Mon Apr 25, 2016 10:55 pm
Through 126 games in my league......team is 69-57, which is 2nd-best record in the league to this point (best team is 70-56). Pitching has been really good on the starter side from Sonny Gray and Chris Sale; my closer Mark Melancon has been outstanding, and middle relief with Pedro Baez, George Kontos, and Jeff Manship has been really good too. We are in AT&T park. Offensively putting up decent overall numbers, but not from the guys you'd expect... I have CarGo with 18 HR's hitting under 0.200, Matt Carpenter at 3B hitting 0.220 with 15 dongs, and Joey Votto at 1B, hitting 0.284, 19 HRs and a 0.420 OBP. The overachievers on the team, and I can't say enough good about these guys, are Marwyn Gonzalez, who's my SS, and Brock Holt, my 2B--both solid .280 and surprisingly good defense, both for under 3 bucks. Oh, and Stephen Piscotty in LF, hitting 0.314 with 14 HR's and 0.371 OBP. Defense-wise, I'm thinking a "3" with a low error rating is at least on par with a "2" with a high error rating. Interested in what others think about that. In the 12-team auto-draft league I'm describing, the league ERA is 3.72 with a 1.25 WHIP; offensively, the slash line is 0.244/0.310/0.396.
What I'm starting to look at more critically in drafting players and signing free agents, is their actual home ball park. In the case of, say, CarGo, his 40 HRs in real life would probably be duplicated only if he plays in Coors, Miller, or Great American. Plus, his total worthlessness against lefties is a bigger detriment in the current season. In the league I'm in, one team has 4 lefty starters, and two others have 3 each. This seems to buck a trend in 2014, when lefty starters usually proved to be liabilities.
By contrast, my guess is that Buster Posey would hit 30 or more HR's in a home park other than AT&T.