By: Russell Shaffer
It’s always a dilemma for a fantasy owner when a SP on your roster is going up against your favorite team. What do you do? Who do you root for?
Do you go with your heart and cheer for your hometown team, or go with the business partner and pull for the fantasy SP? I’ve been on the fence with this very conundrum countless times during my 12 years of playing fantasy baseball, and Wednesday afternoon was the most recent occurrence as Cole Hamels squared off against my beloved Indians. After several years of hypothesizing about the best way for these types of games to play out for both sides, I’ve come up with this formula for success:
The SP goes 6 or 7 innings, piling up 8 to 10 K while limiting the Indians to a run or two on a handful of hits and walks. The Indians starter in turn pitches even better than my fantasy starter, or the Tribe offense erupts against the bullpen to secure a victory once my fantasy SP hits the showers. In the end, I want my Indians to get the victory but I want my SP to pile up the K and control his ERA and WHIP.
That wasn’t the case Wednesday. Cleveland got a lopsided 10-4 victory, which was nice. But they roughed up Hamels for 5 of those runs. In the end, I’ll take my team winning every time but I wish Hamels would have fared better.
As for Hamels, my first Thursday Thought is that I have no idea what is wrong with him. His ERA is 4.61 and his WHIP 1.29 with only 1 W all season. I heard he’s trying to be too fine because the Phillies offense is so bad and he knows he can’t give up more than a run or two and have a chance to win. That might be true, but you certainly aren’t going to win many games giving up 5 runs. I hope Hamels can get out of his own head and start pitching like Cole Hamels again. I know I and lots of other fantasy owners have a lot invested in him.
