Circle of Jerks

ahhhhh... finally. Feels good to get the monkey off my back. You can all look forward to many more years of this.

So who's the sleeper pick that's done well for you so far?
My guy is Tim Hudson. I thought I might have taken him too early but he had a great first outing. That being said, he only faced Washington. We'll see if he keeps it up.
My worst draft gaffe was taking Lidge and Dotel as my 2nd and 3rd closers.

Just 3 days till the season begins and with it the hope that your fantasy baseball team will finally fulfill the promise of a championship run. For some of us the hope is more of a pipe dream (you know who you are) while others are confident that this is their year.

We hope that our stars don't get injured, we hope that our flyers turn out to be heroes, we hope that we make the right lineup decisions. In essence the beginning of baseball is the beginning of hope.

And with that hope, our youth is rejuvenated, if not just a little bit. We think fondly back to our pick up games in the park, to our little league days when we started the season with dreams of hitting .300 or making the all star team this year, maybe winning a championship along the way.

Baseball is so much more than a collection of stats, it's about hopes and dreams and that's what is so great about the game.

Good luck everyone!

I said I had a picture of it. Here it is. The week I was in first.

The site has the champions of our little CoJ group back to 2001. The breakdown of the top owners is this:
Name: finish in '01, '02, '03... '06: pt ratings with 1pt for 5th and 5 pts for 1st.

Baggs: 1, -, -, 1, 4, 1: 17
Grizz: 4, -, 4, 2, 2, 5: 13
Blake: 2, -, 5, -, 3, 3: 11
Todd: 3, -, 1, 5, 5, -: 10
Jack : -, 3, 2, -, -, 4: 9
Matt : -, -, -, 3, 1, -: 8
Snap: 5, 5, -, -, -, 2: 6

Grizz has been in the top 5 the most, with Todd, Blake and me having second most top 5 finishes.

Apparently, it only takes one good week. I went back and looked at my lead (or lack thereof) for each period. My feeling was it was a gradual struggle, but once the lead was established I figured it'd be a lot harder to catch the team ahead of you. But look at the leads:

WK) Pts ahead/behind 1st
1) 2.5
2) -3.5
3) -16
4) -3
5) 0
6) 6
7) 1
8) 6.5
9) 7
10) 9.5
11) 10.5
12) 10.5
13) 14
14) 3.5
15) 2
16) 4
17) 4.5
18) 10
19) 12.5
20) 11.5

In week 3 when Grizz had a 16 pt lead I moved up 13 pts then took over the top the next week. But the surprising part to me was week 14, when I was up by 14 pts and Snap jumped up 11.5 pts to get within 4 pts.
As late as 2.5 wks ago I made a 5.5 pt jump to increase the lead. This thing definitely isn't over.

There's been a lot of movement over the last week. We've seen the Baggstard's 14 point lead get shaved down to just 3.5 as the Maulers moved up the board. The Schweaty Balls have surged up to third after spending much of the first half near the bottom. GLZM and the Fire Buds have really compiled huge leads in pitching points. The Ursa Majors, who were leading for quite a while and holding steady in the top three, have tumbled after getting 13 starts in one week from their pitching staff.
Baggstards appear to have made a move to get Chris Carpenter for their second half, and with Aubrey Huff playing in Houston and qualifying for 3B and OF, they may pull back ahead of the pack. But we'll see; crazier stuff has already happened this year.