Catching Up

It's been tough keeping up posting with all of the excitement over Opening Day. Over the next few days, I'll see if I can get caught up. I'll start today by sharing my thoughts on my second NFBC Online Double Play draft. Going into it, I wanted to make a few changes from my strategy in the first one:

1. Get at least one more very strong starting pitcher.
2. Try to 'reach' on less of my favorite players, and I see if could make more 'value' picks.
3. Where possible, diversify by not picking players I had on the first team. I don't want an injury to kill the chances of both teams, so especially in the first five or six rounds I didn't want to repeat picks.
4. Use my bench to take advantage of the one game 'week 0' scoring period.
5. Get Matt Wieters and Francisco Liriano.

I definitely think I succeeded on the first count. My top three of Johnson, Hamels, and Anderson is a little strong than my other team (which has Lester, Anderson, and Slowey).

Hard to say whether I did a good job of getting value picks overall. Speed was definitely undervalued in this draft, so I think Reyes at 32 and Morgan at 185 were good value. Also, I think McLouth at 137 was good, and he certainly wasn't someone on my radar.

No repeats until C. Gonzalez at 89, so that part of my plan was successful.

Gardner and Okajima made sure that my 'week 0' strategy was worthwhile.

I reached a bit for Wieters at 56. Liriano was gone before 152, where I had planned to take him. I really think I'm going to regret not getting him on either team.

One other pick I'm questioning is Jason Werth at 41. Based on ADP, this represents good value. The reason I don't like it, is that I think really think Nelson Cruz is a superior player who fits the same profile. I didn't pick Cruz, because I thought there was a chance he'd make it back to me at 56...in which case I would have tried to wait until 65 for Wieters. It didn't work out that way, since Cruz went before my next pick.

My other mistake was not realizing that Rauch was still available when I took Madson. That could really cost me, if Lidge comes back relatively soon.