For those of you still following along with the inaugural Razzball league, Rudy finally posted the updated standings after I nagged the guys on the league message board. The last time we checked in on the standings about 3 weeks ago, I was sitting in 7th out of 10th. Since then, my team has been on a tear, allowing homers, losing games, and swinging and missing like there’s no tomorrow.

I am excited to share with everyone that I have rocketed up the standings and now sit proudly in 3rd place. Unsurprisingly, the creators of the league themselves sit 1-2, with Grey having a commanding 9 point lead over his blogmate Rudy. What’s been funny is that just like my real leagues, I’ve been hurt by injuries and it’s been difficult to then find a replacement who actually gets playing time, and is also not already owned. Another problem is when you’re so good at picking bad players, eventually the organization realizes the guy sucks, and he either gets demoted to the minors, or loses his job and rides the pine. This has happened to me with craptastic players like Brian Burress, Paul Hoover, Paul LoDuca, Micah Owings, Brett Gardner, and Blake DeWitt.

I think my biggest achievement is seeing my ERA right at the 5.00 plateau, quite impressive after I had started the year with so many unexpectedly good pitching performances. I even held onto Cliff Lee until June 15th, waiting and waiting for him to implode! I also still have Joe Saunders and continue to start him. I don’t care what his ERA is, I just cannot get past his peripherals and the luck metrics. I’ve been rewarded by being patient with Brian Bannister, refusing to bench or drop him when he started off the season “hot” and many were jumping on his bandwagon proclaiming last year actually wasn’t a fluke. He was the first pitcher I drafted, and so far he has proven me right. I continue to play the matchups with my staff, while always making sure to start my 2-start pitchers.

On the offensive side, I’m still under the pace to reach the at-bat minimum, as I’ve struggled with injuries as I mentioned above. Sometimes it might be better to just start a decent player who plays full-time, instead of forcing yourself to play a part-timer just because he’s much worse than the guy getting the full-time ABs. Given the stiff penalty for not reaching the AB minimum, that’s a strategy I might have to follow if I’m still not at the minimum by the next standings update.

Anyway, here are the standings as of August 2nd. Next month will be fun as rosters expand and there are a ton of minor leaguers being called up for a couple of starts. Of course, since Yahoo! sucks, these pitchers probably won’t be available in the system until they make their 1st start and then there will be a mad rush in the league to add them.

Questions, comments, criticisms, praise, expert league invitations? Email me at FBGeneralsMike@gmail.com.