A friend of mine mentioned a pretty interesting idea the other day: could a combination football/baseball fantasy league work?
It's an intriguing proposition to say the least. The logistics would be complicated and the commitment great. First off, you'd have to get the same 8-12 people to sign up for a season that would last from April to December. My guess is there's probably a good deal of overlapping of folks who play in both a baseball and a football league, but who knows?
Another big factor: The standings and scoring format. Would you play head-to-head throughout the year? Would you crown a "midseason champion" at the end of baseball season and give that winner some kind of prize bonus (not that I condone monetary gambling of any kind)? Would you then reset the standings completely? (Probably not, since you might as well just play two separate leagues in that case.) If it's one long season and a team's stuck near the bottom of the standings around August, would the prospect of reinforcing your team with a whole football roster be enough to keep them interested?
Here's the really fascinating part, as my bud Jason Dill put it when he was pitching this idea: What if you could trade Albert Pujols for Peyton Manning? Or Alex Rodriguez for Adrian Peterson (A-Rod for AD)? Or to be a little more obscure, Chone Figgins for Shonn Greene?
If you held your football draft early enough in the NFL preseason, you could have about a month's overlap between football and baseball seasons with which to swap players between sports. You'd probably have to make this a keeper league, too, to keep owners from dumping all their best baseball players to shore up their football team - which adds yet another layer of complication to this Super League.
And if you really wanted to blow this thing out: How about making it a fantasy basketball league, too?
Just something to think about during a slow time in the fantasy sports world.
Showing posts with label Chone Figgins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chone Figgins. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Where have you gone, Vince Coleman?
Base stealing is something of a lost art in the major leagues. Long gone are the days when Rickey Henderson and Vince Coleman were tearing up the basepaths - we haven't seen anyone crack the 80-steal mark since Henderson (93) and Coleman (81) led their respective leagues in swipes in 1988.
Teams are running less frequently than they did in the free-wheeling '80s, which has made the stolen base category so vital in fantasy baseball.
That explains why multi-talented speed merchants Jose Reyes, Hanley Ramirez, Carl Crawford and Ichiro Suzuki are considered elite fantasy stars, and why speedsters such as Shane Victorino (32 steals) and Brian Roberts (32), who also contribute in other hitting categories, are useful commodities.
There are, of course, some other fringe players who tend to be overvalued simply because of their wheels. Depending on where you stand in your league's stolen base category (and excluding those in head-to-head leagues), the way you handle these types of players can ultimately determine your fate.
At this point in the season, you should have a good idea of where you stand in each category and if you'll be able to make a move upward. If you're lagging far behind in steals, what's the sense in holding on to a mostly one-dimensional base stealer? On the flip side, if you think you can actually make up ground in stolen bases, that one dimension might be just what you're looking for.
Wherever you stand in steals, here are a few of the key guys to consider either picking up or trading away for help elsewhere:
• Juan Pierre (44 steals through Saturday): The Dodgers outfielder has long been prized for his running abilities, but he hasn't really mastered hitting, particularly this year. His .277 batting average isn't terrible, but his 27 RBIs and zero home runs are.
• Willy Taveras (29): A move to the Colorado Rockies and Coors Field this season helped the quick Taveras also become a batting-average booster (.317). That makes his "power" numbers (two homers, 22 RBIs) a bit easier to swallow.
• Chone Figgins (28): It's almost an identical story for Figgins, who's hitting a robust .339 but has little to no power (1 HR, 37 RBIs). He got off to a very slow start for the Angels but has stayed hot throughout the summer months, so the hits and steals should both keep coming.
• Julio Lugo (26): The high-priced shortstop acquisition was looking like a colossal bust for the Boston Red Sox. His average had dipped to an almost-unfathomable .189 on July 2, which despite his steady stolen base total forced some owners to outright drop him. Lugo has raised his average to a less putrid .222 thanks to a sizzling month. If he's still available, or if you've put up with him all this time, it seems he'll no longer be a disaster at the plate.
• Corey Patterson (28): Patterson had a nice bounce-back season last year, his first with the Baltimore Orioles, thanks mainly to a career high in steals (45), along with 16 home runs. Patterson's still running this year, but he's gone yard only five times, which isn't exactly what his owners had in mind.
Teams are running less frequently than they did in the free-wheeling '80s, which has made the stolen base category so vital in fantasy baseball.
That explains why multi-talented speed merchants Jose Reyes, Hanley Ramirez, Carl Crawford and Ichiro Suzuki are considered elite fantasy stars, and why speedsters such as Shane Victorino (32 steals) and Brian Roberts (32), who also contribute in other hitting categories, are useful commodities.
There are, of course, some other fringe players who tend to be overvalued simply because of their wheels. Depending on where you stand in your league's stolen base category (and excluding those in head-to-head leagues), the way you handle these types of players can ultimately determine your fate.
At this point in the season, you should have a good idea of where you stand in each category and if you'll be able to make a move upward. If you're lagging far behind in steals, what's the sense in holding on to a mostly one-dimensional base stealer? On the flip side, if you think you can actually make up ground in stolen bases, that one dimension might be just what you're looking for.
Wherever you stand in steals, here are a few of the key guys to consider either picking up or trading away for help elsewhere:
• Juan Pierre (44 steals through Saturday): The Dodgers outfielder has long been prized for his running abilities, but he hasn't really mastered hitting, particularly this year. His .277 batting average isn't terrible, but his 27 RBIs and zero home runs are.
• Willy Taveras (29): A move to the Colorado Rockies and Coors Field this season helped the quick Taveras also become a batting-average booster (.317). That makes his "power" numbers (two homers, 22 RBIs) a bit easier to swallow.
• Chone Figgins (28): It's almost an identical story for Figgins, who's hitting a robust .339 but has little to no power (1 HR, 37 RBIs). He got off to a very slow start for the Angels but has stayed hot throughout the summer months, so the hits and steals should both keep coming.
• Julio Lugo (26): The high-priced shortstop acquisition was looking like a colossal bust for the Boston Red Sox. His average had dipped to an almost-unfathomable .189 on July 2, which despite his steady stolen base total forced some owners to outright drop him. Lugo has raised his average to a less putrid .222 thanks to a sizzling month. If he's still available, or if you've put up with him all this time, it seems he'll no longer be a disaster at the plate.
• Corey Patterson (28): Patterson had a nice bounce-back season last year, his first with the Baltimore Orioles, thanks mainly to a career high in steals (45), along with 16 home runs. Patterson's still running this year, but he's gone yard only five times, which isn't exactly what his owners had in mind.
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