I was invited to Fantasy411’s industry slow mock to open the mocking season. Now, what feels like a month later, only two picks remain. Because I love my team, I thought I’d brag about it.

The mock has some serious competitors involved. Jason Collette, Paul Sporer, Derek VanRiper, Will Carroll, Joe Sheehan, Todd Zola, Steve Gardner, Ray Flowers, Cory Schwartz, Lawr Michaels, Zach Steinhorn and Jeff Erickson were the 12 other managers, listed from last to first pick. A good gaggle of go-getters.

I had the last pick of the first round — which was fine with me. I love this team. Here are the overall results so far, but after the jump I’ll take you through my picks round by round. It’s mocking season!

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This week, we’ll be giving away one FG+ membership per day by playing the FG+ Over/Under Game. The wrinkle on this game is that it’s subjective: we’ll provide a player and a number, and you use the comments section to make your best argument for the over or the under. The RotoGraphs staff will pick a winner every day, and that person will get a free subscription to FG+, which includes 11 full-length fantasy strategy articles, 1100 player caps on the player pages, and ongoing access to the FG+ blog, which features the writing the FanGraphs team provides to ESPN Insider on a weekly basis all year.

For our third over/under game, let’s take a look at Mike Trout and Bryce Harper.

The over/under for today’s game is an either/or: Trout or Harper. As in, which player would you want if you were starting a new keeper league today and had the first pick? First, kudos for rigging the game in your favor. Second, I hope it’s an ottoneu league. Third — which one are you taking?

One’s got wheels of steal and surprising pop. The other has light-tower power and the eye blacks of a champion. One is in a crowded outfield but has the ability to contribute in every category. The other has no roadblocks but may be more of your traditional slugger. If you had a subscription to FG+ right now, you could consult David Golebiewski’s excellent piece polling the major prospecters about their preference between the two players, or read Jason Catania on Keeper League Strategies. Zach Sanders’ piece on Valuing Upside Graphically might also come into play.

But since you don’t — and yes, I’m suggesting that current FG + subscribers take a back seat and allow those without your knowledge to compete for this — you’ll have to do the best you can to suss out the difference between these two super studs. If your answer changes depending on league settings, feel free to include that in your answer.

Have at it!

So you take your Prince Fielder or Adrian Gonzalez, you select Evan Longoria or Jose Bautista and breathe a sigh of relief that you have first base and third base covered, now let’s see about building something of a respectable pitching staff. And then around the 15th round it occurs to you that you have that pesky corner infield situation to tend to (not to mention middle infield, and for those of you in such leagues – one or more utility slots — but that’s for another post).

I have fallen into a false sense of security before during drafts where I select a player and feel a little like Ed Norton in Fight Club regarding his couch – that is, “I’ve got that sofa issue handled.” We know there’s more work to be done on the offense side of the dish, yet we might fail to plan as diligently as we did for the respective positions.

This post is a little strategy that might be quite “101” to some, but it was born out of comments about the need to plan for the flex positions in our leagues. The context is standard 5×5, 12 team, non-keeper roto leagues.

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This week, we’ll be giving away one FG+ membership per day by playing the FG+ Over/Under Game. The wrinkle on this game is that it’s subjective: we’ll provide a player and a number, and you use the comments section to make your best argument for the over or the under. The RotoGraphs staff will pick a winner every day, and that person will get a free subscription to FG+, which includes 11 full-length fantasy strategy articles, 1100 player caps on the player pages, and ongoing access to the FG+ blog, which features the writing the FanGraphs team provides to ESPN Insider on a weekly basis all year.

For our second over/under game, let’s take a look at Jonathan Papelbon.

The over/under number for Papelbon is $12. As in, would you spend more than $12 on Papelbon in ottoneu? What sort of settings would make Papelbon worth that scratch?

The 31-year-old famously switched home parks over the offseason, but he’s still on a good team and still the owner of a great strikeout rate and a miniscule walk rate. His velocity came back and his closer face was in mid-season form all year long. If you had paid for FanGraphs+, you’d have Chad Young’s excellent breakdown of different strategies for each ottoneu setting, and you’d know even more about the relative value of relievers in a game that has five reliever slots, linear weights scoring, and a $400 overall budget.

But since you don’t — and yes, I’m suggesting that current FG + subscribers take a back seat and allow those without your knowledge to compete for this — you’ll have to do the best you can to suss out Papelbon’s value this season in ottoneu. His average price last year was near $8 — but that was leagues of all settings and that was before his resurgent year. If you think you’d more likely pay $12 (or more) for him in one of the three ottoneu settings than any of the others, include that in your answer. To make sure everyone is eligible — feel free to describe the settings that would make Papelbon worth every bit of a hefty price tag.

Have at it!

Continuing with our look at the RotoGraphs Reader Mock Draft, here’s a glance at Rounds 17-20.  Since risk is much less of a concern this far down in the draft, I’ll just highlight my favorite pick in the round followed up with some thoughts on some of the other selections. Read the rest of this entry »

Each year, there’s always one pick in the draft that always seems to cause the biggest stir amongst the fantasy community and leads to the greatest number of emails seeking added opinions.  It used to be closer to the tail end of the first round when an owner was deciding between whichever offensive treat was left or the number one overall starting pitcher.  This year, I’ve received a number of emails from people with the 4th pick.  People with the 8th and 9th picks are rolling their eyes right now, but truly, the 4th pick can cause quite the conundrum.

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As you well know by now, some dutiful readers of RotoGraphs took it upon themselves to virtually duke it out in an online mock draft, putting to test what we have repeatedly analyzed in the past several weeks — that is, just exactly where should we expect some of our favorite players to be taken?

There is of course a great deal of risk in relying solely on one source for your average draft positions, and while the draft was conducted in Mock Draft Central, having some well informed individuals making the selections instead of what could be third graders and well trained monkeys for all we know, provides us with a nice window for analysis.

For today, third base will be under the microscope.

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Continuing our analysis of the RotoGraphs Reader Mock Draft, here’s a look at Rounds 5 through 8… Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday night was the ottoneu keeper deadline and every owner was busy deciding who had earned a roster spot for 2012 and who was being tossed back into the pond. While I was debating a $40 Matt Holliday and a $26 Pablo Sandoval, others were wrestling over a $42 Roy Halladay or a $27 Mat Latos.

The kept players can provide some great insight into where the ottoneu owner universe stands on the ottoneu player universe as we head into auction season.

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Every week, every team gets a day off, usually on Monday or Thursday. On those days, it is nice for a fantasy owner to be able to put a player into a lineup that may add a few counting stats without hurting the team’s batting average. Zach Sanders coined these players: Plug-n-Play. These are players that have full-time jobs, but don’t have much power and don’t accumulate a ton of Runs and RBIs. Usually they hit lower in the lineup and their only fantasy attribute is batting average. I decided to look at some Plug-n-Play candidates for 2012.

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