My 2025 ESPN Fantasy Baseball Season Summery

CardGeek

When I was a kid I played Dynasty League Baseball and Pursue the Pennant baseball stat card and dice rolling games a bunch with one of my friends. As well as RBI Baseball and Major League Baseball on Nintendo. Since NES I haven't played much video baseball. This year I tried ESPN Fantasy Baseball. This being my first time playing, and not having read the rules, I didn't do so well. Here's how it went and what I learned though.

I didn't realize I was going to be dumped right in to a draft when I started. I thought it would be a scheduled thing. I only drafted 1 team. I'm sure some guys draft a bunch of teams. Because the draft started by surprise, I ended up taking mostly Dodgers. I ended up keeping a lot of Dodgers the whole season. Just so I could pay attention to their stats.

My first pick was Shohei Othani. Mostly because he was right there at the top of the list. I think I had 1st pick. The thing about Shohei in this game is, he can only play one way a day. So if he pitches you don't get points for his hitting. He didn't pitch so much though. It wasn't much of an issue. Someone offered me Kyle Schwarber - 509 for Othani early on. I declined though.

I'm not sure how fantasy points work. Looking at the league points leaders list, Othani made 679 points this season total. 2nd place is Judge at 577. When I look at my team, Othani made 555 points. It's confusing. When I trade for a player it shows their past points on my team list. So, I don't understand why 555 and 679. But, 102 more points than Judge on the master list. Juan Soto is 3rd with 551.

With 4 games to go in the regular season my points leaders, as it stands today, are:

DH Shohei Othani - 555
OF Cody Bellinger - 437 (12th on the master list)
2B Nico Hoerner - 400
SS Elly De La Cruz - 382
1B Freedie Freeman - 364

My catcher was Will Smith - 282 till he got injured (hairline fracture - right hand). Ben Rice - 308 has taken his place.

OF Andy Pages - 333
OF Teoscar Hernandez - 281 (Started off hot but cooled off 2nd half of the season)
3B Zach McKinstry - 269

Mike Trout - 223 (sat on the bench most of the season)

It seemed to me that the bench players were nearly useless. Bench players are only really useful if your main guys team isn't playing. Trout only plays OF and DH. So he only got to play for me if the Dodgers or Yankees had the day off. There isn't really enough notice to replace a guy who just has a day off. They're useful if a guy gets injured too I guess. My other bench player is:

Josh Smith - 255 (1B 3B SS OF DH)

Even though Smith fills a bunch of holes, he ended up not being very useful.

I kept 2 relief pitchers the whole season. Both these guys are short relivers. So, they only get 1 inning about every other day.

Kenley Jansen - 280 (Active Career Saves Leader)
Alex Vesia - 233 (Usually shuts it down for an inning)

I only kept 1 starter the entire season.

Jesus Luzardo - 399 (14 wins this season. As of today tied for 5th in wins.)

I had Nathan Eovaldi - 374 until he got hurt. Out for the season last I heard.

Once I figured out how Free Agency and waivers work, I ended up switching pitchers nearly every day. Taking as many pitchers that were starting the next day as I could. Best free agents available. So I would have 3 or 4 pitchers pitching every day. But, I didn't figure that out till 2/3 through the season. Once I figured that out , though, it made the game a lot more interesting. Giving more of an illusion of managing a team. Just last week I figured out there is a cap on innings pitched a season, or something. I'm still not sure how that works. Something like 1400 max innings pitched a season for your team. I ended up capping out. But, then the cap got lifted. I'm confused about it.

Right now with the season winding down I have:

Matthey Boyd - 381
Ryan Pepiot - 329
Chris Bassitt - 305 (IL15)
Justin Verlander - 225
Clayton Kershaw - 199
Emmet Sheehan - 193 (Hasn't had many starts. Seems to be getting good results though)

I think my biggest mistake was taking guys who I thought were good baseball players, instead of making an all-star team. With only 8 teams in the league, the other teams ended up just being more stacked than my team. Right now I'm sitting a dismal 9-13. It's looking like I'm going to win this current matchup though! I don't know how the playoffs work. Maybe there are no playoffs for me. 7 months till next season.