Justin Mason’s Apology Tour: BARF

by
October 11, 2022

2022 was the worst year I have ever had as a fantasy player. I played in 16 leagues and did not cash in a single one. The hard part is that I don’t even know what went wrong. I had teams I really liked coming out of the draft and some that were doing very well throughout the season. Over the next few weeks I will deep dive into each team in a series of articles to examine what went wrong and what the common threads were. This is my 2022 Apology Tour.

Team two in my apology tour is one of the easier ones to figure out what went wrong, but not any less frustrating. Every year a group of us get together at the Wreck Room in San Francisco to draft the Bay Area Roto Fantasy league. It is a 15-team standard roto league on NFBC. Last year we added an overall with other area leagues and this year we decided that a portion of the entry fees would go to the charity of choice of the best ranking league as opposed to the individual overall champion. I finished 10th in the league though as you will see, I had to work hard to even do that.

2022 Bay Area Roto Fantasy League Standings
Rk Team Points R HR RBI SB AVG K W S ERA WHIP
1 Reid BARF 117 984 258 999 143 0.2513 1250 101 63 3.593 1.185
2 gregsauce 110 987 295 1024 62 0.2628 1331 85 36 3.417 1.152
3 BatFlip Crazy BARF 106.5 966 246 916 101 0.242 1324 87 75 3.228 1.092
4 mattywood 104 918 271 914 112 0.2475 1357 87 54 3.613 1.141
5 Entrekin 96.5 859 239 947 121 0.2439 1263 77 92 3.315 1.13
6 Sarris 96 926 233 855 147 0.2472 1211 99 44 3.415 1.176
7 @StevePaulo BARF 88.5 1047 278 947 123 0.2691 1090 74 34 3.756 1.217
8 Manbearpig 84 930 249 893 85 0.2449 1221 83 68 3.571 1.191
9 Del Don 68.5 824 199 727 94 0.2393 1369 79 71 3.582 1.16
10 BARF Mason 66.5 938 250 951 100 0.247 1142 78 37 4.011 1.256
11 Thorburn 61.5 910 229 799 109 0.2523 1343 77 32 4.172 1.222
12 Two Jawns 60 875 255 825 121 0.2441 1096 78 9 3.75 1.232
13 KDo BARF 53.5 855 186 804 112 0.2513 1186 65 40 3.798 1.21
14 The Family Madrigal 45 852 214 806 83 0.2509 1083 72 57 3.692 1.248
15 Bender 42.5 824 190 808 99 0.2488 1118 73 38 3.786 1.237

We conducted the draft on March 12, 2022. That piece of information is the key piece of information. One of my strategies this year was to stay as injury free as possible in the draft. Injuries are going to happen, but in the past I have loaded my teams up with upside and not worried so much about injury with disastrous results. So I did not draft a single injured player in this draft…

 

My Draft

Justin Mason’s 2022 BARF Draft
Round Pick Player Position
1 12 Albies, Ozzie 2B
2 19 Betts, Mookie OF
3 42 Mullins, Cedric OF
4 49 Sale, Chris P
5 72 Lynn, Lance P
6 79 Smith, Will P
7 102 Jimenez, Eloy OF
8 109 Snell, Blake P
9 132 Adames, Willy SS
10 139 Cronenworth, Jake 1B
11 162 Turner, Justin 3B
12 169 Urias, Luis MI
13 192 Renfroe, Hunter OF
14 199 Floro, Dylan P
15 222 Bauer, Trevor P
16 229 Patino, Luis P
17 252 Murphy, Sean C
18 259 Gimenez, Andres MI
19 282 Thomas, Lane OF
20 289 Rasmussen, Drew P
21 312 Finnegan, Kyle P
22 319 Marsh, Brandon UT
23 342 Torrens, Luis C
24 349 Hernandez, Carlos P
25 372 Corbin, Patrick P
26 379 Bradley, Bobby 1B
27 402 Stratton, Chris P
28 409 Duran, Jarren OF
29 432 Warren, Art P
30 439 Wade, Tyler 3B
Blue = Finished on my roster
Red = Injured

So, as you can see my team was decimated by injuries, but not only that, the five guys I thought were going to be my potential closers all ended up not closing. Just for fun, let’s look at the timeline:

Justin’s Series of Unfortunate Events
Date Event Effect
3/12/2022 BARF Draft Day Justin is happy.
3/16/2022 Chris Sale breaks rib. Justin loses first starter
3/19/2022 Kenley Jansen signs with Braves Justin loses first closer
3/27/2022 Jarren Duran optioned Justin loses first hitter
3/28/2022 Luis Urias pulls quad muscle Justin loses second hitter
3/30/2022 Chris Stratton named co-closer Justin feels hopeful
4/4/2022 Lance Lynn out with knee injury. Justin loses second starter
4/7/2022 Dylan Floro put on IL with shoulder issue Justin loses second closer
4/12/2022 Luis Patino strains oblique Justin loses third starter
4/14/2022 Blake Snell injures adductor Justin loses fourth starter
4/23/2022 Eloy Jimenez hurt leg Justin laughs so he doesn’t cry
5/1/2022 Chris Stratton loses closer role Justin feels like Charlie Brown kicking a football
5/18/2022 Willy Adames injures ankle Justin is tired.
5/23/2022 Hunter Renfroe injures hamstring Justin loses his paitence
6/13/2022 Ozzie Albies fractures foot Justin loses faith in his team
6/15/2022 Drew Rasmussen injures Hamstring Justin loses faith in humanity
6/19/2022 Mookie Betts cracks rib Justin loses all hope.
8/3/2022 Justin Turner injures abdominal muscle Justin loses his sanity.

To be quite honest, I am pretty proud of my tenth place finish. Considering how many guys I lost early in the season. So how did I try and keep my team competitive?

The first thing I did was get very aggressive on closer specs.

BARF Closer Specs
Date Player Bid
4/3/2022 Emilio Pagan $5
4/10/2022 Jorge Lopez $13
4/17/2022 Hansel Robles $78
4/17/2022 Chad Green $78
4/24/2022 Wil Crowe $7
5/1/2022 Tyler Duffey $1
5/15/2022 Felix Bautista $27
6/12/2022 Daniel Hudson $3
6/12/2022 Matt Strahm $3
6/12/2022 Jason Adam $3

Not all of these worked and there was some wasted money, but I was able to get enough saves to not finish last in the category.

The next thing I did was make sure I was fielding a full lineup even if it meant dropping star players. In NFBC leagues you don’t have IL spots, so holding guys that are going to clog up your bench is a huge mistake. I dropped Albies as soon as he got hurt. I dropped Hunter Renfroe as soon as he got hurt. I held onto Snell, Lynn, Urias, Eloy, and Sale, but eventually had to drop Sale once he had a setback. I played about as well as I could have.

The last thing I did was stream pitchers constantly. I made a decision pretty early on that the injuries to my pitching staff meant I needed to either punt ratios or punt wins and strikeouts. I made the decision to just punt ratios and stream as much as I could. It allowed me to not focus on who might have a good outing, but on guys that I thought could win games because of the team they were on or were playing. It left me in the middle of the pack in wins and strikeouts.

 

Conclusion
This was a disaster from the start. Sometimes you just have a team like that. The fact I was able to rally and not finish last is a nice reminder that you shouldn’t give up even when you struggle out of the gate. In spite of all the injuries, I still had a top five offense in the league. Had I had half the injuries that I did, I probably could have cashed in this league. It is a reminder to never give up, especially not early.





 

Justin is the co-host on The Sleeper and The Bust Podcast and writes for Rotographs covering the Roto Riteup as well as other periodic articles. In addition to his work at Rotographs, Justin is the lead fantasy writer/analyst and co-owner for FriendswithFantasyBenefits.com, and the owner of The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational. He is also a certified addiction treatment counselor. Follow Justin on Twitter @JustinMasonFWFB.

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Jimmember
1 year ago

As I am a non-fantasy player, this was a fun read. “Justin loses all hope.” Great.

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