The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Our third season of fantasy baseball is under way, and I’m already noticing a common theme from previous years. It’s become a tradition for Team Yankeehater to get destroyed by Less than Zero in week one. It happens every year. Ugh!

Secondly, the damn Love Boat Captains always assemble a solid team and proceed to mow down the entire league. She’s on her way again.

Thirdly, Team Boston Badboys will score a million points one week, followed by a week where he barely cracks double digits.

And finally, Rays those Cowbells drafts a good team, only to have his players start dropping like flies to the injury bug.

One thing that promises to change this year: Team Yankeehater doesn’t plan on losing in the finals. Consider yourselves warned.

It’s early, but here are your thefoulline.com power rankings:

1. Love Boat Captains
   She’s not ranked #1 just because she’s the defending league champion. She’s #1 because she’s assembled a tough team from top to bottom. Not to mention, she may be the toughest trade negotiator in the league. Rays those Cowbells is going to have bad dreams about his LBC matchup next week… again.
2. Less Than Zero
   Halladay, Lester, Youk, Teixiera, McCann, Cano… a murderer’s row of fantasy excellence. LTZ drafts his ass off every year. Let’s see if he makes improvements during the season to go deep into the playoffs.
3. Boston Badboys
   The BBBs put up a ton of points this week and are worthy of a 3rd place ranking… for now. But I guarantee Vernon Wells will not hit 36 points again this season, and that shaky starting pitching will catch up to him. I predict that the Badboys will be watching the playoffs again this year.
4. Team One
   This autodrafted team loaded up on starting pitching and it’s paying off for him in a big way. I’m not sure he’ll rank this high all year — he has a few glaring holes in his lineup. But as I think we all know, pitching wins ball games, even in the fantasy world.
5. chefdick
   Any team that has Albert Pujols on it has to be in the top five. Add Evan Longoria, Matt Kemp, and Kendry Morales, and you have a team that will be tough every week. The chef may have cooked up a stinker this week, but I don’t think anyone will be looking forward to playing him this year.
6. the Haitian Hammer
   At the time I’m writing this, Team HH is in a dogfight with his brother-in-law. This is another team that’s loaded with starting pitching. I’m just not sure I would count on a lineup that features an infield consisting of Dan Uggla, Orlando Cabrera, and Chipper Jones. He definitely has the trade chips if he’s looking to improve.
7. RedRays
   This team every year is like the little engine that could. He puts together a team of good, not great, players and competes his butt off every year. Team RedRays has a knack for finding the diamond in the rough. I’m sure he’ll kick my butt in week two.
8. Rays Those Cowbells
   I could have put RTC anywhere from 5-8 in the rankings. I decided on 8 due to the fact that he has the defending champion LBCs in week two and could be staring at a 0-2 hole to start the year. But with good pitching, above-average hitters, and a willingness to deal to make his team better, Dan won’t be in the 8-hole much longer.
9. unsportsmanMike
   Another victim of the dreaded autodraft. Team UM includes some above-average pitching led by King Felix, but his closer situation is god-awful. Mike took a big step forward today by picking up Trevor Hoffman from the Badboys. This team just doesn’t strike a lot of fear in me. But unsportsmanlikeMike is new to the league and a serious wildcard, so we’ll see how he responds to his week-one shellacking.
10. Yankeehaters
    The no-brainer of the week. My team sucks. I have a million pitchers, and they all stunk it up this week. Is it possible for them ever to get their stuff together?? Who knows? Maybe I should make another trade??

23 weeks and counting until the playoffs. Good luck everyone!

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 11th, 2010 at 8:11 pm and is filed under Fantasy Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.