First or Bust

Fantasy baseball is over for another year and I can finally say I am a champion. After playing years of fantasy baseball I have never touched the top. Years of 2nd/3rd place finishes left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. Year after year, I build a strong team that always spends time in first place and competes against every team but year after year, there is an owner who has career years from all his players.

Some of the guys I participate with always say I should be happy that I am placing in the top 3 year in and year out but who gives a rats ass if you finish top 3 every year. It is first or bust man!

Fantasy baseball is all about drafting the right players and filling in the holes when DL stints occur and making sure to find rookies or guys having career years to add to your team before someone else picks them off the waiver wire. After a 162 game season, it was all worth it. The time spent sitting in front of the computer clicking and browsing through numbers trying to find some player who is breaking out was fun and now rewarding. Even with the injuries to Beltran, Ibanez, Torii Hunter, and the 50 game suspension of Manny I found a way to take the league. Yes, I had a pretty stacked team. Keepers/draft is where it happens. That is how great of a year I had. Finding McCutchen, Jeter being the old Jeter, Fielder coming into his own, Lincecum throwing smoke, finding Asdrubal Cabrera on the wire, Kurt Suzuki pitching (funny huh?) in from behind the plate, and one of my underrated but not under appreciated staple on my fantasy keeper list Carlos Lee.

At one point in the season, I was thinking I would never finish first especially with all the injuries and “other” things happening. But it all came together and I am glad it did. Now is the time to celebrate a little and rub it into some of my buddy’s faces but in a few weeks I will need to turn my attention to something important, scouting for next year. Yes, I am already preparing for a repeat in 2010. I don’t go hardcore into numbers and spend hours everyday in front of the computer for baseball stats but I do spend some time looking at winter baseball stats and making sure to take note of young guys who are producing. A great league to look at is the Arizona Fall League. Ever heard of a guy named Tommy Hanson? He was MVP of the league last year and we all know what he did this year in the bigs.

The season is over and everything worked out. If anyone is interested in fantasy baseball please leave a comment and if you have a competitive/serious league with owners who actual stay active through the long 162 game season, please leave me a comment and hopefully we can get a league together. March is not so far away, draft time is slowly coming.