My Utterly Rippable, Contemptible Scoresheet Roster

I’ve written at length about my Scoresheet team, and with us now nearly on the eve of the season, drafting has ceased and rosters are set. Today, I’d like to share my completed roster to be ripped apart by readers. How’s that sound?

If you haven’t tuned in before — and believe me, I get that — Scoresheet is basically a real-life based simulation where you put together an entire roster — up to 30 active players at a time — including utility players, relievers, and a few minor leaguers if you so desire. There’s no limit of how many guys you can roster, but the keeper rules exist to keep that number pretty low.

Any player you keep — up to 10 — that qualifies as a major leaguer based on service time costs you a pick up front. Any minor leaguer you keep costs you a pick counting back from round 35. There are supplementals during the year to fill rosters more fully as well as to disperse recently drafted players, and there are also dispersal drafts in the offseason when teams drop out and new ones join so that newcomers get a relatively fair shake.

I had a very strong keeper list, and for some reason nobody was all that interested in trading me much for guys I couldn’t otherwise keep. Also keep in mind, a number of these guys were healthy when I submitted my keeper list a couple months ago.

Here’s how my draft shook out. I’ll take you through lineups and strategies after. The first 10 picks are keepers — as are rounds 30-34 — so they’re listed in no particular order. If you’re interested, here’s the draft log to see who else was going around that same time:

Trades:
* SP Garrett Richards to Brady Gardiner for C Jorge Alfaro.
* 1B Lucas Duda to D.J. Short for C Reese McGuire.
* SP Kevin Gausman to David Laurila for SP Henry Owens.
* Round 23 pick to David Laurila (Randal Grichuk) for Round 25 and 29 picks (see below).
*Round 25 pick to Brady Gardiner (Chris Johnson) for Round 27 and 29 picks (see below).

You can hate on my picks, but I feel like — in a vacuum — I can defend each of them.

Round 1 – Jose Abreu 1B
Round 2 – Masahiro Tanaka SP
Round 3 – Chris Sale SP
Round 4 – Yu Darvish SP
Round 5 – Marcus Stroman SP
Round 6 – Xander Bogaerts 3B
Round 7 – Sonny Gray SP
Round 8 – Yasmani Grandal C
Round 9 – A.J. Pollock OF
Round 10 – Jason Heyward OF
—
Round 11 – Jonathan Schoop 2B
Round 12 – Jed Lowrie SS
Round 13 – Kyle Gibson SP
Round 14 – Michael Saunders OF
Round 15 – Dustin Ackley OF
Round 16 – Kurt Suzuki C
Round 17 – Nick Swisher 1B
Round 18 – Eduardo Escobar SS
Round 19 – Ricky Nolasco SP
Round 20 – Jarrod Dyson OF
Round 21 – Danny Valencia 3B
Round 22 – Shawn Kelley RP
Round 24 – Casey Fien RP
Round 25 – Tommy Milone SP
Round 26 – Brad Ziegler RP
Round 27 – Addison Reed RP
Round 27 – Dayan Viciedo OF
Round 28 – Bryan Morris RP
Round 29 – Jason Frasor RP
Round 29 – Javy Guerra RP
Round 29 – Joba Chamberlain RP
—
Round 30 – Andrew Heaney SP
Round 31 – Kohl Stewart SP
Round 32 – Jose Berrios SP
Round 33 – Reese McGuire C
Round 34 – Jorge Alfaro C

All in all, 37 players for a 30-man active roster. As you can see I went pretty conservative, but it didn’t make a ton of sense to shoot for the moon with all the starting pitcher injuries I had. Still, I think I managed a well-rounded roster. I’m bummed about Viciedo, just because I thought he’d have a spot mashing lefties with Valencia on my bench. We’ll see what happens there I suppose.

Here’s what the Opening Day roster will look like:

Starting Lineup
C- Grandal
1B- Abreu
2B- Schoop
3B- Bogaerts
SS- Lowrie
LF- Pollock
CF- Dyson (until Saunders is healthy, then he’ll move to LF and Pollock to CF)
RF- Heyward
DH- Ackley v. RHP | Valencia v. LHP

I think this lineup has potential to score some runs. It’ll be nice to have Saunders back — mid April! — and at that point I think top-to-bottom it’ll be a solid offense. I’ll have to shield Heyward against lefties, but at the same time I think there’s a lot of potential here. A quick guess at my batting order against righties would be Pollock-Bogaerts-Heyward-Abreu-Saunders-Grandal-Ackley-Schoop-Lowrie, but that isn’t set in stone.

Bench
C- Suzuki
IF- Escobar
BAT- Swisher
BAT- Valencia/Ackley
OF- Dyson

The tough thing with building a bench is finding guys guaranteed to stay up all season, and I think I did that. Suzuki is no great shakes but he is actually entrenched as the starter in Minnesota, so that’s a nice insurance policy on Grandal. Escobar had a very nice season and can play all over the infield. Any bounceback from Swisher — unlikely — would be house money, Valencia and Ackley can be pinch hitters with their strong splits, and Dyson has great speed and a fantastic outfield range rating. His roster spot is also safe. It’s not a sexy bench, but it’s pretty good.

Rotation
1. Sale
2. Tanaka
3. Gray
4. Gibson
5. Heaney
6. Nolasco
7. Milone
8. Stroman
9. Darvish

Yikes. The rotation that carried me to 95 wins last year is in shambles. Keeping Heaney as a minor leaguer is a coup, and once Sale is healthy it’s not terrible to have Milone and Nolasco as insurance policies. I think Gibson still has some untapped potential, but he’s way more of a four than a three. My fingers are crossed Tanaka stays healthy this season, obviously. All told though, six healthy starters on Opening Day is probably the fewest I’d advocate. Even if Milone or Nolasco don’t bounce back, it’s better than going to battle with dreaded AAA Pitcher.

Bullpen
Fien
Frasor
Guerra
Chamberlain
Ziegler
Morris
Reed
Kelley

I get a lot of grief for how I build bullpens, and it’s deservedly so. Admittedly I’m still in the feeling out stage of playing the game, but I’d much rather spend earlier picks on position players than relievers. This is by no means a star-studded bullpen, but in today’s game and in a 24-team league, I still think you can put together a solid bullpen on a shoestring budget, so to speak. I absolutely love Kelley in San Diego, and think Fien is still pretty solid. That Twins bullpen is terrible, so he’s for sure going to be throwing big innings. Ziegler is a pretty safe pick, and I think I got a good mix of groundball guys, strikeout guys and ones who aren’t likely to be dumped from their rosters. That strategy keeps me from overdrafting the Carter Capps’ of the world — whom I absolutely love.

As far as the kids go, I think you could see Berrios or Owens in the big leagues at some point this season, but I’m not holding my breath. I think Stewart is a nice prospect whom the Twins will push relatively quickly, and considering I had virtually no interest from trade partners in the offseason, I think I did OK to get up-the-middle talent in the trades with McGuire and Alfaro. I didn’t love those trades, but I wasn’t going to let guys like Richards, Duda and Gausman walk for nothing.

The only draft pick I really regret is Viciedo. I’d say that’s a pretty good draft. Now it’s your turn. Feel free to slam away in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer them all!