My Season Starts Today

Today, June 11, is the beginning of the rest of my fantasy baseball season. Sure, we've been playing for 11 weeks. But this could be a turning point. My season could be made or broken on this date. What better time to start my hotly-anticipated, long-planned, much-procrastinated fantasy blog?

See, last week, I made a trade offer to the Tick-Killers, a multi-player offer that included Mike Lowell. I knew he needed a 3B -- I mean, seriously, Mark DeRosa?! -- and I was interested in trying to do a buy-low/sell-high deal for slumping slugger Lance Berkman. He countered with an e-mail containing essentially a standing offer: "Thanks but no thanks, however, I'd do Lowell for Berkman straight up whenever you want to submit it."

My first reaction was an impulsive one: "Wow! Really?!" I wanted to jump on it but quick before he changed his mind!

But I had to do my due diligence.

Let's check the pre-season draft value. Berkman was his 2nd overall pick, drafted 18th overall. Lowell was my 23rd pick, 291st overall. Yikes. This is even better than I thought!

But I still hesitated. As a die-hard Red Sox fan, I'd watched Lowell every day on NESN produce at a prodigious rate for me all season long. I'd grown attached to him. He'd even been part of one of my all-time favorite moments in baseball, when the Sox hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back homers. What's better than the Sox hitting 4 homers in a row? Hitting 4 homers in a row against the Yankees. What's even better than that? Owning 3 of them in one fantasy league, and the other in another! Thus far, Lowell had given me 11 homers, 46 RBI, and a .312 batting average. Berkman, OTOH, had woefully underperformed to date: 8/37/.250.

From a needs basis, Tick-Killers were in first place and has a plethora of power-hitting 1B -- Sexon, Delgado, Berkman, and he just picked up DL'd Lyle Overbay. He was dealing from strength. In 5th place, I had Kevin Kouzmanoff -- a "can't-miss" rookie who had been doing a lot of missing thus far -- at 1B/3B, and if I did the deal, I would need to add a 3B from free agency to fill the 3B void left by Lowell. 1B offered no reasonable alternatives on the wire. 3B Brandon Inge, he of the grotesque .050 BA for me to start the season, was starting to hit and represented my best option on the waiver wire. Maybe he'd get the chance to redeem himself with the Squirrels? It wasn't a no-brainer, that's for certain.

Next, and most importantly, I evaluated their potential for production for the rest of the season. This, of course, was the most -- really, the only -- salient issue at hand. Let's go to the stats. Turns out Berkman has averaged 34 homers, 114 RBI, and .301 over the course of his career. Being an AL guy, that's better than I expected. No wonder he went 18th in the draft! Lowell, to his credit, has averaged a very respectable 23/95/.275. Nothing to sneeze at, but not exactly Berkman level stuff. A little quick 5th grade math -- hey, I'm an English major for crissakes, no complex algorithms for me -- and it seems I could reasonably expect 12 more dingers, another 48 RBI, and a decrease in batting average from Lowell. Not bad, but in order to reach his career average, Berkman could put up serious numberage: 26 HRs, 77 RBI, and a whopping +.50 points of batting average.

Still, I was pulling on my beard whiskers over this deal. What if I'm giving up a bird-in-hand for a turkey-in-the-bush? Berkman could be having a down year, and what I see now is what I'm going to get. Then, reviewing his profile for the 12th time, I noticed something else of interest. His birthday. February 10, 1976. He was born on my 9th birthday! Mere months, in fact, after Carlton Fisk had hit the homer in the '75 World Series -- at the time, the galvanizing event of my life thus far. Was it a sign? Damn right it was! (No one ever accused me of being Vulcan.)

I logged in and sent the offer, Lowell for Berkman, straight up.

Over the weekend, as we waited for the deal to process, it came out that Lowell had a strained ligament in his thumb and had been playing though the injury. That explained his recent 2-20 skid. Meanwhile, Berkman was about to be suspended for a temper tantrum. Both players had issues, but neither was a deal-breaker. Nobody in the league protested a veto, if they even paid any attention at all.

The deed was done. My season has begun.