NFBC Journal: Week 2 - Why is Matt Kemp still batting 7th?

My good friend Don commented on my last post by saying "April is for fools!". A nice pun, and one that is very true when it comes to fantasy. Take a look at the standings right now and you just might think you have actually been transported to an alternate universe with the Marlins, Blue Jays, Mariners and Royals all in first place today. Experienced fantasy players now to take April stats, fast starts and slumps with a grain of salt, but everyone wants to get off to a healthy and fast start.

Week 2 was a good one for the Muggers. A look at the standings for Week 2 show that we won the week with a balanced attack. The weekly win moved us up in the YTD standings from 6th place to 2nd place. The Muggers gained 15.5 points to 101 (out of 150 possible). In the Overall Standings in race for the $100,000 we moved up 130 spots to 51. So while others are lamenting the fact that they started Chien-Ming Wang or Joel Hanrahan last week we can exhale and enjoy a quick start.

Matt Kemp (.391, 8R, 2HR, 9RBI, 3SB) and Nick Markakis again led the way with stellar weeks. Marco Scutaro, my Week 1 FAAB pickup, continued to produce and Kosuke Fukodome, who sent Cameron Maybin to the bench, rewarded me with a solid week while Maybin continued to struggle. On the mound, Chad Billingsley was rock solid again in a 2-0 week (17 k's) and is looking like the Ace that I will need at the top of my rotation. While W's didn't pour in this week, all my starters were decent and I suffered no blowouts. Carlos Villaneuva had the worst week on my staff and likely lost his chance to stake a claim to the closer's job.

A quick look at my team for Week 2 shows that I still have some sleeping bats, mainly Rick Ankiel's and Jimmy Rollins'. Hopefully the latter's home run late in the week will be the beginning of a hot streak for a player I really need to get going to help my SB numbers.

Again, I have avoided the injury bug, which is the goal of any player starting out and with a solid 7 SP's the need to tinker with my roster was small. Villanueva was the guy to drop and I decided to put a speculative $31 bid on his bullpen mate Todd Coffey, which I won. I overspent because apparently I was the only one who think his solid start has moved him up the ladder in MIL. On second thought a $1-$2 bid should have been made here. Justin Masterson and Chris Dickerson were guys I made bids on - but not ones that were competitive. I would have dropped Pedro Alvarez to get one of them, but I don't view either of them as game changers. I will hold onto Alvarez for another week.

As for lineup changes - Kenshin Kawakami goes back in since he draws Washington this week, meaning all my starters are in. On the hitting side, Maybin stays on the pine and I am playing a hunch by starting Felix Pie this week. The O's have 7 games this week, so I'll give Pie the start over Colby Rasmus. Rick Ankiel gets another chance to get it going.

Hopefully we'll get to the top spot next week. Happy 4/20 all my Green pals out there!