NFBC Journal: Week 3 - Doumit injury beginning off tough week.

One of the challenges of fantasy baseball is that it is a 26 week marathon, rather than a sprint. The teams that sit at the top of the standings in your league (and mine) are the ones who have had the appropriate mix of skill and luck. Luck comes in two forms of course, good and bad. I got my first bad break of the season as my top C, Ryan Doumit, went on the DL with a broken bone in his hand. He will be out for 8-10 weeks. It is a big blow, and I appropriately went out and grabbed his replacement Jason Jaramillo. He has started out well and I can only hope he is decent while he holds down the forst.

For the week, the Doumit injury was the beginning of a fairly mediocre week for the Muggers. We didn't excel anywhere and gave back all of the gains made in our big Week 2, sliding back down to 6th place, with 94 pts. In the Overall standings, we tumbled down to 125th.

Taking a quick look at my team's Week 3 stats: Offensively, Jimmy Rollins continued to stick up the joint. O sb's is not what I drafted him for and it is really killing me in that important category. Matt Kemp had a down week, but he was due for a correction after his torrid start. Nick Markakis continued his torrid hitting, and is easily my offensive MVP. My Felix Pie gamble was a disaster as he was awful for the week. He survived being cut for one more week, but he is squarely on the chopping block.

On the bright side, Chris Davis, Rick Ankiel and Kendry Morales - three very important power and rbi sources for my team all finally woke up. Asdrubal Cabrera and Kosuke Fukodome have continued to be fantastic values as late round picks. Cabrera has even been moved up the the two-hole in the Indians lineup, so he should see a nice value boost at least in the short term.

My pitching was good, but inconsistent this week. Billingsley continued his great pitching and has been everything I could have hoped for. J Cueto and J Jurrjens both turned in stellar starts, but I need to get more K's from Cueto. Brett Myers needs to get it going for me soon though, he had another rough outing last week. Kenshin Kawakami found out that Cincinnatti is not a fun park to pitch in if you don't have your best stuff and Paul Maholm came back to earth a bit.

As the week came to a close, I needed to obviously address my catching situation. As I stated earlier, I placed a bid on Jaramillo with numerous conditional picks to make sure I came away with a sub. Ryan Perry was the casualty as saves don't look like they will be coming his way anytime soon. Having to carry a DL'd player means my bench got one player shorter. I also decided to grab an 8th starter and cut Todd Coffey. Hoffman is back and Coffey will head back to middle relief. I almost cut Pie, and if Hoffman hadn't come back I would have. I bid on Scott Richmond, but didn't get him - he went for $51. The runner-up bid was $45. I bid $41. My fallback was Ross Ohlendorf, who has pitched well of late. I got him for $1.

I held onto Matt LaPorta and Pedro Alvarez for another week. LaPorta is tearing it up in AAA, and may get called up sooner than later. Andy LaRoche has finally started hitting, so it may be time to give up on Alvarez. Pie will be the next Mugger cut though. I dropped Perry and Coffey, but held onto Dan Wheeler for another week. I still believe he'll get a chance to close at some point.

For week 4, in a move aimed at trying to get some SB's, I have inserted both C Maybin and C Rasmus into the lineup this week. Pie and Scutaro head to the bench. K Morales finally has his CI eligibility, so he moves there. Kawakami gets a break this week and Ohlendorf gets a start. I may start targeting two-start pitchers for the 9th spot in my rotation on a weekly basis.

Okay - that's the weekly update. I am very pleased to say that Jimmy Rollins stole his first base last night - I can only hope it is the start of a hot streak for him and my team this week.