Champion!
October 5th, 2006 by Wyatt
Well, it’s a minor victory, but I like to celebrate them all.
As you can see on the left sidebar, I finished the season in first place in my rotisserie baseball league. This is notable because I finished the previous season in a distant last place.
My strategy started during the end of last season. I began to stockpile cheap talent. I was definitely taking the Moneyball approach. I started this season with only one player over $20 (Curt Schilling at $22) while superstars in our league will often go for $40-45. I also took a chance on some new Mariners and came out pretty good: Kenji Johjima (.291/18/76) at $15, Yuniesky Betancourt (.289/8/47) at $4, and Jose Lopez (.282/10/79) at $6. My cheap talent approach has paid off, too: Nick Swisher (.254/35/95) at $6 and Dan Haren (14 wins, 4.12 ERA, 223 IP) at $3.
Each year there are two categories that you have to specifically draft for: saves and stolen bases. I traded early on for Chone Figgins who ended up giving me 48 SBs (I finished 1 SB short of the leader as a result). I had a lucky break in the draft for saves. I had no closers at the end of draft day and picked up JJ Putz hoping that he might become the closer at some point. Eddie Guardado had an early breakdown and JJ was promoted even faster than I thought he would. He ended up giving me 36 saves at the bargain price of $2.
To push me over the top, I traded for Derek Jeter (to get some OPS and SB) and Vladimir Guerrero (to get some HR and RBI). That resembled more of a Steinbrenner kind of move, but it was necessary. I hope I don’t regret trading away Felix Hernandez. Although, as a Mariners fan, I hope he becomes good enough for me to regret it.
Anyway, it was a heckuva year! Enjoy the playoffs.