kevin youkilis

Pirates and Fantasy Allergies

– Max Scherzer struck out 15 Pirates on Sunday afternoon in 7 innings. Over the course of the three game Detroit-Pittsburgh series, including Verlander’s near no-hitter on Friday, the Pirates struck out 41 times. That’s 41 Ks out of 81 outs…over 50%. Avast ye them Pirates blow….yarrrrrrrrrgh.

DIATRIBE OF THE WEEK

This is not really a diatribe, this is more of an apology. Entering the 2010 season, Lance Berkman was a hero in Houston and a paragon of consistency. In the nine previous seasons, Big Puma had never had a season where he played less than 132 games, hit less than 24 homers or had an OPS less than 896. I had never owned Berkman in a fantasy league though at any time during this stretch, but finally got my chance when I drafted him in 2010. He tanked hard and posted simply horrendous numbers (122 games/14 HRs/781 OPS) in a season that saw him get unceremoniously dumped by Houston. Of course, once off my roster, he bounced back to his normal terrific numbers in 2011. And you can guess the rest of the story. Despite my suspicion that Berkman may have a severe allergy to my team, I drafted him again in 2012, only to see him play five games, tweak his calf, miss four games, return and play one and a half games then fully pull his calf, miss 21 games, then play five more games before apparently tearing his ACL while RECEIVING a routine catch at first base. Now his season is most likely done and his career may be in jeopardy as well. That is some bad juju. So I’m sorry Lance. I should have known better. I do hope you have a full recovery. And I promise, I will never draft you ever again.

List of players with severe allergies to my fantasy team: Lance Berkman, Travis Hafner, Vlad Guerrero, Bobby Higginson, Kevin Youkilis.

Yes, I recognize that I list Youkilis with a severe allergy and that I still own him on my team. In fact, I have exclusively owned him in my league since August 2, 2010, the day I traded for him and he broke his thumb on his first at-bat after activation. And I am now in the stage where I am owning him out of spite. It is strange that I somehow feel apologetic towards Berkman and yet so apoplectic at Youkilis, but that’s the way it is. Youk will get over his allergies…or he will die from them.

It’s My Party, I Can Whine If I Want To

It has been quite a disappointing year for my fantasy team.  Mired in the bottom half of the league, I pulled off a mammoth trade eight-player trade last week.  This trade boiled down to me trading away Felix Hernandez for Ryan Howard and Kevin Youkilis; the rest of the players were more or less spare parts.

The trade was accepted on Friday night but even before the trade cleared Howard hurt himself on Sunday, spraining his ankle. The severity of the injury was unknown, and it didn’t seem too bad, so whatever. The trade cleared and though Howard was not available, I happily placed Youkilis in my lineup for Monday. However, in his first at bat on Monday, Youkilis managed to tear a muscle in his thumb while hitting a ground ball. He wasn’t hit by a pitch or collide with someone, he hurt himself while hitting a grounder to second.

Meanwhile, Howard’s conditioned worsened, and on Tuesday, Youk and Howard were placed on the DL within an hour of each other. By Thursday we learned Youk was out for the year. After exactly one AB for my team. Now, I know we all suffer through some good and bad luck swings throughout the course of the year, but you’ve got to admit, this double whammy occurring immediately after a fantasy trade is pretty surreal.  Waaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh.