OK, Now I’m Back
I’ll admit, I haven’t posted much at all this week. I think I just needed a few more days to unwind and step back after spending two weeks with my whole life revolving around baseball at all hours of the day.
I’m ready to get going again now, though. I’ve spent the past few days watching Husker baseball games, catching up with the A’s roster moves before Opening Day, and drafting and then trading players in my five fantasy leagues. Is five too many? We’ll see how many I still check daily by the time the All-Star break rolls around… but I’m guessing five is about my limit.
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We’re just a few days away now from that cherished ought-to-be-a-national-holiday Opening Day. While I still believe that the true countdown to Opening Day should be based off of when Cincinnati plays, I’ve got to admit… I’m so excited at the impending reality of baseball being back that I can’t get too worked up about the Cardinals and Mets kicking things off early.
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I usually don’t talk about my fantasy baseball teams, but I’ve been looking over them so much in the past two days that I can’t help myself. As I mentioned, I’m in no less than five leagues, which forced me to sign up for an additional yahoo ID to be able to participate in so many. I’m in an MVN writer’s league, a Blog Battle league with many fine baseball bloggers, a league of readers and contributers at Catfish Stew, a league of sports dept. staff at the paper I work at, and a league of my friends who expect me to be the 800-lb sportswriter in the room.
There are a few players I’ve been high on so far, and here’s my list:
- Zach Greinke, who’s looked like he’s got his head screwed on straight in spring training. Greinke has great stuff, and the Royals are going to give him every chance to succeed. He’s not a top-15 round guy, but a nice pick for the sixth or seventh guy in your fantasy rotation.
- Jhonny Peralta, after LASIK, weight loss and fielding practice. He should be much improved, and closer to his form of two years ago than his forgettable 2006 season.
- Felix Hernandez. Ignore his ERA from last year, and he had a very good year. He should be a steal for me, as I took him in the later rounds (15+) in a couple leagues.
- Alex Gordon. I’m not taking him in the first few rounds, as some have suggested, but I think he’s going to give you great production for a 5th-10th round pick.
- Nick Swisher, who spent the offseason swinging sledgehammers into tractor tires and concentrating on making contact with the ball. He could raise his batting average 30 points, hit more doubles, and not lose many of his 35 homers from last year. Perhaps I’m a homer for an A’s player, though.
- Rich Harden. This isn’t a homer pick, but Harden could have an incredible year. All signs indicate that he’s healthy — and he’s going to stay that way. He’s added a nice changeup to his repertoire, which helped him lead the world in spring training strikeouts.
- Kevin Kouzmanoff, who can hit the ball hard enough to even get it out of PETCO in San Diego.
- Others I’ve set my sights on are Adam Lind, Chris Iannetta, Jake Westbrook, Pat Neshek, Adam LaRoche, Dave Bush, Ryan Shealy, Ryan Theriot, and a few others I’ll tell you about after I snag them off the waiver wire. You never know who’s reading this…
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That’s it for now, but here are a few of my pictures from the Huskers’ last series against Northern Colorado, for your viewing pleasure:
