LABR Mixed League Update

We are now a full month into the season, so it’s finally time to give you all an update on the LABR mixed league you have all been eagerly awaiting. For those who did not commit my team to memory, refresh it by checking out my draft results again. Once you have stopped laughing after perusing my roster, you will realize how brave I am to ever talk about this team again.

To say the least, it has not been a fun year so far in this league. Between injuries, slow starters and demotions, the one positive I can look forward to is that it cannot get any worse!

We are all well aware of Albert Pujols‘ historically poor start (for him), but he finally did join the home run club after launching his first yesterday. Welcome Albert, now it’s time to make up for lost ground and hit another 40.

Paul Goldschmidt has started off slowly, allowing Lyle Overbay to steal way too many at-bats than he should legally be allowed to. All of his underlying skills look fine, except for his lack of power. Hopefully that comes and when he starts hitting again, Lyle Overbay will likely remain on the bench where he belongs.

So much for Dustin Ackley’s spring power and 10 pounds of muscle gained over the off-season. The good news is that his contact rate has improved and he is simply suffering through a low BABIP. It would be nice to get a little more than 10/10, but it is obviously looking less and less likely at this point.

Ummm, Ryan Raburn, did you use up your entire allotment of hits during the spring? You aren’t really going to lose your job to Ramon Santiago or Danny Worth, right? RIGHT?

Carl Crawford, are you serious?!?! Keep in mind that we drafted at the end of February. At that time, he was only supposed to miss the first week or two of the season at most and still had an outside shot of being ready for opening day. Then the elbow issue popped up and boom, his return is pushed back to early May, now a setback has him hoping to be back before the all-star break.

Lorenzo Cain did nothing in his few early season at-bats and then got injured. Oh, and then just suffered a setback. Cool.

The Twins gave up on the notion of defense and demoted Ben Revere, and are now trying a carousel of crap in right field. Too funny.

If you thought my pitching was a problem after the draft, what now with my supposed ace Michael Pineda out for the year?! And I drafted him in all four of my leagues too. Awesome.

Am I supposed to be happy or annoyed that Chris Sale is now the White Sox closer? I honestly don’t know how to react given the current composition of my pitching staff. But man, he was making me look good for being so optimistic about his transition to the rotation. Oh well. At least Daniel Bard looks like he will be sticking, but that may or may not be a good thing given his poor control so far and 4.43 SIERA.

Johan Santana sure has been a pleasant surprise. Curious to see how many innings he holds up for. Is this the perfect opportunity to try to sell him high? Very possibly, though in a league full of experts, I would have to believe they are all just as skeptical.

Oh, and I lost Andrew Bailey for half of the year.

On my reserve list, Brian Fuentes, who I thought was the favorite for the Athletics closer job lost it to Grant Balfour, the Astros surprisingly moved Brett Myers back into the pen causing Wilton Lopez to again be worthless, Jerry Sands was sent down because Juan Rivera is such a good player, Jimmy Paredes was also demoted, and Aaron Crow didn’t even make the rotation even though he was supposed to. So of my six man reserve roster, only one remains, and he was injured all year himself and just returned (Felipe Paulino)!

Now here comes the fun part where I list my FAAB additions:
–Jarrod Dyson currently starts in my outfield while Cain is on the mend. I highlighted him in a recent deep league waiver wire and I think he should continue to provide positive value with his steals and runs scored.
–Juan Pierre also made his way onto my team in the outfield, as if I needed two no power, all speed outfielders. I had Juan Rivera starting for a couple of weeks, then he got injured, and he stinks anyway.
–Travis Hafner currently occupies my DH slot.
-I’ve made a bunch of pitching moves as one would expect. I won both Santiago Casilla and Francisco Cordero, so those two, along with Sale and Frank Francisco means I currently have four closers. Cordero will lose his job back to Sergio Santos when he returns, but even three closers is probably unnecessary in a 15-team league. I will probably look to make a trade at some point.
-I picked up Jeff Samardzija at the beginning of the season and am absolutely loving him. His stuff is fantastic and as long as his drastically improved control holds up, he will have no problem posting a sub-4.00 ERA and earning value in most leagues.
–Francisco Liriano was dropped, and given the depth of the league, I figured that his upside warranted an add. I now own him in all my leagues as well, where he sits firmly on my bench.
-I added Brian Matusz during spring training and he has been riding my bench ever since the first week or two. His spring magic unfortunately has not yet carried over either.

So there you have it. My team has been an utter disaster so far, but I am still rather optimistic that better health and slow starters beginning to hit will get my team out of the basement. Yup, I’m in last place!

Okay, lay it on me. Tell me why I had this coming since my draft sucked, I shouldn’t have drafted Albert Pujols first overall to begin with, and that I need to stop acting like a whiny little bitch. Or, you can offer me some nice words of encouragement!