Hiroki Kuroda's 7 innings of perfect baseball tonight swelled my ego many times over. You see, I picked him up last night for this specific start. For the past 45 minutes I've been hovering over Stattracker and MLB.tv hoping I'd be the guy who picked up the pitcher right before his perfect game. Unfortunately, Mark Texiera's double to lead off the 8th ended my chance to gloat to my league for the rest of the year.
Ron Shandler's 2008 Baseball Forecaster revealed a poll showing 43% of people play fantasy baseball strictly for "the challenge of proving your knowledge". It was by far the #1 answer. We all want to be the guy to pick up the rookie that goes crazy or to trade for the "next big thing". We all want to be the smartest guy in our league but, fantasy baseball gives us opportunities to feel brilliant one moment and stupid one pitch later. Over the years I've certainly had my hits and misses. Here's some of the more memorable ones.
Hits:
-Picking up Ryan Braun in all 3 of my leagues last year. He single handedly moved me up at least 2 positions in each league.
- Kuroda's performance tonight is certainly up there
- Trading Juan Gonzalez for Johan Santana in 2004. Here's the background, Juan Gone was making his comeback with the Royals and was looking so-so through the end of May. Johan on the other hand was coming off a break out year in '03 but, was struggling to start his '04. Through his first 12 starts he was 2-4 with a 5.50 era. The other owner needed power and I needed an arm. I think you know the result. Juan-gone was practically one and gone. He got hurt right away and Johan went on to go 18-4 with 1.44 era and a 6.6/1 K/BB rate. Hello!! That's one I'll be telling the grandkids about.
Misses:
-Having Fernando Tatis on the bench during "the game". Which game you ask? If you're asking you certainly didn't have him on your team that day. Tatis hit 2 grandslams in one inning. Ouch is an understatement.
-Picking Liriano in the 9th round and Andruw Jones in the 11th round this year. Waiting to take a catcher in the 21st so I could target JR Towles didn't help either.
-Holding on to Roger Clemens and Homer Bailey for a combined year in '07. Their "production" certainly wasn't worth the wait.
Who are your hits and misses through the years? See if you can beat Juan for Johan or Tatis on the bench.