ROTISSERIE: BaseballHQ standing in expert leagues

Welcome to the dog days of summer; other than All Star game festivities, there are no ball games. At the (roughly) halfway point of the season, it’s time to take a look at how the HQ teams are doing in a few expert leagues.

AL-Tout: Patrick Davitt
Standings: Fourth place. Tight categories make this team a contender for the title.   
Move of note: Picking up Óscar Mercado for $1 a week before his call-up paid off. Despite modest spending on arms, Patrick is second in pitching, including 11 points in each of the decimal categories.
Work to do: Obtain power, either via trade or by preemptively striking for prospects.

NL-Tout: Phil Hertz
Standings: First Place, duking it out with Brian Walton of CreativeSports.com.
Move of note: Cheap FAAB claims of Kevin Newman and Luke Jackson have provided a boost. Fortunately, injuries to Andrew McCutchen, Brandon Nimmo, and Luke Weaver have not removed the team from contention.
Work to do: Those injuries will eventually take their toll, so Phil needs to find a way to maintain current offensive standing in a league with few impact free agents.

Tout mixed auction: Brent Hershey
Standings: Third place, just behind Scott Swanay, and within striking distance of Brett Sayre.
Move of note: Grabbing Domingo Germán, Dansby Swanson, and Pablo López as reserves on auction day. Pitching remains competitive despite losing Kluber early and Montas to suspension more recently.
Work to do: Procure more saves. Giles has worked out, and some pre-Kimbrel Cubs contributed, but other dart throws have come up empty.

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AL-LABR: Dave Adler

Standings: First place, in a neck-and-neck battle with Eno Sarris of the Athletic.

Move of note: In a redraft league, would you trade an out-for-the-season Miguel Andujar for Yordan Alvarez?

Of course you would. And, essentially, that’s what I did. In LABR, if one of your drafted players suffers a season-ending injury before the All Star Break, you get his salary back as FAAB replacement. Getting Andujar’s $22 salary put me in the FAAB lead when Alvarez got the call. Despite costing most of my remaining FAAB, I went all in, got him, and have risen in the standings. The extra offense allowed me to trade Trey Mancini for Lucas Giolito.

Work to do: Giolito’s looking at some ERA regression. Other than Shane Bieber, I’m relying on Mike Fiers, Ariel Jurado, John Means, and Daniel Mengden for starters. That likely won’t cut it, and with Carlos Carrasco battling leukemia, I’m going to need SP help.

XFL: Doug Dennis

Standings: Tied for first place in this mixed dynasty league with Don Drooker.

Move of note: Not having to trade much of his farm teams to stay in first. Hyun-Jin Ryu staying healthy and providing a nice return on a $15 investment; Alex Colomé at $1. Promotions of Fernando Tatis and Eloy Jiménez upon their MLB arrival garnered plenty of points from the get-go. Trading for Aroldis Chapman just before he went on a tear.

Work to do: Improve pitching depth; already added Dallas Keuchel, Rick Porcello, and Ross Stripling, but always looking for more.

Tout daily: Phil Hertz

Standings: First overall, by 130 points among the 30 touts participating. Phil already pocketed two of the 16 Golden Tickets to the finals in this weekly DFS contest, and will likely have more.

Move of note: Avoiding high-priced starters and the top 1-2 priciest hitters as well. Phil prefers a balanced team—no Stars and Scrubs for him.

Work to do: More of the same in the second half weekly matchups.

Tout mixed draft: Ray Murphy

Standings: Third, 1.5 points behind Rudy Gamble, and a few behind Adam Ronis.

Move of note: Ray cobbled a bullpen together out of nothing. At the end of April, he had one save; FAABing Hector Neris and Luke Jackson, along with late pick Taylor Rogers, led to a competitive standing in the category. A big surprise: the league-leading pitching staff, given the high-risk approach to assemble it.

Work to do: Holding those pitching points will be tough, and Ray’s got to find some more points on offense to pass the teams in front of him.

FSTA: Ray Murphy and Brent Hershey

Standings: Fourth, trailing some guy named Shandler.

Move of note: Adding Domingo Germán to a staff led by Max Scherzer and Zach Greinke; Taylor Rogers making up for the loss of José Leclerc. Biggest surprise—poor hitting, despite a strong draft and the additions of Austin Riley and Tommy LaStella.

Work to do: Adding more offense, particularly after the loss of LaStella for the next 2+ months. A power or speed boost would help, as would getting some saves as roles shift at the MLB trade deadline later this month.

Mixed-LABR: Ryan Bloomfield

Standings: Fifth, in a clump of three teams a few points out of first.

Move of note: With a Max Scherzer/Carrasco start in Rounds 1-3 and early Miguel Andujar injury, Ryan needed the FAAB boat to keep his hitting afloat. You win some, you lose some; Hunter Dozier ($3 out of $100), C.J. Cron ($8), and Jackie Bradley Jr. in May ($6) worked well; Nicky Lopez ($13) not so much. Clint Frazier ($11) worked fine until being demoted to make room for returning Yankees. Ryan also parlayed Caleb Smith into Eddie Rosario via trade.

Work to do: Ryan’s got a nice ERA/WHIP cushion, but the standings remain bunched in Wins and Ks, so he'll be wading into the murky streaming waters. There’s not much competition for weekly FAAB: six teams have less than $10 remaining, and just two teams have more money than his $28.

Tout H2H: Ryan Bloomfield

Standings: Fighting for playoff contention in 7th place (top six make the playoffs), despite being 3rd in total points.

Move of note: Ryan’s draft strategy of loading up on closers in this particular scoring system worked out great (Jansen, Hand, Velazquez). But he’s not succeeded in supplementing it with adequate starting pitching using FAAB, Dylan Bundy (-8 points) being a prime example.

Work to do: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it; Ryan’s looking forward to some better matchups to make the playoffs.

AL-Tout: Doug Dennis

Standings: Currently 12th, but cycling between 10th-12th, depending on the time of day.

Move of note: A lot of underperformance (Sale, Barnes, May) combined with injuries (Andujar, Upton, Gregorius, Luzardo) and a late signing (Keuchel) have conspired to keep Doug’s team down. A $1 FAABed John Means and a reserved Dan Vogelbach have been the shining lights.

Work to do: The offense coming around will hopefully boost this team from the bottom of the standings.

NL-LABR: Doug Dennis

Standings: 11th place.

Move of note: injuries to Gennett, Pollock, and Dickerson kept Doug’s offense from taking off. But having Greg Holland and Hector Neris at $1 and Steve Cishek on reserve allowed Doug to trade Will Smith (SF) to address other needs.

Work to do: Having the offense come around can keep this team from the bottom of the standings.

The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational

After dominating TGFBI last year, BHQ staffers have pulled back a bit this year, but several are still well-positioned. Of 14 entries, Ryan Bloomfield and Arik Florimonte are leading their leagues. Brad Kullman, Patrick Davitt, and Bob Berger sit in 2nd or 3rd in their leagues. In terms of overall site rankings, BHQ ranks 4th of ~20 sites with multiple entries, just a tick out of 2nd overall.

On to the 2nd half!

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