Where did I go wrong?

(If you don't care about fantasy baseball, you'll want to do a big scroll here.)

I made the mistake of playing three fantasy baseball leagues in a summer in which I was overwhelmed by work and kept up a busy family, soccer and housework schedule. There's just no way to keep up when you're doing all that.

Still, I'm finding myself today trying to figure out where it all went wrong. I started with the best of intentions and made the right moves in ditching a couple of players early (I had Cristian "maybe I'll break .200" Guzman in two leagues and got rid of him in April in both cases). I also snagged Jon Garland early in his big win streak and got Travis Hafner on two teams.

Everything else just went horribly astray, like Brian Carroll's shot to seal the game for D.C. United last night.

Here's the breakdown.

Team 1: 12-team, head-to-head, no keepers: R, HR, RBI, SB, E, AVG, OPS / W, SV, HBP, K, ERA, WHIP

April 3	Aug. 24
C Johnny Estrada	C A.J. Pierzynski
2B Tadahito Iguchi (bench)	1B Mike Sweeney
OF Alex Sanchez	2B Brian Roberts
3B Melvin Mora	3B Melvin Mora
SS Cristian Guzman	SS Bill Hall
1B/OF Aubrey Huff	1B/OF Aubrey Huff
OF Carl Crawford	OF Juan Encarnacion
OF Manny Ramirez	OF Jeff Francoeur
UT Sean Casey	UT Sean Casey
2B Luis Castillo	2B Luis Castillo (bench)
OF Coco Crisp (bench)	OF Matt Lawton (bench)
RP Chin-hui Tsao (bench)	OF Willy Taveras (bench)
SP Jeremy Bonderman	SP Jon Garland
SP Woody Williams	SP Bruce Chen
SP John Thomson	SP John Thomson
SP Barry Zito	SP Barry Zito
P Danny Graves	P Brad Penny
P Jaret Wright (bench; rotating)	P Jaret Wright (bench; rotating)
P John Smoltz	P John Smoltz
RP Latroy Hawkins	RP Chris Reitsma

I made a lot of minor moves along the way, but the big ones were trades. I didn't trade very well -- a couple of these moves were followed by insulting offers from the league's resident fleecer, so clearly I had become the patsy at the table.

• April: Drop Tsao, Williams and Guzman, pick up Garland, Chen and Jose Valentin (later dropped).
• May 7: Trade Crawford for Hinske and Encarnacion.
• May 22: Trade Crisp and Eric Hinske for Sweeney.
• Aug. 22-23: Trade Ramirez and Bonderman for Penny, Roberts and Francoeur; drop Julio.

Team 2: No keepers, 10-team head-to-head league: R, H, 2B, HR, RBI, SB, A, AVG, OPS / W, SV, K, ERA, WHIP

This one is the most perplexing, though you can see the disappointments in my Opening Day lineup -- Thome, Rolen, Patterson and Perez have all been hurt and/or had horrifying runs. This is the league in which someone dropped Melvin Mora after the first week, so that gives you some idea of the panic level of the competition. Still, I dropped Chacin too soon.

I've listed ALL my moves just to show how frustrating it's been.

April 3	Aug. 24
C Johnny Estrada	C Bengie Molina
1B Jim Thome	1B Travis Hafner
2B Chone Figgins	2B Ron Belliard
3B Scott Rolen	3B Eric Chavez
SS Miguel Tejada	SS Miguel Tejada
IF Chipper Jones	IF Chipper Jones
OF Johnny Damon	OF Johnny Damon
OF Corey Patterson	OF Brian Giles
OF J.D. Drew	OF Jeff Francoeur
UT Ken Griffey Jr.	UT Shea Hillenbrand
OF Alex Sanchez (bench)	C Brian McCann (bench)
no one on DL	C/1B Mike Piazza (DL)
SP Chris Carpenter	SP Chris Carpenter
SP Oliver Perez	SP Kevin Millwood
SP Jake Westbrook	SP Casey Fossum
P Greg Maddux	P Greg Maddux
P Tim Hudson	P Tim Hudson
RP Eddie Guardado	RP Eddie Guardado
RP Latroy Hawkins	RP Scot Shields
RP Jorge Julio (bench)	RP Brandon Lyon (bench)

• April 11: Drop Hawkins, add Lyon.
• April 28: Drop Westbrook, add Gustavo Chacin.
• May 6: Add Juan Encarnacion.
• May 14: Drop Encarnacion, add Corey Koskie and Trot Nixon.
• May 18: Drop Figgins, add Bret Boone.
• May 20: Drop Koskie, add Chavez.
• May 28: Drop Drew.
• June 7: Add Rafael Palmeiro.
• June 16-17: Drop Sanchez, Julio, Chacin, Boone and Nixon; add Giles, Mark Redman, Chris Young, Danny Haren and Richie Weeks.
• June 24: Drop Hillenbrand, add Hafner.
• June 28: Drop Perez, add Joe Blanton.
• July 9: Drop Patterson, add Reggie Sanders.
• July 24: Drop Thome, add Milton Bradley.
• July 28: Drop Blanton and Haren, add Shields and Hillenbrand.
• July 29: Drop Weeks, add Belliard.
• Aug. 6: Drop Estrada, Young, Bradley and Redman; add Fossum, Millwood, Piazza and Francoeur.
• Aug. 22-24: Drop Palmeiro, Sanders, Rolen; add McCann (temp replacement for Piazza) and Molina (perm replacement).

Team 3: 16-team keeper league, traditional Roto: R, 2B, HR, RBI, SB, A, AVG, OPS / IP, W, SV, K, ERA, WHIP

April 3	Aug. 24
C Jason Kendall	C Brian McCann
1B Sean Casey	1B Richie Sexson
2B Alfonso Soriano	2B Ray Durham
3B Scott Rolen	3B Bill Mueller
SS Cristian Guzman	SS Omar Vizquel
IF Aramis Ramirez	IF Jay Gibbons
OF Corey Patterson	OF Adam Dunn
OF Alex Sanchez	OF Matt Stairs
OF Eric Byrnes	OF Matt Lawton
OF Brian Jordan	1B Travis Hafner
OF Shannon Stewart	OF Shannon Stewart
(empty bench spot)	3B Bill Mueller
SP Pedro Martinez	SP C.C. Sabathia
SP Jon Lieber	SP Jon Lieber
SP Brad Penny (DL)	SP Brad Penny
RP Dan Kolb	RP Miguel Batista
P Rodrigo Lopez	P Rodrigo Lopez
P Bronson Arroyo	P Bronson Arroyo
P Tim Wakefield	P Tim Wakefield
P Jorge Julio	1B Phil Nevin (bench)

Various fill-ins: 1B Calvin Pickering (last time I listen to the sabermetrics geeks), OF Jason Lane, IF Jorge Cantu, IF/OF John Mabry

• April 12: Drop Guzman, pick up Vizquel
• April 13: Trade Ramirez for Thome
• May 18: Trade Casey and Martinez for Sexson and Batista
• June 24: Trade Soriano and Thome for Dunn and Hafner

Next year, I'm sticking to soccer. Not that I'm doing any better there.