But when the sports auditors at Examiner.com wanted to have their own league, I could hardly turn down the invitation. No I don’t need another league, but I am their national fantasy baseball writer and, especially after having won the examiners fantasy football league much to the chagrin of the football writers, I had to draft a team.
Sunday morning preplan thoughts
Now I just have to make a plan to beat them. Here are my predraft observations for a league I don’t normally play in - a very shallow 12-team mixed league. And with short rosters – the standard Yahoo configuration of one infielder at each position with three outfielders and two utility players along with two SP, two RP and two pitchers.
The good news is I don’t have to have a second catcher. The better news is I got them to ditch the innings pitched maximum. So how should I draft this team?
Many might wait on a catcher since with only 12 being drafted the last few will be decent. But in my opinion there is such a big potential drop off after the first five that if you can get one of them without a hit to the rest of your team you will have a big edge.
Secondly, the top infielders will be at a huge premium, although you are obviously restricted by your draft position – which I won’t know until I check into the draft room tonight.
It does seem that waiting on pitching should work, and there are so many guys who won’t be in the top 12 that I like that I can wait until the top two tiers (three and then six) go off the board before I dive in and hopefully can find some of Max Scherzer, Cole Hamels, Tommy Hanson, and Mat Latos to put into my SP slots. Neftali Feliz will be a huge wildcard, but as he is the centerpiece of my AL keeper league I am happy to let someone try and beat me with him.
Sunday night draft results
Well part of my plan above was scrapped in round one as I had the tenth pick in the draft and they took all the usual suspects leaving me Carl Crawford – and I couldn’t pass him up there. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it started me thinking and that little bubble led me to pick Kevin Youkilis in the top of the second round. Not that I don’t like Youk – and he should be an RBI machine in the Red Sox lineup, and I was looking at moving him to third base in week three. That would mean I would draft a second first baseman starting them at UT for the two weeks and take a flyer on a third baseman I knew I could draft late (Edwin Encarnacion was stuck in the back of my mind).
By the time I was up in round three I was perhaps over confident in my plan –especially thinking that I could grab Aubrey Huff later and so with both Ian Kinsler and Dustin Pedroia gone, and Brian McCann already off the board, I decided to get Victor Martinez and be well ahead there. I should have taken Adam Dunn who was the next player off the board.
Round four choices were not what I wanted on the hitting side, so I decided with a starter. And with Cliff Lee, Clayton Kershaw, and Jon Lester already gone, I went with Dan Haren. At least Todd would like the pick. Round five’s decimation of my list concluded with Hunter Pence taken right in front of me, so I continued to build the staff with Jered Weaver there and Carlos Marmol on the turn.
The play by play might be interesting to some but my game is getting ready to start in the mud. Suffice it to say that if they take it away from you someplace they have to give it back somewhere else – who could imagine getting Kung Fu Panda in the ninth round (after someone had taken Aubrey Huff in the eighth!). Of course I got some back in the 12th (wink).
So here is the whole team, with round drafted in parentheses (remember this is a 12-team, 24-round draft and teams start ten hitters and six pitchers).
C – Victor Martinez (3)
1B – Kevin Youkilis (2)
2B – Ben Zobrist (7)
3B – Pablo Sandoval (9)
SS – Starlin Castro (11)
OF – Carl Crawford (1)
OF – Curtis Granderson (8)
OF – Andres Torres (14)
UT – Mike Napoli (12)
UT – Adam LaRoche (16)
SP – Dan Haren (4)
SP – Jered Weaver (5)
RP – Carlos Marmol (6)
RP – Huston Street (13)
P - - Max Scherzer (10)
P - - Jeremy Hellickson (15)
Hitting Reserves – Danny Espinosa (17), Manny Ramirez (18), & Austin Jackson (20)
Pitching Reserves – Brandon League (19), Koji Uehara (21), Jair Jurrjens (22), Clay Hensley (23), & Travis Wood (24).
I might be a little short in BA but everything else looks fine – but of course I am staring through raindrops at the field.
As always, questions and discussion is welcome on the message board.
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