Each season I always manage to make at least one deal where I move a large amount of players, vastly altering the look of my team.  As I have mentioned before, trading players, and acting like a GM, is one of my favorite parts of fantasy baseball.  Thus, it is logical to see that I derive immense amounts of pleasure from trading big name stars.  To get a deal of this magnitude done, it requires extensive negotiations, a willing partner, and usually some adult suds to push the deal through.  (Sounds vaguely familiar to late-night exploits during my freshman year at U of A.)  Fellow writer and Denslow Cup league member, Dee, and I finally swung a deal through last night and if weight is the term I am using to describe it, this deal is heavy.  Let’s take a look and break down the trade.

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When I last wrote about my first fantasy exploits, I was losing in the first week with only three days left. My staff was performing poorly, and I was freaking out in front of my computer screen while Madison Bumgarner, Matt Thornton, and Ted Lilly tried to sabotage my team. After an awkward first week, my staff looked up the definition of “pitcher” in the Oxford-English dictionary and realized what they were doing didn’t fall under those guidelines—and they did something about it (or I made a move). We’ve been through four weeks of heated battles, and I thought I’d give the reader a breakdown of each week, including my weekly moves (henceforth referred to as “Strategery”), best hitter (“Neck Snapper”) and best pitcher (“Cash Checker”). It goes a little something like this:

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When I say this is my first week of fantasy, I don’t mean the first of the season—I mean I’ve never participated in fantasy sports before this year. Previously, I assumed that I would make too big of a time commitment just to be stomped around by guys (and possibly girls) that have done this before and have, you know, strategies and such. When fellow Sombrero contributor Rick Berdelle invited me to his league, “The Sober Valley Lodge,” I thought this was a great opportunity to finally make the plunge into fantasy. The Lodge’s settings look like this:

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Recently we received a comment from a reader regarding our predictions, and I think the topic he brought up is probably worth its own piece.  The reader felt like I unfairly predicted that the Yankees would finish the year third in the AL East behind Boston and Tampa, who I predicted would both finish 2011 in the playoffs.  Before I continue, I would like to mention that I think the AL East will be a very tight division, particularly in the battle for second place.  The Yankees are one of the best offensive teams in baseball, and they certainly deserve a great deal of respect for that, but everything else they do is far from representative of a playoff-caliber team.

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AL East:

Boston Red Sox

New York Yankees (Wild Card)

Tampa Bay Rays

Toronto Blue Jays

Baltimore Orioles

AL Central:

Chicago White Sox

Minnesota Twins

Detroit Tigers

Cleveland Indians

Kansas City Royals

AL West:

Texas Rangers

Oakland A’s

Los Angeles Angels

Seattle Mariners

ALDS:

Red Sox def. Rangers in 5

White Sox def. Yankees in 4
ALCS:

Red Sox def. White Sox in 5 (MVP: Carl Crawford)

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