Standings (May 30, 2009)
1) Baseball HQ 93.5
2) Crucial Sports 89.5
3) CBS Sportsline (Mack) 79
4) Patton & Company 77
5) Fanball.com 65
6) Baseball Info Solutions 59
7) Creative Sports 57.5
8) Stats LLC 56.5
9) Roto Experts 56
10) Krause Publications 52.5
11) CBS Sportsline (Melmood) 50
12) CBS Sportsline (White) 44.5
Given the fact that I bought John Lackey, Joe Mauer, and Ervin Santana in early February before all three were hurt, I feel like I'm doing OK. With Lackey and Santana back in the fold, I'm hoping that I'll make a run in WHIP, wins, and strikeouts and push for 90 points, which was my goal at the beginning of the year. Right now, that would put me in second and wouldn't be enough to win, but we'll see what happens.
On offense, I've done a little bit better than I thought I would thanks to the contributions of Russ Branyan ($1), Mauer's ridiculous surge, and Bobby Abreu's ridiculous baserunning. Despite the fact that I planned on dumping power after I spent over $100 on my pitching staff, I still have six points combined in HR (two) and RBI (four) thanks to some sluggish offensive performances at the bottom of the pile.
There was a lot of talk this offseason about Stars and Scrubs in this league and how well it might or might not work, especially since I didn't spend over $25 on any player. Here's a look at the teams that did spend $40 or more on one player.
# of $40 Players, CBS Sportsline A.L. 2009
| Team | $40+ | Player(s) | Salary | RT Value | +/- |
| Baseball HQ | 0 | ||||
| Crucial Sports | 1 | Miguel Cabrera | $40 | $33 | -7 |
| CBS Mack | 2 | Justin Morneau Mark Teixeira | $40 $43 | $37 $26 | -20 |
| Patton | 0 | ||||
| Fanball | 0 | ||||
| Baseball Info | 2 | Evan Longoria Dustin Pedroia | $40 $40 | $38 $25 | -17 |
| Creative Sports | 0 | ||||
| Stats LLC | 1 | Carl Crawford | $41 | $45 | +4 |
| Roto Experts | 2 | Josh Hamilton Grady Sizemore | $41 $51 | $11 $15 | -66 |
| Krause | 0 | ||||
| CBS Melmood | 1 | Ian Kinsler | $44 | $32 | -12 |
| CBS White | 1 | Alex Rodriguez | $50 | $10 | -40 |
Obviously, there isn't a direct corollary between spending $40 or more on a player and stinking up the joint ($40 is also an arbitrary cut-off. Creative Sports spent $39 on B.J. Upton, who would be one of the worst buys on this list if I had included him.). But it doesn't surprise me that most of the teams in the first division avoided the big buys on Auction Day.
Crawford's the only player here turning a profit so far. Both Crucial Sports and Mack are doing well because they wisely went for specific targets. In Mack's case, he bought a ton of starting pitching and hoped the volume in wins and strikeouts would make up for ERA/WHIP. In Crucial Sports' case, Don Visco spent almost all of his money on offense, which made his $40 buy of Cabrera reasonable given the strategy he was employing.
The problem with spending big bucks on hitters in a non-freeze league is that you can see what happens when it doesn't work. If Visco or Mack had bought Hamilton instead of Cabrera or Morneau, chances are they'd be a few rungs down in the standings and digging themselves out of a huge hole (like White and Roto Experts are trying to do). It isn't impossible, but Hamilton and A-Rod will have to perform at a superhuman level to even get these teams to the middle of the pack.
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