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Would Anyone Like to Talk About My Fantasy Baseball League with Me

Hello. I’ve been having a lot of fun with my fantasy baseball league and I think that other people would enjoy it as well. I’d love to talk about it with someone.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Isn’t it the offseason? Well, yes, but this is no normal fantasy baseball league. This is a dynasty keeper league, with a salary cap and cap penalties and a cost for each player. Teams have a 40-man roster (plus spots for any players who go on the 60-day disabled list) and there is plenty of room for prospects! Every offseason, player salaries go up, and it’s up to you to decide if you want to keep them! Kind of like real baseball, at least before the reserve clause was nullified in the 1970s. The league never ends! Doesn’t that sound cool?

This isn’t like other fantasy sports leagues, with the “bro” culture and the emphasis on “beer-drinking” and “friendship.” In this league, you match your wits against eleven strangers on the internet, all in a competition to win the ultimate prize: a small icon of a trophy next to your username for a full season! If you want to keep that trophy icon, though, you’d better take Theo Epstein’s advice and build for sustained success. You can’t just set a lineup and forget about it; this is a long-term time commitment that you’ll occasionally have to schedule around! Luckily, I don’t have much going on; but just talking with me about the league wouldn’t be too much of a time sink. It’ll be a great time for everyone!

This league doesn’t have your ESPN Standard scoring system. RBIs? Runs? What are those? In this league, every position player earns points based on his fWAR, bWAR, wOBA, and UZR, while pitchers are graded on DRA, FIP, and spin rate on their top two pitches. I can tell what you’re thinking: “Finally, a fantasy league where Andrelton Simmons’ true value to a baseball team can be approximated!

This league has heartbreak, such as when I was facing a glut at the shortstop position and traded Orlando Arcia for Mike Zunino and Dan Vogelbach, only to cut both of them within two months of the trade (of course, Zunino then went on a tear!). There are also exciting triumphs, such as when I was able to obtain prospect Lewis Brinson in exchange for just a couple of months of Felix Hernandez at the 2016 trade deadline. I was going to cut Felix in the offseason anyways! That made me feel really good.

I haven’t been able to make my team a contender yet, but last year I climbed out of the cellar to finish 7th out of 12 teams, and that was exciting. Trading for prospects and young players can be fun, too! If you ask me, my team “Max Scherzer? I hardly know her!” is poised to make a run in these next couple of years—and, if you want, you could be along for the ride, too.

In conclusion, I really enjoy playing in this fantasy baseball league, and I’d love to talk about it with people. If this seems interesting to you, maybe we can hang out sometime; get some Chinese food, or maybe Thai, and plan out my strategy for the freeagent draft in March. I think it would be really fun!