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If you play fantasy baseball in a points league it is only the third day of the season, and if you are a Yu Darvish of the Texas Rangers owner you are already pissed off. That’s right, instead of looking at the positive from Darvish’s almost perfect game on Tuesday night, let’s look at what the Houston Astros Marwin Gonzalez cost you.
Coming into 2013, Darvish was a lot of baseball prognosticators’ dark horse candidate for the AL Cy Young Award. After Tuesday night’s 14 strikeout, 1 hit, 8 2/3 innings performance, forget about being a dark horse. Darvish was absolutely brilliant against the Astros in only their second game as a member of the American League. It was also the first time in Darvish’s brief major league career that he didn’t walk a batter. So why are points league players pissed off?
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Most points leagues score additional points for complete games, shutouts, and no hitters or perfect games. Using basic point league scoring. Darvish owners would have gotten 10 points for a shutout, 5 points for a complete game, and 10 points for a perfect game. Oh yeah, and of course Darvish owners would have gotten a -1 point for Gonzalez’s hit. So yeah, as a Darvish owner who came within one out of 25 more points, I now hate Marwin Gonzalez.
Other take aways from last night’s action.
The San Francisco Giants‘ Madison Bumgarner is still underrated. Bumgarner spun a gem against the Los Angeles Dodgers, throwing eight innings of two-hit ball while striking out six. Considering he was probably a 4th or 5th round pick in most leagues, he will be giving you ace stats at half the price of the Detroit Tigers Justin Verlander or the Dodgers Clayton Kershaw. Should Bumgarner go through a couple of rough early outings, try and steal him from who ever owns him in your league.
The Colorado Rockies‘ Troy Tulowitzki is back! Well, at least until he gets hurt. Tulo has homered in his first two games and wasn’t drafted in most leagues until the second round, and in some cases the third round. I am still very weary of Tulo making it through the season healthy, and it wouldn’t be the worst idea to try trading him now. If you are weak in the outfield and have another decent option at shortstop, it wouldn’t be whoa crazy crazy to offer Tulo to the Bryce Harper owner in your league.
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