Ah, another year of fantasy baseball. Last year was extremely frustrating, since I came out of last year’s draft with what I thought was one of the best teams I’d drafted in this (very competitive) league, and then my pitching imploded and various other things went wrong. Mid-way through the season I decided that if I didn’t finish in the money that I’d drop out of the league. I ended up finishing 7th (out of 16 teams) which was the last spot in the money, so here I am, back again!
As always, the draft was held at Chris’ house down the street. I got there at 11 am to set up the wireless, which ended up going flawlessly – it worked the first time! Internet connectivity was actually great, and the draft went very smoothly. We were doing each round in about 25 minutes for the first 10 or so rounds, and it speeded up after that. It took us a little less than 9 hours to do the whole draft, which is about average. A long day, but it’s a lot of fun – which is why I do it!
| Pos | Player | Team | Round/ Pick |
Age | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C | Gerald Laird | TEX | 14/218 | 28 | My catching really stinks. |
| C | Dioner Navarro | TBA | 15/234 | 24 | |
| 1B | Albert Pujols | SLN | Kept | 28 | |
| 2B | Kelly Johnson | ATL | 2/26 | 26 | |
| 2B | Ron Belliard | WAS | 19/296 | 33 | |
| 2B/SS | Erick Aybar | LAN | 18/281 | 24 | |
| 3B | Miguel Cabrera | FLO | Kept | 25 | |
| 3B | Melvin Mora | BAL | 20/310 | 36 | |
| SS/1B | Carlos Guillen | DET | 1/10 | 32 | |
| SS | Jhonny Peralta | CLE | 6/90 | 25 | |
| OF | Corey Hart | MIL | Kept | 26 | |
| OF | Chris Young | ARI | Kept | 24 | |
| OF | Josh Hamilton | CIN | Kept | 26 | |
| OF | Jacoby Ellsbury | BOS | Kept | 24 | |
| OF | Jason Kubel | MIN | 16/250 | 26 | |
| OF | Carlos Gomez | MIN | Kept | 22 | |
| OF | Melky Cabrera | NYA | 22/345 | 23 | |
| SP | James Shields | TBA | Kept | 25 | |
| SP | Joe Blanton | OAK | Kept | 26 | |
| SP | Jeff Francis | COL | 3/42 | 27 | |
| SP | Hiroki Kuroda | LAN | 4/58 | 33 | A new Japanese import, reportedly an extreme groundball pitcher. |
| SP | Zack Greinke | KCA | 5/74 | 24 | |
| SP | David Bush | MIL | 7/106 | 28 | |
| SP | Kevin Millwood | TEX | 9/138 | 33 | |
| SP | Edinson Volquez | CIN | 10/154 | 24 | |
| SP | Paul Maholm | PIT | 23/356 | 26 | |
| SP | Zach Duke | PIT | 23/364 | 25 | |
| RP | Rafael Soriano | ATL | 11/170 | 28 | I have the all-Rafael bullpen! |
| RP | Rafael Betancourt | CLE | 12/186 | 33 | |
| RP | Rafael Perez | CLE | 13/202 | 26 | |
| IN | Carlos Gonzalez | OAK | 8/122 | 22 | The key prospect in Oakland’s trade of Dan Haren to Arizona. |
| IN | Gio Gonzalez | OAK | 17/266 | 22 | One of the prospects in Oakland’s trade of Nick Swisher to the Chicago White Sox. |
| IN | Brent Lillibridge | ATL | 21/323 | 24 | |
| IN | Matt Antonelli | SDN | 21/334 | 23 | Heir apparent to second base in San Diego. |
| IN | Justin Masterson | BOS | 23/368 | 23 | Well-regarded sinkerball pitching prospect. |
My biggest regret of the draft was not taking Kurt Suzuki when I had a chance, as that left me with the true dregs for my catching slot, without even much upside. I also regret just missing out on prospect Brandon Wood. But those are fairly small regrets; overall I was pretty happy with how it turned out. I expect I’ll have a middle-of-the-road pitching staff with some upside, and a potent offense. My team is generally young (which is typical of my teams in recent years) so it could be better than I project.
It takes a fair amount of luck to win this league, not to mention a better pitching staff than I usually have. But I still have a fun time putting the team together. Hopefully the dice will roll more in my favor than they did last year.