Fantasy English Premier League

The new Fantasy EPL season starts August 15. The game is fun enough, but I'd much prefer a draft-style game rather than the salary-style game. These salary stlye games often make it too tough to get even a half decent lineup, but the Fantasy EPL has at least been fair in this regard. Before the season begins I'll write a more detailed analysis of the game and list my starting team. Although I know more about the English Premier League than I do baseball, I'm still by no means an expert and I have very little idea about the players in the newly promoted teams and many of the transfers coming in from other European leagues.

Fantasy Baseball Mid Season

Rather than write boring fantasy baseball updates every week, or write anything as it would seem, I've held off to write just one mid season recap of the progress in the ESPN and Yahoo leagues. First up is Yahoo, since I actually selected my own team is this one.

Here's a table that displays the initial draft and the current squad.

P     YP    SR    Name                Pos
==========================================
2     1     8     Hanley Ramirez      SS
23    21    11    Prince Fielder      1B
26    27    78    Brandon Phillips    2B
47    45    719   Cole Hamels         SP
50    48    179   Brian McCann        C
71    65    129   Chipper Jones       3B
74    91    465   Cliff Lee           SP
95    94    22    Bobby Abreu         OF
98    97    843   James Shields       SP
119   116   52    Johnny Damon        OF
122   126   156   Jose Valverde       RP
143   136   -     Conor Jackson       1B, OF
146   152   156   Brian Fuentes       RP
167   163   -     Xavier Nady         OF
170   202   -     Gil Meche           SP
191   166   -     Pat Burrell         OF
194   174   -     Jim Thome           UTIL
215   246   -     Gavin Floyd         SP
218   201   -     Troy Glaus*         3B
239   208   -     Placido Polanco     2B
242   316   -     J.J. Putz           RP

P     YP    SR    Name                Pos
==========================================
-     -     75    Nyjer Morgan        OF
-     -     90    Wandy Rodriguez     SP
-     -     110   Juan Rivera         OF
-     -     115   Clayton Kershaw     SP
-     -     117   Mark Buehrle        SP
-     -     132   Randy Wells         SP
-     -     164   Asdrubal Cabrera    2B, SS
-     -     199   Pedro Feliz         3B
-     -     717   Garrett Jones       OF

Players with a dash mean either they're no longer on my team (top half), or I picked them up during the season (bottom half).

First the batters. In general I picked fairly well, more by luck than by skill. I'm regretting picking Hanley Ramirez over Pujols though, but since I didn't know Hanley I went with the resounding opinion of the experts - who should now hang their collective heads in shame. Brandon Phillips has improved from a crappy start, and Chipper Jones and Brian McCann have been injured for significant periods of time. Both Abreu and Damon have been surprising upgrades, and the guys I've dropped, all late round picks, were mostly due to long term injury (Jackson, Nady, Burrell and Glaus).

Now for the pitchers, where I didn't do so well. Had I known how important having a few RP's are - for your ERA, WHIP and Save totals on the leaderboard - I'd have been more annoyed when I *just* missed Sherill in the second last round of the draft. Instead I landed Putz who did nothing and is now injured, so I have only two RP to use. Add in Valverde being injured, and I've had one and a half RP for the season so far.

Of the few SP's I've actually kept, the big names in Hamels, Lee and Shields, only Cliff Lee has been reasonable so far, and should be even better after the trade. However, thankfully I was able to get in early on a few big performers this year, Rodriguez and Kershaw have been great and so has Buehrle, even if I left him on the bench (trying to reduce my total innings pitched count) for his perfect game.

As I just noted, I have accidentally gone way over the suggested pace for total innings pitched, so I really need to cut down on my use of starting pitchers. Hopefully I can still hold onto my leaderboard positions in those categories though. As for batting, I really don't understand how I'm so far behind on those. I have a full team every day, but because I can't follow the last minute news one or two players in my starting lineup will often not actually play. So I'm about 10 games behind in every batting category, which could be vital at the end of the season.

Here's how the top four on the leaderboard looks now, and much to my surpise I'm in first place with a narrow lead.

Rank  Team    R    HR   RBI  SB   AVG  W    SV   K    ERA  WHIP Total
1     portho  10   10.5 11   8    10   12   7    11   7    4.5  91
2     2nd     12   12   12   7    6.5  11   6    9    8    6    89.5
3     3rd     8    7    8    9    2    9.5  12   12   9    8    84.5
4     4th     5    4    7    11.5 11   9.5  9    6    10   11   84