That's Why We Don't Quit our Day Jobs

SportsProf is in a Fantasy Baseball League that has 11 teams and only drafts players from the National League. Last year SportsProf's team lost out on the title in the final week. The league has been around for 16 years, and every year we hold a draft (we do retain players), and every year we all sit in the same spot. At any rate, in the off-season, SportsProf and his partner, the good cardiologist, had to make some tough decisions. We're in a league that has a $260 salary cap. If you win an auction for a player, you hold the player's rights for 2 years at the auction price and have to increase his price by $5 each year thereafter.

We had some tough decisions: keep Rob Mackowiak at $1 or let him go, keep Craig Wilson at $10 or let him go, keep Kerry Wood at $28 or let him go, and keep Lyle Overbay at $15 or let him go. Mind you, we read all of the guides, listened to all of the pundits, and even read such erudite publications as Baseball Prospectus. So what did we read? Mackowiak is a journeyman who might not make the roster, Wilson strikes out way too much (we already had decided to keep Geoff Jenkins at $12, keep Adam Dunn at $20, keep J.D. Drew at $15 and cut Cliff Floyd, who would have cost us $24), Wood won't pitch much better and is likely to get injured because of how he throws, and Overbay might be a poor man's Mark Grace, but he won't hit for power and he didn't hit last year and he was worth more like $6.

So what happened? Jenkins is stuck at .260 without much power, Dunn strikes out a lot, Drew goes on the DL a lot, and Floyd blew out a quad in the first week of the season, but now he's back. Meanwhile, Mackowiak has 7 home runs, Wilson was hitting .350 at last count, Wood did get hurt, and Overbay is not "Overpay" -- he had a 17-game hitting streak and is hitting about what Wilson is hitting.

So now we're mired in 6th place, but in the second division, and we'll be chanting the mantra of "Mackowiak, Craig Wilson and Overbay" for the rest of the season.