Fantasy Baseball, 100 Games Down

I'm running a little bit behind this week, probably because I've spent the last few weeks grinding my teeth and trying not to punch myself in the face (more on that later). The past few weeks saw the MLB trade deadline pass, and it should have quite an effect on the title race. The biggest names trading laundry were Cliff Lee (SEA to TEX), Dan Haren (ARZ to LAA, looks like they don't know about his epic 2nd half meltdowns), and Lance Berkman (HOU to NYY).

The trade of Cliff Lee has not helped me all that much aside from a recent outing where Lee went 9 innings and struck out 13 and Neftali Feliz came in and got the win in the 10th. I would love it if I could get those more often, but as it stands I'm getting killed all over. My offensive dominance has waned, but with Choo and Tulo coming back online and Rod "Do Nothing" Barajas in a pending DL move I may be headed for a strong recovery.

My biggest headache has been the Mike Pelfrey/Phil Hughes shit sandwich, and lets not forget my Nick Markakis/Franklin Gutierrez pre-season mancrush. This is where I start punching myself in the face, since I was all over Gutierrez as a potential 20-20 guy who could hit .300. I was wavering between Gutierrez and Colorado's Carlos Gonzalez, lets see how that worked out for me...

Gutierrez - 9HR 42RBI 15SB 42BB .247
Markakis - 7HR 36RBI 4SB 54BB .294
Gonzalez - 21HR 68RBI 15SB 18BB .321

The only bright side I see there is I'm #1 in BB, and dropping 24 would hurt. No, that doesn't help me sleep at night but its true. At least I managed to ditch Pelfrey for Barry Zito in a waiver move.

Hitting for the cycle is soooo overrated.

Andrew's team was somewhat up and down, mostly up. He managed to take a large lead in 2nd, but is now currently tied with me at 61 points. We are both well behind the leader (68.5), but the movement of Haren will improve his fortunes. Andrew has been borderline suicidal over Haren's odd 1st half meltdown, the guy has just not been himself all season, but moving to LA should give him a boost in wins and maybe keep a few fly balls in the park. The big downside of his move is going back to the AL, but Adrew is so far ahead in strikeouts that Haren doesn't need to strike out anyone else for the next three seasons. Andrew remains optimistic that we still have a chance at winning, me... not so much.

World of pain...

Current Status
Bert - No, Walter, it didn't look like Larry was about to crack. Well that's your perception...
Andrew - I believe in nothing!