Fantasy Baseball 2008: The Quest for Mediocrity

Slate had a great article on Fantasy Baseball and I recently had the draft for my league. In year two of the Dome Dawgz Fantasy Baseball League, The St. Paul Surly Drunks are moving into their new $500 million dollar stadium on the riverfront (paid for entirely through a unanimously approved state-wide sales tax on non-alcoholic beer, marshmellow peeps, and Hannah Montana tickets). The team has also unveiled a new mascot for the 2008 season:



Meet "Shaky" Jake O'Donovan, former longshoreman, Korean war vet, frequent plasma donor, father of five or six, and mascot for YOUR St. Paul Surly Drunks. Shaky Jake resides at The Last Chance Saloon, located right around the corner from Surly Stadium. After extended negotiations he has reached an accord with management that he can stay at the bar as long as he "keeps quiet and quits bothering people." Please forward any correspondence (as well as any unwanted sandwiches and things of that nature) to him at that address.

We also have a new corporate sponsor.

This year the Surly drunks are a unique blend of inexperienced players and veterans well past their prime, guys that are injury prone, and guys that only get hurt some of the time, players who are underachievers and players who underachieve slightly less drastically.

This year the Surly Drunks roster looks something like this:

Extremely talented guys who signed big contracts and whose weight problems are likely going to go from "moderate" to "severe" (Miguel Cabrera)

Guys who theoretically have enough talent to carry a Fantasy Baseball team but because they are on my roster likely will not do so (Alexis Rios)

Guys coming off bad years: (Vernon Wells)

Still more fucking Blue Jays for some reason: (Roy Halladay)

The second best pitcher in baseball (Jake Peavy)

Guys that we will be able to trade to contending teams once our team is mathematically eliminated from the playoffs on May 15th (Jonathan Papelbon)

Guys that we targeted because there is every indication that they are headed for a breakout season and will put up BIG numbers.....or not. (Jeff Francoeur)

Guys we picked because all of the sudden we realized that we didn't have someone at that position and there was nobody else worthy of choosing (Kenji Johjima)

Young guys that are hurt (Scott Kazmir)

Old guys that are hurt (Carlos Delgado)

Guys that we are only vaguely familiar with who they are (Ian Kinsler)

So another season is upon us. The Surly Drunks, who have their spring training facility not in Florida or Arizona, but in Halifax, Nova Scotia (thus making it difficult to find opponents for exhibition games), break camp with the commonalities that all baseball teams have at this time of year: a profound sense of optimism and an alarming number of paternity suits levied against them.

Play ball!