Pitching wins FANTASY baseball championships, too

Wow. What a way to end the 2011 Major League Baseball season, huh? I'm sure most of you die-hard baseball fans were glued to the tube last night to witness the epic choke jobs by the Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox. Much props to the Tampa Bay Rays and St. Louis Cardinals for never giving up. It's definitely going to take some wild stuff to top that in the postseason, though.

Hopefully many of you had a similar comeback story to take home your fantasy baseball title this year. If you weren't lucky enough to finish on top of the pack in '11, there's always next year, right? Hold your head high.

Congratulations are in order to KFFL's own Nicholas Minnix for bringing home three championship trophies. KFFL put up a strong showing in Tout Wars mixed; Minnix finished second and Tim Heaney was third in what ended up being an extremely tight, frantic race that came down to the final day.

Winning a tight race for a fantasy baseball championship always makes the crown that much sweeter, but there's nothing wrong with dominating your competition, either.
I'm not one to brag (usually), but in this instance I will - for a bit. I won the Triple Crown National-League Only Expert League in dominating fashion, which isn't easy to do in any NL-only or AL-only environment. I almost went wire-to-wire, aside from a small hiccup in the middle of summer.

This lanky lefty lifted me to a title

In the end, I came away with 102.5 roto points. Roto Experts' Dave Gawron, who was also the commish, finished second with 80.5 points. How was I able to dominate a 12-team NL-only league in which each team starts two catchers, five outfielders and nine pitchers?

Ask any fantasy baseball champ what the key to their success was in any given season and most of them will tell you it begins and ends with their draft strategy.Obviously, much of the in-season success comes from staying active and competitive through the waiver wire and keeping close tabs on your standings in individual scoring categories. But formulating a sound draft strategy and executing it to perfection is of utmost importance.

At the end of July I gushed over my NL-only squad - mostly over the fact that I was able to nab Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw and San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum for $25 and $27 respectively. I went into this draft thinking one thing: Pitching can win this championship, especially in an NL-only league. That one clearly worked out in my favor.

I also went into the draft knowing that I wouldn't grossly overpay for the services of any one player (this was an auction draft, by the way). I only spent 20-plus dollars on five guys: Chicago Cubs 3B Aramis Ramirez (22), New York Mets outfielder Angel Pagan (23), Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Justin Upton (27) and Kershaw and Lincecum. It's not a coincidence that two of the three teams that didn't spend 30-plus dollars on a player finished in the top two in the overall standings.

I still can't get over it; I bought the soon-to-be NL Cy Young winner (Kershaw) for just $25. My bad on that one. Seriously, though, $25!

Anyway, here is what my draft looked like:

KFFL Hernandez

Pos   Player                                 Salary                  Eligibility
C      Iannetta, Chris C COL        $12                          C,U
C      Towles, J.R. C HOU             $1                            C,U
1B    Sanchez, Gaby 1B FLA      $18                         1B,CI,U
2B    Infante, Omar 2B FLA       $16                        2B,3B,CI,MI,OF,U
3B    Ramirez, Aramis 3B CHC $22                        3B,CI,U
SS    Cedeno, Ronny SS PIT       $1                           MI,SS,U
MI   Schumaker, Skip 2B STL   $1                           2B,MI,U
CI    Polanco, Placido 3B PHI   $11                        3B,CI,U
OF   Fowler, Dexter CF COL      $14                        OF,U
OF   Pagan, Angel CF NYM        $23                       OF,U
OF   Upton, Justin RF ARI        $27                       OF,U
OF   Ludwick, Ryan RF PIT       $9                          OF,U
OF   Parra, Gerardo LF ARI      $3                          OF,U
U     Diaz, Matt RF ATL               $1                           OF,U
P      Street, Huston RP COL      $13                        P
P      De La Rosa, Jorge SP COL$10                       P
P      Lohse, Kyle SP STL             $1                          P
P      Venters, Jonny RP ATL    $6                         P
P      Kershaw, Clayton SP LA   $25                       P
P      Lincecum, Tim SP SF         $27                      P
P      Putz, J.J. RP ARI                 $12                       P
P      Bailey, Homer SP CIN       $5                         P
P      Meek, Evan RP PIT             $2                         P

No draft is perfect - Ronny Cedeno and Evan Meek were massive failures - but the busts were really at a minimum. Taking Gerardo Parra for $3, Jonny Venters for $6 and Kyle Lohse for $1 more than made up for it.

My pitching accumulated 55.5 of my 102.5 overall points. I was determined to assemble a lockdown stable of pitchers, and that's exactly what I did. I finished first in ERA (3.279), fourth in K's (1,173), third in saves (80), first in wins (90) and first in WHIP (1.178).

Lohse was a flat out steal for a buck

My waiver wire acquisitions sealed the deal for me throughout the season. I was able to add Darwin Barney, Lucas Duda, Mark Ellis, Vance Worley, Dustin Moseley, Josh Collmenter and Tyler Colvin. Worley, Moseley and Collmenter further bolstered my pitching depth and assured that nobody had the slightest chance of catching me in the pitching categories.

Now that the season is over, you can ponder on what went wrong with your season, blame the players that blew it for you or reflect and learn from what made you successful. After winning this league, it's never been more evident that you must go in with a clear plan and stick to your guns when executing that plan of attack. The plan won't always pay off, but you'll never cash in if you have no direction.

Enjoy the baseball postseason and we'll see you all next year!