Reflections of Fantasy Baseball Thus Far...

I've been asked by several people if I was playing fantasy baseball this season. Most people think I've kind of abandoned my teams because I haven't really been discussing it too much. Truth is I've been spending a lot of time playing fantasy baseball this year than I have in years previous. I've been spending more time making sure my players are in the correct lineup and very active in free agency and the trade market. In fact, this has probably been the most active I've been playing fantasy baseball than ever and I must say it's truly because of the team I co-manage with my boy Victor. Out of my four leagues, I have to monitor this league differently because of the way the league its set up. The scoring settings in this league is crazy, so I've had to adjust and make some serious changes to the team. This has made fantasy baseball a lot more interesting than in previous years also.

With my other three teams, I've kept up with them but only because of my team in the league South Side Champs. This league is a points league but the point system highly favors the pitching. Initially I didn't realize how the scoring system would impact the game and I didn't consider this when I was drafting my players either. Originally, my team was a offensive juggernaut with a supporting pitching squad, but I found this formula was not working. In this particular league, the points are set up in the pitcher's favor. You get a point for every inning pitched and two points for strike outs. On the flip side if a batter strikes out it's negative one point. At first I didn't think it had much impact, but I noticed we were always playing catch up trying to come from behind at the end of the week. No matter how may batters performed it seemed like it was extremely difficult for my offensive players to score over 5 points a game. The average points scored on offense was like 2 points a game, and I'm being nice with that statistic. Meanwhile, the starting pitching was averaging about 30-40 points a game.

After talking with Victor, we decided that we needed to make some serious changes. We were 2-4 and the competitive fantasy spirit inside of us could not accept such a disappointing display of fantasy gamesmanship. I started to look at other teams with winning records and one thing stood out to me. These teams had only one batter, but three or four pitchers on the bench. Our bench was opposite having three or four batters and maybe one or two pitchers on the bench. It was then that I realized where we were going wrong. Of course you would want more pitchers on the bench than batters because pitchers score more points and the more pitchers you have the more points you can potentially earn, especially since starting pitchers don't play everyday which makes it easier to rotate you bench. After sharing this with Victor, we decided that we would work free agency. This worked to a certain extent, and that's mainly a contrast of playing styles between Victor and myself. Victor gets his fantasy kicks from finding rookies who get his first start and dominates. He does this in fantasy football and tried it in our league, but this often came back to bite us in the ass as most of the times these rookies gave up like five homeruns and got us negative points for their first start.

We did get a couple of okay pitchers from free agency like Ubaldo Jimenez, Dan Haren, and just as recently as yesterday Mike Pelfrey, but I felt like we still needed someone who will get us those strikeouts on a consistent basis. I felt like our immaculate offensive players should be able to get us an ace of a pitcher via trade if it was packaged nicely, so I started looking for suitable trades. I listed some pitchers who I liked and because I'm weird, I decided to pursue them in alphabetical order. The first pitcher on the list was Madison Bumgarner who was owned by the leader of the league. Nornally, I don't make trade proposals to the league leader but going back on my theory that our offensive player should be able to land us an ace, I presented him with Kolten Wong and Alex Rodriguez for Bumgarner. It took the guy a few hours before he responded with a counter trade that I'm still kind of lost on where it came from, but it's better than the original offer I presented. He offered us Bumganer, Julio Tehran and Kole Calhoun for Jose Bautista and Johnny Cueto. It was like a scenario out of the Godfather, it was an offer we couldn't refuse. The cold part about the trade was it took three days for the trade to be completed and I got a start out of Cueto before he left and I got a start from Bumgarner and Tehran after the trade.

Sluts Mayweather and Fantasy Baseball

This my first post as a 33 year old. That's really not important, just thought I'd throw that out there. Throughout my busy schedule, I find time to play fantasy baseball. I wanted to get into some of that Daily Fantasy Baseball action, but just haven't had the time for it so I've stuck with the traditional Yahoo platform. Most of the time I forget to do my lineups or I forget to check back for any players who got scratched before the official lineup was turned in, so I miss out on a lot of points. This was definitely the case this past week as I trailed most of the week against this guy in this league I'm in where there are a lot of custom settings which you can take advantage of if you strategize and execute at the right moment.

As I said earlier, I usually forget to change my lineups on a daily basis. Usually by the time I think about it, most of the games are already played and I have guys in my lineups who didn't play and guys on my bench who did play. This past Sunday in this league I was 1-2 and I had been determined not to go down to 1-3. I had decided that I was going to try to work free agency and possibly even put together some kind of trade, but I've been so occupied lately all I've had time for is to change my lineup. Crazier part is in this particular league, my team is co-managed by my boy Victor, but for some strange reason he's busier than me these days.

This past week we had been trailing against the opponent all week, but we were slowly creeping back as I had done a much better job with the lineups in the latter part of the week. I was checking the lineup Sunday morning and I realized that we had come within single digits of the lead and I had a feeling that we had a chance to be on top by the end of the day. My plan was to pick up a pitcher that was starting that day since I had three bum pitchers who were hurting the squad. The problem was I was very indecisive on who to add. I waited a few hours, which was longer than I should've, and all the available pitchers who were starting had already played. I was left with Joe Kelly and Adam Warren. I knew Joe Kelly was kind of underperforming so far, but I had never even heard of Warren, so I went with Kelly. I added him an hour before his game started, and here's where the beef comes in.

When I play fantasy football, my boy Victor and I often refer to the term slut or slutting when it comes to how you pick up a player from the free agency. This move I made was a prime example slutting for the victory. This league is set up for same day pick up, meaning if I add a guy today he's on my team today, not tomorrow like in most standard leagues. My opponent thought he had the victory in hand because I was out of players and he still had Brian McCann to play, but I used my slut move and added Kelly. This pissed him off and by the end of the day I had come back and won the match by less than a point.

In this situation though, he didn't get slutted, he got Mayweathered. He got out played by a better fantasy baseball player. I was able to take advantage of a rule that most of the other players have probably overlooked or didn't realize what kind of effect that rule can have on your matchup. I found a way to win, and he got bullsh... Mayweathered. If you catch my drift. Funny thing about it, Joe Kelly sucked balls Sunday night and only got me a whopping -0.33 points, so even if I hadn't of  made the slut move, the guy still would've lost.

Fantasy Baseball:

I want to start off by first congratulating my good friend +Stephanie Smallsen who won my NCAA bracket group. She had the audacity to pick Duke over Kentucky and it paid off. Who would've thought Kentucky wouldn't even make it to the championship round? Steph's friend Dayna did, and she came in second. I'm not buying into the whole Canadian girls dominated my group, but at the same time, congratulations. I'm going to come through on my part of the bet and hook up Lil' Smallsen... I might cop this weekend, if not, definitely by next weekend.

It comes in pink too...

Now, on to the PhantasySteez. Fantasy Baseball is in full effect and this year already has it's little intricacies that is making me feel some kind of way good and bad. First of all, is it me, or did fantasy basketball end the same day fantasy baseball started? I know I was in the last day of the fantasy basketball championship game on Sunday, I also was starting Jon Lester and Anthony Rizzo on the first night of fantasy baseball. How ironic, yet how convenient. Last year I remember the two seasons overlapping each other and and I really didn't pay too much attention to my fantasy baseball teams until after fantasy basketball was completely done. This year, the transition was almost seamless and I'm fully locked into fantasy baseball at the beginning. I had thought that the fantasy basketball playoffs started early, but this way I can turn all my attention to fantasy baseball, which is a good thing since I have a problem changing my lineup on a daily basis.

I joined four different leagues in which I participated in three of the drafts. The one draft I didn't participate in was due to the fact that the ESPN Fantasy Baseball App does not allow you to draft using the app. I'm a mobile device guy, so drafting through the app would've been super ideal for me, but because of this I decided to only have the one team that I had to auto pick on the ESPN format. The other three teams are on Yahoo where I was able to draft all my teams using the app. Towards the end of one draft, I had posted a message in the chat room with the web address for this blog and instantly someone replies, "omg, why do we care." Now, was I wrong for the shameless plug for my website? Better yet was I wrong for the response I gave? Either way, I can't wait until I play this guy so I can show him what's really good with that phantasy steez.

This season only one of my leagues is a stat category league. The other four, including the one ESPN league, are points leagues. This format intrigued me because it's the standard format used in fantasy football and I thought it would be a good way to get my boy Victor more involved in fantasy baseball. What is screwing up my whole little experiment and grinding my gears about this format, and really about the stat category format too, is offensive production. Even though I did look at the scoring system for these leagues, I didn't take into consideration how it was set up. Most of my leagues are set up similar with some differences, but it what's killing my offensive production are strikeouts. Naturally if you don't get hits you don't get any points, but in these leagues you get -1 point for a strike out. If a player goes 0/4 and has 2 strikeouts, that's -2 points. So far this early in the season, a good number of my guys are going 0/4 or 1/4 but are getting more strikeouts than hits.

On the flip side, the pitching situation is just as crazy because you get -1 point for every earned run. Luckily this hasn't really hit me because these leagues seem to favor pitching. For example, in one of my leagues you get 3 points for every inning pitched and 8 points for a save, but you don't get any points for at bats. In another league you get 10 points for wins and no hitters, but the only offensive category you get 10 points for is grand slams. Any team would have a better chance of scoring a win than scoring a grand slam. How does this balance out?

Nonetheless, I like the teams that I drafted. Most of my teams are balanced, but the team I'm sharing with Victor is deep offensively and has a sleeper pitching staff. It's going to interesting to see how this season plays out.

Some Fantasy Baseball Links

We all know about sites like ESPN and Yahoo where you can get a ton of info and news for fantasy baseball. These sites are all good, but I wanted to highlight some smaller sites and blogs that can also be a great source of information for fantasy baseball.

Smart Fantasy Baseball
I found this site to be interesting because it's all about stats and analytics. If you're into that kind of thing, this is the site for you. The guy who describes himself as a nerd  has a niche for using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to calculate winning, standings gain points (whatever that is), how to create your own rankings, and all kinds of interesting nerdy fantasy stuff.

Dear Mr. Fantasy
I like this site because it's kinda what I want PhantasySteez to be one day. Only difference is it is fully dedicated to baseball. The site though is eye-pleasing with news, merchandise, cool pics, MLB news feed, and it has a PODCAST. That's what I want for PhantasySteez, a podcast.

Pro Fantasy Baseball
This site is a resourceful site that can help you prepare for the draft and keep an eye for upcoming players. This site also has a PODCAST (yeah, I'm going to mention that for every site that has one).

Fantasy CPR
This site covers most fantasy sports including college basketball and hockey. The pictures are cool and honestly, I think it's ran  by Sports Illustrated, but either way it's worth checking out.

Maybe one day I'll put these on it's own dedicated page, but maybe after I get links for all three sports. One thing for sure though, I want a podcast.

Draft Prep

Baseball season is next and mock drafts and leagues are opening up on most fantasy sports providers. Usually I don't do mock drafts but being that I needed to do more research for this season, I thought mock drafts could help with this. So I've participated in a couple of mock drafts and I've come up with some interesting observations.

My friend Victor has been reluctant to try fantasy baseball because he's somewhat confused on how the lineup works and most importantly, he's confused about the draft strategy, as am I. The thought of a fantasy football draft can seem daunting but it's not as intimidating once you've realized two things. First thing is to remember that just like in any fantasy sport, your primary goal is to put together a fantasy team that has a solid core plus a decent amount of productive role players which combined forms the ultimate team that will dominate throughout the fantasy season and playoffs with minimum maintenance. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against picking up players from free agency throughout the season, but why when you can draft the potential studs for the season? Free agency is a weapon for players who are trying to climb position. Why climb position when you can draft a first place team right? Second thing to remember is unlike in most fantasy sports, the talent is abundant in fantasy baseball. Of course there are studs like Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw, but there are so many talented players in the MLB that you'll find yourself in the later rounds of your draft and you'll still be able to find quality players instead of players you know you're just going to drop later on.

Okay so there's more than two things to remember and the last thing is the unique position that is the pitcher. I think pitching confuses a lot of people because of the way it's set up. In most leagues that I've played in there's one spot for every position except for outfielders and pitching. Naturally there are three positions for outfielders, but there are eight spots for pitchers and all eight of there spots are starting.  So it's important to keep a balance when drafting so you won't end up with strong hitters but weak pitchers, and vice versa. To make things more interesting, you want to make sure you have a good mix of starters and closers because starting pitches rarely gets you saves and closing pitchers rarely gets you wins.

As far as the draft though, it isn't as long as I had figured it would be. On average during these mock drafts I've spent about an hour completing the drafts, which isn't bad considering you're drafting nineteen starters plus five or six bench players. My strategy which I like the most is to alternate each pick between hitter and pitcher so that one pick I'm drafting a hitter and the next pick I'm drafting a pitcher. This is where draft position comes in play because this strategy definitely works better if you have one of the top two picks or the last two picks. In most fantasy sports these four spots are advantageous and the same is true in fantasy baseball. These spots allows you to alternate between hitter and pitcher and being that your picks are close, you have a greater chance to get the best two available players at those two positions. When the pick was closer to the middle the strategy didn't go as planned and some picks I was able to stick with the plan, but for the most part I ended up just picking the best player available. It didn't come out too bad, but if I had my preference like in most drafts, I want either the first two or the last two picks.

Some last little things to remember, every draft is different because I'm sure there's gonna be someone who is not taking the draft serious at all and is screwing it up for everyone. Also, outfielders are the wide receivers of fantasy baseball. There are many of them, so don't get the urge to draft your outfielders too early. #PhantasySteez

Who You Should've Picked Up This Week

Even though injuries occur often in the NBA, some of these injuries can be for a few games, some for a few weeks, some for the rest of the season. There were a few significant season-ending injuries that occurred over the last week, and even though it's Thursday, here are some players who got injured and who you should've picked up or handcuffed to replace them.

The most notorious injury has to be the torn rotator cuff (shoulder) of Kobe Bryant. As we all know, Kobe has stayed injured since late 2013 when he tore his Achilles. He tried to come back last season only to play six games. This season it looked like he was going to survive the whole season with him sitting out multiple games in a row in a preservation effort. This still didn't work because he's out for the season. When I found out about this injury, I immediately went hunting for Nick Young, who was available. Swaggy P currently is injured with a sprained ankle, and most people will probably take his recent benching as a red flag. I think you should ignore these two factors because Young will definitely benefit with Kobe being out. Young will be the #1 option offensively and being that he usually comes off the bench and is the second leading scorer on the Lakers, with him starting he should be a must start in all leagues.

Obviously the Lakers will miss Kobe Bryant, almost as much as the Charlotte Hornets will miss Kemba Walker. They're saying that he'll be out 6-8 weeks, but if you do the math that puts him back in the game late March or early to mid April. I was having a discussion with a fantasy basketball group on Facebook and while some people are just going to stash him, many are looking for a good trade. Just like the Lakers, the Hornets are near the bottom of the standings, and just like Kobe, Kemba is the team's leading scorer. The only difference is that unlike the Lakers, the Hornets do have reliable scoring options other than Kemba. Brian Roberts is replacing Kemba and his production should increase, but I expect for either Michael Kidd-Gilchrist or Lance Stephenson to pick up the slack and take advantage of Kemba's absence.

Crazy part of these injuries is these guys are all the leading scorers of their respective teams, including this last guy, Brandon Jennings. Yes, Brandon Jennings is the leading scorer on the Detroit Pistons, who is also near the bottom of the standings. Jennings is out for the season with a torn Achilles and it looks like D.J. Augustin is replacing him. This has the potential to be the sleeper pick up of the season if this is the same D.J. Augustin that we saw last year when he played for the Chicago Bulls. If you recall, Augustin replaced Derrick Rose last year when he got hurt for the season. He excelled as Rose's replacement and could've won the sixth man award. The Pistons also have Jodie Meeks who could see an increase in minutes and production, but if Augustin can provided a spark like he did for the Bulls last season, then he should be the player who benefits the most and the player who should be added to your roster.

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.

Football Dominates

It's the beginning of June... Well, its early-mid June... And while some of us are still deep in battle with fantasy baseball, it's almost hard not to notice that fantasy football is right around the corner. I couldn't help but to notice that Matt Berry and the crew from ESPN has already come out with fantasy football rankings and has even aired a fantasy football special. This was the last week in May and it made me think about how much love fantasy football gets while fantasy basketball and baseball are kind of left on the back burners.

I first noticed it when the fantasy football season was over and I started playing fantasy basketball. Due to my own negligence, I had drafted two fantasy basketball teams but I didn't really pay them too much attention to them until after the fantasy football season was over. Once I did turn my full attention to fantasy basketball, I noticed how there wasn't a flood of information on things like who to pick up, who's hot, and projections. If there was something about fantasy basketball, it consisted mostly of game recaps. Most of my strategy for fantasy basketball was based on stats, game results and keeping an eye on injuries. I ended up coming in second in one league and winning the other league.

Fantasy baseball wasn't too much different, but it did get a little more attention than fantasy basketball. There was a little more talk online about fantasy baseball than fantasy basketball, but not as much as fantasy football. My strategy in fantasy baseball has been similar to my strategy in fantasy basketball as far as just keeping up with stats and trends.

Even though baseball pioneered fantasy sports, football gets the most fantasy attention. I believe it has to do with the frequencies of the game. In football you have one game a week which allows fantasy experts more time to do more research and come up with projections and predictions. In baseball and basketball, they game is played everyday. There isn't much time for projections and predictions when the next game is tomorrow. This also affects the fantasy player. In football you have all week to set your lineup up. If there is something you don't like, someone gets injured, or you find out someone is not playing you have ample time to make an adjustment. If this happens in fantasy basketball or baseball, you have a minimum amount of time to tweak your lineup. In fantasy baseball and basketball, you have to be on it, consistently monitoring your team for last minute updates. You have to set your lineup everyday as opposed to every week like in fantasy football. You can't skip a day of not checking on your team without it having an impact on your team. I did myself just today by not benching Yasiel Puig. This discourages people from playing fantasy basketball and baseball because they may feel like it's too much maintenence, even though I know most of these players over manage their fantasy football teams. What I mean is they check their team about four times a day. Therefore, with less people playing fantasy basketball and baseball, there isn't a need of an influx of resources for these games.

Over the next few weeks, fantasy football is going to get bigger and bigger. They'll talk about it on social media, there will be draft parties, you'll get advertisements in your e-mail inbox, they'll even talk about it on SportsCenter. Even though fantasy baseball is still in season, you'll notice how much more attention fantasy football gets over fantasy baseball. When it all boils down to it, it's easier to watch 17 football games than it is to watch 82 basketball games or 162 baseball games.

Phantasy Resurrection

PhantasySteez came to life in late August with the beginning of the fantasy football season. It was young, fresh and full of ambition delivering compelling content on a consistent basis. Once football season was over, PhantasySteez got slowed down, like it was sick or something. The fantasy basketball season brought forth some good moments, but it was obvious that the Steez was dealing with a serious illness that affected quality and production. By the end of the fantasy basketball season, it was like PhantasySteez was on it's death bed, struggling to breathe. It produced one last entry about a month ago pertaining to fantasy baseball. That post promised more consistency and content, however nothing has come of it since, and PhantasySteez kinda... died.

It may seem that since the last post, the PhantasySteez has been put on the back burner. Personally, I've been trying to adjust to the new situations of living in Birmingham, Alabama. For the most part, my new job wears me out as I have to be there sometimes as early as 2:00 a.m. and even though I'm usually done by noon, I'm also usually extremely exhausted. While I rest, I often think about PhantasySteez and how it can grow. Right now, there really aren't any excuses as to why the Steez died because unlike when I was in California with no computer, I now have a laptop, which I'm using now, and a desktop which I haven't even turned on and I have sitting on the floor. I should be cranking out at least three posts a week... AT LEAST!!



I must resurrect PhantasySteez but now the question is how do I take on such a daunting task. Well, daunting is a major overstatement. The most obvious way is to write more. Next, I need to spruce up the page, put a little lipstick on her. No reason why that can't be done because like I said, I actually have a laptop now instead of just my Galaxy Note 3. Another tactic and very important is to increase my presence on social networking such as Facebook Twitter and of course Google+. Not to mention participating in forums and blogging communities. I also want to get into freelance writing. Mainly though, I need to keep writing.

Had to throw that in there

I got this fantasy baseball team called PhantasyKingz where my boy Victor is the co-manager and quite frankly I can generate a post everytime we talk. About 50 percent of our conversation is about the team, another 35 percent goes to other sports, and the other 15 percent is about actual stuff. You know, how are you doing? how's the fam? etcetera etcetera. Right now we're in 7th place in a 12-man league. I think our team is well rounded, but in the beginning of the season we we're only winning about half of the stat categories. We had two problems. First, our high draft picks, Hanley Ramirez, Yasiel Puig, Robinson Cano, got off to slow starts. Second, even though we're both fans of the games, neither one of us actually watch that much baseball. Lately though after making a few moves with our lineup, things have gotten better and I think we're on the right track. Our Achilles heel right now is stolen bases and I truly believe that if we can fix that I think we'll be alright.



Of course, I don't claim to be a fantasy expert so I'm always open to non-offensive suggestions. You can always comment on this blog. I can also be reached on Google+, my twitter is @donofalldons. Victor's twitter is @DonBryzii. My instagram is donspook. Holla at me, I got all those apps directly on my Note 3.

@donofalldons

40 Days of Phantasy Silence Broken

That barber killed my hairline

The last time I posted in this blog, it was about 40 days ago. Well today is actually the 40th day, but you get the point I'm trying to put out there right? It's been a very interesting 40 days in real life and on that PhantasySteez. Trust me, it isn't that I've lacked content or anything like that. I had plenty of excitement with my fantasy basketball squads, fantasy baseball and NCAA brackets, which I didn't do because I turned my brackets in too late. It's more of I've completed a major transition in a lot of areas. One of my mottos is "I'm trying to make my next move my best move." Most people wouldn't understand as in most cases, your best move may be unconventional to others outside of the situation. I relocated, and I'm not talking about moving like around the corner or anything like that. I moved to the other side of the country, Sweet Home Alabama. Yeah, talk about a major transition. I've been here for a week and I'm still trying to get adjusted to living in Roll Tide/Auburn nation. I'm still trying to find a decent barber who won't massacre my hairline like the guy did in that picture of me. However, deep down inside I feel like in the long run and for many different reasons, this move will be the most beneficial for my personal goals and for that PhantasySteez.

As of today...

Over the last 40 days, the PhantasySteez has seen a lot of interesting action. Let's start with fantasy basketball. Today is the last day of the season in Yahoo Fantasy Basketball and to my surprise, both of my teams are playing for the championship. In my main league, The Syndicate, I'm playing against no other than All the KING'S Men. And just like all season, she is kicking my ass. One thing I must point out in this matchup is Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, both of who are on my team. The Oklahoma City Thunder didn't play much this week. In fact, their first game of the week wasn't until Thursday. They had three days off, and I couldn't get any production from Durant and Westbrook. Meanwhile, All the KING'S Men was just racking up points. If you remember, LeBron James is on All the KING'S Men and while the Thunder were resting up, the Miami Heat played Monday and Wednesday. Also, Dwyane Wade didn't play in any of those games which meant more production the LeBron. The Heat played in 4 games this week while the Thunder only played in 3. I can't forget to mention that the rest of my guys decided to just play average. I think my depth at point guard killed me though as my rotation seems to be stuck because I really couldn't make any interesting lineup changes. I'm just gonna chalk this one up as a lost and settle for second place.

At least it looks like my other random team is going to win the championship, unless something weird happens by the end of today. Honestly, I can't tell you much about this team. Jamal Crawford and Wade have been injured so I didn't really have to change my lineup much. One thing I can say is somewhere within these 40 days I picked up D.J. Augustin and he has been a pleasant surprise. I was about to lose last week when Augustin went off for 33 points. That helped my team come from behind and land a spot in the championship round. Should I win, I'll be content, but winning the Syndicate would've been much more satisfying.

Last, but definitely not least, baseball season started last week. Originally during the last 40 days I wanted to do a preseason write up and talk about draft strategy and all that good stuff. I got caught up with this transition and working and linking up with certain people and plotting and scheming on the low. I got probably 3 different drafts of fantasy baseball content, but they never got done. I did however manage to draft a fantasy baseball team but of course not without some minor discrepancies. I wanted to make sure I drafted my team instead of using the ever non popular auto draft. The problem was I really didn't know anything about how to draft a fantasy baseball team, who should go first, when to draft pitchers, which positions where more important, just to name a few. I tried to get some advice and cooperation from my good friend Vic, but I had to remind myself that Vic likes those sleeper picks and most of the time I don't really agree with his draft style. Also, he wasn't playing fantasy baseball because he says it's to much work as baseball players play just about everyday. I tried to argue with him that it would be just like football because when football season is in, he's constantly managing his team, every day every hour. Only difference is you play everyday instead of just Sundays. He didn't do buy it and suggested that I purchase a fantasy baseball magazine.

After studying this magazine for a couple of days, I felt like I was ready to draft my first team. Not thinking at the moment, I scheduled to draft at 10:30 p.m. If you know me, you know I'm usually in bed at 9, so by the time the draft started I was really tired. I had the number 5 pick and I lasted the first 5 rounds, after that it was a wrap and unfortunately, the remainder of my team was auto drafted.

The next day when I woke up and reviewed my half-drafted team, I really didn't know how I felt about the team. My first pick was the reigning NL MVP Andrew McCutchen. My next two picks were Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, the first two pitchers I drafted. I didn't know, and I still don't know if this was a good move or a bad move being that they both play for the same team. At fourth and fifth I picked Adrian Gonzalez and Matt Carpenter respectively, then I crashed. The first thing I noticed was that while I was wide asleep, auto draft picked up Aroldis Chapman. Chapman is one of the top closers in the league, but as we all know he took a line drive to the dome during the preseason. He'll be out for a minute, but he is expected to return around late May, possibly in June. Luckily, I didn't have to drop him and I was able to put him on the DL list. As Vic suggested, I picked up Francisco "K-Rod" Rodriguez has gotten a save for me and has an ERA of 0.00 in 2 innings pitched. Trevor Rosenthal has been my main closer though with 2 saves, 3 strikeouts and a 0.00 ERA also. As far as my batters go, I can't really say much right now. Honestly, I don't know who some of these guys are like Leonys Martin, Domonic Brown, Wilson Ramos (who I already had to replace due to injury) and Kendrys Morales, but it looks like my team should be well-rounded as far as getting points in every stat category.

Overall, I think this major transition will result in a very positive way for PhantasySteez. It give me a chance to get PhantasySteez to a different level by having more access to information and having the ability to network with other fantasy players/gurus. I look forward to the opportunities that my current situation presents. I must admit, this fantasy baseball season is very interesting as far as keeping up with players and strategizing, but in the end we'll see how this fantasy baseball season goes.