My LABR Mixed Team
Phew. After a nearly four and a half hour snake draft online, I have officially completed the earliest draft in my fantasy baseball career. LABR stands for League of Alternative Baseball Reality, and along with Tout Wars, is one of the two most publicized “expert” leagues. In the past, LABR has had only two leagues, an AL-Only and NL-Only, with both formats using a live auction in Arizona to select players. Last year, a mixed league with an online draft was formed and I participated in the inaugural season as well. With that background out of the way, let’s get into more league specifics.
This is a 15-team 5×5 league with the standard 14/9 starting rosters and 6 bench spots. We are allowed an unlimited number of players on the disabled list, so Tommy John surgery returnees like Brandon Beachy and Cory Luebke, would make for low risk selections if they were available in the reserve rounds, which of course they weren’t. I drew the fourth overall pick, which I think is awful this year. There is a clear cut top three, and then a cliff after those.
As with any draft or auction I participate in, I tend to take pitchers late or spend close to the least amount of my budget on pitching. I am confident in my ability to grab undervalued starters late and enjoy filling up my bench with lottery tickets. This year, I also realized that there is a massive number of outfielders I felt were being undervalued, as compared to their NFBC ADP ranks. So I decided that I was going to try to steer clear of paying value for the top outfielders so I had room later on to fill up on the undervalued guys.
My Winning Squad (Round):
C: Victor Martinez (5)
C: Mike Napoli (9)
1B: Anthony Rizzo (6)
3B: Brett Lawrie (4)
CI: Adam LaRoche (10)
2B: Robinson Cano (1)
SS: Starlin Castro (3)
MI: Andrelton Simmons (17)
OF: Jason Heyward (2)
OF: Ichiro Suzuki (11)
OF: Alejandro De Aza (13)
OF: Starling Marte (14)
OF: Justin Ruggiano (18)
U: Chris Parmelee or one of my reserve hitters (25)
P: James Shields (7)
P: Tim Lincecum (8)
P: Homer Bailey (12)
P: Rafael Betancourt (15)
P: Steve Cishek (16)
P: Andrew Cashner (19)
P: Shelby Miller (20)
P: Trevor Bauer (23)
P: Frank Francisco (24)
BN: Jedd Gyorko (21)
BN: Darin Mastroianni (22)
BN: Mark Rogers (26)
BN: Chris Archer (27)
BN: Carlos Villanueva (28)
BN: Carlos Carrasco (29)
Rd 1- According to the NFBC, since the latest PED drama surfaced and Ryan Braun’s name was once again involved, Braun has not gone earlier than fourth overall in any of their mock drafts. This was exciting news! I thought there was a chance. My excitement increased as Miguel Cabrera went first overall, followed by Mike Trout. Could it be? Nope, USA Today’s Steve Gardner had to spoil all the fun and grabbed the most valuable fantasy player third overall. Damn. Before the draft, I debated who to take fourth overall. My values said Albert Pujols, but he, along with the guys just behind him (Matt Kemp, Carlos Gonzalez), seemed a bit too risky for my taste. I have never been a real Cano fan, but I bit the bullet and went with him. It’s my first time owning him so I expect a disappointing year.
Rd 2- Surprised I got Heyward as I just assumed he was being overvalued. I’m happy though as I never have any Braves on my team to root for and at least there is some serious upside here. Heading toward my pick, I thought Clayton Kershaw was about to fall to me. I NEVER draft pitchers anywhere close to this early, so I was nervous about having to make a decision. Luckily, Kershaw was selected two picks before me, so I didn’t have to worry about dealing with an early offensive disadvantage.
Rds 3 & 4- No interesting analysis here. Castro and Lawrie were simply near the top of my values and given the drop-offs to the next highest players at their respective positions, I thought they were the best options. You know exactly what I projected for Lawrie, and he has both lots of upside, and obviously some downside.
Rd 5- At this point, the top of my values list included a bunch of starting pitchers and outfielders. As I noted earlier, I wanted to wait on both of these positions, so I went with a (hopefully) top catcher in V-Mart. Of course, any player who missed an entire season due to injury is going to be a risk, but my projection valued him as an end of third rounder, so he was a slight value here even with a somewhat conservative projection. Though, catchers seemed to be a bit undervalued throughout the draft, so maybe this was just a neutral pick.
Rd 6- Alex Rios was one of the outfielders who has been significantly undervalued. I expected to draft him. But, you have to expect the unexpected and sure enough, Rios was selected two spots before me. I didn’t have a back-up plan and the top of my value list was all catchers, outfielders and starting pitchers. Crap. Rizzo was the next best thing at a position I wanted to draft. In hindsight, I am very happy with the decision, especially considering my projections are quite conservative compared to those from the systems on FanGraphs.
Rd 7- With no standout hitter at this point, Shields was staring at me atop my value list. Was it time to finally take my first starting pitcher? Yes, indeed it was. I have been a Shields owner many a time, so he feels comfortable as a member of my squads. Unfortunately, I could already see myself yelling at the pathetic Royals offense for denying him a win, and now I have to also hope that he isn’t breaking down.
Rd 8- Still too early to select one of the many outfielders that currently top my list and I didn’t want to take a second catcher already, so back into the pitcher pool I dove, betting on a Lincecum rebound this time. Although it could just be noise, I am encouraged that he has gained eight pounds in the offseason and the Giants will likely do everything they can to bring his velocity back up. He could be one of this year’s biggest bargains.
Rd 9- I am not concerned at all about Napoli’s hip condition, and if anything, it should make him cheaper to acquire in drafts. The Green Monster should really help his BABIP and batting average to rebound and he should set a career high in at-bats.
Rd 10- I was very close to drafting another 2012 bust in Jon Lester, but at the last second, decided instead to go offense with LaRoche, as my corner infield options were quickly drying up. I didn’t want to already have three starters through 10 rounds, that’s very unlike me! Sure enough, Lester was drafted right after my pick.
Rd 11- At this point in the draft, my positional needs were solely an MI, OFers, a Util and pitchers. It was finally time to start scooping up some of the outfielders I felt were undervalued and have been staring at me atop my values list for some time now. The top guy was Ichiro who has defied aging and should have another solid year atop the Yankees order.
Rd 12– I was all set to go with another of those undervalued outfielders in Angel Pagan, but as usual, he was taken two spots before me. So instead of simply taking the next guy in my clump of outfielders, I called an audible and went pitcher instead. Bailey joined my LABR team for the second straight year.
Rd 13– There’s that next undervalued outfielder again atop my value list. Welcome De Aza to team De Podhorzer.
Rd 14- I was deciding between Adam Eaton and Marte, and decided to go with Marte because I needed power more than speed and based on ADP, thought Eaton would slip another round. Naturally, that didn’t happen, as he went four picks later.
Rd 15- Finally time to draft my first closer in Betancourt. Wooo.
Rds 16 & 17- At this point, I still needed an MI and I noticed a large drop-off after Simmons. But, closers were going fast and furious and I didn’t want to be closed out of a second. So I made the choice to go with the rarer commodity (the closer) since ADP suggested Simmons would be available the following round as well. It worked. I got Cishek as my second closer in the 16th and Simmons in the 17th. Eno Sarris will be so very proud.
Rd 18- Ruggiano had been atop my values list for a while. In fact, my projection yielded a seventh round value, so it was a matter of how long I wanted to wait and risk someone else grabbing him. This is not a case of fully believing his awesome performance in a half-season worth of at-bats. He has power and speed and although he is not guaranteed to open the season as the Marlins starting center fielder, his competition isn’t very threatening. Oh, and then there’s this: 309.7. That was his average fly ball plus home run distance last season, which ranked third in all of baseball. He’s got some serious pop.
After that, I rounded out my team with a bunch of young arms, including Cashner of course, with breakout potential. Some of the names either don’t have rotation spots yet or will be fighting for one in spring training. So as I alluded to at the beginning, these are the lottery tickets.
Late in the draft, I was scrounging to find a utility hitter with power. I knew I needed home runs more than speed and was about to draft Kevin Youkilis until I realized he was already drafted. Oops. This was in the 21st round, and I ended up running out of time after figuring out that Youk was drafted. So, Gyorko was autodrafted for me. I could have paused the draft, undid the pick, and selected someone else. I decided to keep him on my team. He has a chance to open the year as the Padres second baseman, so he probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway and he could be a great value this late.
The utility man hunt continued though since I didn’t plan for Gyorko to start there for me. I selected Mastroianni just based on pure value from his steals and then later went with his teammate Parmelee who would give me the potential power I was seeking.
As is usually the case, this team is far from what I expected it to look like. I count only 10 players that I am not surprised to have drafted given how my values lined up with ADP. Maybe that’s actually a high number, but it seems a bit low to me. Also, the team has a surprisingly strong mix of young and older players. I typically end up with the undervalued veterans who have limited upside, but this team actually has lots of young guns that have the breakout potential needed to win a 15-team expert league. Overall, I am extremely satisfied with the squad.
Mike Podhorzer is the founder of ProjectingX IQ, an advanced fantasy baseball analytics platform that transforms projection data and in-season performance signals into actionable intelligence. He is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
One day I’ll understand peoples fascination with Robinson Cano. I understand he’s the best player at a weak position, but if I’m going to take a hitter in the top 5 that doesn’t provide value in steals, I’d better be getting a Cabrera type bat. Personally, I’d rather have Pedroia or Kinsler a round later, but to each their own.
Could not agree more.
Cano is “safe,” in that he’s the best player at the shallowest position and barring injury likely to finish as a top 10-25 hitter. I don’t think he has number 1 upside, and I’d generally prefer to take a safe 1b in the first round if I don’t have a top 3 pick, but all the other first round players are in much deeper positions. I think cano is defensible especially at pick 4-6 in a deep league, where if you pass him up hoping for Kinsler or Pedroia you are taking a big chance.
Personally, I’d hope to get Zobrist in the 4th round but his ADP is creeping up and making me nervous. 2b is just a mess this year.
agreed. cano has lived off of his position for a long time. in today’s baseball, i need a guy in my top 5 that can do everything (that includes stealing bases). but year to year, the guy is as safe as it gets and when you see 2B some guys just have to pull the trigger. personally, i have cano 7th, but i’m not sure he’s ever lived up to that rank.
Actually, I’m feeling some of the later round 2B options. I think there are 15 legitimate options, most of which can be found after the first 100 picks. Sure a guy like Neil Walker doesn’t hold a candle to Cano but there’s just so much less depth at 3B and SS that missing out on one of the top 5-6 second basemen isn’t the end of the world like it is at SS and to a lesser extent, 3B. Personally I feel that in a draft like this (15 team, 5 OF) outfielders are much more scarce and should be bumped up accordingly.
Spot on with Zobrist. Way undervalued, at least for now.
Cano is a Cabrera type bat. .300 hitter, 30 HR, 100 R, 100 RBI. I mean Cabrera is slightly better and that is why he goes higher but they put up some pretty comparable stats most years.
also, to qualify my comment earlier, i have cabrera as 2nd because he puts up totally ridiculous numbers and plays 3rd.
not to nit pick, but cano has only had 2 100 rbi years and cabrera has had 9. since cabrera has become a full time player he’s only missed 30 hr once (that’s 9 out of 10 years) and cano has only hit over 30 once.
i think the conception is that cano always puts up “these” kinds of numbers, but he never really does.
His 3 year average is 104 R, 30 HR, 107 RBI, .310ish AVG.
Cabrera before his monster year last year had the following
106 R, 34 HR, 111 RBI, .335ish AVG.
Cabrera is obviously better but they put up pretty comparable numbers in general. Cano doesn’t go early to mid 2nd round because he is a 2B. He goes there because he’s really good.
I’d back off Cano a little bit this year because the lineup is much weaker so it will chip away at his R+RBI which is a significant part of his value.
Dude your comparison is ridiculous and basically worthless. You’re happy to exclude Cabrera’s best season ever, but casually keep Cano’s. That skews the numbers big time.
It is much more fair to look at the last 4 years for each, since that’s basically when Cano matured as the hitter he is today.
Cano: 104 R, 29 HR, 102 RBI, .314
Cabrera: 107 R, 37 HR, 118 RBI, .331
THAT is a monstrous drop off between 2 first round players. Not to mention that Cabrera walks almost twice as much as Cano.
Sorry, maybe that whole “worthless” thing came off a little strong. Agree that he’s great and a first round pick at any position, but don’t think your comparison is fair.
LOVE the V-Mart, Rizzo, Heyward, Marte and Ruggiano picks on the offensive side and Gyorko makes a sneaky late round MI pick. That pitching staff though… I understand the feeling that everyone can wait until the later rounds for Pitching, but I truly feel that at least one solid starter is needed in rounds 3-6. I know Shields represents decent value in a 15 team league at round 7, but this season I don’t understand the strategic value in putting yourself behind the 8 ball with a staff as questionable as this.
Without seeing the rest of the draft it’s hard to know what was available at the time, but I’d have rather taken a top SP in round 4-5 than Lawrie, and in turn taken a guy like Pedro Alvarez later on. The difference between a guy like Bailey (12th) and whomever you would have gotten in place of Lawrie is much greater than what Lawrie would provide over a guy like Alvarez (or any mid-late round 3B). It seems like this scrub pitching strategy is so commonplace now that it’s almost MORE strategic to go after starters in the mid rounds since all the decent targets later on will have to be reached for in order to get the guys you want.
I understand the injury risks associated with pitchers. And I’m not saying to grab a top guy in the first 35 picks, but at that point I think the risk is minimized and top flight SPs start to have pretty decent value since everyone seems to be doing their best NOT to draft them.
Ha, you should have seen my LABR staff last year! If you think this season looks bad, you would have stopped reading my article after last year’s! This is simply what I do with pitching. Always have, always will. It works for me. Shields and Lincecum are two potential aces.
I disagree on your Alvarez example. His average is killer and destroys his value. Plus, he’s not coming close to that HR/FB ratio again.
“Without seeing the rest of the draft”
here’s the link:
http://www.rtsports.com/LABR-Mixed-Draft
I’d love to see you do a projection on Ruggiano because I’m just not seeing him being a 7th round talent. He looks like a flukey guy who had a hot start that hid how mediocre he was and is unlikely to play a full season to me. He isn’t really fast and he got CS a ton so the SB probably fade some. His AVG was largely BABIP driven and his history suggests 15 HR power. Add to it he is in an awful lineup and I just don’t see it.
My projection is thus: 500 ABs – 20 HR – 75 RBI – 70 Runs – 18 steals – .274. Yes, that apparently equated to 7th round value. Doesn’t really matter though since I got him in the 18th. So anywhere close to that would still be a huge value.
Just saw Harper at 14th… thoughts?
Too early, obviously. But I could already see the justification “I was targeting Harper and I knew he wouldn’t make it back to me”. So that apparently justifies overpaying. Can he earn that value? Sure. But the odds are slim.
“He wouldn’t make it back to me” is a loser’s justification, especially in the early rounds where the value drops significantly per slot. The guy picking first overall probably can’t get Justin Upton back – but that doesn’t mean you pick Justin Upton first overall.
Yup, not sure if you got the sarcasm in my comment. I completely agree with you. You see that explanation all the time as if to say it’s okay to overpay if the player wouldn’t make it back to you.
V-Mart in the 5th I don’t think is particularly defensible. 35 year old, hasn’t played in a year. His .330 average is in no way repeatable. He only hit 12 HRs in 2011 anyway. In 2011 he hit clean up I think. Now he’s going to hit 5th or worse so the RBIs are going to go down. He’s a quality MLB hitter, but from a fantasy perspective, really really hard to believe he’s going to produce 5th round numbers regardles of what kind of scarcity adjustment you’re factoring in. Might have looked at MadBum there. If you wanted a player, Gordon, Jennings, Choo all much better choices in my opinion.
If V-Mart was a first baseman, he would lose $11 in value. So the catcher eligibility boosted his value by $11. While he won’t bat .330 again, he will seriously contribute in batting average and a catcher who does that is gold. See: Joe Mauer. Bumgarner would have been a fine pick, but like I mentioned many times, I just refuse to draft pitching that early.
I haven’t ever seen a system for making dollar value positional adjustments that is without flaw, so I’m disinclined to take your $11 adjustment at face value. I believe that most of the valuation systems that adjust for positions oversimplify the case in that one component is a comparison of catcher versus outside the context of the larger frame of an entire roster. Further, unless you can correlate your positional adjustment to end objectives (specifically total team year end objectives for the 5 offensive categories in this case) then you’re basically creating a kind of tautology that is illusory.
And finally, the draft is a massively complex problem that cannot be understood mathematically. The permutations of possible draft orders are what, like 276! (that’s factorial not emphasis). I think you’re kidding yourself if you think that in the context of the draft you’re actually able to understand with that kind of precision, the net differences in total production between a catcher with x statistical characteristics and an outfielder with y statistical characteristics taken later in the draft verus an outfielder and catcher taken in reverse that order. Especially in the context of all the other subsequent picks that both you and your competetors will make.
My impression from having done this for many years is that over-reliance on calculated values adjusted for position lead to reach picks. Course I could be wrong. I’d be curious to see your valuation methodology.
Well that may all be well and true, but unless you can tell me a better valuation methodology, then I’m going to stick to calculated dollar values rather than guessing what a player is worth. I actually didn’t invent the valuation system and don’t pretend to really know how to better it. Todd Zola (Mastersball.com) is the valuation king and I have been using his system for over 10 years.
Buster Posey went in the second round, right where I valued him at. So that’s all I needed to see to know my catcher valuations weren’t too high.
not sure if this is going to thread right as there was no reply option, but here goes anyway.
The idea of valuation is a good one and provides an excellent starting place for draft preparation. However, I believe that valuations should be done without positional adjustments against the total player pool. I’m not sure I can articulate this in a way that makes sense but I’m going to give it a try. The reason I don’t believe in making positional adjustments to dollar values is that each specific pick has a unique context. Remember that ultimately, if you are approaching the draft trying to maximize your end state stats relative to your projections, you are trying to maximize values that have NOT been adjusted for position. Think about that. Positional adjustments are a draft guideline, but as soon as the draft is over, they are meaningless. A home run for a catcher will count as much as a home run from any other position. A positional adjustment absolutely cannot guarantee that in the context of draft picks to come you are adding more end state, total, unadjusted value. It’s much more complicated than that.
And this doesn’t even begin to address the fact that stat projections are educated guesses. One could very effectively argue that the draft should not be approached purely quantitatively in the first place.
Zola is running a pretty interesting series on scarcity over at Mastersball right now that you might want to check out.
Thanks for the well-articulated response. The only thing I’ll say is that you can’t draft a first baseman and start him in the catcher slot. You MUST draft a catcher. Therefore, why would you compare a catcher’s raw stats to a first baseman? It’s apples and oranges. All I care about is how my catcher compares to your catcher.
“The only thing I’ll say is that you can’t draft a first baseman and start him in the catcher slot. You MUST draft a catcher. Therefore, why would you compare a catcher’s raw stats to a first baseman? It’s apples and oranges. All I care about is how my catcher compares to your catcher.”
This is the crux of it all. It’s not important how your catcher compares to my catcher. In the narrow context of two picks it’s how your catche and first baseman combined compare to my two combined. And more importantly, in the larger context, how my total team compares to your total team.
You could model scarcity mathematically, but it would have to be recalculated after every pick and it would have to take into account (at least at the beginning of the draft) trillions of potential draft outcomes in the succeeding picks (think again of the chess model…if I go there then he goes there then I go there).
One final chess metaphor. Chess players can still beat really, really powerful computers. The way they do it is practice and experience. That’s why I think if you are an experienced player and you do a lot of mocks, you’re actually a lot better off trusting your instincts to deal with scarcity than a mathematical model which isn’t actually doing what you think it’s doing. The brain, like a great computer, is amazing at pattern recognition and what you’re doing when rely on the subconscious instinct is you’re allowing it to process an amazing number of potential outcomes and reduce them to a managable number of reasonable choices.
Well yeah, of course comparing the pairs and then the overall team is the ultimate goal. But you can’t get to that point without adjusting each stat line for position.
I read all of Zola’s articles and saw your comments on there. So clearly you’re familiar with his system. I’m not saying anything here about valuation that Todd himself hasn’t “taught” me through his method.
Interesting that he said the catcher adjustment is about $8 in 15-team mixed. It’s possible that the projection sets we’re using is causing the difference. Or, I’ve just been overvaluing catchers for the past 10 years!
“But you can’t get to that point without adjusting each stat line for position.”
You can and should get there without adjusting. My point is that the adjusted values are actually misleading and causing people to make less than optimal decisions. I think there is a better model for drafting, which I kind of laid out here and over there.
I just ran a position adjustment analysis (http://razzball.com/yahoofantasybaseball-impactofpositioneligibility/) and actually have the 1B -> C adjustment for the average hitter at $15 for 12-team 1 C leagues. My position adjustments are dynamic per league format / year (so if Catchers strong, less adjustment) and take total stat lines into account to some degree (player value is 75% position/25% vs. average rostered hitter for mixed leagues)
While running it for 15-team would likely reduce the value a bit, adjusting for 2 catcher would increase this position factor.
So, mathematically, I can justify just about any level of catcher adjustment including one that would make Buster Posey a top 5 player in the format.
But I don’t find taking a catcher early to be an optimal strategy since there are so many catchers that make it to the late rounds and because of their greater injury potential. Our method for avoiding this temptation is to use 1 catcher valuations instead of 2 catcher valuations – in the rare chance that the top available player is a catcher, we’d grab him. The first time I recall seeing a catcher anywhere near the top of the board was Doumit in the 15th.
I don’t love our Arencibia/Castillo backstop pairing but hopefully they deliver 30+ HRs and only kill us on AVG.
Rudy long time no talk. I think doing away with positional adjustments is best, but if you feel like you have to have it as a guideline then your system is definitely an improvement on two fronts: value over average rather than replacement and 75/25 total versus positional.
When you start saying things like mathematically I can justify any adjustment and you start hacking your own system by adjusting from two catcher to one, you should really ask, why am I doing this at all.
As plain as I can state it, I think making positional adjustments to values leads to sub-obtimal decisions because at it’s essence a draft is not a valuation issue. It is much better understood through game theory. Values offer only a limited and sometimes misleading amount of information about who to draft and when. So using valuations starts out as what I would call a less that perfect and takes it even further down the road of fuzzy math and it becomes less perfect still.
I tilt at this windmill only because I see a lot of players who misunderstand the relation between estimated player values and drafts and it leads to picks like this VMart pick here. I think folks would be better players if they took a different approach.
For a two catcher league to have a guy that is DHing EVERY DAY has a lot of value. Especially with 15 teams and two catchers!
Yadier and Wieters both were taken before his next pick, and it was only three rounds later the likes of Salvador Perez and Jesus Montero were drafted.
Maybe you could argue about waiting a round, but at 64 overall I’d vote it a defensible pick.
You are right re: a catcher at DH. The benefits are generally: 1) better health and 2) more PAs than the average catcher.
With V-Mart, I don’t think he’s going to benefit from #2. I think at 35 he has a better than average chance of hitting the DL, he’s blocked from starts at 1B by Fielder, and DH is just such an easily replacable spot that he could lose ABs to a hot hitter (the Tigers have a surplus of OFs with Boesch/Dirks/Berry jammed into LF).
Personally, I’m hard-pressed to say that V-Mart is more valuable than Doumit who got drafted 9 rounds later (and we lost out on only b/c Clay Davenport unpredictably drafted a second catcher at that early stage).
Yeah, in hindsight, lots of catchers went later than I valued them at. Oh well, no way of knowing that before hand.
Hey Oaktown –
Godd talking w/ you today across two blogs.
The ‘hack’ for 2 C vs 1 is the only one I employ and it is out of personal preference.
End of season, I’ll test my position-adjusted $ vs non-position-adjusted $ in my rankings and projection test to see which does better. I faintly remember testing this once and it leads to minor gains.
Mike –
Good luck this year. Any concerns about the lack of OF power and SP youth (someone asked me in our comments – figured i’d share my POV here)?
Rudy
Hey Rudy,
I don’t care where my power comes from, it’s not like I need to have a certain number of homers from each position. I am however a bit light in overall power, middle of the pack now based on last year’s standings. No concerns about my pitching. I’m used to this! Both Shields and Lincecum could potentially give me two top or near top guys, Bailey should be solid again, and I’ll hit on some breakouts.
Thanks for the answers and good luck!
I recently completed a NFBC DC draft that has 50 rounds and no transactions. I also picked 4th and actually chose that spot. In hindsight I should have asked for the 5th or 6th because I was targeting Kemp. My belief is that he has as good a chance at having #1 numbers as any of the others. I realize he was injured last year, but that’s the only way to get #1 numbers lower in the draft. I had miscalculated that Cano and McCutchen probably would have been picked before Kemp. Live and learn. My second round pick was Kinsler, so I essentially went OF/2B to your 2B/OF. Which combo will be better? Yours has a touch more power, I guess and mine more speed.
Also I had a hard time picking closers this early. As of today 2/14, there are 2 hurt (Francisco and Balfour) with more to come. This early you are almost “safer” picking a bunch of next in line types. BTW how did you finish last year with your pitcher strategy? Good Luck this year.
I finished 8th last season, though only 20 points from first, so not a bad 8th. My pitching was already risky, but once Pineda went down, Bard sucked and lost his rotation spot, Jaime Garcia got hurt and Andrew Bailey got hurt, my pitching was quickly in shambles. Somehow, I still managed to finish 4th in wins, but earned only 6 points (out of 15) in ERA, WHIP and strikeouts, and only 4 points in saves.
So, injuries really took a toll on what was already a suspect staff, which gave me no chance to see if the strategy worked. Let’s hope for better luck with this cast of characters!