Is it Real or Fantasy

My name is Ron and I am a fantasy baseball addict….

Welcome to my contribution, which is used very loosely to the otherwise quality content on Diamond Hoggers. I have has this idea in my head that consisted of writing about my fantasy experiences for some time now. So I approached the fine owners of the site and some how they agreed to let me do it. This is probably not a new idea because I generally don’t come up with those. So I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if someone else is doing it too and much better. But here I am typing away.

First I have to give you a heads up. Don’t expect this to be a polished blog with a lot of big fancy words. It won’t happen. I absolutely stink at grammar. This is my second attempt at blogging. The first was done rather sporadically. I never realized how much it would cost to get people to read it. That may be part of the reason I don’t do it often. Laziness is the other key factor. This also won’t be a statistical based blog either. I just can’t get that deep. WAR what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. To me anyway. I am what you would call a feel or hunch player.

Anyway, now that football season is over is time to start thinking about baseball. At the time of this post we are just over a week away from catchers and pitchers reporting. I know that doesn’t matter but to me it always signals the start of the season and spring. It is also the time to start preparing for fantasy drafts. Which I have to admit besides scouring the waiver wires and trade talk drafts are my favorite part.

I should probably give you some background on me and my experience. I am a lifelong Orioles fan with a sentimental attachment to the Mets. I have only been playing fantasy baseball for about 4 years now. So again, don’t expect any meaningful analysis because I don’t have any. I do invest a lot of time into doing research though, using the same sites that many of you do. My goal to is to find the ones that aren’t on anyone’s radar. I have owned guys like Sonny Gray, Mookie Betts, Trevor Story and more before they became popular guys to have on your teams. For everyone of those types I have probably had at least 5 busts. I am a risk taker I guess you can say. Prospects are like crack to me, I just have to have them. I drive the others in the league nuts because I constantly am making waiver claims. My biggest problem is I have no patience and drop guys before there is enough of a sample size to determine if they are worth rostering.

So my blog is going to be about trials and tribulations of owning a fantasy team. The main focus will be a 12 team head to head weekly points league with cash prized paid. It is a keeper league where we have a budget. The salary is simply based on where they were drafted with an add every year they are owned. Also, you can only keep them for 4 years. It is a pretty quiet league in that there is no trash talking or any forms of meaningful chatter. And it is almost impossible to get a trade done. Which is one the most frustrating things to me about fantasy in general. You either have guys that refuse to trade, or put too much value on a player, or make you the most ridiculous offers imaginable. I can’t tell you how many times I have trade offers that included guys that were out of the year or couldn’t hit there way out of a paper bag. As I get them I will post and maybe someone can help me determine if they are good deals. Or not. The draft for all my leagues are coming fast. Most are slow drafts. By slow I mean, molasses outside in Western New York in January slow. If you can’t grasp the mental image of that – IT IS PAINFULLY SLOW. We are given anywhere from 4 to 6 hours between picks. And there are always a handful that take every last second. Those are the same guys that pitch baby fits if they are auto-picked.

So that about covers everything I think. Just to recap though, this blog won’t be about what to do but more about what NOT to do. Although I may accidentally provide a few quality nuggets of information. Hopefully, it will be entertaining and provide a few laughs along the way if nothing else.. I am pretty excited about doing it.

My name is Ron and I am a fantasy baseball addict.