What Went Wrong?
Welcome to Championship Week in Fantasy Baseball. If your team is currently fighting for the league trophy; this article is not for you. Nope. This article is for the majority of fantasy owners that fell short of the gold this season. Did you fight valiantly only to fall in the playoffs; or did your team crash and burn from the start? In either case, something went wrong for your team this season. Even though the sting of defeat is still fresh, there’s no better time to look back on your draft to figure out why your team isn’t fighting for the gold this season.
You made terrible picks
Let’s face it, you expected Hanley Ramirez to win the NL MVP, Carl Crawford to single-handedly carry the Boston Red Sox and Adam Dunn to hit 50 home runs. In retrospect, there’s no way you are drafting those guys again. Going back and realizing that you chose the wrong guys is frustrating in that — even though no one predicted those players to struggle this much — you failed as an owner. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do to prevent this from happening in next season’s draft. You can research guys as much as possible, but you’re still going to draft some guys that fail to live up to expectations. Better luck next season.
The injury bug struck
You probably came out of your draft loving Adam Wainwright and Brett Anderson as the anchors of your rotation. Justin Morneau had enough time to recover from his concussion, right? Every team deals with injuries throughout the season, but some are clearly worse than others. Certain teams can get by without Josh Hamilton for a month; losing Wainwright for the entire year is a huge blow. On top of that, the injury bug could care less about the timing of the fantasy playoffs. Hanley Ramirez was shut down early this season, and Rickie Weeks barely played down the stretch — likely causing many fantasy teams to scramble for last minute replacements. This situation can be somewhat prevented next season. Obviously, injuries are going to happen — some of which we cannot predict. In the cases where guys have a history of injury — or are coming off an injury — make sure you pick up a solid replacement.
Luck dragons
Perhaps the most frustrating of all the fantasy ailments; luck dragons. You studied up before the season, picked out your best sleeper candidates and coasted all the way to the top seed in your league. Your team looked like the juggernaut of the league and there was no way you were going to lose to the six seed. Then, your team decided to hit .203 and all of your pitchers picked this week to implode. Luck dragons can be particularly frustrating because you succeeded as an owner only to see your team blow it in the end. Unfortunately, there’s no cure for luck dragons at this time. You drafted pretty well, and it’s not your fault that bad luck struck at the wrong time.
So for all of you suffering from fantasy frustration right now; where did it all go wrong? While things may seem dreadful now; trust me when I tell you “it gets better.”
Chris is a blogger for CBSSports.com. He has also contributed to Sports on Earth, the 2013 Hard Ball Times Baseball Annual, ESPN, FanGraphs and RotoGraphs. He tries to be funny on twitter @Chris_Cwik.
Went 19-2 in the regular season only to lose in the first round of the playoffs
Injuries to all of my power hitters minus Tulo and three of my best pitchers really hurt. I limped into the playoffs under .500. The luck dragons killed me in a battle against the #1 seed where sitting Chacin and starting A-Rod on Saturday would have meant the difference between championship game and 3rd place game.
It’s been a rough year.
If I qualify for all 3 of the above, is that triple winning or triple losing? Tiger blood.
Oh, Brett Anderson, why did you have to break my heart?
Yeah, everyone knew he was getting TJ at some point. But you watch a guy with that kind of talent and wishful thinking kicks in.
It went wrong when I spent a really early draft pick on Ryan Zimmerman, who I was convinced was going to be a fantasy stud at a thin position, only to have him injured for good chunks of the season.
My hitter heavy draft strategy bit me in the ass when I found more good hitters on waivers than I knew what to do with them, but couldnt buy a pitcher to save my life. I figured I could coast by on late round pitcher picks like Brandon Morrow and Ted Lilly.
Luckily, I traded Adam Dunn early in the season, advertising him as a “buy low” guy. Unfortunately, the guy I traded him for was another “buy low”: John Danks. When all was said and done, Danks ended up having some decent starts, but he wasn’t worth how high I drafted Dunn (and I won’t share that info, too embarassing).
The Good? I traded Anderson (with Kuroda) for Votto and immediately had buyers guilt because it sapped my starting pitching. But laughed a week later when Anderson went under. Also, I knew enough to pass on the grossly overrated Crawford in the draft.
Hanley, Crawford, and Heyward were tough enough, but I survived through them and had a good season… and then Tommy Hanson and Rickie Weeks got hurt, and the Red Sox (and by extension A-Gon) stopped hitting. Yay.
You had Hanley, Crawford, and AGon? Do you play in a one-team league?
Or an auction and he spent all his money on those guys. I’m in a deep auction league where one team spent all of their money on a few players and then his lack of depth killed him. Maybe this is what happened to Nathan.
“I’m drafting Carl Crawford in the second round, there’s no way I’ll finish last in steals.”
I was first in the league in the regular season, but ended up with a seventh place finish. the luck dragon burnt my team pretty hard
Went 8-13 due to drafting Hanley, Dunn, Weeks, Liriano among others, snuck in with a 6 seed, but I find myself in the championship due to my fill ins getting hot at the right time (a la the 2010 Giants offense). I love the must’ve sold my soul to get right with the luck dragons
My first four picks were:
Hanley
Youk
Morneau
Ichiro
Yeah.
You must have acknowledged the risk associated with Morneau when you drafted him, right? At least around here in Minnesota no one seemed too optimistic about him.
As far as my fantasy baseball season goes, the highlight was in my family’s league where my mom drafted Tsuyoshi Nisioka with her first round pick. That might go down as my favorite memory of my entire life.
At the beginning of the season I was offered Ellsbury as part of a multiplayer trade, and I shrewdly held out for Ichiro instead.
What went wrong?
Everything.
whos the idiot that traded away Texiera, David Ortiz, Brett Gardner, Kuroda, and Chapman for Hanley, Nick Swisher, Jaime Garcia (I forgot how to pitch in Aug), and Gallardo…..
This trade literally bit me in the butt. The only consolation i have is that i get hanley as a keeper for next season.
what went wrong? 4 most expensive picks were hanley, shin soo choo, ichiro, and zimmerman… traded zimmerman, coco crisp and jj hardy in july for youkilis and crawford right before zimm took off and youk crashed (hitting less than .200 for me)…
but i’m still in first place in roto? so i guess i’m not in the right place
HANGIN TOUGH WITH JESUS GUZMAN
Yes, luck dragons complaints thread!
Regular season champ/#1 seed in my 16 team H2H but bounced in the first round of the playoffs by the #8 seed (w/ a losing record!!!) because Doug Fister and Javier Vazquez went crazy.
Are there luck leprechauns that make scrubs perform well much like there are luck dragons who make good players temporarily suck?
NL Only League
Sandoval – out forever
Matt Holliday – what is his problem
Pujols – 2 weeks on DL reallyyyyy hurt me
Orlando hudson – i need all the counting stats i can get
Chris Heisey – best PH
Wainwright – cheap keeper $6
Strasburg – actually surprised me and played $3 keeper
Rasmus – virus
And the worst move of all time—–drafting javy vasquez and dropping him after first 7 miserable starts (AND WE ALL KNOW WHAT HE HAS DONE SINCE!)
oh wait…..Ryan HOWARD!!
I had Verlander, Kershaw, and tommy handsome all year, along with Grienke (traded gavin floyd and bartolo colon for him (!)) and mat latos (traded delmon young for him), which pretty much solidified my staff as the best in the league by a whole lot. i finished in second, my hitting consisted of cano, a-rod, prince fielder, jj hardy, shane victorino, and beltran but i was really burned on adam dunn (6th round pick… sigh) and even though i got great value for jayson werth (like 12th round), he still blew. it really sucks having the 2 cy young winners and still losing. but the first place team had ryan braun, matt kemp, and curtis granderson (not to mention paul konerko, nelson cruz, mike napoli, and a whole host of other batters) and lost in the first round to the 8th seed.
You need to be in a stronger league. It sounds like you had a two team league. It’s a lot more fun doing well in a competitive league.
The most frustrating part is that I was in 1st or 2nd place for most of the season up until this last month and a half, when my pitching staff inexplicably let me down (Weaver, Haren, Gallardo (he really let me down early honestly), Freddy Garica, etc…) and my bats started drying up and/or injured (Youklis on the DL, Morse hitting a drought).
Sadly unless the front runner has a complete meltdown and I suddenly excel it is the 2nd place fiddle for me… The only consolations are that I have the following keepers for next year: Bautista@$35, Morse@$6, Weaver@$29, Granderson@$21, and Kinsler@$29.
One person who’s name hasn’t come up: Alex Rios. How was that guy like the 50th slot on Yahoo?
Nice, a thread for complaining about Fantasy Baseball
This is a collection of what went wrong for 3 of my teams:
Zimmerman going down
Rios being awful
Ichiro turning 56
Anderson’s TJ
Aardsma not coming back for forever
Tex’s low AVG
Liriano
Trading for Youk before he fell off a cliff
Sadface
Finished middle of the pack due to horrendous seasons from Crawford, Dunn, and Soria. Good pitching barely kept things together. At the deadline traded Verlander/Shields for Kinsler/Tulowitzki (and other incidentals). Since the trade neither my team nor the team of the guy I traded with budged from their respective positions. Can’t wait until next year …
Not believing in Jose Bautista.
I traded Jose Bautista and Cole Hamels for Carl Crawford Phil Hughes and Jholys Chacin before the season started thinking I had Miguel Cabrera and Kevin Youkilis at the corners.
Here we are months later and I traded Crawford for Jason Heyward and a 6th out of 10 place finish.
I cry everytime I think about that trade. It’s a keeper league too.
$58 on Crawford in my auction league. I couldn’t even defend that one the next day.
First five rounds of my H2H draft:
Hanley
A-Rod
Dunn
Werth
Ubaldo
Ooh, and Carlos Pena in the middle rounds. Doomed from the start.
my first place roto team, i don’t even need to mention how much went wrong during the season, is now collapsing with a week to go. BA has dropped .040 points in like 2 1/2 weeks, no one’s homering, everyone i pick up sucks and everyone i drop to do it hits (scutaro today…) and motte and kimbrel just blew 2 chances at crucial saves i need. god deaaaaamn
lots of crappy fantasy owners with crappy teams crying in this thread.
I take it that your foul mood is brought on by yet another last place finish? I know its tough, but hang in there and just try to lay off the ESPN fantasy site, OK?
*pats cs3 gently* There, there…
Went 206-120-26 in regular season to get the 1 seed. Had a bye week, then lost to 5 seed in the playoffs. Pitching staff was never great, but decided to blow up. Oh, and Nelson Cruz might be back tonight, or tonight, or tonight, or tonight, or tonight, or tonight…
I finished 2nd in the regular season, but was bounced by a whisker in the first round of the playoffs. Came down to the last batter in the last game on a Sunday night. All I needed was one hit from David Wright. Instead, 0-for-5. But there’s no crying in baseball.
I didn’t fail as an owner… they failed as players 😛