Batter's Box Interactive Magazine Batter's Box Interactive Magazine Batter's Box Interactive Magazine
Baseball has changed significantly over the last 20 years. There was the Moneyball revolution that is almost 20 years old. The newer advances we have seen on the field in the last couple of years, shifts, openers, pitcher usage, less bunting, catcher framing and on and on. Most of these changes are readily observable and often lead to analysis on Fangraphs or similar sites. We may not appreciate their impact on the enjoyment of the game but we understand why teams use those options.
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Last night, Slaughtergarde had a fantasy hockey draft that took under four minutes, and then I tried to trade two sawhorses for Mike Smith.
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When we last left Slaugtergarde, the baseball fantasy league where all the statistics are fake, the league had a disastrous draft and then fell apart due to rampant, uncontested cheating. Friends, I agonized for a long time about how to modify the rules to reward ingenuity while preventing cheating, and I came up with a brilliant plan: this time, there will be no rules.
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When we last visited Slaughtergarde, the fantasy baseball league where all the statistics are fake, we were reeling from our disastrous draft. Few owners assembled the teams they were trying to; some of us felt lucky to escape with our lives.

Now that we are a few weeks in, some narratives are forming:

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As your old pal Named For Hank watches the first night of Realigned Baseball's Non-Stop Battle of Texas, it seems like a good opportunity to update you on the pain and suffering going on in Slaughtergarde, our Fantasy-themed Fantasy League.

Before we get going, did anyone tell Jeff Luhnow that the jersey budget doesn't come out of payroll? No? Well, they're stuck with them now.

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Back in the earliest days of the Cheer Club, we had a thing called the Hall of Dubious Achievements.

Having our "HEY PHIL, EJECT THIS" sign ejected from the Rogers Centre. Irritating the Yankee pitching staff from all the way up in the 500 level so much that they complained to stadium security. Richard Griffin telling me in person how much he disliked an article about him without realizing I had written the article. These things were the very definition of Dubious Achievements. And now I may have out-dubiously achieved all of our exploits.

I didn't set out to create the World's Worst Fantasy Baseball League. But guys... Oh man, have I ever done a bad thing.

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Disclaimer: a review copy of this book was provided to me.
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Now I'm no longer even pretending to keep to a monthly schedule. I feel liberated, I do.
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I hope this review makes up for the couple of months I missed there.
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I actually don't have a lot of these left to do.
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This was the first or second book on the Jays that I ever got.
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It's Alison Gordon time again! Seems like it comes earlier every year.
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A while ago Richard Griffin did his list of best baseball books. This was on it.

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Okay, so I'm way off the monthly schedule. Still: never say die!
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