I posted this a few weeks ago but heard that it didn’t work. Now I’m finally getting back to it.
Ron Shandler’s idea was to create a fun league with a bunch of buddies, essentially roto industry vets who didn’t tick him off too much. Low maintenance, keeper league, nobody under 40 years old need apply.
I’m not a big fan of the keeper rules (I don’t think there will be many of them), and I screwed up the date of the draft (which took place in Arizona in November, during the AFL), so I was on an airplane back to NY while Alex picked the team. He wasn’t nearly as interested as I was in this thing, but he did it, and he did a great job.
My major instructions were to get Vlad and ARod, and then fill in. Oh, and get Preston Wilson and dump saves. I thought the two would cost about $150 of the $260 budget, but so what? These were the two irreplaceable guys in this sort of league, and I wanted them both.
As it turned out, Alex bought Vlad and Wilson, had no trouble avoiding closers, but flinched on ARod, who went for a very reasonable $56. Instead he bought Barry Bonds. Okay. Did I mention we were playing with OBP rather than AVG?
The reason I return to this tonight is because two of our pitchers, Zach Day and Joe Kennedy, got creamed. They gave up 16 runs in 9 innings between them. Still, we managed to gain half a point and lead the second place team by 19.5 points. Obviously we can’t absorb such beatings regularly, but we won’t have to.
Equally obviously, all that’s gone right so far will go wrong. On the other hand, Vlad is just starting to heat up.
The link above will bring you to the XFL’s home page, which has a link to the standings. The center will not hold for Pattonandco.com, I don’t think, but right now it’s a pisser.