Fantasy update - All-star break

The East Dillon Lions are comfortably in first place in the League of Nations, a Yahoo! mixed, 12-team, head-to-head league. We start a catcher, one of each infielder, three outfielders, and one utility player. So nine guys. Of those nine, seven of mine are in the all-star game. Mauer, Adrian Gonzalez, Pedroia (D/L), Longoria, Furcal, Eithier, and Swisher. No wonder I'm winning. As far as pitching my all-stars include Papelbon, Thornton (we use holds among other pitching categories), Lester, and Price, who is starting for the A.L.

(By the way, I'm watching the game as I type this. I can't believe Charlie Manuel has Ryan Howard as his DH and batting clean-up with the first three pitchers for the A.L. being left-handers. Howard is practically a platoon player, and probably shouldn't be on the team in the first place. Maybe I'm still mad about the Votto snub, but this is criminal. By the way, how stupid are the Phillies? Their GM traded Cliff Lee in the off-season for no good reason, and here is what their manager recently said.)

The Legends are also leading the Colonial League by eleven roto points. The Colonial is a ten-team, N.L. only, re-draft roto league. Surprisingly, my first place team only has six all-stars, David Wright, Jose Reyes, Jason Heyward, Chris Young, Jonathan Broxton, and Tim Lincecum. I drafted a bunch of young guys with up-side and for the most part their paying off. (Blue Sock Evan Longoria, see below, just doubled.)

The Blue Sox in the bgal, a ten-team, A.L. only, keeper league, are not fairing as well. I'm in 7th, 11 roto points out of the money. I don't want to get caught where I did last year, out of the money at tied for fourth and no good draft picks. I've had a couple of big injuries (Beckett, Choo, Harden) but it's mostly that every pitcher I throw out there gives up a ton of runs. My offense is probably good enough to get me in the money, but last place in era isn't going to cut it. As we speak, I'm negotiating a trade of Ian Kinsler (too expensive to keep next year) for another decent keeper pitcher. If this trade goes through, it will signal that I'm rebuilding for next year. As far as all-stars, I've got Kinsler and Longoria and Hughes and Buchholz, although I just traded for Buchholz in June, so I haven't had him all year. Rios got snubbed, and Choo would have made the team had he not gotten hurt.