seed by much. In fact, on Sunday of the final game of our regular season, I went from being out of the playoffs altogether to grabbing the top seed in the span of one Jon Lester start.
The championship went to a team I must admit didn't blow me away. The owner had a starting lineup led by Evan Longoria, Carl Crawford and Dustin Pedroia -- none of them true first-rounders -- and a pitching staff led by Javier Vazquez, Matt Cain and Jair Jurrjens -- none of them clear-cut aces. But in the end, the sum matters more than the parts, and like my 12-team mixed Rotisserie team, this owner succeeded without having the best of the best. The worst part for him is he doesn't have four slam-dunk keepers.
Neither do I, unfortunately, and that's the most heartbreaking part of my early exit. Coming off my first losing season in league history, I took a safe-not-sorry approach when constructing this year's team, keeping Lance Berkman over Alex Rodriguez and his surgically repaired hip and drafting Lester over Joe Mauer and his surgically repaired kidney.
And that's not a case of me playing the what-if game. I actually had Mauer on my roster, drafting him in the second round (or what would equate to the sixth round without keepers). But after rushing to make that pick only to see the next owner spend 12 hours making his pick, I couldn't help but obsess over that kidney. Eventually -- before the next owner made his pick, of course -- I asked the commissioner if I could switch my pick to Lester, and after some squabbling on the message board, he let me. Oops. How's that for karma?
Oh well. I can't complain about what I got. My safe picks took me to the playoffs, which probably wouldn't have happened if I gambled on A-Rod and Mauer and they didn't pan out. Of course, since they did pan out, someone else gets to keep them instead of me.
Imagine if I had Ramirez, Utley, Mauer and Rodriguez as my four keepers? They might be the first four picks in most drafts next spring, after Albert Pujols of course.
I still have Ramirez and Utley, so no worries there. But for my other two keepers, I have to choose from a less-than-enthralling bunch that includes Berkman, Adam Lind, Shane Victorino and Kevin Youkilis. I could add Lester to that group considering he had more than a strikeout per inning and a 2.35 ERA over the final four months, but whenever I keep a pitcher -- Mark Prior in 2004 and 2005, Jake Peavy in 2006 and Erik Bedard in 2008 -- it backfires. I've vowed never to do it again.
I could also add Ben Zobrist to that list simply because he earned my MVP award for the stability he brought to my outfield during Carlos Quentin's DL stint and Andre Ethier's first-half slump. Wandy Rodriguez deserves a claim to the title as well. He made me forget all about James Shields.
Maybe if Zobrist still qualified at shortstop next year, I'd consider him a more serious candidate. For now, I think Lind and Youkilis give me the best chance to return to the playoffs, where I'll promptly lose again in the first round.
I'm like the Atlanta Braves of Fantasy Baseball.
12-team AL-only Rotisserie (5th; 5x5 Score: 66.5)
I always aim to finish in the top four. I figure if I've outperformed two-thirds of the teams in the league, I've had a pretty successful season.
But I can't get too upset about this finish, not after how poorly I started. As late as Week 9, more than one-third of the way through the season, I was in 11th place, dead last in three of five offensive categories.
I know what went wrong. I overcompensated. I finished second last year, so I had the right idea, but I wanted to make sure I finished first this year. So I forced the issue. Pitching separated the first-place team from me then, so by golly, I made sure I had pitching.
The only problem is it came at the expense of hitting, which for some reason didn't bother me going into the auction. I guess I thought I'd land a few surprises like I did last year with Milton Bradley, Shin-Soo Choo and Jed Lowrie. As long as I had the same luck I did then, I didn't need to invest so much in hitting.
But that's the problem with relying on luck. You can't trust what you can't control.
And relying on pitching is the same as relying on luck just because of all the extra risk factors pitchers face that hitters don't. Daisuke Matsuzaka and Kevin Slowey got hurt. A.J. Burnett and Jon Lester underachieved, at least early. Only Edwin Jackson gave me more than I planned for, and considering he cost me $3 in the initial auction, I could have had him even without the emphasis on starting pitching.
What did all that pitching do for me anyway? My team turned the corner when I traded it away. I dealt Jackson and Fernando Rodney for Placido Polanco and Xavier Nady as well as Burnett and Jeff Larish for Pat Burrell and Trevor Crowe, so I actually lost both deals in terms of pure value. But just by gaining some offense, by having a way to gain ground in those categories I trailed by so much, my team's overall performance improved.
Any losses I took because of those deals I didn't notice. I filled the voids of Jackson and Burnett with middle relievers like Matt Guerrier and Mark Lowe, so if anything, I improved in ERA and WHIP. I might have lost ground in wins and strikeouts, but I still had Lester to keep me from falling too far too fast.
That's the dirty secret with these deep Rotisserie leagues. No matter how little you invest in pitching in the draft or auction, you still have a good chance of piecing together a respectable pitching staff just by claiming unheralded middle relievers off the waiver wire. You might even win ERA and WHIP.
And chances are, if you target high-upside pitchers with low bids, you'll end up with one or two Edwin Jacksons as well, so you haven't exactly punted wins and strikeouts. Plus, you'll have all that money invested in hitting, so you shouldn't fall too far behind in any of those five categories.
That's how you build a team guaranteed to finish near the top. Whether it's first or second is more a matter of luck than design.
12-team NL-only Rotisserie (4th; 5x5 Score: 83.0)
My mistakes in this league mirrored my mistakes in the AL-only Rotisserie league, only not to the same exaggerated degree. I again overcompensated for a lack of starting pitching last year by undercutting my hitting this year.
It didn't end up quite as bad -- notice I finished fourth instead of fifth -- because I got better value for the pitchers I traded away. I got Jayson Werth and Emilio Bonifacio for Ryan Franklin in a trade that fell in my lap -- and saved my dignity -- early in the season. (The other guy ended up winning the league, so he can't complain.) I also got Brad Hawpe and Scott Hairston for Yovani Gallardo and Garret Anderson, which didn't go as well because Hairston went to the American League about a week later and Hawpe struggled in the second half, but my team performed better after the trade than before it.
This time, the out-of-nowhere starting pitchers that made my studs expendable were J.A. Happ and Jorge De La Rosa, who cost me $1 each on auction day. And of course, Mike M. Adams, Nick Masset, Todd Coffey and Mark DiFelice helped me in ERA and WHIP, and I got them off the waiver wire. You'll always, always, always have pitchers like that to fall back on.
I made mistakes other than spending big dollars on pitchers. With as little money as I budgeted for hitters, I shouldn't have taken a $29 gamble on Stephen Drew, thinking I needed two expensive middle infielders. What good did that do when I ended up with Travis Ishikawa at first base and Micah Hoffpauir at corner infield?
Of course, I might have been able to win Drew as well as that big bat at first base if not for those ill-advised investments in Gallardo, Ryan Dempster and Brett Myers. One of them alone wouldn't have been so bad, but all three was overkill.
20-team mixed Head-to-Head (5th in NL, missed playoffs; 10-10)
(10 teams NL-only, 10 teams AL-only)
Of the five leagues featured in this column, my performance in this one disappointed me the most. Sure, I missed the playoffs by a measly 2 1/2 points because Martin Prado came down with exertional headaches during the most crucial week of the season, but even if I had limped into the playoffs, I stood no real chance of winning.
My downfall was obvious: I didn't have enough pitching. My staff looks better now with Pedro Martinez a proven asset and Joel Pineiro and John Lannan added late in a trade for Jayson Werth, but I spent most of the year trying to scrape by with pitchers like Braden Looper, Todd Wellemeyer and Ryan Sadowski. Yuck.
And even with the late improvements, I had to rely on an unheralded rookie as my ace. That's just asking for trouble.
Obviously, I didn't plan it that way. I planned for Ryan Dempster's breakout, Brett Myers' strong finish, Chris R. Young's dominance at PETCO Park and Randy Johnson's rebirth to carry over from 2008 to 2009. Instead, everyone just got hurt.
In retrospect, I still think I built my pitching staff the right way, targeting mid-round sleepers instead of devoting my early-round picks to aces who, just by being pitchers, faced high risks of injury (Brandon Webb, Daisuke Matsuzaka) and sudden underachievement (Ervin Santana, Cole Hamels). I just happened to get the worst examples of mid-round sleepers imaginable. All four had upside, sure, but all four had just as much downside, serious question marks I overlooked in the interest of wishful thinking.
Imagine if I had drafted Adam Wainwright, Yovani Gallardo, Josh Johnson and Ubaldo Jimenez instead of Dempster, Myers, Young and Johnson? I'd have won the league.
Even with the problems of my pitching staff, I still might have made a championship run if my hitters had performed as they should have, if first-round pick Jose B. Reyes hadn't gotten hurt and second-round pick Lance Berkman hadn't had a career-worst season. Shoot, even third-round pick Carlos N. Lee didn't live up to expectations. But even now, none of those picks give me that I-should-have-known-better feeling, so I can't harp on them too much. Sometimes it just doesn't work out.
And ultimately, that's what I should take from this league: It didn't work out. That's not to say I won't change any part of my approach. Drafting my first pitcher in the third or fourth round instead of the fifth would probably help. But if I overcompensate for this year's weaknesses by spending my first three picks next year on Adam Wainwright, Matt Cain and Cliff Lee, I'll expose myself to more risk than I'll have the offensive firepower to overcome.
Remember: Fine-tuning an existing strategy is a step forward; abandoning it altogether is a step back.
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