![]() ![]() Maybe it’s me? Am I like you, Taylor? Am I the problem? Let’s find out… This year’s obsessions Joey Ortiz (SS – BAL) NFBC ADP: 711 The thought process was sound, but I didn’t weigh the risks involved with them nearly as much as I should have.Īndrés Muñoz, Jose Miranda, and Steven Kwan made up for them, and someone like Seiya Suzuki had an injury stand in his way, but I’m in on him again (despite the oblique injury). I was all-in on both in 10-, 12-, and 15-team leagues. The goods were obviously good, but there were no two players who burnt me last year more than Akil Baddoo and Kevin Smith. They are a tweak or two - or a path or two away to playing time - from being players to contribute. It’s not players who are obvious studs, but players who I find myself gravitating toward to varying levels of degrees and, well, varying levels of league sizes who could become fantasy mainstays. So as you can see, not every call is going to work out, but that’s kind of the exercise with the obsessions. While it was me who got myself through that point in my life, I have to give the assist to MLB for helping me complete that 6-4-3 double-play.īefore we get to this year’s obsessions, let’s take a look at who I was dropping my jaw for last year in this column. It’s wondering what the Orioles are thinking by keeping Joey Ortiz out of the lineup for Jorge Mateo. It’s wondering why the hell this pitcher with plus-stuff is going so late in drafts, and questioning whether you’re the only one who sees it? It’s scouring to find that unheralded prospect who only needs 13 things to fall his way to have a chance to get the call (Hi, Ryan Noda!). It means searching FanGraphs and Baseball Savant trying to find a little tweak a player has to make to get on the fantasy radar. The obsessions reference is a fantasy trope at this point, and it’s a cute SEO term that people search for. It’s the topic that got me hired by The Athletic, and it’s the one that I like to think is my best work each year. This column is my favorite piece to write each and every year. It didn’t matter to me that Akil Baddoo - the poster player for this column last year – was an absolute bust. It didn’t matter to me if my fantasy teams sucked. It was the year of falling into a routine by walking my dog after work, coming home, cooking dinner, and putting on MLB.TV to the Blue Jays on my TV and to random games on my computer. I also got to go to Detroit, Toronto (twice more), Philadelphia, and multiple, multiple Cleveland games. It was so nice, I did it twice, as I went up to Milwaukee for another game with Jordan. I booked a trip up to Chicago for a wrestling event, and while I was up there - being that it was so close to Milwaukee - I met up with my friend and FSWA finalist Jordan White to take in a Brewers games before taking in a White Sox game with my friend and Razzball writer Keelin Billue on the following day. I was obsessed with the feeling, and I was obsessed with baseball once again. ![]() I was feeling like myself again, and I wanted more of it. It was a high-scoring game against the Rangers, one that saw the Blue Jays put together one hell of a come-from-behind effort. I booked a trip to Toronto for Opening Day - the first Opening Day that Toronto experienced since 2019 due to the pandemic. If nothing else, at that moment in my life, I knew I had baseball, and I was going to do everything in my power to enjoy the hell out of the season. Say what you want about Cleveland, but it had all of these. I was very “woe is me,” to a point that it was better that I was on my own, because I would be one hell of a drag to be around.īut I also had the wherewithal to have three other priorities for my move.īecause yes, this is a fantasy baseball column, and while I love you all, you aren’t my therapist. ![]() I had the typical post-breakup phase in my life and on Twitter where I was looking forward to the dating (Hi, Penelope!) and relying just on myself.īut the truth was, I was depressed. When people would reach out to see how I was doing in Cleveland and how I was adjusting to the bachelor lifestyle, I would smile and say that it was going fine and I was enjoying the freedom. Three cold-ass places, but that was fine. The final three were Cleveland, Minneapolis, and Milwaukee. See, when I moved, I researched cities all over the country, trying to find out where I wanted to start fresh. I didn’t have these answers, but I knew that I had to tackle it head-on. It was following my divorce with my long-time partner of more than a decade.Ĭould I do it? Could I afford it? Was I destined for a smaller city like Cleveland? But I moved there, on my own, without knowing anyone. ![]()
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