Fantasy Sports Friday

Another Fantasy Sports Friday, with a fantasy baseball off-season update and the start of fantasy tennis season.

Fantasy Baseball

My shortstop dilemma was finally resolved early this past week as I completed a trade with Gettysberg, dealing my second round pick and a 5th round pick in 2011 to the Generals for Orlando Cabrera and a 4th round pick.

This gives my team a solid hitting shortstop for the next couple years while I figure out a long term solution of what I want to do with my first round pick last year, Mike Aviles. I will have to compensate for Cabrera's lousy fielding, but Orlando Hudson at 2nd base will help with that.

So, with the trade, my tentative starting lineup is set for 2010, as follows below.

C- Matt Wieters
1B- Dan Murphy
2B- Orlando Hudson
SS- Orlando Cabrera
3B- Kevin Kouzmanoff
LF- Ben Francisco
CF- Franklin Gutierrez
RF- Clete Thomas/Matt Diaz
DH- Vladimir Guerrero/David Eckstein

Trading my draft pick means that I don't have another pick until the first pick of the third round, which probably won't come around until the beginning of February. This will give me time to look at my own team and scout to see where I go next as far as draftng players.


Fantasy Tennis
Last week, in singles at Brisbane, I opened up with two straight wins, as I followd up my first qualifying round win with an easy victory over the rook Jan Yung of Taiwan. I failed to qualify for the Main Draw, however, on Sunday, as I fell to Jaroslav Fedak, a Slovakian, in the final qualifying round 5-4.

In doubles, Ryan and I ended up with an auotmatic spot in the quarterfinals after getting a walkover in the first round. However, in the quarterfinals, we ran into the greatest doubles team in Tour history, the second seeded Chris and Dom. We held tough in our quarterfinal match, but there's no room for mistakes against the duo of Chris and Dom and one missed pick by myself proved costly as we fell 8-7.


This week, I was forced into the qualifying round again as the Tour moves to Sydney this week. I got a bye in the first qualifiyng round and ended up playing Ronald from the Netherlands in the second qualifying round yesterday. A couple solid picks gave me a 8-7 win and a spot in the final qualifying round, which will be played on Saturday, starting at 7:00 tonight Eastern time. My match is with Juki of Belgium, so it should be a tough battle.

In doubles, Ryan and I are in the main draw again, which begins on Monday (Sunday evening Eastern time). The draw has not yet been made, so our opponent is not determined yet. Check in next week to see how Sydney goes and for a preview of the Autralian Open, the first Grand Slam of the 2010 season.