Fantasy baseball is a fickle mistress. You spend hours researching players to draft a quality team. There are a select few elite players that you want to grab with your first round pick to form a solid base for your roster. Your pick comes, you get your guy, and BAM! he hits the disabled list with a pulled oblique flexor tendon or some other bizarre injury.

Your season is officially over, right? Wrong! Good news — having your first round pick get hurt is actually a blessing in disguise. Crazy talk, you say? Consider this: Two seasons ago, the Love Boat Captains lost her first-round pick for the year just  two weeks into the season. Needless to say, she made the adjustment and won the league. Last year, the LBCs lost 4 of her first 5 picks for significant time due to injury, and we all know how that worked out for her. One more example: Two seasons ago, Dan competed his ass off after the “curse of Grady Sizemore” almost sunk his season.

The reality is that every pick is important. But it’s more important to stay up on the players in the league and make the changes necessary to make your team competitive. Losing your first pick doesn’t need to be the season-killer we all make it out to be. And anyway, is there anything more enjoyable than scouting an obscure player and having him turn into this year’s Jose Bautista?

So keep your chin up, Allan. Longoria going out may have booked you a ticket to The Foul Line playoffs.

Power rankings

1. Rays Those Cowbells – An unstoppable force that has absolutely no chance of being defeated this year
2. Yankeehaters — Soon to be 3-1
3. RedRays – Showed resolve last week and pulled out a tough win
4. chefdicks11 – Tough schedule to start the year. He’ll bounce back with this team
5. bostobadboys – The little engine that could keeps plugging away
6. Love Boat Captains — Always scary
7. ToPpIn Da ChArTz – First of many wins this week. Nice job Allan!
8. UNsportsmanMike
9. WILLIS Be The Year
10. Sam’s Baseball Train

Sorry 8,9, and 10. My dad always told me that if didn’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

Thanks everyone for playing. This is a league of smart players that really know baseball. It’s fun to be a part of. Let’s keep it enjoyable.

Good luck to all this week.

Week two of our season is in the books, and the competition is as fierce as ever. I have never started a fantasy season 1-0, so to be one of only 3 teams to be 2-0 after two weeks is blowing my mind.

So far this season there have been a few interesting trades. I really liked WILLIS Be The Year going against conventional wisdom and trading Hanley for stud pitcher and chronic mound-sprinter Cliff Lee. I think this trade is a good deal for both teams, unlike the shellacking I gave Allan in the Gallardo/VMart deal. Keep throwing those 90-mph fastballs Yovani!

I’m going to keep this post short. The Boston Bad Boy is in town for a couple of days and we’re heading to the Trop to see Edwin Jackson outduel David Price. So without further adieu… here are your Week 2 power rankings.

1. Yankeehaters
2. Rays Those Cowbells
3. bostobadboys
4. chefdicks11
5. Love Boat Captains
6. RedRays
7. WILLIS Be The Year
8. Sam’s Baseball Train
9. UNsportsmanMike
10. ToPpIn Da ChArTz

Go Sox!

Holy cow, that was a long first week of fantasy baseball! I think we can all agree that a seven-day game week is preferable to the 11-day marathon. Congrats to the teams that won. Good luck this week!

Quick Hits

• Trades in fantasy baseball are a crazy thing. Sometimes there are obvious winners and losers. Other times times one team gets absolutely crushed. An example of this would be yours truly trading Alex Rodriguez and C.J. Wilson for Cole Hamels and Justin Upton. I drafted A-Rod in the 4th round of our draft, and I was happy with the pick. I think he’s going to have a monster season. But every time I saw him up to bat, I was wishing that he would take a fastball in his earhole. I think it’s important to have a fantasy team made up of players that are not only good but also fun to watch. I think Hamels and J. Upton  are two of those guys. A-Rod never will be.
• The Yankeehaters were getting crushed this week. I traded A-Rod and my team’s performance turned around the next day. Karma? Perhaps. Either way — good riddance.
• The 8th inning experiment with star closer Rafael Soriano is not going well. Some guys are just meant to pitch in the 9th inning. Oh well, it’s only $35 million.
• B.J. Upton’s real name is Melvin.
• There’s an appendicitis epidemic sweeping through baseball. I’m going to have mine prematurely removed so it doesn’t potentially affect my playoff run in fantasy baseball.
• Manny Ramirez is a total scumbag. Joe Maddon and the Rays players supported him 100%. Manny repays this support by lying to them and then getting busted using steroids for the second time. Good riddance.
• Sam Fuld makes a great defensive play every game.
• The LBCs have been snakebit in the first week of our season. Don’t write her off quite yet. She’ll still make the playoffs.
• Thanks Chefdick for dropping Edwin Jackson. He’s looking great so far.
• The once-proud Cleveland Indians fan base was totally absent in the series against the Red Sox.  There was an average attendance of about 5000 fans per game. Didn’t they used to own the consecutive sellout streak?
• Scoring the second most points in the league and losing is one of the frustrations of playing in a head-to-head league. Sorry, Chefdick.
• Jered Weaver: 3 games, 3 wins, 9 hits allowed, 85.5 points. Wow!

The Foul Line Fantasy Baseball Power Rankings

1. Yankeehaters: 541 points! I think that might be a world record
2. chefdicks11: Some tough injuries down the stretch hurt. Playing the Yankeehaters hurt even more.
3. RedRays: Put up a ton of points and crushed the two-time defending champ.
4. bostobadboys: If Josh Beckett continues his great pitching, the BBB will be tough all year long.
5. Rays Those Cowbells: Dan made some great trades this week. I anticipate RTC climbing up the rankings this week.
6. Sam’s Baseball Train: Solid from top to bottom. Sam is going to win more than he loses this year.
7. Love Boat Captains: This week was a fluke. Her team is better than their week-1 performance.
8. WILLIS Be The Year: Pitching is pretty awful. If he addresses that, he could bounce back. He’s still 1-0.
9. ToPpIn Da ChArTz: Losing Longoria was a big reason he lost this week. I look forward to A-Rod getting injured on your team this year.
10. UNsportsmanMike: 295.5 points in an 11-day week? Really?

Go Sox!

I was planning to write a post after the Red Sox won their 2011 season opener. When that didn’t pan out, I figured I would write something after they squeezed out a victory or two against the Rangers.

Didn’t happen.

The good news was that the Sox were heading to AL Central-doormat Cleveland, and so were all but guaranteed to get this World Series season back on track. We all know how that series went.

So at this point, I figured I should just write something before Boston ends up 0-162.

Am I worried that the Red Sox are 0-6? I honestly don’t think it’s big deal. Yet. They have a great lineup. They have a quality pitching staff with a solid history. These guys know how to win, and they will win this year… a lot.

The Sox players are well aware of how the offseason went, with Gonzalez, Crawford, Jenks, and Wheeler added to an already potent lineup. Every news source from the Boston Globe to the Sheboygan Daily Reader was picking Boston to win 95+ games and cruise towards another championship. The players know they now have a responsibility to live up to their fans’ expectations as well as the owners’ commitment to putting a great team on the field. They’re putting a ton of pressure on themselves to win. Every at bat is critical, so bats are getting squeezed a little too tight. Every pitch has to be a strike, so balls are getting overthrown. All of this is having a negative impact on their performance.

The Sox return to Boston today after being away from their homes since February. I think a little home cooking is just what they need. Of course, if Boston gets swept this weekend by the damn Yankees, I’m going to jump off the Sunshine Skyway.

(On the other hand, I totally think that the Rays are going to lose 162 games this year. They kind of stink.)

Go Sox!