Partners in Phantasy

Back in 2007, I recall being in an epic fantasy football league with some of my colleagues who attended Dillard University with me. Each week critical moves had to be made. I got into the playoffs and eventually won the league. During this campagin, I often talked to my boy Victor about the league, especially when it came to available players.  It was very interesting because I would pick someone up that morning and we'd talk about the same player later that evening.  The next season he played his first fantasy league and he would call me about new players before I would even begin looking for them.  Even though he hasn't won a league yet, he's usually in the top three and the reason being is he has an uncanny talent of finding good fantasy players in free agency.  It doesn't even matter if its football or baseball, he can find you a low key player who's going to produce for your team. He's not so good in basketball but between the two fantasy baseball teams I have, one of which I co-manage with Victor, he has found most of these surprise pick ups that has benefited both of my teams.

It's an interesting thought when you manage a team with another, you go check out your lineup and there's a couple of new guys on your team that your partner picked up without you knowing. Usually it's either "who the eff us this dude?" or "Why did he drop that player for this player? I logged onto the team one day I saw Lonnie Chisenhall on the squad and it was the first thought that came to mind. I knew Victor was big on batting average and at the time Chisenhall was batting around .351. As usual, I didn't refute the pick up and to my pleasant surprise Chisenhall is now batting .393 with 32 RBIs. Even though he only has 7 homers, that batting average and those RBIs have come through for my squad in a major way. I had to scoop him up in my other league because he usually gets hits on a consistent basis which helps the squad tremendously. A few days ago he went 5 for 5 with 9 RBIs and 3 homers.

This past weekend I was setting up the lineup and I noticed we had a guy named Dallas Keuchel on the bench and that he was starting. I didn't know who this dude was, but we definitely needed a W in the wins stat category, so I put him in. He wasn't sexy to me at all, but when I looked him up I realized that he only had one loss in May, which also was his last start. He got us a win and naturally I was excited then I noticed something very interesting. Keuchel and my ace Max Scherzer both have 8 wins. Scherzer has more strikeouts, but Keuchel has a better ERA, which usually kills the team when it comes to stat categories, so I can definitely appreciate him as a great pick up. Even though he plays for the Astros, he gets wins.

We got this guy named Kolten Wong who is probably one of my favorite pick ups. A couple of weeks ago I saw him on SportsCenter and about an hour later I get text from Victor saying, "I just saw Kolten Wong steal second..." Of course I was like who the eff is Kolten Wong? He replies "Kolten Wong of the Cardinals got 2 steals."  A couple of days later I went to check the lineup and Wong was on the squad. He now has 8 steals, even though he was out for a few games last week. Another stat category that has been killing us is steals, and now Wong has the second most steals on the team. Other than the steals he's not too sexy, but I think he'll get a lot better as the season progresses.

These three guys were probably available in most leagues this past weekend, but they're probably not available now because players like Victor has already scooped them up.