TFI: Make roster moves to capitalize on hot players  The Fantasy Insider PGATOUR.COM Contributor Five weeks into the PGA TOUR season and life is good. It's still seven weeks before the swallows return to San Juan Capistrano but The Fantasy Insider is antsy beyond believe. There's only a few days remaining before his return to the action, covering next week's AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am for this fine site. And, what do you know, we're down to zero on the countdown clock for unveiling another fine feature of this column: the add-drop listings.
Now that almost everyone on TOUR has had a chance to shake the dust off his head covers and play at least one tournament, it's time to start taking a shovel to some of the guys in the lineup. And each week TFI will tip you to a few guys he'd love to put on his rosters that week (and at least one guy he'd do anything to dump, too). TFI made a quick switch on his match-play roster during Monday night's research session, dropping Ryan Palmer (withdrew from the Buick Invitational for the birth of his first child!) in favor of Mark Calcavecchia. Thanks to all those functionality do-dads the lineup switcheroo took about 15 seconds. If you haven't tried it, give the transactions page a whirl. The 12-man roster in League Championship allows for salting away a few players for when they make a cameo appearance in the U.S. But it also encourages fast-and-loose roster moves, especially in the match-play format. TFI thinks you'd need a pretty darn good reason for going into a match-play week with less than six active players. That would give you two backups in case up to half of your four starters hit the skids. Rotisserie format? Not so much. With only four active players and no weekend subs there's less apparent incentive for dumping a guy. But TFI guesses the most successful roto players are the ones who make the most add-drop moves, if only because they're trying to cycle in studs for a specific start. If you don't believe TFI, here's Example 1: Christian Peterson of fanball.com, the Expert League's clear leader (60.0 points), has made roster changes in three of the fantasy game's first four weeks. He came out of the draft and dumped Briny Baird for Charles Howell III, who nearly won that week's Sony Open in Hawaii (!). He hit a sour note by dumping Jason Bohn in favor of Jose Maria Olazabal for last week's Buick Invitational. But this week he beat everyone to the punch with an early Monday swap of Jesper Parnevik for Mark Calcavecchia, who TFI has as this week's sleeper pick. So here's the takeaway in two fundamentals: Make carefully selected roster moves to capitalize on hot players or pick up a guy with an extremely strong record in a particular event. And make those moves as soon as the transaction window opens, to beat everyone else to the proverbial punch. Which brings us to This Week's Brilliant Question: "I was the volunteer walking scorer for Brett Quigley [Saturday] at the Buick Invitational. I know he's on your team this week and want to apologize for having to enter so many strokes for today's round." -- Gary, G Squared team Um, thanks. A 78's nowhere near as difficult for TFI to take as it was for Quigley. Although TFI did have a screaming fit when the real-time scoring refreshed to show his fifth bogey. Message to walking scorers who find themselves in a group with one of TFI's selections when said player is choking his guts out: After about four holes pull the guy to the side and give him a version of the Ben Bradlee soliloquy in "All The President's Men" where he tells Woodward and Bernstein that "Nothing's riding on [the Watergate story] except the first amendment to the Constitution, freedom of the press and maybe the future of the country." But, you know, make it more dramatic sounding. And related to golf, naturally. Three players TFI might pick up/trade for to get onto his roster this week (Salary Cap Cup price in parenthesis): • Mark Calcavecchia ($118,000). Dollar for salary dollar -- OK, sure, pound for pound, too -- he's had the most unexpectedly phenomenal start, sharing eighth at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic and fourth at the Buick Invitational. Plus he's made the top 10 in Phoenix almost half the times he's entered (9-for-20). • Andrew Buckle ($170,000). Ranked No. 1 in par-4 performance, one of the gold standard stats, the Australian's showing the stuff that made him 13th on the Nationwide Tour money list last season. Up to 84th in the World Ranking and rising. • Charles Howell III ($248,000). Might seem too obvious a pick but this guy's played some of the best rounds of his career so far this season. Toss out that closing 76 in the Hope and he'd have nothing worse than top 20s (with two seconds, including last week). Two players TFI might waive/drop/trade away to get off his roster this week: • Billy Mayfair ($124,500). It pains TFI to put one of the genuinely likeable guys in this category but this is his first start of the season after a rocky second half of 2006 battling testicular cancer. Add the fact that he hasn't finished top 20 here since 2002 and it's a good week to pass. But it's absolutely terrific to see him back on TOUR. • Chad Campbell ($264,250). Treading water with a stroke average of 72.95 at a time of year when TFI's late grandmother could have averaged in the 60s. Showed some brilliance in the first two rounds of the Sony Open in Hawaii but crumbled (66-65-75-73). This has all the markings of a train-wreck season. Rotisserie results for Expert League at Buick Invitational: 41.0 points (sixth). Third in greens in regulation and scrambles, tied for third in fairways, fourth in birdies. And otherwise not much to celebrate, especially considering TFI benched Bubba Watson (tied fourth) while playing Steve Stricker and Anders Hansen (missed cut). Stupid, stupid, stupid. For the season TFI is fourth with 48.0 points, 13 behind lead Christian Peterson of fanball.com. Rotisserie lineup for Expert League at FBR Open: K.J. Choi, Geoff Ogilvy, David Toms, Bubba Watson. Playing but not in lineup: Cameron Beckman, Anders Hansen, Steve Stricker, Kevin Sutherland. Not in field: Tim Clark, Scott Gutschewski, Padraig Harrington, Ryan Palmer. Match-play results for Public League 3359 at Buick Invitational: TFI 15, koach 3. Record: 1-2. The lineup of Vijay Singh, Andrew Buckle, Anders Hansen and Troy Matteson may have dropped 2.5 points on Torrey Pines' South Course but it won an all-but-walkover weekend when the coach had only No. 4 man Rod Pampling making the cut. Match-play lineup for Public League 3359 at FBR Open: TFI (1-2) at St. Pete Crumbsnatchers (2-1). Roster move: Dropped Ryan Palmer, added Mark Calcavecchia. Active: Vijay Singh, Andrew Buckle, Mark Calcavecchia, Davis Love III. Reserves: Anders Hansen, Jonathan Byrd, Daniel Chopra, Zach Johnson, Troy Matteson. Not in field: Ernie Els, Fredrik Jacobson, Nick O'Hern. Salary Cap Cup results for Buick Invitational: The main lineup of Tiger Woods (4,500 FedEx Cup points, won!), Phil Mickelson (59 points, tied 51st), Brett Quigley (51 points, tied 67th), Kevin Sutherland ($463, tied 14th) and Will MacKenzie (0 points, missed cut) earned 5,073 points and placed 5,848th. Through Week 4 it totaled 17,991 points and ranked 487th. And MacKenzie misses the cut by one shot, which would have meant a ton more points. No doubt about it. The "Hey, buddy" backup lineup of Vijay Singh (100 points, tied 39th), Rory Sabbatini (0 points, missed cut), Charles Howell III (2,700 points, second), Charles Warren (0 points, missed cut) and Matt Kuchar (0 points, missed cut) earned 2,800 points and placed 15,239th. Through Week 4 it totaled 7,421 points and ranked 11,973rd. So that's three more guys who miss the cut by one shot. The inhumanity! Week 4 winner: DRC 10,434. Segment 1 leader: coozly 26,252. Salary Cap Cup lineup for FBR Open: Main lineup, Phil Mickelson $300,000, Charles Howell III $248,000, Andrew Buckle $170,000, John Rollins $163,500, Mark Calcavecchia $118,000. Total: $999,500. "Hey, buddy" backup lineup, Vijay Singh $300,000, K.J. Choi $274,000, Stewart Cink $270,750, Justin Leonard $75,000, Nick Watney $75,000. Total: $991,500. Tiebreakers: 262, 3. Have a question or comment for TFI? Send it to him at brettavery@aol.com. Please be sure to include your name, where you're from, the name of your team and, if it relates to League Championship, the name of your league and whether you're competing in the rotisserie or match-play format. |
