I mentioned a while back that I'd be drafting a team last night. This is the league where I'm up against some pro and aspiring poker players. It's not quite standard Yahoo rules. Some of the modifications are that the roster configuration includes an extra first baseman, batting average has been replaced by on base percentage, and there's a 900 minimimum for innings pitched.
My basic strategy was to go for hitting early, unless any pitchers I liked dropped a lot further than expected. Usually when I use this strategy, I still end up picking two or three pitchers in the first ten rounds. Not yesterday. There was a pretty wide range of experience levels among the players in the league, and pitching was generally going a lot earlier than usual. I have a very, very, very offense heavy team. That may seem like a problem, but I'm generally able to compensate for weak pitching in Yahoo's format by rotating middle relievers with favorable matchups into the lineup slots of any starting pitchers who aren't pitching each day.
Throughout the season, I'll be providing some updates on how this team is doing. Here are my draft results from yesterday:
1. (12) Mark Teixeira
2. (13) Ian Kinsler
3. (36) Nick Markakis
4. (37) Manny Ramírez
5. (60) Brian Roberts
6. (61) Nate McLouth
7. (84) Chris Davis
8. (85) Nelson Cruz
9. (108) Mike Napoli
10. (109) Jason Giambi
11. (132) Ryan Dempster
12. (133) Chad Qualls
13. (156) Brian Wilson
14. (157) Heath Bell
15. (180) Kevin Slowey
16. (181) Brett Myers
17. (204) Pablo Sandoval
18. (205) Yunel Escobar
19. (228) Randy Winn
20. (229) Clayton Kershaw
21. (252) Kendry Morales
22. (253) Chris Dickerson
23. (276) Josh Willingham
24. (277) Hiroki Kuroda
25. (300) Rafael Pérez
26. (301) Phil Hughes
27. (324) Paul Maholm
28. (325) Ubaldo Jiménez
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5 comments:
Did you regret not pre-ranking all your players? I'm curious. I have opinions and feelings about each player - it seems to me to be a waste of time to go through the formality of pre-ranking.
Alex, I'd be pretty happy with that. Maybe a little short on speed, but probably enough brute force to compensate in other categories. A real offensive juggernaut.
The string of Davis-Cruz-Napoli-Giambi seems like a fun group of players to own.
I think your pitching is fine. You were able to get strikeout potential at a low cost (Myers, Kershaw) and insure it with Dempster and Slowey. None of these pitchers are rockstars but 1-2 of them should come through with flying colors, and as you say, the rest can come off the waiver wire.
Phil Hughes is kind of an interesting pick. I hardly hear anything about him these days.
Nice draft. How many teams were in this one? If it was 12 teams, some of those late pitchers you got were absolute thefts where you got them.
Not to nitpick a nice draft, but I thought the Mike Napoli pick was likely a reach. The OBP instead of BA helps him out and he'll out HR probably any C that was on the board at the time and give you a few steals. However, I don't know if the margin in those two categories between him and some other guys likely available is worth a 9th round pick. Also he won't contribute any more in the R+RBI than a lot of baseline catchers will.
Wasn't a "terrible" pick but I wonder if getting Sandoval a lot later made you think about who else was there for you in the 9th round.
Napoli may have been a bit of a reach (which I'm glad to hear, since I'm targeting him and Iannetta), but he may chip in 5-10 steals as well as the great OBP and power. That's pretty unique among catchers in that price range (10th round or later).
If you prorate his stats last year to 120 games (with same rate of at bats) you get 31 HR, 11 SB. Not bad. I don't think he'll repeat it but he should be in the neighborhood.
no way dude. this might be the worst starting pitching I have ever seen. I would be very impressed if you were competitive in this league.
I do recognize that you won rotohog last year, and that def makes you the guru in my mind, but hey, I guess everyone can have a bad draft.
DT
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