Doug Saffir

Autodraft!

Yes, I forgot about my fantasy baseball draft. Having not done one in so long, it very easily slipped my mind when the alternative of going out to dinner for free came up (big thanks to my girlfriend’s parents).

But actually, things worked out nicely. While much of the baseball I caught on television was not entertaining, my fantasy team very much was.

Yahoo!’s rankings autodrafted me what appears to be an incredible pitching rotation, featuring the likes of Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander, and Matt Cain. While my offense is a bit weaker because of it, I still managed to snag Adam Jones, Pablo Sandoval, and Paul Konerko (oohhh, sleeper potential!).

I’ll post the whole roster below, but the true story of Week 1 of my fantasy season was my matchup against Zebo the Ass Clown. Yes, with a name like that, you know you’re facing a formidable opponent.

I exchanged leads with the unfortunately named Butt Entertainer at least seven times over the course of the week, with much of those changes coming over the last two days.

Ultimately, I came out the victor with a 5-2-3 record.

As expected, I took all of the matchup’s pitching categories except for saves, but snagged a late lead in batting average to seal it.

While this first week was certainly thrilling from a fantasy perspective, I have three issues.

First, I obviously can’t gloat or take too much credit for the win – a computer drafted my team. It’s unfortunate that things happened that way, but it’s probably for the best. God knows I would’ve fucked it up somehow and ended up with a team of players destined for demotion to AAA ball.

Second, the fantasy was fun but the real stuff was almost entirely boring. I’m going to try to figure out the best matchups over the next 7 days and put something up about that next week.

And finally, I just looked at my fantasy schedule. You’ll never guess, but there’s 25 weeks of this shit. 25! Can you believe that? I don’t remember the last time I did anything every day for 25 weeks in a row. My college semesters weren’t even that long, and classes most certainly weren’t every day.

That’s right folks, fantasy baseball requires literally more daily focus than a college education.

I’m going to go set my lineup for Monday of Week 2 and cry about having to do it 161 more times throughout the summer. 😥

The full roster for my horribly named team, Second Chances

Catcher: Carlos Santana
First Base: Paul Konerko
Second Base: Neil Walker
Third Base: Pablo Sandoval
Shortstop: Erick Aybar
Outfielder: Adam Jones
Outfielder: Hunter Pence
Outfielder: Norichika Aoki
Utility: Miguel Montero
Utility: Dexter Fowler
Bench: Eric Hosmer, Danny Espinosa, Dayan Viciedo
DL: Mark Teixeira
Starting Pitcher: Clayton Kershaw
Starting Pitcher: Justin Verlander
Relief Pitcher: Addison Reed
Relief Pitcher: Alexi Ogando
Pitcher: Matt Cain
Pitcher: CC Sabathia
Pitcher: Matt Moore
Pitcher: Jason Hammel
Bench: Brandon McCarthy

(Photo via Shirt Shovel)