Fantasy update

Been a LONG time since I last posted - let's see how I finished in leagues gone by and where I am now in current leagues.

In basketball, I won the whole friggen league!  James Harden and LeBron James were clutch late, and I beat my Dad for the championship.  that was cool.

In hockey, I fell out in the quarterfinals.  I traded too much good stuff away and then oof...sad ending.

In football, things went okay.  I lost in the quarterfinals in Worst Team Ever, lost in the semifinals in show us your TDs, and then won the championship in The Toby Bowl.  It's my first time winning that in 3 years, so I was pretty excited.

As for current sports, in baseball I am currently tied for first in my division at 4-2.  Probably soon to be 4-3, as I took a sort of stars and scrubs approach and traded away too many helpful pieces early.  But I will come back.

Hopefully this week I'll be back to talk more baseball!

A tale of two trades: Don't let depth blind you!

I recently mentioned a few trades that were made in my fantasy hockey league.  Both trades featured big name players, and both trades were incredibly short sighted.  That is to say, in each case, a team had a need for either more or less of a given position.

When looking at a depth issue like this, you've got to still keep your values straight.  Yes, if you only have one goalie, good owners will expect more in trades.  But you need to hold your ground, unlike in these deals:

Trade 1 - My Drew Doughty and Nick Bjugstad for Patrick Kane and Matt Greene

- This guy needed defenders and goalies, and we said Patrick Kane was "available."  I couldn't move fast enough - I offered my best defender and a center "to replace" Kane and the trade was accepted later that day.

Now Doughty is good - no doubt.  And Bjugstad is a nice enough 4th center.  But Kane has been the #1 player in NHL fantasy since this trade went through.  He definitely was too much to give up for some defensive help.

Trade 2 - My Ryan Getzlaf and Leon Draisaitl for Wayne Simmons and T.J. Brodie

- After that huge Kaner win, I turned around and made this dunce of a trade.  I had six centers, and so often times I'd end up a defender or wingman short in the lineup.  This...sucked.  So I decided to trade a center, and I made Getzlaf the guy.  Which was not smart.

Especially since, a week later, I traded Derek Stepan and Torrey Mitchell for Johnny Boychuk.  Which accomplished the same thing (losing the center, gaining a defender) for me without giving up a top 25 center.  So...should have just waited for this trade.

Regardless, Getzlaf has been very good since this trade.  And throw-in Draisaitl has been AMAZING.  Simmons, who I lived last year, is still middling in the top 100 to top 150 range, and Brodie is...not that good.  So definitely not a good trade.

And a side lesson learned after the Boychuk trade:
Never trade for highly ranked defensemen.  Trade for defensemen who are good at certain stats.

Brodie is a good defensemen.  Boychuk is a defensemen who is top 10 in shots taken.  Boychuk makes more sense on a roster.  So why in the heck did I trade for Brodie?

A sucker is born every minute.  Sometimes it's you...sometimes it's someone else.  After this post, hopefully it's more someone else than you!

Trying to figure out Fantasy Hockey: Five Trades

So I think I've finally figured a few things out in fantasy hockey:

1. Some stats are really hard to get.  Mainly goals, assists, points, power play points (PPP), and any/all goalie stats since people won't trade them.

2. Other counting stats are easy to acquire.  Want hits?  Add Matt Martin.  Want faceoff wins?  Add Martin Hanzal (when he's healthy).

3. Defenders are the kickers or closers of fantasy hockey.  There are a few standouts, but most are middling and won't score much above a defender ranked 30-40 spots below them.  

As such, I decided to make a few trades to help my team.  My overall thoughts were get goalies (if possible), get those hard to get stats, trade those easy to acquire stats, and trade defenders (when possible).  Let's see how I did over a week and a half's time.

TRADE 1

My Drew Doughty and Nick Bjugstad

for

His Patrick Kane and Matt Greene (Filler)

I started things out with a bang.  One guy who auto-drafted was seeking defenders and goalies, and mentioned that Kane was available.  I don't love Kane the guy, but Kane the player is a huge goal scorer with PPP potential as well.  So I was happy to give up Doughty and my 4th or 5th best center (especially with Kane having center eligibility).

TRADE 2

My Jonathan Drouin

for

His Olli Maata

This is the one trade of these five that I really regret.  I was rolling 3/4 starting defense each day because I didn't want to cut anyone.  So finally I made a move for a defender just to give myself a full starting lineup.  Maata has some PPP potential...but he's still a defender, so this was more for hoping someone would see trade value in Maata.  No one did, and he has since been cut from my team.  So...bad move.

TRADE 3

My Milan Lucic, Martin Hanzal, Thomas Greiss, and Michael Neuwirth

for

His Evander Kane, Derek Stepan, and Eddie Lack (Filler)

I love Kane's do everything ability, and will happily see what he's capable of once he gets healthy.  As for Stepan, he gets some good assists and PPP which ain't too bad.  In return I gave up two temporarily hot goalies, faceoffs wins and injury risk in Hanzal, and then Lucic who isn't bad but even then is mostly hits and shots.  Very happy with this trade.

TRADE 4

My Jimmy Hayes and Jonas Hiller

for

His Travis Zajac and Jerome Iginla

So at this point in the deals I've now traded three goalies.  The first two were scrub backups though, and Hiller is a high ranked (88th in the offseason) guy who is battling injury and inconsistency.  So I'm not too sad to lose any of these three.  Especially when Hiller plus Hayes was enough to land me Iginla, who is a goal scoring beast and Travis Zajac, who has been interesting to watch so far and also gets a TON of faceoff wins (which yes, are available off the wire, but he has like 50 more than the next best guy on our wire right now).

TRADE 5

My Ryan Getzlaf and Leon Draisaiti

for

His Wayne Simmonds and T.J. Brodie

With all the above trades, I ended up loaded with centers, and needed to lose one.  I also ended up with only three defenders again.  So I dangled Getzlaf, who is awesome but starting slow this year, and picked up Simmonds, who plays both wings.  He also gets loads of counting stats like PIM, Hits, and other cool stuff.  I may regret losing Getzlaf since he scores some goals and PPP, but I think I gained enough elsewhere to make the gain of Simmonds (and Brodie who scores some PPP himself) worth it.

So as an end result, the only real big value guy I lost over five trades was Getzlaf, with Lucic, Doughty, Bjugstad, and maybe Draisaiti and Drouin as others I would've like to keep.  But I'd say my haul of Patrick Kane, Derek Stepan, Evander Kane, Wayne Simmonds, Jerome Iginla, Travis Zajac, and T.J. Brodie was well worth everything I lost.  We'll see if it helps me in the standings!

Introducing a League: Free Candy!

Welcome to the intro for my Yahoo free hockey league!  I never watch hockey, but a buddy of mine who plays baseball and football with me asked if I'd join and I said yes.  Last year I stumbled and bumbled to a third place finish.  This year I was ready - but missed the draft and now think it'll be more of the same (though with a better idea of who to target!)

Years active: 2
League Type: Yahoo, Snake, Redraft with 14 Teams
Divisions: 2
Playoffs: 2 division winners and then top 6 teams afterwards
Scoring: Head to Head Categories, and they're kind of random - Goals, Assists, Points, Penalty Minutes, Power Play Points, Shots on Goal, Face Off Wins, Hits, Goals Against Average, Saves, Save Percentage
Positions: C, C, LW, LW, RW, RW, F, F, D, D, D, D, G, G, 5 Bench, 2 IR, 1 NA
Depth of the League: Deep - the top guys on the wire right now are James Wisniewski and Matt Moulson.  There are only backup goalies in free agency, no starters.
How have I done: 3rd place last year.

Hockey is...hard.  As I said, the guy last year asked me (and my wife) to play.  We both joined, but she got sick of the scoring and sick of Yahoo and went inactive like 2 weeks in.  I stuck it out, and despite not a lot of trading I liked it because people are fairly active and seem to know their stuff.  I knew I'd make the playoffs but I was surprised to make it all the way to the 3rd place game given some of the quality opponents in the league.  Now a year wiser, I'm trying to figure out how to make this league work for me.  I already traded an okay defensemen and center for Patrick Kane (who is a C/RW and one of the top 20 players in the game).  I'm tempted to trade my top goalie (Ryan Miller) as well for someone high scoring in hopes of crushing the 8 offense categories and just phoning it in in the three goalie ones.  This should be a fun one to watch as I work my way through fantasy hockey's ins and outs.