Travels: Fantasy Baseball, Week 4-- dreams and nightmares

The CBS league and the Yahoo league tracked each other down five points for the week to 84.5 and 86, respectively. The Asakusabashi CBS team is now in second place while the Ballywood Yahoo team remains comfortably in first. It was a week of dreams and nightmares.

The Jed Lowrie (10/25,2hr, 7r, 7 rbi) add last week turned out to be prescient, though he sat on the Asakusabashi bench as a playing time risk. By mid-week, he had replaced Marco Scutaro as regular shortstop and by the end of the week he had CI and very nearly 3B eligibility. His Sunday afternoon bench day seemed like confirmation of his new role as a regular. As it turned out Valencia (hr, 6rbi), A-Rod (hr, 8rbi) off his injury and Mitch Moreland (.318, hr, 6rbi) all had good weeks. The choice of whom to bench was not critical one way or the other.

Granderson (3HR) and Kemp (2HR) continue very strong starts to the season, while Stanton (2HR) got started. Vin Scully described Kemp's game winning performances to me in real time. Hitting is 51/60 points.

Position eligibility is always a dream for fantasy players. I watch closely as Lowrie covered for a minor Youkilis injury. Mitch Moreland (.316, 2hr, 5r, 6rbi) moved to the outfield and gained eligibility there-- another dream come true. By the end of the week, Logan Morrison's injury and Corey Hart's DL status were covered and only a U player needed to fill out the hitter roster. Hart (one last bench week) should return mid-week. Derrek Lee was added as the U, not based on his performance, but rather the strong Baltimore hitters that surround him.

I was paying attention as nightmare scenarios happened as well. Edwin Jackson allowed 23 hits, 5 walks and 11 er over his two starts at Tampa Bay and Detroit. Watching 16 baserunners and 7er over 5 2/3 IP at Detroit was a nightmare scenario. I kept hoping Ozzie would take him out. Likewise, listening to Daniel Hudson give up 7 ER over 5 1/3 IP for the Yahoo team was painful, though he kept his WHIP under two for the day. I still remember a terrible outing in an otherwise good year (3.13 ERA) by Johan Santana. The CBS team never fully recovered from 9ER in 3IP on June 14, 2009 and stayed mired at less than 80 points for the rest of the year. Fortunately, Kuroda (1W, 11K, 2.77, 1.31) had a nice week. Ogando won his game, 1.00 WHIP, allowing one run. Liriano and Buchholz also won with nice ERAs, though poor WHIPs. Due to the saves categories, tie first, pitching is at the mid-point. Buchholz, Garcia, Liriano and Nolasco line up as 2-start pitchers this week, so Ks should improve from tenth place, and the other pitching categories should improve as well. Kuroda v. San Diego is the lone one start pitcher for the CBS team.

Oswalt has had a solid year. Pineda and Ogando contributed solid ratios and a win last week. Both have had great years and are turning into must start pitchers. Carpenter has provided everything but the wins. The closers have been getting saves. (Madson was just added for the injured Conteras.) Nonetheless, primarily due to Liriano and Hudson, the Yahoo team lags in most pitching categories: