Fantasy Baseball Draft 2006

It's that time of year again. With my basketball bracket completely blown up and not one of my picks still alive, it was time to turn my attention to my annual test of endurance known as the fantasy baseball draft. And with yesterday's race still fresh in the memory of my leg muscles, sitting at the computer on AIM with 3.5 hours was just what I needed. Sort of.

Our league has 12 players in it, 9 of which were in a condo in NJ, another guy online in Chicago, me in Washington, and yet another in Grenada. I don't know the dude, but I'm guessing he's military. My friends back in NJ take care of the dice rolling to see who goes first and, as luck would have it, my anonymous dice roller through me a 21 and I got the first pick in the draft. While taking A-Rod first overall was a no-brainer, and rather exciting, having to watch another 22 players come off the board before I can pick again really sucks. It's not so bad for my team, but it just gets boring having to wait so long.

Anyway, without further ado, here's my 22 picks. When applicable, I put the average round that player had been drafted in parentheses based on the tens of thousands of other Yahoo drafts that have already taken place.
  1. Alex Rodridguez, 3B (1.0)
  2. Andruw Jones, OF (2.4)
  3. Roy Oswalt, SP (2.4)
  4. Jeff Kent, 2B (3.2)
  5. Scott Podsednik, OF (5.7)
  6. Mark Buehrle, SP (6.3)
  7. Eddie Guardado, RP (8.6)
  8. Joe Mauer, C (5.5)
  9. Barry Zito, SP (7.3)
  10. Jhonny Peralta, SS (6.9)
  11. Jose Valverde, RP (13.5)
  12. Freddy Garcia, SP (9.4)
  13. Adrian Beltre, 3B (13.4)
  14. Jason Lane, OF (13.4)
  15. Justin Morneau, 1B (14.7)
  16. John Garland, SP
  17. Willy Mo Pena, OF
  18. Ambiorix Burgos, RP
  19. Gustavo Chacin, SP
  20. Chriss Duffy, OF
  21. Erik Bedard, SP
  22. Luis Gonzalez, Util

Looking at the draft, there's a couple things that jump right out at me. First of all, I didn't intend to draft three-fifths of the White Sox starting rotation and no, I don't believe they'll be as dominant this year as they were last year. Garland had good numbers and signs of improvement, but for some reason I thought he was with the Twins and not with the White Sox. My bad.

The second obvious possible uh-oh is that I have two third basemen. Well, that was intentional. Beltre was still available in the 13th round and should he get used to AL pitching and playing in Seattle, he could bounce back and prove to be a steal at that spot. And our league plays with a Util slot that is open to any position player so while he won't be bumping A-Rod from my third base position, he will definitely spend time in my starting lineup. Unless of course he repeats his miserable 2005 performance.

Also, it looks as if I may have reached on Scott Podsednik in the 5th round. I realize that's where most drafts had him going but I think I probably could have waited another round or two for him. But I couldn't take the chance. He is an automatic 50 steals and with all of the power I was assembling with A-Rod, Jones, and Kent, it was imperative that I took a speed guy before I punted the entire stolen base category. I just wish he was still with the Brewers; their commentators are hillarious.

Speaking of punts, I'm not very happy with my saves situation. A run on closers occured deep between my picks so when it was finally my turn again in the 7th round, I had to make sure I got one. Everyday Eddie did me well last year (I took him in the 13th last year) and I hope he can do it again. But going into the season with the closers for Seattle, Arizona, and Kansas City doesn't exactly instill confidence.

All in all, I do think this was my smartest draft to date. This is my third season in fantasy baseball and it is so much trickier and more complex than fantasy football. For lack of a better word, it's a lot of work. But I love it. It's six-months of comaraderie and trash talking and a chance to win a decent-sized slice of $1200 to boot. But most of all, it makes watching baseball a whole lot more enjoyable.

1 comment:

Jessica A. Walsh said...

I don't understand.