Ray didn’t win the SiriusXM Hosts league in 2015 but he made a couple of nice moves off waivers on his way to a decent finish in the 14-team league.

THE DRAFT

Here are the results of the initial draft held back in March.

Mixed
14 teams
5x5 scoring
14 hitters, nine pitchers
six bench spots

*** Note, round taken is in parenthesis.

CATCHER: Miguel Montero (17), Chris Iannetta (21), Stephen Vogt (27)

FIRST BASE: Eric Hosmer (7), Brandon Belt (12), Ryan Howard (23)

SECOND BASE: Aaron Hill (22)

THIRD BASE: Carlos Santana (5), Maikel Franco (26)

SHORTSTOP: Hanley Ramirez (2), Jose Reyes (4)

OUTFIELD: Andrew McCutchen (1), Matt Kemp (3), Shin-Soo Choo (9), Ben Revere (10), Desmond Jennings (16), Dexter Fowler (19), Melvin Upton (28)

PITCHERS: Alex Cobb (6), James Shields (8), Steve Cishek (11), Jered Weaver (13), Jose Quintana (14), Santiago Casilla (15), Jose Fernandez (18), Ken Giles (20), Shane Greene (24), Joakim Soria (25)

TRADES

No one would trade with me… so sad ;-)

Only one deal was actually consummated. The date was July 26. I sent Tyler Clippard to Colton/Wolfman/Stern for Gio Gonzalez. Performance of both guys after that date:

Clippard: 3.06 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 7.24 K/9 just two saves

Gonzalez: 3 Wins, 3.73 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 77 Ks in 70 innings

Clippard lost his closing job as I expected. Unfortunately, Gio didn’t step up like I had hoped.


WAIVER MOVES

* $100 FAAB

April 5 – Jace Peterson, Devon Travis, Daniel Norris

April 12 – T.J. House

April 19 – Dan Haren

April 26– Yonder Alonso, Tim Lincecum

May 3 – Tyler Clippard

May 10 – Carlos Correa $6

May 17 – Maikel Franco $9

May 24 – Shawn Tolleson $6

June 7 – Carson Smith

June 21 – Matt Cain, Alejandro De Aza

July 12 – James McCann

July 19 – Tyler Saladino

August 2 – Jesus Montero, Carlos Sanchez

August 9 – Tommy Kahnle, Asdrubal Cabrera

August 23 – Jackie Bradley Jr.

August 30 – Marco Estrada, Franklin Gutierrez, Ryan Howard

September 13 – J.P. Arencibia

September 27 – Steve Pearce, Jarrett Parker, Adam Conley

Obviously there were a ton of uninspiring adds throughout the year, but the month of May was my big breakthrough. Correa had 20 homers, 13 steals and hit .282 while in my lineup. Franco hit .268 with 12 homers and 46 RBI. Meanwhile, Tolleson produced 32 saves. Huge pick-ups off waivers were the trio.

BREAKDOWN

McCutchen had a great year even if he stole just 11 bags.

HanRam in the second round was a total disaster.

I went with Kemp in the third and 100-plus RBIs was a decent return. Choo in the 9th wasn’t bad either, especially with his monstrous second half (.343/.455/.560 with 56 runs scored). Fowler in the 19th, with his near 20/20 season and 100 runs, certainly turned out well.

Reyes in the 4th was just blah. Boy was my middle infield a mess in this league until I added Correa.

Santana in the 5th failed to hit 20 homers and had another bad batting average in the .230s. Seems like he will never take that step forward.

Got crushed on the hill though. Cobb blew his arm out. Shields had his worst effort in years. Cishek bombed atrociously. Weaver was a nobody. Greene flamed out like the Hindenburg.

I led the league in RBIs, was second in runs, third in steals, fourth in average and fifth in homers. That was impressive. The hurlers? Ugh. Usually I’m better at the in-season pick game. Didn’t happen this season, though it’s always hard to have success when your top SP and top RP both crap out. I did lead the league in saves, thanks to Tolleson, but I was no higher than seventh best in any of the four other categories. Wins in particular killed me. I had 70 on the season, tied for the worst mark in the league. The league leader had 109.

FINISH

Not a bad season overall, but not enough went right to pull out the win. Just can’t win a league with a pitching staff that struggled this badly (3.75 ERA, 1.26 WHIP). That was barely better than the league average in 2015 (4.11 ERA, 1.30 WHIP).

4th place out of 14 teams