DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS
There will be typos, but one that escaped into the wild in my link yesterday to Zach Steinhorn’s LABR FAAB report was funny if I was being mean and embarrassing if I wasn’t. I’m embarrassed.
SNOOZE THE NEWS
Probably the biggest news today was that Corey Julks made the Astros. Julks hit 31 homers and stole 22 bases in Triple-A last year, with a .270 batting average. The major league equivalency indicates real power, 19 homers, some speed (13 bags), and some real problems (a .207 average). The news is “big” because the Stros decided to go with Julks and third-catcher Cesar Salazar rather than presumed faves JJ Mativejic and Justin Durdin, who head to the minors. Someone will be going down when Michael Brantley comes back, maybe a month from now, but if Julks plays his power-speed combo could be helpful for AL-only fantasy, at least.
While writing the preceding graf I started wondering where last year’s prospects, Jake Meyers and Chas McCormick, were. I mean, shouldn’t they be in the mix here? They were kinds of failures last year, Meyers more so than McCormick. Well, this year they’re starters. McCormick is going for around $6 in the expert leagues while Meyers wasn’t bought anywhere. Reigning World Champion team here.
I can’t find it but I might have said something promising about Jose Berrios. He got whacked around again today and his velocity is down a couple of ticks, which is troubling. Guys who have proven they can pitch can’t ever be counted out, but when their weapons become dulled you should exercise caution.
New York Drama Department (but not Broadway): The Yankees sent Willie Calhoun to the minors, but rather than decide between the youthful Estevan Florial and the older Rafael Ortega they said they were going to fly them both to NYC for Thursday’s opener against the San Francisco Giants (is this a legacy rivalry?) and decide in a prime time special which they would keep. I made the last part of that last sentence up. It sounds like Ortega said, instead, please release me, let me go, and the Yanks did. He’ll try to find another gig.
BDOTY.com
I’m pulling this out of mothballs on short notice, so please forgive the prematurity of it all.
I wrote yesterday’s piece about the gospel auction because I thought it was funny, and horrific, but many of you responded very positively. Some of you wrote stories about your own worst auction experiences, and I was reminded of a project I started a few years ago with Bruce Buschel (who wrote the best fantasy baseball story ever told, read it here).
The initial idea was to get famous folks to write about their fantasy baseball experiences. Somewhere we have a list of those famous people, and it’s a good list, but there were some hurdles. Like, how do you approach famous people and ask them to write a story for an honorarium when you don’t know if they have a good story or if they can write? Some were writers, but not all. So we mothballed that one, figuring we could come back to it if a different idea worked. That idea was BDOTY.com.
Now, it isn’t immediately obvious but when you learn that BDOTY is the acronym for Best Day of the Year, it makes sense a little. Right? Because all fantasy players know what the best day of the year is. Draft day.
So our thought was to make BDOTY.com a social site for fantasy baseball players (no football allowed) to share stories of their drafts, their fantasy baseball experiences, and photos and videos related to their leagues.
But since neither of us are programmers nor developers, both of us are writers and cook a little, there was a big hurdle ahead of making BDOTY.com happen. So the idea languished.
But yesterday’s response to my story got me to thinking: What if Rotoman’s Guide ran some reader stories and photos of drafts this year? It wouldn’t kill trees, it might amuse some or many, and we could test out whether this goofy idea might work.
So, you’re invited!
There are no limitations. Send stories, photos, videos, memorials, standings, whatever. If you think anyone else, even just your friends, might like to see it online, send it along to askrotoman@gmail.com. It would help if the Subject was “BDOTY material”
I’ll make no promises about where this goes, but probably I’ll first confirm that you’re okay sharing in public, and then we’ll see what happens next.
Here are some shots I found recently from the 2015 Tout Wars auctions, held at City Crab. Everyone complains about that venue, but we got it done:
Mixed Auction, with Jeff Erickson auctioning
Fred Zinkie, Zach Steinhorn, Corey Schwartz, Ray Flowers, Scott Pianowski, and Tim Heaney auctioning. Jason Collette chatting.
Jeff Erickson and Colton/Wolf auctioning, with Lawr Michael’s back in the foreground and Brian Walton and Trace Woods in the background.
LINK TO ROTOMAN’S SHEET
Here’s the paywall. What follows for paying customers is the link to Rotoman’s Sheet, which doesn’t currently have Corey Julks but will sometime tomorrow. And should have all the moves up until today’s dozie ones, plus only-league prices and projections and player comments for more than a thousand players.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Rotoman's Guide to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.