2007 Regular League Recap

Fortunately, I have at least one successful league to write about this year.

I've been playing in this A.L. only, 4x4 league for 12 years now. This year was the fourth time I've won, but it was all the sweeter in that it ended a five-year drought. I also didn't enter the year as the favorite, didn't have the best auction, and left the room with a 7th place team.

In the end, though, I was able defy my mediocre auction to climb up to first place and win by 3 1/2 points (after a brief scare on the next-to-last day that found me tied for first).

What were my keys to success?

Not getting hung up on closers
I started the off-season with Todd Jones ($12) and Seth McClung ($15). McClung was touted as the closer at the start of the off-season, but I was definitely wary of him hanging on to the job. In early March, I moved McClung, Juan Uribe ($8) and a farm pick for Carlos Guillen ($19). As McClung tanked in mid-March, he lost the job, got sent to the minors and I wound up with an $8 bargain in Guillen.

I also resisted the urge to buy an expensive Francisco Rodriguez ($40) or Mariano Rivera ($37) at the auction, and also shied away from cheaper but riskier options like Joe Borowski ($21) or Eric Gagne ($18) as well. Borowski wound up turning a profit ($28), but staying away from the second closer gave me some flexibility...as you'll see a few paragraphs down.

Freezing/buying/trading for some strong options up the middle
In addition to Guillen, I bought Brian Roberts at $29 and Jason Varitek at $14. Roberts outearned every American League infielder at $35, while Varitek was unspectacular at $12 but was still one of only six A.L. catchers to earn double digits. In the past, I had gone for a pure value play at MI/C, but I decided that this year I wanted stats out of those positions. This move paid off, as it was next to impossible to find non-contenders with decent middle infield/catching options to trade.

I also moved Gary Sheffield for Jorge Posada and Jermaine Dye for Robinson Cano on the same day in mid-May to ensure that I completely filled my MI/C positions with strong everyday players. Having quality options here for almost an entire season is a huge advantage if you can pull it off, and I did so without overspending at auction.

Adjusting my pitching strategy in the auction on some fliers
The other off-season trade I made was moving Johan Santana ($47) for Jon Garland ($2), Justin Speier ($1) and Cameron Maybin (farm). I loved Santana but knew that he wouldn't give me thin team the financial flexibility to compete in the auction. My back-up plan, though, was a disaster, as I bought Rich Harden at $25.

Fortunately, I decided that some of the $5-10 pitchers were going cheaper than I thought they would so I took fliers on Bartolo Colon ($6), Paul Byrd ($4), Tomo Ohka ($3) and James Shields ($3). Colon and Ohka didn't work out, but Byrd was OK at $4. More importantly, Shields's fast start allowed me to package him in my first big dump deal in mid-May, giving me a significant advantage over my competitors who were left standing on the sidelines waiting for the next dominoes to fall. It's important to remember that just because you buy guys like Colon and Ohka, it doesn't mean you have to keep them all year long.

Playing for eight categories. I was committed to shipping Todd Jones off to a save-hungry team as soon as I could. I did this in late April, moving him for Gary Sheffield straight up. However, my dump deal netted me pre-injury A.J. Burnett for Mariano Rivera and I was then able to grab Chris Ray and Aubrey Huff for Alexis Rios and Matt Garza (OK, that one didn't work out). However, having Ray and Rivera made me bid on and win Alan Embree and later in the year Joaquin Benoit. If I had simply stayed out of the saves game, I wouldn't have bid on these guys and would have finished with three points in the category instead of the 10 I ultimately got. That was the difference between 1st and 2nd, plus four points. I said it in the off-season about dumping categories, and I stuck to my own advice: don't get married to the idea of dumping a category if an opportunity to jump back into it presents itself.

Identifying (and capitalizing upon) a buyer's market for dump trades.
My competitor and I were the primary beneficiaries of one team's early decision to dump. This led to a buyer's market, where only two teams seriously had a shot at first place by late June. However, a lot of teams waffled and didn't cash in their chips until mid-June, with two teams that were dead in the water waiting until the deadline on August 1 to make their trades. My competitor always seemed to pounce first, but I was right behind him, typically getting more for less than what he paid. On deadline day, I was able to get Jim Thome, Jason Kubel and Josh Barfield for draft picks, Jeff Clement and Brandon Inge, simply because no one was buying. Every year presents a different dumping market. Don't pay last year's prices just because that was the going rate last year.

Pulling the plug on guys who weren't working out
With the exception of Bartolo Colon, who I held on to for way too long, I wasn't afraid to jettison guys who weren't working. Tomo Ohka was dropped after two bad starts, Josh Barfield was replaced with Asdrubal Cabrera quickly, and Mike Mussina and Jon Garland were both dropped before they could become a problem. While Moose and Garland both bounced back with solid Septembers, the rationale behind those moves was correct. You can't simply drop a $30 player after he goes 2-25, but you do have to follow your instinct and get rid of players who you feel are going to drag your team down into the morass.

Luck
Anyone who wins and says luck isn't a factor is a liar or delusional. I was lucky that Roy Halladay had appendicitis, his owner decided to dump, loved James Shields and that the guy who owned Chien-Ming Wang ($4) and B.J. Upton ($10) refused to trade them. I had to swap out Carlos Guillen for Michael Young to make a later dump trade, and all Young did was hit .352 in his last 244 AB while Guillen only hit .279 and was a wash in HR/SB and drove in seven fewer runs. Though I liked Dustin McGowan, I had no idea he'd be as strong as he was down the stretch after I traded for him.

Luck runs the other way too. After my opponent got Johan Santana in a dump trade, I assumed he had locked it up. But Santana gave him a 4.45 ERA/1.19 WHIP and four lousy wins in 83 IP. Jeremy Bonderman killed him, with a 8.23/1.81 in 54 2/3 IP. Manny Ramirez missed most of September and Gary Sheffield's injuries caught up with him down the stretch.

And Ehren Wassermann picked up a meaningless win on the next-to-last day of the season for the guy in third, pretty much closing out my rival's chance of moving up in wins and tying or possibly passing me. Anyone who knew who Ehren Wassermann was at the beginning of the year is related, works for the White Sox, or is John Sickels or one of the geniuses at Baseball Prospectus. Yet there he was, winning his first major league game in 33 appearances and all but putting my title in the bag.