As you may or may not know, I've been quite successful the past few seasons in fantasy football, although I'm pretty sure I've just jinxed myself for the upcoming season. Either way, for the better part of the last 7 seasons, I have either won or finished 2nd in at least one of the fantasy football leagues I've been in. I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but I enjoy winning, and I'm pretty proud of fantasy football success. I only wish it were the same for fantasy baseball.
I think it's pretty obvious that I'm a baseball freak. I watch and/or listen to at least 9 innings a day, usually it's 18 or more, it all depends on who is playing and at what time. But for whatever reason, I've never won a fantasy baseball league. The closest I came was 3 years when I lost on the last day of the season by 1.5 points in the game to make it to the championship. I've come to realize, I have a very strange power of jinxing players. So last season I decided for the first time in 8 years, I wasn't going to play fantasy baseball. It was strange not having to set a lineup either weekly or daily, but I found myself enjoying games more. This year, I tried to set up a league a few times, but for a few reasons, I could never fill a league and just decided to skip it again. That was until today.
The sports blog website SBNation debuted a new fantasy baseball game on Tuesday. They call it Pick 6, it's a one day contest, totally free, and you only have to choose 6 players. So I figured, why not give it a try. The game works by selecting a starting pitcher, a catcher, a middle infielder, a corner infielder, an outfielder, and a relief pitcher. You can't just choose anyone though. You have a "salary" cap of $120 that you cannot break. The scoring system is very simple, and you can even set your lineup on your iPhone. Easy enough right? Apparently not.
My Tuesday lineup was Felix Doubront, Carlos Pena, David Ortiz, Ben Zobrist, Matt Kemp, and Jonathan Papelbon. Kemp and Ortiz have been on fire lately, absolutely tearing the cover off the ball. Kemp leads all of MLB in average, on-base plus slugging percentage, and home runs. Seemed like a no-brainer. He went 1-4 with a single, a walk, and a run scored. He also struck out twice and was caught stealing. David Ortiz has been just as hot lately. He went 0-4 with an RBI and a strikeout. Combined, two of the hottest hitters in the game netted me a total of -2.2 points. Not exactly what I was looking for. Doubront had been one of the more successful starting pitchers for the Red Sox this season and he was facing the lightest hitting team in the league. Not only that, his price was cheap. He was worth 7.2 points, not great, not terrible, pretty average. The only real bright spot in my lineup was Papelbon who went for 12 points. Which is pretty good for a reliever. Overall I finished 16th out of 20 in the group I'm in and out of the 2,542 total entries, I was in 1,332nd place. I do take some solace in the fact that the guy who runs the Dodgers blog on SBNation finished Tuesday with -1.0 points though. I know that's petty but whatever, I beat him, and it's the only victory I could find, so I'll take it.
What I'm getting at, is it has become apparent to me that I have a strange power to jinx MLB players. I just don't know what other explanation there is. You can call it bad luck or whatever, I just have to laugh about it. You would think someone who pays as much attention to the game as I do would have somewhat of a clue when it came to picking successful players. You would be wrong in my case. I just can't put together a winning lineup. Either way, I enjoyed my unsuccessful return to fantasy baseball, and it seems I haven't lost my touch. I will be doing a Pick 6 probably everyday of the season, just because it's easy and fun. You should check it out at pick6.sbnation.com and see if you like it. Also, if you do decide to play and you're not a member of a blog in their network, join TrueBlueLA so it's easier for us to see each other's scores. That way you can rub it in my face on Twitter how horrible of a fantasy baseball player I am.
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