League Draft #1

Here is my first league draft of the year, it was held on March 4th, it is a Head to Head league, 10 teams that is 6 X 6 (the standard categories, including OBP for hitters and Holds for pitchers).

Here is my draft and the breakdown to follow


1.
(9)
Jimmy Rollins
2.
(12)
Prince Fielder
3.
(29)
Matt Holliday
4.
(32)
Jonathan Papelbon
5.
(49)
Dan Haren
6.
(52)
Aramis Ramírez
7.
(69)
Corey Hart
8.
(72)
Joey Votto
9.
(89)
Jonathan Broxton
10.
(92)
Chris Young
11.
(109)
Milton Bradley
12.
(112)
Javier Vázquez
13.
(129)
James Shields
14.
(132)
Carlos Delgado
15.
(149)
Rickie Weeks
16.
(152)
Jayson Werth
17.
(169)
Max Scherzer
18.
(172)
Ian Stewart
19.
(189)
Brett Myers
20.
(192)
Mark Reynolds
21.
(209)
J.J. Putz
22.
(212)
Frank Francisco
23.
(229)
Pablo Sandoval
24.
(232)
Hong-Chih Kuo
25.
(249)
Gary Sheffield


This league starts 12 hitters and 6 pitchers, so there is more of an emphasis on hitting. My league contains a group of people that I have played with for a few years and I know their tendencies, I know the teams that draft tons of pitching, the teams that like prospects and the teams that are generally using a value strategy, which is what I was using. My general strategy is to grab the best player on the board in rounds 1-5 (including position scarcity) and then take some upside gambles afterwards, or pick remaining values that are too good to be true.........at this size of a league, I do less as far as roster structuring and more as far as gathering value.

Some highlights.......

I was very pleased to grab Rollins at 9 overall, one team lunged for R Howard a little earlier than he normally goes, which allowed me to grab Rollins. Round 3 was fairly disappointing as Chipper Jones was grabbed right in front of me and in a league like this with a fairly decent sized bench (7 players and 2 DL spots) Chipper is very valuable as there is plenty of ability to plug in a reasonable player behind him. Rounds 4 & 5 I started grabbing pitchers and to be honest, I might be reaching on Papelbon a bit in the 4th round, when maybe I should be going with a big bat or a SP..............I really liked Haren in the 5th as he was the last of my top tier pitchers, so it was nice to pick him up at a value.

Round 7 is where I begin guys with incredible upside....as I grab Hart, Votto, Broxton and C Young OF................Hart is a perenial 20/20 guy, but he is going to be 30/30 one year, maybe it is this year...........Votto is primed for a big year after his break out year last year, he could be a top 5 1b by the seasons end.........Broxton is moving into the closer role full time for the first year and he is taking with him is 10+ K/9 ratio.............I think he has the potential to be a top 5 closer by year end..............rounding out this group is C Young, who is similar to Hart with 30/30 potential and an absolute steal in round 10.

Round 12 I started back with pitching as this league has a weekly IP minimum of 36, and I needed some solid starting pitching to back up Dan Haren..........I went with back to back undervalued starters in Vazquez and Shields............neither guy is going to win a Cy Young, but they are both consistent as hell and exactly the type of guys I need on a staff when I am not willing to draft out of high slots to get starting pitching. Round 14, I didn't need another power hitting 1b, but he was truly the only one left on the board with 30 HR, so I grabbed Carlos Delgado, because it never hurts to have more power.

My next 4 picks all are big question marks, but have a lot of upside, Weeks (the whole room laughed at me for this one), Werth, Scherzer and Stewart................Stewart wouldn't go here normally, but his 2b eligibility in Yahoo leagues makes him a reach worth taking...................the highest upside here is Scherzer and he carries the most risk, his peripherals would say that he is a top of the rotation type pitcher, but his injury risk is humongous, imagine if Rich Harden was even more injury prone, so the idea that I squeeze a full season out of him hasn't crossed my mind, but I was thinking more along the lines of roughly 120 innings of incredible stuff.

The final few rounds contain a few notable picks, Hong Chih Kuo is one, due to the alignment of this league for pitching SP, SP, RP, RP, P, P.............it is important to have a guy that can provide you great stats and slot in as a SP even though he is actually a reliever and Kuo's SP/RP eligibility does just that.................a few owners who have been in this league awhile had some not so nice things to say to me when I snatched him up right in front of them. Grabbing Brett Myers is a no brainer here, even though I despise the guy, I still need his 200K potential on my roster......a few more notables, Pablo Sandoval as my C, he is actually the regular 3b for the Giants, but he has C eligibility, so that means I get roughly 15% more production from him as he is an everyday player. The last guy that I'll mention is Mark Reynolds, because he was in my plans from the start (when I hoped I would get Chipper so that Reynolds could be his caddy), a couple of things on him, he hit 28 HR last year, he walks enough to be valuable even when hitting .239 as he did last year, and he sneakily stole 11 bases.............Reynolds is only 24 years old and grabbing basically Adam Dunn lite in the 20th with 3b eligibility is enough to make him a huge steal...........but even moreso is the fact that due to Arizona's overabundance of corners, Tracy, C Jackson and then 4th outfielder Eric Byrnes,.........they are toying with the idea of using Reynolds at 2b in certain lineups and adding 2b eligibility would make him a value similar to Dan Uggla....in otherwords a steal in this round.

Well, that's the first draft, I'll be back with a few mixed leagues and my AL and NL Only leagues