My Baseball Fantasy: Spring Is Here at Last

Private League: won 7-3, currently tied for first place
Public League: currently in fourth place out of twelve teams
My Player of the Week (March 31-April 10): Matt Kemp (Center Fielder/Right Fielder, Dodgers) with 1 home run, 4 RBI, 7 runs, 6 stolen bases and a .438 batting average


Photo via KFFL.com

A year ago, Kemp was my first round draft pick. This year, he was still available in the third round of our private league draft so I grabbed him. His stock drop resulted from an underwhelming 2010 but he's certainly off to a good start in 2011.

The fantasy baseball season is off to a great start. As I explained in an earlier post, I'm in two leagues this year: the same private league I was in last year with Mock & Co. and a Yahoo! public league. The differences between the two are many. Most significantly, the private league is using a head-to-head format this time whereas the public one is rotisserie. Furthermore, the private league has ten members while the public one has twelve.

Then, of course, there is a great disparity in my familiarity with league members. Nine of the ten managers in our private league are returned from last year's league. Mock is, of course, a good friend and I know Marc both personally and professionally. I've met their brothers/cousins, but only once. I've never met the others. The public league, on the other hand, is composed entirely of strangers - to be expected. Predictably, there is far more banter in the private league. The draft this year was quite a lot of fun. There was a brief back-and-forth in the public league draft but it passed mostly in silence.

So far, I really like the head-to-head format a lot. Of course, winning helps. But even beyond that, individual baseball games over the course of the week, and presumably the season, take on far greater importance. I feel more on top of things, out of necessity.

At any rate, I'm excited for the new season. Huzzah!