Came into 2008 feeling pretty well prepared for the draft, in a good frame of mind about where I've been the last two seasons, and feeling I could translate what I knew about my recent success into my 2008 team. Going into it all, as Ken would point out, 2008 looked like it would be a poor offensive year, at least home run -wise. Specifically from my success and failings from 2007, I felt I needed team speed, better home run control from my staff, and a deep lineup. What I didn't like was the #6 slot in the 11 team league, figuring I wasn't going to get the difference-maker of a hitter in the first round, and that the top echelon starting pitchers were not going to be as dominant as in year's past, not to mention the process of waiting for 10 selections before I would be able to make my next pick.
The Santos Back to Back Jacks name was my second straight team name reference to Ron Santo, and I think I came up with it about 15 minutes after I came up with the Cooperstown Santo Clause name. Needless to say, the "Back to Back" part of the name would have been spectacular if the Santo Clause had won the Spit Cup in 2007.
I think my draft was fairly even, but with a couple glaring hiccups, as I pointed out in my season preview (posted as "In Their Own Words" on the SL site). Sabathia was my worst case scenario round 1 selection, followed by Granderson coming as my best case round 2 selection. There was a lot of that kind of "best available / safe" pick followed by what you might call "reach / need" pick (Granderson being the best available in that last example, Sabathia being the reach), but I think I had a pretty solid vision of where I was going to end up, so the reaches did not overwhelm or discredit my roster. The one failing of my roster, besides relatively few stolen base attempts, was that there were not many guys who were J-1s or better, but I'll talk more about that later. Some of my best selections turned out to be Soto in the 24th, Sheffield in the 12th, Kotchman in the 17th, Josh Phelps in the 18th, and Chris Young in the 11th, and on draft day, these were the picks I had the least confidence in (other than taking Catcher Brian Schneider in the 15th, which I knew was bad when I sent the email announcing his selection).
Lineup was:
1. Sheffield DH .239 .340 .452 Fast DH, scored 100 runs in 134 games, probably overperformed 2. Hudson 2B .252 .322 .356 Scored 101 runs in 140 games, backup leadoff man 3. Granderson CF .290 .355 .540 Consistent performer drove in 116 and scored 108 while stealing team-high 36, 3rd in MVP vote 4. Soriano RF .223 .270 .473 30-30 man had team high 33 HRs to go with 99 RBI in 133 games 5. Braun 3B .225 .287 .509 Second-straight streaky hitter had 29 HRs and 75 RBI and a huge ISO in 114 games 6. Kotchman 1B .271 .341 .436 Overperformed with 48 doubles in 134 games 7. Matt Diaz LF .275 .293 .422 Singles hitter 5th on team w/ 66 RBI 8. Tulo SS .224 .283 .401 Underperformed on offense, I think, but earned SS Gold Glove 9. Redmond C .249 .299 .325 Strong-armed receiver had some important hits, including game 161 home run
Bench was:
Ross OF .283 .337 .578 295 ISO and 56 RBI in 258 ABs highlighted 8th rounder's season Phelps 1B .319 .405 .529 Limited by PAs, but huge numbers for replacement 1B-DH Keppinger INF .232 .284 .363 Singles hitter underperformed, but better defensive utility than expected Schneider C .177 .272 .284 Dreadfully slow start, but did contribute w/ 20 RBI and game 163 HR Soto C .420 .452 .884 18 XBH in 69 AB made a huge difference when spelling other catchers Blake 3B .235 .286 .463 Provided only speed and defense off bench, often replacing Braun when ahead
3rd highest runs scored in the SL. Attribute a lot of that to the 3rd best batting average, 2nd most HRs, and 2nd highest slugging, but also to effects of being league leader in triples and among top tier in stolen base percentage. While I contend Soriano and Braun were streaky, Cody Ross and Sheffield each were among the leaders in some of the more "streakier" streak categories, in addition to Granderson having long hitting and on-base streaks. One of the bigger challenges that I saw was balancing Hudson and Kotchman's (and Keppinger and Phelps's) high GIDP cards with a roster that had no pinch runner and had not very many stolen bases available. While generally eschewing the hit and run, something worked out well in terms of GIDPs, as the team was only in the middle of the pack in that category.
Starting staff was:
Sabathia L 14Z 16-8, 4.18, 264.2 IP, led league in BR/9, among leaders in K/9, but also most HR allowed, 6th in Cy vote Haren R 13Z 14-13, 4.37, 237.0 IP, among leaders in K/9 CYoung R 14WG 13-12, 3.79, 216.1 IP, led league in HR/9, among leaders in K/9 and fewest H/9 Bannister R 9 6-11, 6.06, 142.2 IP, below expectations but pitched more often due to team relief IP issues Wakefield R 8 2-13, 8.44, 80.0 IP, awful, but did win twice against Jim, and was hurt for 20 games, which was a boon BillingsleyR 11 2-3, 7.24, 32.1 IP, 6 GS, many Wake-like outings, but did throw CG win in intra-divisional play
Relief staff was:
Betancourt R 22ZG 14-4, 1.96, 14 sv, 8 bs, team's hold leader, most vital member of staff next to CC, 4th in Cy vote Marmol R 25WG 10-7, 2.51, 11 sv, 6 bs, struggled at times, but generally very effective 2nd option in pen JaWalker L 12Z 3-0, 4.12, 0 sv, 0 bs, semi-effective in LOOGY role, 0 losses & 0 blown Hoffman R 13ZH 5-0, 2.50, 4 sv, 0 bs, very effective counterpart to Marmol, 0 losses & 0 blown Timlin R 12ZG 1-2, 2.95, 1 sv, 0 bs, overperformed in backend until I had to give him IP late in SL Thatcher L 21ZH 3-1, 1.99, 2 sv, 2 bs, low IP guy used 1/3 of his season in one extended outing
Sabathia, Haren and Young were a solid, if not great, 1-2-3. 4 and 5, however, were not any good, but those were supposed to be the games the relievers won it for me. I said in my season preview that I thought I drafted a team that should have been in the top 4 in the league, but they instead finished 5th. I wouldn't classify the staff as that big of a disappointment, but 4 of the 5 starters (6th starter included) performed worse than I would have expected, even if just slightly in some cases.
Before the season started, Greg asked for submissions to his now annual "In Their Own Words" publication. I read everyone's opinions of their teams before I authored my submission, and in reading that just about everyone was expecting to have a top tier offense (which I suppose shouldn't be too big of a surprise), it got under my skin a little bit, kind of in a "Nobody Believes in Us" way, as Bill Simmons might say. And given that I had invested a lot in pitching, I was thinking that others were going to be wrong about what they said about their own squads, and in the "Nobody Believes in Us" way of thinking, I did not want to toot my own horn too much.
Even though my first writing about my team was tepid, I still had confidence that Santos was a good enough team, but early on, wasn't sure how it would play out. Ken took hold of the division right away, but Dave clawed his way into the lead. I was around .500 for most of the round robin, then beat Jim four straight. In our game 5, the first 3-man injury I have ever seen in BBW happened, shelving Soriano, Kotchman and Hudson for about 10 games each. During the 10-game stretch, Santos dropped 8 in a row, and again doubt crept in about whether this was a good enough team to compete.
Most of the rest of the way, though, this team did compete, beginning with a chico of Gregg's Kali squad following the big early losing streak. Was a party to very few 4-1 schlitzes (maybe just one more late in the season to Chris after my two early ones when Soriano, Kotchman and Hudson were out), which I like to think can be attributed to my strong starting staff. Ken remained in the division lead through about the 100 game mark, but his lead was pretty tight over me. I had gotten to within one game, then he and I played on a Sunday afternoon, and, adorned in my Havens Auto Centre t-shirt, I went ahead in the division by 4 games with my second chico of the season.
The lead over Ken was not able to stretch, though, and his strong offense brought him closer and closer. And it was at about this time that Dave resurrected a middling season with a string of series wins to catapault him back into the division (and wild card) race. When I did get schlitzed by Chris at about the 140 mark, I ceded the division lead to Ken. I want to say we entered our intra-divisional games just 1 games behind Ken for the Even Flow lead, and with a slight wild card lead over Greg/Graham/et al.
Ken opened with a 3-1 series win against Gregg, which deflated my hopes. But, while making a couple of the remaining player sits, I had a more successful series against Gregg, taking all 4 behind the hitting of Granderson and Josh Phelps. Ken and I both edged Dave 3 games to 1, setting up a final 4 games between Ken and I to try to break the division tie.
Ken, mostly behind Carlos Beltran's 3 hits, including a double and a homer, and 3 RBI, easily took game 159. In the game, firstbaseman Casey Kotchman got hurt for 9 games, which seemed to be a semi-big blow to both my division hopes and my first round playoff series hopes. But my team was resillient enough to hold off Ken in game 160, with Granderson knocking in 2 in the 3-run 5th, and my pen holding on for the 3-2 win. Ken and I decided to hold off on games 161 and 162 until the rest of the playoff picture cleared up (our division was ahead of the others in terms of games played at that point).
When we resumed, it had been determined that the 2nd place team in the division would earn the wild card, so some of the drama was removed. I did not want President's Cup winner Chris in the first round, though, based on how poorly I competed against him on the season, so I decided to go ahead and start CC Sabathia in game 161, knowing that he would still be available for a possible two semifinal starts, if needed. Beltran homered off Sabathia in the first, though, but Redmond answered with a three-run homer. When CC settled down and Matt Diaz hit another home run, Santos took command for an easy 9-2 win. Tim Wakefield and my offense struggled to seal the deal in Game 162, though, as I fell 5-0, and it was on to a dreaded game 163, where Ken and I both had to endure additional injury risks. Ken was more willing to sit his injury-prone semi-regulars, a sign that he was confident in playoff success, no matter who he played in the first round. But while he jumped out to a 2-run lead on an ARod first inning homer, I answered with 4 in the 2nd and 2 more in the 3rd. Ken gets it to 6-4 in the 4th on a Luke Scott homer, but I answer with 3 more in the 4th to salt away the victory, as Brian Schneider and ARod wrap up the scoring with solo homers in a 10-5 division winning victory for me.
With my 2 seed, I earned a first round date with Greg. Not much to say, other than it was just about all Greg, beginning with a game 1 8-run first inning off Danny Haren, en route to an 8-5 win. Game 2 was a tighter affair, but Greg managed 4 homers, 2 apiece from Carlos Pena and Nick Markakis, in taking a 6-4 victory. Game 3 was closer still. Greg took a 3-1 lead into the 6th, but Granderson, Soriano and Braun had consecutive hits, Soriano and Braun for extra bases, to tie it up. But with the same score in the 8th and runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs, Granderson, Soriano and Braun stranded the runners. The score remained 3-3 into the 10th when Orlando Hudson earned a 1-out walk. Keppinger followed with a double to left, but I choose to hold Hudson at 3rd and give Granderson and Soriano the chance to give us the lead. My two leading RBI men during the regular season couldn't bring home the runners this time, though. Greg took the win with one in the bottom of the 10th, after a Hudson error and a two-out Khalil Greene walk-off RBI. I needed a miracle in Game 4 and beyond, and it started out well, within Geovany Soto clubbing a 1st inning 3-run homer in Game 4. The bullpen held on to the lead, as we took the contest 6-3. Game 5 saw a rematch of Haren and Hudson from Game 1, with Game 1 loser Haren actually working on an 8-inning scoreless streak. Things looked good, with Haren in control early and the Jacks taking an early lead on an unearned first inning run, and thenlater adding a run on a 3rd inning Granderson RBI triple. Haren stretched his scoreless streak to 15 innings, but in the top of the 8th gave up a walk and a hit and run double to bring Greg within a run. Betancourt seemingly ended the trouble, getting Bengie Molina and Sizemore out, walking Cano and inducing a 2-out grounder from Pena. But Braun fired the ball past Phelps to even the game at 2. It stayed tied at 2 into the 10th, when Carlos Pena knocked in two off Jamie Walker, followed by RBI singles from Posada and Crawford. After a 1-2-3 10th, my impossible dream season ended as tepidly as it had started.
The more I consider the outcome of the series, the less I think that it was "all Greg." I think I inadvertently undervalued the strength of his team when I "played to win" against Ken (vs. resting regulars who could have gotten hurt). I think I should have played to win almost exactly as I did, but with less negative thoughts surrounding who I wanted to avoid in round 1. I think even though I had success in winning my division, that negativity eventually hurt me. Also, in the series with Greg, there were just a couple tipping points, and they tipped toward Greg. When opportunities arose where I could tip the series, I did not seize the moment (one reason why I think Greg is one of the better post-season managers, as he and Steve are some of the better in-season managers when it comes to seizing a moment within a game that leads to the win). I also think that losing Kotchmann for games 1-5 affected me more than it shows in the boxscores. I had a very constrictive roster during the season, in terms of bench usage, but with playoff usage rules as they are, I thought I would be able to make some usage changes in the post-season. When Kotchmann went down, my roster usage again became limited, probably more limited than at any time during the season, with the exception of the time when Soriano, Kotchmann, and Hudson all were out. In the end, my super-high reliance on players with limited games was a detriment to reaching my goal.
ARod earned my MVP vote. Prince and his impressive league-leading HR, RBI and Slugging Percentage took my 2nd place, followed by David Ortiz, who I would say was arguably the best percentage offensive player in the league, Matt Holliday and Albert Pujols. The bottom half of my ballot was Chipper, Carlos Pena, David Wright, Hanley Ramirez and Carlos Beltran. In all, the top 9 votes I gave were 9 of the top 10 players selected in the 2008 draft (and I certainly considered Maggs for my 10th vote before deciding on Beltran, who probably got extra-credit for his coming up so big in our head-to-head play), so, at least in my mind, it certainly paid to draft hitting early, as those hidden gems of draft picks did not end up as our league's top players.
While drafting hitting early proved fruitful, only 1 of the "really, really early" pitching selections was on my Cy list. Eric Bedard and his dominant ERA took my first place vote, followed by 12th pick in the draft John Lackey, Kelvim Escobar, John Smoltz, and Roy Halladay. There have been a lot of close votes over the years, in terms of maybe two or three guys deserving a 5th place vote from me, but in 2008, the line between who was 3rd best and maybe 8th or 9th best was very, very close. Names like Matt Guerrier and Tim Hudson and Peavy and Heath Bell and Hamels and Verlander and Saito were all considered before giving the nod to those I put in my top 5.
Ken edged Chris for my first place MoY vote, as both managed exceptionally well, with Steve and Bob splitting my 3rd place vote, again with both of them managing exceptionally well, but perhaps with lesser rosters contributing to less SL success. Graham also earned a lot of respect from me with his showing, with a team that I thought would struggle, before lasting in his division race until game 161.
As great as it had felt to get this team that nobody but I believed in into the playoffs, my quest is the Spit Cup. The journey was incredible, but the end was heartbreaking. There were a lot of positives, things I can only begin to rattle off, such as the friendships and bonds that were tightened, failings which allowed me to learn, as well as the learnings from what went well, but mostly, the best part of 2008 was that the grip the SL has on me was strenghtened further.