This is where you can post about your drafting experience. Did you get everybody you wanted. How many times did you get sniped. Are you happy with your team, etc..

AL Central, pick 2

At long last, I have time in my life to do a writeup. Last round not only did I not have time for a writeup, I did not have time to do any research, as I spent roughly 30 seconds on each of my picks in the first few rounds, and it showed. Last round did not go well for me. Despite having 4 teams participate only one of them advanced, yielding the lowly 21^st pick in the selection draft. As such, I didn’t even bother to follow the selection draft until around pick 17. The only thing that I knew was that I did not want to be involved in the AL East, as I thought that the Y2K Pedro Martinez would give an advantage that would be difficult to overcome. When my turn came up, I was able to choose between AL East, AL Central and NL Central. The NL Central didn’t appeal to me because I didn’t love the player pool and I didn’t feel like having to deal with manually deleting all of the Astros, so AL Central it was.

Most drafts, and especially drafts such as this one, are about one thing: recognizing marginal value. Most WifS drafts are very starting pitching heavy early because starting pitching is important^{[citation needed]} and tends to be scarce. But in perusing the AL Central player pool I noticed three things. The first was that there were a large number of pitchers available with 100-140 IP whose ERC#s fall well within the range of the top 15 or so SPs available in this draft. These pitchers would be available much later in the draft than ~200 IP guys of similar quality. The second thing I noticed was that there were a very large number of high inning (70-80), high quality relievers available. There were so many that there was no way that anyone was going to get shut out of those To wit: Dan Otero, 71 IP, 1.53 ERC# was the penultimate player taken. Finally, I noticed that the player pools at offensive positions, even traditionally strong offensive positions, were not very deep. At a bunch of positions there would be an extreme difference between getting the best or second-best player as opposed to the third or fourth. Therefore, I determined that outside of the first round the marginal value early in this draft would be in the hitters. My strategy was to take an SP in round 1, then concentrate on offense while there was still value there, and then pivot to HiQ-HIP (high quality – high IP) relievers and tandem starter types while people were filling in their offenses and closers. The plan was for my pitching staff to consist of 2 SPs with total IP ~400 (one in round 1 and one replacement level at the end of the draft), 4 tandem starters with total IP ~500, 6 relievers averaging 75 IP each combining for 450 IP, and then a 100 IP LR to get to roughly 1450 IP. A solid plan perhaps, but to quote Mike Tyson, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.
(Stats normalized, yada yada…)

Round 1 – SP Kenta Maeda – 180 IP, 1.40 ERC#
I figured that Biebs would be first off the board and he was, so I went with quality over quantity here. How much quality remains to be seen given Maeda’s homer-proneness, but I’m cautiously optimistic.

Round 2 – C Joe Mauer - .340/.423/.478, A/A+/A+
Not surprisingly, the first six players selected were starting pitchers. I broke the string with Mauer because, in addition to the other aforementioned aspects of the player pool, I noticed that there weren’t a whole lot of good lefthanded hitters available in this draft. My initial intention was to use the more offensively productive but D+ armed 2009 Mauer, but with all of the high SB% hitters in the division I decided to use the 2006 even though he always sucks for me at everything including what he’s supposed to be good at which is throwing out runners. However, unless I’m missing something he’s the only A+ armed starting catcher in the division so hopefully that, and his bat, will work out.

Round 3 – 3B Miguel Cabrera – .352/.447/.625, B-/D-
Another two picks, another two starting pitchers. I wasn’t shocked, but I was happy to get possibly the best offensive player in the draft with my third round pick, at what is a surprisingly shallow position that is about to get even shallower if I have anything to say about it…

Round 4 – 2B Jose Ramirez – .322/.376/.559, B-/C-
…Which, as it turns out, I do. I think I would’ve taken Alomar here if he had dropped, but toysboys finally stopped the starting pitching insanity by taking him and Magglio. I really wanted Manny because I felt that there was a monumental drop-off between him and the next best OF, whoever that was, but I gambled that people would assume that OF was a deep position and look elsewhere. This pick was a threefold win: satisfying my seemingly insatiable Jose Ramirez fetish, locking up yet another great offensive player at a shallow offensive position, and severely depleting the pool of quality starting third basemen so much that it prompted schwarze to reach for Moncada and yielded starting divisional foe third basemen by the names of Corey Koskie and (presumably) Dmitri Young. Mission accomplished.

Round 5 – OF Manny Ramirez – .327/.432/.636, C/D+
After my fourth round pick there were three players available who I coveted: Jim Thome and his powerful lefthanded bat, Carlos Guillen (who was the only shortstop I’d consider taking in the first ten rounds), and Manny. Well, BeAllEndAll took Thome and Guillen, so my pick here was easy. Manny always rakes for me. Even the ones who are not supposed to. I think 1999 will do just fine.

Round 6 – OF Carlos Beltran – .304/.386/.498, B/A+
A round earlier than I had hoped, people apparently started noticing that outfield was a shallow offensive position in this draft. Albert Belle, who I was really, really hoping would drop, and Curtis Granderson were taken directly before this pick. Most of the productive outfielders remaining were RHH, so I went with Beltran, which locked in a great defensive CF (key for someone like me who sometimes ends up with like a B-/D+ in CF) who can hit and was 41/45 in SB attempts. Fine.

Round 7 – RP Rafael Betancourt – 79 IP, 1.14 ERC#
In hindsight this was a reach, but I’m not going to beat myself up over it because I understand my thought process at the time and it made sense. You see, the one downside to the strategy I decided to employ is that it’s volume-heavy. You need a lot of really good pitchers to make it work. If you want to end up with 3 or 4 elite relievers you can probably afford to start drafting them in the 10^th or 11^th round. If you want six, plus four good tandem-type starters, you need to start much earlier, or else they will probably all be gone before you’re done. I didn’t know when the elite reliever run would start, but I didn’t want to miss the beginning of it, so I figured I’d start it. Or not, as it turns out. But either way I didn’t see much risk in this pick because the only available hitter I wanted was Victor Martinez, who I would use as a really bad defensive first baseman. I figured everyone else would use him as a DH (probably true) and I thought it was too early for people to start drafting their DH’s (demonstrably false), so I thought he would drop.

Round 8 – 1B Jose Abreu – .328/.376/.601, C/A+
Victor Martinez was drafted by schwarze immediately after my Betancourt pick. Two picks later, toysboys drafted Travis Hafner, who was the other available excellent offensive non-righty hitting lousy defensive first baseman who I would use at first base because I’m a dumbass. The complete extinction of members in this vital category seemed to have left me with two options: punt first base until the 20^th round or so and then take someone like Mike Sweeney, or draft Abreu, yet another right-handed power hitter. The only reason I chose the latter, and I never would’ve believed I would ever say this about a first baseman, is defense. Apparently an 11.11 range factor goes pretty far. As in, flirting with 25 plus plays per season far. So at least if he sucks offensively he will still have that going for him. Which is nice. Perhaps not as nice as total consciousness, but nice.

Round 9 – RP Joe Nathan – 69 IP, 1.06 ERC#
Did I mention that my Betancourt pick didn’t start a RP run? Well, of the intervening 7 picks between that one and this one, a grand total of 0 relievers were drafted. But no matter. When you’re betting on quantity you need to ignore all of that, channel your inner Dory, and keep swimming. And even though I was on an island, I was happy that I now had the two best available HiQ-HIPs in the draft.

Round 10 – P Francisco Liriano – 122 IP, 1.91 ERC#
To me the four elite HiQ-HIPs available in this draft were Betancourt, Nathan, Wade Davis, and Emmanuel Clase. Toysboys, apparently not wanting me to feel embarrassed for being the only person drafting relievers, took Davis at the beginning of the 10^th round. Sensitive new-age guy schwarze also thoughtfully took my feelings into account and followed suit with Doug Fister (assuming he’s using the RP version). The run on RPs! It’s here! You like me! You really like me! But wait. Can I really afford to take the last elite HiQ-HIP here? Or should I anticipate the potential upcoming run on tandem-type starters? Agonizing decision, but attempting to start the first reliever run went so well that I decided to go with a tandem. Liriano was the best available and always succeeds for me.

Round 11 – OF Milton Bradley – .318/.419/.470, A/A+
BeAllEndAll shored up his offense with the intervening two picks, so I’m faced with the same type of decision here. Clase or tandem? Or…looking at my lineup, the numbers as a whole look good so far, but it doesn’t really function the way it should. Yeah, my team OBP is high, but the only 3 guys over .400 are Mauer, Miggy & Manny. That might be a good law firm name but none of those guys will ever be confused with a leadoff hitter. How is this going to work? I need a guy at the top of the order who can get on base and won’t clog up the basepaths. And really, the only palatable option still remaining is Milton Bradley. He only has 451 PA, but his OBP# is .419, he’s a switch-hitter with speed. It seems a waste to take a part-timer this early, but he’s A/A+ and there are perfect platoon partners (notably Buxton and Luis Robert) that I can pair him with later to make a potent top of the order offensive and defensive outfielder. I was nervous that pitching would start to thin out before my next pick, but this was a necessary move for the sake of my lineup, and I’m glad I made it.

Round 12 – RP Keith Foulke – 106 IP, 1.54 ERC#
So I have good news and I have bad news. The bad news is that of the four picks until my next pick, three of them were relievers. The good news is that none of them were guys I wanted. In the intervening time I decided that I wanted Foulke. When schwarze took Bobby Jenks the pick after Milton Bradley I honestly thought he had accidentally gotten them confused. I get the ChiSox relievers of that era (Foulke, Bob Howry, Bobby Jenks) confused all the time. I mean, I know that Foulke has a proclivity for giving up the longball, but 106 innings of 1.54 ERC# is pretty sweet this late in the game.

Round 13 – P Carlos Carrasco – 134 IP, 2.06 ERC#
BeAllEndAll continues to shore up his offense, giving me another bite at a pristine pitching apple. I need tandems. There are several available. There’s also a legitimate SP still out there in 195 IP, 2.29 ERC# Lucas Giolito. I considered him, but Carrasco is a little better and no one but me has taken a 100+ IP pitcher since round 7. I thought I could have my cake and eat it too. And if Giolito went, another great tandem candidate was sitting out there in Carlos Rodon. If I took him I could make a joke about taking two consecutive Carlos’s. I don’t know what kind of joke but I’ll bet it would’ve been awesome. I mean, there was no way that two 100+ IP pitchers would be taken after no one else had taken one for six rounds. Right?

Round 14 – P Mike Clevinger – 126 IP, 2.22 ERC#
Wrong. Schwarze took both. I got cute and I got greedy and it cost me. Giolito was the pick there. Clevinger is the consolation prize. He’s a perfectly acceptable tandem but he’s the same pitcher as Giolito except there’s 70 innings less of him. For a roster that’s going to struggle to get to 1450 that matters. While my Betancourt pick was suboptimal in hindsight, my round 13 pick was the only one that I got flat-out wrong.

Round 15 – RP Emmanuel Clase – 73 IP, 1.16 ERC#
Remember how in rounds 10 and 11 I was agonizing over whether to draft Emmanuel Clase? Like, I really wanted him but didn’t feel like I could afford to take him there? Well, I guess I’m glad I didn’t. I still need a ton of innings but he’s just too good to pass up here. Clearly people are using different criteria than I am to judge relievers.

Round 16 – P Anibal Sanchez – 126 IP, 2.42 ERC#
I’m starting to scrape the bottom of the tandem barrel here, but fortunately he’s the last one I need. He’s done OK for me in the past. He’s actually going to end up being my Long B unless my replacement-level SP TBNL tanks, so that’s fine.

Round 17 – OF Luis Robert – .348/.385/.581, C/A
The yin to Milton Bradley’s yang. That sounds dirtier than I believe it to be. But not only does he cover Bradley’s missing PA’s with a few left over to spell Manny, but he’s a late-inning defensive replacement in RF. Perfect.

Round 18 – SS Andres Gimenez – .308/.381/.461, C+/A+
I mentioned previously that the only shortstop I wanted in this draft was Carlos Guillen. I had no interest in Lindor, and I had no interest in Vizquel, at least around the time they’d be drafted. I didn’t much have a preference between Gimenez and Tim Anderson, and I knew I could wait quite a while to choose. But now it’s getting on drafting backups time, so I chose Gimenez primarily because he’s a lefty hitter and because the last time I used Anderson he couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a boat.

Round 19 – IF Willi Castro - .361/.387/.534, D/D- @ 2B, SS, 3B
Free Willi! (with purchase of Happy Meal…) But seriously, this guy rakes, he’s a switch-hitter, and he plays the three key infield positions. OK, I suppose I should write “plays”. He plays infield like Ferris Bueller plays the clarinet. But he’ll only have to play about 30 games in the field. The rest of the time he’ll spell the starting DH.

“But wait…” you say, with a mixture of concern and admonishment, “…you don’t have a starting DH…”

All in good time, my friend. All in good time.

Round 20 – DH Nelson Cruz
As I wrote when I made this pick: “I've been eyeing this guy for half the draft. I don't know if he's still available because people didn't check the DH-onlys, or because having a DH-only limits your roster flexibility, or because everyone has their fill of right-handed power hitters. Probably the latter.”
I still don’t know, but I’d love to find out. I’ve never used him but it looks like he mashes. There were only six 500+ PA players available in this draft with higher OPS#. Not bad for round 20.

Round 21 – P Carsten Charles “C.C.” Sabathia – 253 IP, 2.62 ERC#
So some of you might be wondering why I’m willing to so prominently use a pitcher who clearly shouldn’t be pitching anything but the lowest of leverage innings in this league. I mean, he may not get the 253 he pitched in real life, but I expect him to get at least 200. I guess the answer is that from the beginning I’ve seen this team as a Hail Mary pass. If it doesn’t make the playoffs none of this matters, but if they do then I need some way to improve them so that they can compete against teams from more talented divisions. The strategy that I decided to employ uses a replacement level SP by design. The beauty of it is, if they make the playoffs, that guy becomes a mop-up. Removing him from the rotation is a huge boost to my pitching staff. A much bigger improvement than a team with 4 similar SPs gets from not having to use their 4^th starter. Will it work? Will it matter? I haven’t the foggiest. But I’m gonna try to find out.

You can argue that Loaiza would’ve made more sense here because he’s a RHP in a division full of RHH power, and I didn’t end up needing CC’s extra 26 IP. But I don’t care. CC was the man.

Round 22 – RP Jeff Manship – 39 IP, 1.15 ERC#
If I ended up getting enough innings so I could afford a closer this was the guy I wanted from the start. I mean, I would’ve taken Hahn obviously but there was no way he was going to last long enough for me to determine if I had enough IP. I’ve used Manship in pretty high cap leagues and he’s always done well for me. I like the 1.23 IP/G; he can go to 20 pitches without completely melting down.

Round 23 – P Codi Heuer – 64 IP, 1.29 ERC#
64 innings of 1.29 ERC# in the 23^rd round. No dearth of relievers in this draft, for sure.

Round 24 – P Daniel Hudson – 95 IP, 2.21 ERC#
Better than I expected to round out the staff. I’m going to use him in the tandem with Sabathia instead of Sanchez because I think he’ll be better.

Round 25 – Willians Astudillo - .363/.377/.499, C/A+/D
If you add up the PAs of my four OFs it comes to 1989. That’s a little short if everyone is at the top or in the middle of the lineup. I could’ve taken a 5^th OF here, but then Mauer wouldn’t have a backup, which might be OK if I batted him 9^th every game. But I don’t want to do that. In a DH league I like the idea of a “second leadoff hitter” with speed in the 9 spot. So I took Astudillo who plays catcher and kinda sorta plays OF (D-/D.). At least, he plays OF better than a DH-only would. And to save OF PAs I’m going to bat Beltran 9^th so he can play in all 162 games and utilize his speed.

Epilog
I’d say I executed my draft strategy almost flawlessly, but as I always say, there is nothing on earth that’s easier than executing a bad draft strategy. So what are the results?

Here’s what I estimate for the top 6000 PAs and top 1400 IP for each team:
Barracuda3 - .328/.402/.552, 1.85 ERC#
BeAllEndAll - .310/.386/.539, 1.81 ERC#
schwarze - .315/.392/.504, 1.90 ERC#
toysboys - .317/.397/.539, 1.86 ERC#

This obviously doesn’t factor in defense, but my defense isn’t horrific so I think I should be in the hunt. Normally I’d base the team pitching on 1450 IP, but unless I’m anticipating different versions of players than will end up being used I have both BeAllEndAll and schwarze at just over 1400 IP, which would be a little surprising to me in a pretty heavily offensive DH league. But I suck at this game so what do I know?

Great draft, great tournament, good luck everyone!

Entertaining read. I like to know what's in my opponent's head when they're drafting. Schwarze seemed to know exactly what you were doing and c*ck blocked you on the 100IP pitcher market. Nelson Cruz is a solid late pick, I had no use for him sine I already had Hafner.

ALC #4 (overall pick #13)

I had a mid-round pick at 13 and the ALC was wide open. I didn't want to be in the NL because it was already too crowded and I didn't want to be in the ALE because Schwarze already had Pedro locked up with the first pick. I did consider the ALW, but I took a look at the player pool and I liked the ALC better. I knew I wanted to take an SP in the first two rounds because having a stud SP is important. Looking at the top 8 SPs over 150 innings, and pairing 1 & 8, 2 & 7, etc would yield:

Bieber 1.54 ERC # / Greinke 2.21 ERC# - 438 IP
Maeda 1.40 ERC# / Keuchel 2.10 ERC# - 351 IP
Kluber 1.73 ERC# / Scherzer 2.05 ERC# - 418 IP
Santana 1.87 ERC# / Verlander 1.90 ERC# - 483 IP

Bieber would be my #1 pick (and he was the #1 pick) over Maeda due to more innings and better HR/9. But Verlander/Santana also had the most innings. So by taking the #4 pick in the draft I would have my preferred combo. Plus I like making back-to-back picks. Since I have back-to-back picks, I'll do my write up for every other pick.

Rd 1 & 2

1		1		BeAllEndAll		Bieber, Shane	P
1		2		barracuda3		Maeda, Kenta	P
1		3		schwarze		Kluber, Corey	P
1		4		toysboys		Verlander, Justin	P
2		5		toysboys		Santana, Johan	P

This went exactly how I thought it was and I got my 2 SPs. No surprises here.

Rd 3 & 4

2		6		schwarze		Greinke, Zack	P
2		7		barracuda3		Mauer, Joe	C
2		8		BeAllEndAll		Scherzer, Max	P
3		9		BeAllEndAll		Sale, Chris	P
3		10		barracuda3		Cabrera, Miguel	1B/3B
3		11		schwarze		Bauer, Trevor	P
3		12		toysboys		Alomar, Roberto	2B
4		13		toysboys		Ordonez, Magglio	OF

barracuda3 was breaking the cycle and going for offense. I think he has solid picks here too. I had penciled in Keuchel and Brad Keller (more on that later), but since BeAllEndAll and schwarze already had 3 SPs, I switched to offense. Alomar stood out as the best 2B and I highly value a leadoff hitter. He has it all, obp, speed, switch hitter and almost 700 PA. The other 2B were a notch below and none had an obp close to Alomar's. Ordonez was chosen as a top hitter for the OF which as cuda said earlier was not as deep as it seems. I had considered Frank Thomas, but 1B was a bit deeper. Schwarze took him with the next pick. Also, I'm starting to toy with the idea of using Target Field and creating a doubles team. These two guys fit that well.

Rd 5 & 6

4		14		schwarze		Thomas, Frank	1B
4		15		barracuda3		Ramirez, Jose	2B/3B
4		16		BeAllEndAll		Thome, Jim	1B
5		17		BeAllEndAll		Guillen, Carlos	SS
5		18		barracuda3		Ramirez, Manny	OF
5		19		schwarze		Moncada, Yoan	3B
5		20		toysboys		Keller, Brad	P
6		21		toysboys		Belle, Albert	OF

I made a mistake. For some reason I thought schwarze had grabbed Zack Plesac, but it was Zach Greinke instead. I grabbed Keller who is slightly worse than Plesac, but has a better HR/9 ratio. But I should have grabbed Plesac and BeAllEndAll took his soon afterwards. I almost took Granderson here for his triples galore, but I don't like his obp and Albert Belle stood out to me as as the better option. He's known for his home runs but he also hit 48 doubles that year and should still be fine at Target Field. Also, there was a run on 3B in this round and I missed out. It's a shallow position that I recognized too late, but I don't think it would have changed any of my decisions even if I did. Well, at least I can wait to take a 3B. Also Carlos Guillen was taken, but the next 3 shortstops were pretty even in my opinion, so I could wait to take one as well.

Rd 7 & 8

6		22		schwarze		Granderson, Curtis	OF
6		23		barracuda3		Beltran, Carlos	OF
6		24		BeAllEndAll		Plesac, Zach	P
7		25		BeAllEndAll		Young, Dmitri	OF
7		26		barracuda3		Betancourt, Rafael	P
7		27		schwarze		Martinez, Victor	C/DH
7		28		toysboys		Keuchel, Dallas	P
8		29		toysboys		Hafner, Travis	DH

Keuchel was a guy that I almost took in the 3rd round, so it's unbelievable to me that's he's still here in the 7th, so I have to take him. Hafner was the best pure hitter still available. I love his obp. He has < 600 PA/162 so I'm gonna need to find a RH platoon partner for him. I had to double-check to make sure there was a DH in this league, cuz he would suck at 1B. Cuda took the first setup/closer type which is a very deep pool in this league. Did you know that Beltran only hit 14 doubles in 2003? I was avoiding him since he would not fit my ballpark. Schwarze's pick of V-Mart is intriguing since I don't know if he's going to use him as a C or DH. It's a mystery!

Rd 9 & 10

8		30		schwarze		Brantley, Michael	OF
8		31		barracuda3		Abreu, Jose	1B
8		32		BeAllEndAll		Damon, Johnny	OF
9		33		BeAllEndAll		Polanco, Placido	2B
9		34		barracuda3		Nathan, Joe	P
9		35		schwarze		Lindor, Francisco	SS
9		36		toysboys		Vizquel, Omar	SS
10		37		toysboys		Davis, Wade	P

I think I could have waited on a SS but I took Vizquel because I'd rather have him over Tim Anderson. Anderson has < 600 PA, and 0.040 less obp and Vizquel is a switch-hitter. Since cuda kicked off the setup/closer party, I took who I thought was the 2nd best in Wade Davis. This is probably early considering the depth at the position, but I've had a success with him in the past.

Rd 11 & 12

10		38		schwarze		Fister, Doug	P
10		39		barracuda3		Liriano, Francisco	P
10		40		BeAllEndAll		Martinez, J.D.	OF
11		41		BeAllEndAll		Perez, Salvador	C
11		42		barracuda3		Bradley, Milton	OF
11		43		schwarze		Jenks, Bobby	P
11		44		toysboys		Skubal, Tarik	P
12		45		toysboys		Sizemore, Grady	OF

With Fister and Liriano taken, the run on long reliever types had begun. The best long reliever with an IP/G > 2 was Skubal. Damn cuda and his Milton Bradley pick! I was going to take him here, but I was OK with Grady Sizemore as his defense and 53 doubles work well at Target.

Rd 13 & 14

12		46		schwarze		Miller, Andrew	P
12		47		barracuda3		Foulke, Keith	P
12		48		BeAllEndAll		Dye, Jermaine	OF
13		49		BeAllEndAll		Gordon, Alex	OF
13		50		barracuda3		Carrasco, Carlos	P
13		51		schwarze		Giolito, Lucas	P
13		52		toysboys		Morneau, Justin	1B
14		53		toysboys		Hahn, Jesse	P

I wanted Carrasco and Giolito is a good pick here too. I could have gone with Rodon to pair with Skubal, but I felt he was a significant step down and that I could wait (I was wrong). Jesse Hahn and his 0.52 ERA, 0 HR/9 and 0.69 Whip is surprisingly still available so I decided to go for quality over quantity. After missing out on Milton Bradley, I wanted the other part-time stud, Justin Morneau who will bat against righties for me.

Rd 15 & 16

14		54		schwarze		Rodon, Carlos	P
14		55		barracuda3		Clevinger, Mike	P
14		56		BeAllEndAll		McKenzie, Triston	P
15		57		BeAllEndAll		Thiebar, Caleb	P
15		58		barracuda3		Clase, Emmanuel	P
15		59		schwarze		Karsay, Steve	P
15		60		toysboys		Buxton, Byron	OF
16		61		toysboys		Koskie, Corey	3B

Rodon is gone. Cuda is forced to get Clevenger. Good job schwarze. Thielbar was also a consideration for me, but I'll be filling out my Long B with starting pitchers. Bryon Buxton is the last part-time unicorn out there and he'll platoon in CF against lefties with Sizemore. I don't like this Koskie pick as he's the 4th best 3B, but the 5th best one was even worse (and went undrafted). I could have drafted Gimenez and played him out of position, but I'm not sure that would have been better with the penalty to defense. Welp, it's the 16th round and I gotta get a 3B at some point. I think BeAllEndAll is playing Anderson out of position at 3B.

Rd 17 & 18

16		62		schwarze		Avila, Alex	C
16		63		barracuda3		Sanchez, Anibal	P
16		64		BeAllEndAll		Perez, Rafael	P
17		65		BeAllEndAll		Breslow, Craig	P
17		66		barracuda3		Robert, Luis	OF
17		67		schwarze		Howry, Bob	P
17		68		toysboys		Rodriguez, Ivan	C
18		69		toysboys		Konerko, Paul	1B

I waited to grab a catcher because after Mauer the pool was pretty deep and even. Even the backup catchers are pretty good. So I drafted Ivan Rodriguez thinking that I'd take his 2004 .893 OPS season. But after looking at his 2006 season, I noticed he has a 51% CSPCT! I don't know how much SBs will be a factor in this league, but it's nice to know that I'll have a C who will shut down the running game. He'll bat 9th and his 580 PA should allow him to play in almost every game. Paul Konerko will get 350 PA platooning at 1B with Morneau. I figured that's more valuable than 70 IP reliever.

Rd 19 & 20

18		70		schwarze		Choo, Shin-Soo	OF
18		71		barracuda3		Gimenez, Andres	2B
18		72		BeAllEndAll		Holland, Greg	P
19		73		BeAllEndAll		Duffey, Tyler	P
19		74		barracuda3		Castro, Will	IF
19		75		schwarze		Jimenez, D'Angelo	IF
19		76		toysboys		Cease, Dylan	P
20		77		toysboys		Hand, Brad	P

All of my main offensive spots are now filled so it's just a matter of grabbing more bullpen. I decided to split between my Long B (Cease) and setup A (Hand).

Rd 21 & 22

20		78		schwarze		Offerman, Jose	2B
20		79		barracuda3		Cruz, Nelson	DH
20		80		BeAllEndAll		Rosenthal, Trevor	P
21		81		BeAllEndAll		Rogers, Tayler	P
21		82		barracuda3		Sabathia, C.C.	P
21		83		schwarze		Soria, Joakim	P
21		84		toysboys		Punto, Nick	IF
22		85		toysboys		Foster, Matt	P

Cuda's pick of Nelson Cruz this late is solid. I'm surprised no one took him as their DH to this point either. I knew that I was going to carry 12 pitchers, so I really need a jack-of-all-trades on my bench. Nick Punto can laudably play 2B, SS, 3B and OF. I may even platoon him at 3B with Koskie since Koskie is left-handed. Foster has fills another setup man role and his 1.25 IP/G means he can go 20 pitches.

Rd 23 & 24

22		86		schwarze		Johnson, Charles	C
22		87		barracuda3		Manship, Jeff	P
22		88		BeAllEndAll		Anderson, Tom	SS
23		89		BeAllEndAll		Grandal, Yasmani	C
23		90		barracuda3		Heuer, Codi	P
23		91		schwarze		Ryan, Michael	OF
23		92		toysboys		Garver, Mitch	C
24		93		toysboys		Gray, Sonny	P

A run on backup catchers! I knew it was coming and I had 3 guys I was looking at and all three were taken this round. I like Johnson because he is good both offensively and defensively whereas Grandal and Garver can't throw out my grandma stealing second base. I also wanted Grandal over Garver because he's a switch hitter and walks more. But I'm very OK with Garver. He can rest / pinch-hit for Rodriguez and be Travis Hafner's platoon partner against LHP. I don't know how many IP I'll really need in this league. I'm thinking the offenses will run in the $140M league range. So I'd rather err on the side of caution and get another SP for my bullpen. Sonny Gray was the best available. I'm over 1500 innings now at this point.

Rd 25

24		94		schwarze		Sweeney, Mike	1B
24		95		barracuda3		Hudson, Daniel	P
24		96		BeAllEndAll		De Aza, Alejandro	OF
25		97		BeAllEndAll		Robertson, David	P
25		98		barracuda3		Astudillo, Willians	C
25		99		schwarze		Otero, Dan	P
25		100		toysboys		Colome, Alex	P

Mike Sweeney is a great pick here in the 24th round. I almost considered him when I took Konerko in the 18th round. I don't have any needs here, so I decided to go for one more high leverage setup man in Colome. To show the depth of setup men in this league, Mr. Irrelevant Alex Colome: 60 IP, 0.94 ERA, 0.81 ERA, 0.00 HR/9.

The good: good platoons, ballpark suits team, strong SP, strong armed C, plenty of IP
The bad: drafted the wrong Zack, Koskie is a weak 3B, I didn't grab a second good Long A

Great writeups so far.

My AL Central writeup is coming soon.

I have 3 teams in this league. My first two teams are in the AL East (pick =#2) and NL West (pick #8). I will elaborate on those decisions in different writeups. When my third pick came up (pick #20), my options were pick #3 in NL Central or picks #2 and #3 in AL Central. I didn't like the starting pitching in the NL Central plus the NL West will most likely be the strongest division and have the wildcard team. It's unclear which AL division will have the wilcard team, so the AL Central it is. Deciding on pick 2 or 3, I decided there were 5 pitchers that stood out.. Bieber, Kluber , Verlander, Maeda, Santana and it was my hope I could possibly get two of those guys. I see why toysboys chose draft slot #4 with pick #13. Smart move.

Round #1
Bieber and Maeda went with the first two picks. I wasn't expecting Maeda this early go due his lower innings. I assumed Bieber & Kluber would go 1-2 and I'd get Verlander here, which would've been fine (I like stud SPs with 250+ innings). Now I have to make a choice. Kluber is better statistically, but those 47 extra innings means one less RP needs to be drafted. I went with Corey Kluber, His performance history is pretty strong and I've had success with him in other leagues.

Round #2
Not surprisingly, toysboys selects Verlander & Santana. My choice is between Scherzer and Greinke. Scherzer has a better ERC# but I am not a hostage to that stat. I use other key measures such as HR/9#, BB/9# in my decision making. I went with Zack Greinke due to his lower HR and BB numbers. There is going to be a ton of HR hitters in the American League.

Round #3
I knew somebody would grab Joe Mauer early. Clearly he is the best catcher available, but he never seems to perform up to his numbers or what his salary would dictate. I'm more than happy to grab Victor Martinez or Alex Avila much later in the draft. I would've taken Miguel Cabrera here but barracuda3 snagged him one pick in front of me. The top starting pitching options are Dallas Keuchel and the player I ultimately took, Trevor Bauer. His ERC# is a bit worse than Keuchel, but I wanted the righty. In retrospect, this might have been a bit early.

Round #4
R.Alomar and Ordonez went. I went with the best hitter on the board, Frank Thomas, plus despite his DH designation, he's an A/A- at 1B. I try to get high on-base guys as much as possible. I'd much rather have a guy with .300/.400/.500 than a guy with .300/.360/.570. Generally speaking, high on-base guys underachieve less than high slugging guys. of course, Thomas is great at both (.328/.436/..625). Dallas Keuchel is still on the board. I should grab him next round to lock up 4 solid SPs.

Round #5
barracuda3 takes both Jose Ramirez and Manny Ramirez. BeAll takes C.Guillen and Thome. Clearly, folks have decided to go hitting instead of starting pitching. So I will wait another round on Keuchel. With barracuda3 having two 3B, I see that there is a very big dropoff coming, so I reached a bit and grabbed Yoan Mocada. As a switch-hitter, he was the guy I was targeting anyway, I just had to take him a bit earlier than anticipated.

Round #6
Keller and Belle went next. No hurry on Keuchel. With offensive players flying off the board, I am taking my starting center fielder here. I was all set to take Carlos Beltran here (another switch-hitter), but I think it will be more fun to grab Curtis Granderson. Maybe Beltran will make it back to me.

Round #7
Nope, Beltran goes on the very next pick to barracuda3. Oh well - at least I got one good-fielding OF. Plesac, Betancourt and Dmitri Young get taken as well. Now I should take Keuchel here. But I also badly want Victor Martinez. I will grab either Keuchel or Travis Hafner with my next pick. Surely, toysboys won't take both. I take Victor Martinez, not knowing for sure if I will use him at catcher or DH. Maybe this pick will spark toysboys to take Ivan Rodriguez.

Round #8
Nooooooo! I can't believe it. toysboys takes both Keuchel and Hafner. WTF? How can this happen? I am shaken. Maybe I will use Victor at DH, then grab both Avila & I-Rod later as a platoon and tighten the screws on usable starting catchers. After splashing some water on my face, I shake it off and grab the best OF left, in my opinion, Michael Brantley, another solid OBP guy.

Round #9
Being in three drafts, the one things I noticed is there is an advantage of drafting on either end. Having two picks in a row makes it more likely to start a run on something or maybe screw somebody else out of a key position by taking two guys at the same position... Yes, I am considering taking both Avila and Ivan Rodirguez at some point. Anyway, three more hitters went on the next four picks (J.Abreu, Damon, Polanco, Nathan). I should have started taking RPs here. There were three viable shortstops left and only three people needed a SS. But I just can't pass up another switch-hitter, so I grabbed Francisco Lindor. toysboys did grab Omar Vizqel, but he took the RP I would've taken, Wade Davis. I could've just taken Davis first.

Round #10
I am looking at Milton Bradley for my last OF spot. He's a switch hitter and is a great fielder with a great OBP but has lasted this long due to being light on PAs. But for some dumb reason I take Doug Fister. And it's even more dumb, because I am using his 216-inning seasons as my fourth SP (so I am not light on IPs, barracuda3) I am focusing on getting pitchers with low HR totals even if their ERCs# are a bit higher than a HR-prone SP. Greinke, Bauer and Fister have HR/9# numbers of 0.31, 0.31 and 0.36. As soon as 'cuda took Bradley one pick before my next turn, I had buyer's remorse.

Round #11
I see that BeAllEndAll takes catcher, Salvador Perez. So only toysboys needs a starting catcher. Keeping my eye on Avila/I-Rod. I finally decide to start filling my bullpen. Yes barracuda, I purposely drafted Bobby Jenks over Keith Foulke. Jenks' ERC# is better (1.37 vs 1.54) and more importantly, his HR/9# is much lower (0.21 vs 0.68). I've have had miserable experience using Foulke in the past. Sure has 41 more innings, but I'm not worried about getting enough quality bullpen innings in this draft.

Round #12
Nobody that I wantd went before my next turn, so I grabbed the best LH RP, Andrew Miller. I am using his 2017 season over his 2016 season, due to the big difference in HR/9. Another example of choosing HR/9# over ERC# when ERC# is close enough. I chose Miller over the lefty Brad Hand b/c I don't like RPs with IP/G < 1.00.

Round #13
BeAllEndAlltake both Jermaine Dye and Alex Gordon, two of the top OFs left. I still need an OF. Nice pick. barracuda3 takes Carlos Carrasco. No SP has been taken since Keuchel in round 7. Lucas Giolito is still on the board and is by far the best SP left, despite his high HR totals. There is really no other player screaming to be selected here. This gives me 5 quality SPs (1019 IPs), including my controversial decision to use Fister as a SP. The next SP taken (not counting barracudas short-inning tandem guys) is Dylan Cease 6 rounds later. If anybody drafts a negative HR park, I will try my best to use Kluber and Giolito in their parks.

Round #14
Like most of you, I have been keeping track of everybody else's roster during the draft and had noticed that barracuda is taking all the 100-180 inning guys, to potentially set up some tandems. I needed some bigger-inning long RPs and another lefty, so Carlos Rodon seemed like the obvious choice. I was tickled to death to learn both Giolito and Rodon were in barracuda3's plans.

Round #15
I never know how other people value shorter-inning RPs, and I have a tendency to draft them earlier than most. But I absolutely love Steve Karsay and almost took him 3 rounds earlier. Low whip# (0.84) - check.... low hr/9# (0.15) - check, low bb/9# (1.66) - check, reasonable ip/g (1.40) - check, good range (A+) - check. Sold.

Round #16
So in round 16, we're going from right to left on the draft grid (toysboys is to my right), so I am going to officially use Victor Martinez best hitting season at DH. So by taking Alex Avila here, I can also take Ivan Rodriguez in the next round and put the screws to toysboys at the catching position.

Round #17
After much consideration, I determined that Charles Johnson's 478-PA season is decent enough for toysboys to use as a starter if I take I-Rod here. So instead I pass on I-Rod and plan on grabbing Johnson's 158-PA season (.977 ops#) as Avila's platoon partner. So this round, I continue adding bullpen depth, with Bobby Howry, abother low-whip, low-walk, low-Hr reliever.

Round #18
As expected, toysboys takes Ivan Rodriguez. I grab my third starting OF, another high-on-base guy and left-handed bat, Shin-Soo Choo. I now have eight of my starting nine batters, still need a 2B.

Round #19
I need a backup 3B since Moncada is light on PAs. The best guy left is D'Angelo Jimenez (switch hitter, with a .384 OBP). Nothing exciting, but fills a need. At this point, I determined that I should have picked 2nd in this draft and not 3rd. I still could have drafted Kluber & Greinke in round 1-2, but I would've taken Cabrera in front of barracuda's in round 3.

Round #20
Now I get my last starting batter, Jose Offerman. I take him over Ian Kinsler (and his A+ range) due to Offerman being a switch-hitter and having a nice .397 obp#. Six of my nine starting batters are high-on-base guys. The three that are not, are all solid defensive players, 1 lefty, 2 swithc-hitters (Granderson, Moncada, Lindor).

Round #21
With five picks to go, I only need a backup catcher, a couple of relievers, and a couple of backup OF/DH types. I go with Joakim Soria. Relief pitching is very deep in this draft.

Round #22
Time to grab Charles Johnson. I bet my Avila/Johnson platoon is not that much worse offensively than barracuda's 2nd round pick of Joe Mauer.

Round #23
I really need more plate appearances at OF, as my main three guys only have about 2000 plate appearances, but I can't pass up the fluky monster 68-PA season of Michael Ryan. I will just bat my OFs lower in the lineup.

Round #24
I made this pick while tired and maybe should have waited till the morning. I had signed off for the night, not expecting toysboys to make a pick this late. Then I got busy doing something else and stayed up way later than I had planned. I then noticed toysboys made his selection, so I figured I might as well make my pick now. I knew my last round pick was going to be another RP to get me up to a littler over 1500 innings. I really needed more plate appearances in the OF, but Mike Sweeney is still on the board. He can play some DH for me since V-Mart only has 641 PA. So I'm going with only 2067 PAs in the OF.

Round #25
Low whip (0.91), low bb/9 (1.3), low hr/9 (0.25), decent ip/g (1.14). Dan Otero seems like a solid 25th round pick here.

My hitting looks like this...
C: Alex Avila (L) .295, .389, 506 (A/A+/B) & Charles Johnson (R) . .326, .411, .607 (B+/A/B-)
1B: Frank Thomas (R) .328, .436, .625 (A/A-)
2B: Jose Offerman (S) .315, .403, .438 (C/C)
3B: Yoan Mancada (S) .315, .367, .548 (B/A) & D'Angelo Jimenez (S) .287, .384, .407 (C/B+)
SS: Francisco Lindor (S) .301, .358, .435 (A/A)
LF: Shin-Soo Choo (L) .300, .401, .484 (B/C)
CF: Curtis Granderson (L) .302, .361, .552 (B+/A+)
RF: Michael Brantley (L) .327, .385, .506 (A/D+)
DH: Victor Martinez (S) .335, .409, .565 & Mike Sweeney (R) .340, .417, 563
PH/OF: Michael Ryan (L) .393, .441, .754 (C/B-)
Total Hitting .316, .393, .523, $66.3 million

My Pitching
SP: Corey Kluber (R) 204 ip, .193 oav, 0.87 whip, 0.93 hr/9
SP: Zack Greinke (R) 229 ip, 230 oav, 1.07 whip, 0.43 hr/9
SP: Trevor Bauer (R) 175 ip, .208 oav, 1.09 whip, 0.46 hr/9
SP: Doug Fister (R) 216 ip, .237 oav, 1.06 whip, 0.46 hr/9
SP: Lucas GIolito (R) 195 ip, .184 oav, 1.04 whip, 1.00 hr/9

RP: Bobby Jenks (R) 65 ip, .198 oav, 0.89 whip, 0.28 hr/9
RP: Andrew Miller (R) 63 ip, .144 oav, 0.83 whip, .043 hr/9
RP: Carlos Rodon (L) 133 ip, .189 oav, .096 whip, 0.88 hr/9
RP: Steve Karsay (R) 44 ip, .188 oav, 0.85 whip, 0.21 hr/9
RP: Bobby Howry (R) 73 ip, .191 oav, 0.89 whip, 0.49 hr/9
RP: Joakim Soria (R) 69 ip, .187 oav, .0.94 whip, 0.39 hr/9
RP: Dan Otero (R) 71 ip, 211 oav, 0.91 whip, 0.25 hr/9
Total Pitching Stats: 1537 ip, .206 oav, 0.98 whip, 0.56 hr/9, 9.8 k/9, 2.1 bb/9, $58.5 million

Too many extreme parks in this division. I decided to play in US Cellular Field which is fairly neutral, +1 for HRs, 0 for singles, -1 for doubles/triples (1.02 park factor). No idea how this team will do, as I didn't tabulate the stats of the other rosters. I don't have a lot of the mashers that other teams do, but I have a bunch of 15-25 HR .300 hitters with good on-base percentages. Maybe that will result in a league-average offense. Hopefully my pitching will be above average at run prevention.

Division Draft: I had the 7th pick, and 5 of the first 6 spots taken were in the NL. Though I certainly liked the NL West best, I didn’t like it enough to be “the 3rd owner in there already” best. The NL East also had 2 teams in it, so that was a no go. Knowing already that one of the top 6 owners from the last round couldn’t possibly make the playoffs in the NL, I decided to go in the unwanted AL instead. The West looked deeper to me talent-wise than the Central, and the goal is to get at least a WC and have a prayer in the playoffs. This felt like the best shot at this point. AL West it is.

Of course, 3 of the next 4 picks after me went into the NL anyway. I’m sure you all know what you’re doing, but you filled up 11 NL spots in the first 15 picks and 7 of you can’t make the playoffs. And one of us in the AL gets to the WS, as these things must work. I feel like I at least got this decision right.

I went with pick 4 because I didn’t see a clear-cut top pick and figured I might as well get 2 of the first 5 players. I might have made a huge mistake there.

R1/2: P Gerrit Cole (212 IP, 1.86 ERC#) and SS Corey Seager (.336/.396/.608 - all # stats)

The guy I really wanted was Felix Hernandez, but ejstockman took him 3rd. At that point I was certain I’d really blown it, because the clear next SP choice was Cole with his 0.79 HR/9. If I don’t take him, then what? And if I do, he might suck. Oh well, I’m stuck with him now and I don’t know if sticking him in a park that represses homers will work with the rest of my team.

I knew I wanted to take either Seager or A-Rod here, with SS quality drying up quickly. At several positions, I’d almost certainly have to take RH bats, so I went with Seager for the LH bat and better glove despite the lower PA total. I did for a few minutes think about taking both Seager and A-Rod here, punting the pitching down the road, and using A-Rod as the DH when he wasn’t subbing at SS. It felt like a really bold move that could pi$$ off my division mates but also really backfire. Then again, so could taking Cole.

I also thought about taking I-Rod, because catching dropped off badly after him and Mike Napoli. I felt pretty confident one of them would at least survive to my next picks. I was nowhere close to correct about that. They both went in the next 4 picks. Hoo-ah, this draft is really going great!

R3/4: OF Mike Trout (.320/.466/.612) and 1B/OF Lance Berkman (.332/.422/.599)

People were mostly ignoring pitchers now with a huge number of similar enough guys left over. I don’t think you have to justify drafting Trout, right? He can lead off and play CF and has the best OPS# (1.078) of anyone not named Giambi. Picking which version isn’t super easy, but I went with 2018 for the .466 OBP# in particular with still good enough range to play CF (2.38).

Berkman isn’t just a great switch-hitter and one of my favorite sim players, he’s also versatile in my offensive build. He has an excellent 1B season and a great OF season, so he gives me options. I also considered Darin Erstad for the same reason here but hoped he’d fall to me next round. Spoiler alert: no one ever fell to me in this draft. These owners are too good, as I surely knew would happen.

R5/6: SP Cliff Lee (104 IP, 1.86) and SP Rich Harden (149 IP, 2.06)

Pretty much all the positions where there was anyone who stood out from the rest had been drained by this point, so no one jumped out as a “must draft” in the hitter pool to me. I decided that I’d grab a L/R combo that could form a tandem, assuming I use Lee’s 104 IP partial and not his 212 IP full season. But at least I had the option of going with the full if an innings crunch materialized later.

My vision now is a four-man rotation with two tandems, as I know I can get another 200+ IP guy later and see a few other pieces that could pair up as well. This also means locking up 6 pitcher spots on my rotation, thus limiting my bullpen arms and making me start planning around drafting hitters who don’t need backups. With a DH, I can get away with 12 hitters so long as no more than 2 non-catchers need a backup. All I need now is for everyone to leave me the guys I want, easy as pie.

R7/8: SP Andy Pettitte (223 IP, 2.29) and RP Billy Wagner (75 IP, 1.07)

Every pick in between was a pitcher, with everyone grabbing a SP and a RP. Why not continue the trend? I don’t love Pettitte but I needed a second 200+ IP guy and his 1.02 WHIP made him attractive enough in the dwindling pool of SP. Though I look back now and see that guys only marginally less good didn’t even get drafted, and maybe having my top two SP being guys I’m not thrilled with isn’t the recipe for success.

Wagner is the class of the lefty relievers in this pool, and his salary isn’t a deterrent like it might be in a capped league. I decided not to wait, as I’m quite sure he wouldn’t have made it back to me. Since 4 of the next 6 picks were RP, I feel pretty certain that was a good bet.

R9/10: OF/1B Ken Griffey Jr. (.280/.360/.587) and 2B Bret Boone (.328/.370/.554)

Getting another premium LH bat was a priority here, and one who could be used either at 1B or CF gave me added flexibility now that footballmm11 has taken Giambi, Erstad and Jeff Bagwell and really limited my choices if I want to use Berkman’s preferable OF season now. (Let’s pause and note that football also took Mark Teixeira and Yordan Alvarez, and that meant someone didn’t get a great 1B and he’s got at least two DHs. Maybe 3?) Griffey’s ‘98 season is HR heavy (I had him in the Cooperstown League, and he set the as-yet-unsurpassed league record with 87 for me), so by now I’m pretty committed to a slugging lineup and Cole’s weakness be damned. This division has strong hitters’ and pitchers’ parks, but I am going to put that decision off for now and just draft the best guys. (It might be fun to see whether Griffey hits more HR than Cole gives up. Anyone want to put down a sidebet on that?)

I thought about taking Shohei the hitter here or Alvarez, though both are under 600 PA and I feel like I can find DH options later anyway. There was no need to jump at a 1B, and the C and 3B all felt basically the same. So I went for Boone, with the highest OPS# at 2B and a solid B+/B+ glove. All the 2B options had some limitation, and Boone’s is speed. Biggio has a higher OBP and SPD but a lesser glove and power. Cano has a better glove and hits LH, but he’s 60 points lower in OPS and just as slow. Kinsler has great range and speed but lower PA. So, let’s get the best bat and lock him down.

R11/12: SP Shohei Ohtani (166 IP, 2.26) and SP Rich Hill (110 IP, 1.97)

I only missed doing the Ohtani double by two picks, because at this point I think I happily would have taken his bat, too. Instead I finished up my rotation with another L/R combination out of the best arms left on the board. Aside from the top 3 picks in this draft, I have the 4 next-best ERC# SP with at least 100 IP. None of my 6 SP has an ERC# above 2.29, so I’m happy with the collection ultimately.

R13/14: RP Casey Sadler (40 IP, 1.00) and OF Vladimir Guerrero (.332/.386/.572)

I would have taken Joey Devine, but ej sniped him one pick before. Sadler has one of those ridiculous relief seasons, so I figured I’d get one of those locked up at least. He’ll make a good closer.

Speaking of snipes, I had been thinking about taking Rafael Palmeiro to play 1B, thereby making my OF Griffey, Trout, and Berkman. But pedro took him this round, so I pivoted to a realigned defense with Griffey playing 1B. I considered taking a lesser hitter with better speed and defense like Randy Winn or Carlos Beltran, but I find in leagues like this guys with good averages tend to be pretty helpful. Guerrero’s .332 wasn’t as good as Moises Alou’s .351, but Alou has only 517 PA and would have to be a DH. I’m not sure that’s really such a problem as I reflect back on it, but I think I really wanted someone who could play every day with better speed and defense. This might be another one I question later when my team is struggling.

R15/16: RP Octavio Dotel (98 IP, 1.56) and RP Ryan Madson (59 IP, 1.35)

Several pitchers I would have drafted got taken in between my slots, including Sean Doolittle, Mike Mayers, and Joel Pineiro. One issue I definitely had to keep in mind was drafting enough innings even with 13 slots, so I went for Dotel’s bulk over many better arms. Madson has a low HR rate that made him the choice over Joe Nathan or Jeff Zimmerman. This only puts me around 1,240 IP with just 3 slots to go, however. So I will likely have to take a much lesser quality SP to be my long man/innings eater.

R17/18: C Mitch Meluskey (.298/.394/.461) and OF Carl Everett (.322/.391/.547)

Even with just 12 hitters, and two of them having to be catchers, I probably could have gotten away with taking someone with lower PA along the way before now. But I was a bit worried about covering all the other backup spots with two players. I think that was an unnecessary concern, because just about any backup could fill in at DH so long as I covered another 100 or so PA in the outfield with someone. I don’t know, maybe I overthought it too much earlier, because by this point Everett’s 535 PA weren’t an issue for me. I was more concerned that my team would be too slow, and I liked adding a couple switch hitters to the lineup, too.

So enter Everett into the OF/DH mix, and why not grab Meluskey, a switch-hitting catcher with a near-.400 OBP, too. Sure, that D arm isn’t going to help matters much, but he will at least get on base some at the bottom of the order. My lineup should now have 3 switch, 2 left, and 4 righties.

R19/20: RP Joe Smith (75 IP, 1.52) and UT Marwin Gonzalez (.307/.380/.505)

Not that a 1.52 ERC is anything not to like, but picking Smith was more about boosting the innings total than anything else. All these guys are going to get lit up anyway no matter how gaudy their stats, so at least I should get to a comfortable inning total. This puts me at 1,312 with 2 slots to go, and I now know I will at least top 1,450.

Gonzalez is someone I was sure would get taken for his versatility even if he isn’t a starter-worthy hitter at this level. But he can play all the infield positions and OF, plus he’s a switch hitter, so I can use him to back up Seager for 30 games or so and also cover PA when Trout and Everett need to sit occasionally, too. If I would have taken a true SS, I think I would have lost flexibility to be able to pinch run or substitute defensively for anyone late in games.

R21/22: P Jacob DeGrom (30, 1.24) and P Jarrod Washburn (133, 2.35)

My options here were either two higher-inning relievers with ERC above 1.50, or this combination. First off, Washburn covers my long relief and then some, plus if I ever need to toss him in the rotation or into a tandem due to fatigue issues he can pitch deep into a game. Also, if we get into one of those marathon games hopefully he’s available to chew up the innings.

DeGrom wasn’t the best short-inning option left, but he’s really a piece of tremendous optimism. If I am careful not to use his innings up, I can spot start him once or twice down the stretch if I’m fortunate enough to be in a tight race or even a tiebreaker game. And, even better, maybe even a playoff game or two should the opportunity present itself. It’s a luxury in a league like this to stash this guy away, but maybe it will pay off.

R23/24: 3B Troy Glaus (.277/.393/.573) and C Tom Lampkin (.285/.336/.466)

The rules say you need a 3B, so it was time to get one. When Bregman and Beltre went off the board early, I knew I’d be happy with any of several guys. Now it was just about deciding which one. Glaus’ strengths are prodigious power, a ton of walks, A range, and decent speed for a 3B (72). His downsides are a lower AVG and C- fielding. I considered Morgan Ensberg for a more solid glove and similar OPS, Matt Chapman for A++ range and a lot of doubles, and even Eric Chavez for A+ range with a lefty bat (though 100 points lower OPS). No one had everything you’d want, but ultimately Glaus turns out to have my 5th-best OPS and 2nd-most HR after Griffey.

Meluskey’s 400 PA had to be paired with someone. Though some guys were better hitters, I decided I liked Lampkin for his A++ arm (46% CS) and lefty bat so I should always have a catcher with a hitting advantage in there. Combined they only have 627 PA, but I think that’s enough for 8th/9th hitters, and Lampkin can be a defensive replacement when he’s not starting so long as he’s not fatigued. Maybe I should have gone with a higher PA total guy to ensure his availability for that. Oh well.

R25: OF Carlos Beltran (.258/.366/.538)

Mr. Irrelevant turns out to be a guy I thought about as a starter at one point. His main purpose for me will be late-inning defense and speed, though of course he can certainly hit, too. I’m using his partial season for the 28/28 SB and slightly more power than the full season, which I don’t need anyway. I did consider a bunch of low-PA hitting phenoms like Livan Soto and Evan Carter here, and I also came really close to taking Jeremy Reed (66 PA, .392 AVG#, 3.41 RRF OF), too. But in the event I run into fatigue with Seager and Everett at the same time, I couldn’t put that all on Marwin.

Ballpark: I’ll acknowledge I didn’t settle on this until well after the draft. Cole’s HR rate really messed with my head, because the rest of my pitching staff is good enough at tamping down HR and my entire offense can thump. Besides the catchers, everyone in the lineup is between 11.3 and 18.6 AB/HR. So there’s a decent argument to play in the Kingdome and hope we score enough to help Cole out. Lots of my hitters can hit 2B, too, so I don’t necessarily want to limit those too much either. Kingdome at +1 for 2B and +2 for HR certainly makes sense for my offense.

But then where does that leave my pitching staff? Others on my roster are at least slightly homer-prone. So while I definitely couldn’t imagine dropping this team in the Astrodome or Safeco for maximum run suppression, Oakland and Anaheim offer slightly reduced HR without being too extreme.

I tried to guess what my division mates might do, too. Football has similarly HR-prone pitching to worry about potentially (unless he takes the 175-IP Verlander with a 0.46 HR/9 instead of the 223-IP version with 0.96, and the more I think about it he probably will) and also has a lineup of sluggers, so he’s got a similar decision to mine. Pedro drafted somewhat better SP for avoiding bombs while of course being able to hit a ton, and I won’t be surprised if he goes with a hitter’s park. EJ has a lineup with a lot of high average guys and could potentially drop an Astrodome on us. I didn’t try to work out all the stats on everyone’s probable lineups, but it’s fairly easy to predict that a lot of these SP are going to have ERAs well north of 5.

In the end, I decided on Angel Stadium (-1, -1, -2, -1, -1, 0.92) to take a little heat off my pitchers without degrading my offense’s strengths too much. The only difference from Oakland is -1 for 2B instead of -2, and that will help Seager and Berkman out some. My confidence that I’ve made a good choice here is somewhere below what it was when I chose the 4th pick, and we all saw how that turned out.

Overview: My team slash is .310/.395/.585 (raw stats), and that’s brought down a bit by the backups. The 8 non-catchers slug over .600. The defense is above-average, but I don’t have any A+ range guys out there. It might not be the most important thing because Ks are going to be high in this league. My pitching staff has 1,653 Ks in 1,475 IP, with a K-BB ratio of almost 5-1. I like this team on paper, but that doesn’t mean much on a computer.

Prediction: If I didn’t bungle this too badly, maybe it’s an 85-88 win team that can be in the WC race at least. It would be nice to be one of the lucky teams this time around that doesn’t badly underperform EXP%.

NL East, pick 3

So I drew the 14th pick in this final round here. I did some research going in, and saw that the two best picks would be #1 in the AL East or NL West. I knew I didn't want to compete in the same division as either of them, and also didn't want to be in the NL Central or AL West to have to sort out Astros there. The NL East I saw to have the most talent (from my perspective), so that's where I wanted to be. (Doesn't hurt that I'm a big Phillies fan). When the first 3 spots were chosen in the first 11 picks, I was freaking out a little bit, but I got lucky enough to get to snag the last spot, pick 3. I think this spot gives me a fighting chance at playoffs and potential to get one of the good prizes up there, if all breaks right. My strategy going in was to pick from the elite offensive bats first, where the best players really separated themselves from the rest. After they were gone, I'd fill in my rotation, then my starting lineup, then finally bullpen and bench bats. Let's dive in!

Round 1 – 3B Chipper Jones

If I had the first pick in NL East, this is where I would have gone, so I was thrilled to get Chipper at pick 3. Going with his short on PA season with a crazy OBP, because I think it'll be better with a backup compared to his next best year. I found 3B to be one of the weaker positions in the league, so wanted to get the best one early.

Round 2 – OF Juan Soto

Another OBP monster here. Love to take advantage of 2020 cheat codes, and this is one of the bigger ones there is. Was between him and Harper, but ybj made it easy by taking Harper. Another guy low on PA, but I'm excited to have another elite bat at the top of the lineup.

Round 3 – C Javy Lopez

The last 2 hitters I had in the elite category were Javy Lopez and Freddie Freeman, and Bill picked Freeman, so I'll take the best offensive catcher there. Lopez is decent behind the plate too, and has a monster bat, so I'm happy to not have to worry about catcher, especially since there aren't many great ones with a good glove in this division.

Round 4 – SP Kevin Millwood

7 SPs were off the board before my first. I still think this was the right strategy, but was really hoping to get Aaron Nola here to be my Ace. Oh well. Millwood is a solid starter here, even if he'd be better as a #2.

Round 5 – SP Stephen Strasburg

2 more of my big targets at SP went, as Sandy Alcantara and Zack Wheeler were taken. Darn it! I'll happily take Stephen Strasburg, but again missed out on my targets for the round. Strasburg is the same pitcher, just shorter on innings. Was hoping he'd be my #3, however.

Round 6 – SP Javier Vazquez

At this point everyone was pretty much done on SPs, but I only saw a few good ones left and had to secure them. Vazquez was a good balanced player, and I don't like to take players with a less than 100 HR+, OAV+, or BB9+. Vazquez was the guy. Happy with him as a #3.

Round 7 – SP Cole Hamels

Cole Hamels is a favorite of mine, as the ‘08 World Series MVP, and I needed a lefty, so he's a good pick. Again, an okay balance SP. Since my starting pitchers are a little weaker than I had been hoping for going into the draft, I'm going to go with RFK stadium for my stadium to get some help on the pitching side, and will just have to hope it doesn't hurt my offense too much. Happy to get a good lefty in my rotation, though.

Round 8 – 1B Ryan Howard

Finally back over to the offense. I wasn't interested in spending an early pick on a reliever, since there were plenty of relievers I'd be happy with. So Ryan Howard was the pick. I don't know how well he'll do, but he has a solid average and obviously is a monster power bat. He was my 2nd 1B ranked after Freeman in a limited 1B pool, so had to get him here.

Round 9 – 2B Chase Utley

Utley is my all time favorite player, and he's also my top ranked player at 2B, so I had to get him. He always seems to do better than his stats, and has a good glove that should help the team. I was considering going with Beltran instead, but Ron got him, and I figured why not get another top player at their position. Also another solid lefty to add the the offense, which is always valuable.

Round 10 – OF Andruw Jones

Why not pair the Jones's together? I needed a glove after missing out on Beltran, and Jones with his A+ range will be sure to help out my defense. Also has a solid bat. A solid consolation prize, and now I don't have to worry about outfield defense too much the rest of the way.

Round 11 – OF Gary Sheffield

May as well add another outfielder. This makes a 5th player with an OPS# over 1.000 for the team, and Sheffield adds an okay glove to the team. He'll be a solid left fielder.

Round 12 – OF J.D. Drew

Wanted to snag another lefty bat, and Drew had the best combination of bat, glove, and position to be my pick here. His solid glove will allow me to bump Soto to the DH spot, and this makes my team 1 switch hitter, 4 lefties and 3 righties so far. Good balance! Just need a shortstop now and my full lineup is set….

Round 13 – RP Armito Benitez

Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap. Really wanted Rafael Furcal to round out my lineup. Would have been perfect; a switch-hitter with a fantastic glove to play every day in the 9 spot. Ron beat me to the punch. I decided to regroup and go with my first reliever, and Benitez got the call.

Round 14 – SS Miguel Rojas

After regrouping, I went back and decided to snag Rojas. He still has a great shortstop glove, albeit as a right-handed hitter only. He also has under 400 PA's, so I'll need to figure out a platoon/other shortstop to target. Solid consolation at least, with a good love and decent bat.

Round 15 – RP Edwin Diaz

Next best reliever was Diaz, who I'm thrilled to add to the team.

Round 16 – SS Hanley Ramirez

I can't really be too upset about missing out on Furcal, with Ramirez and Rojas to hold down the fort. Ramirez has the best OPS# of the shortstops in the division. He doesn't have the range I'd like, but I'll take him as a solid option to start half the games there. He can also help spell Chipper Jones and Juan Soto with their fewer plate appearances. Still disappointed to use 2 players to fill my shortstop spot, but this is a solid way to do it.

Round 17 – RP Yimi Garcia

Next best reliever up.

Round 18 – RP Ranger Suarez

Suarez is a solid lefty to use out of the pen, and has the ability to go multiple innings. Happy to have snagged him, as my staff was pretty low on lefties.

Round 19 – RP Tanner Scott

Scott was the next best lefty reliever I could find, and he has the stats to be a good one. Now my bullpen is almost finished. I'll have to decide where to advocate my remaining picks; I still need an inning eater, one more reliever, a backup catcher and a bench bat. But there are a lot of ways I could go about those needs, and I still have 2 spots open. Should I get 2 extra relievers to have some flexibility in the pen? Or just fill up on the best available bats?

Round 20 – SP Curt Schilling

Still needed a 5th starter/long reliever, and was considering Schilling against Vazquez and Hamels earlier in the draft. Was an easy pick, and takes care of the clearest need I had left.

Round 21 – 3B Miguel Cabrera

Have to say, I was very surprised to still see Cabrera available. I needed a DH option to platoon with Soto, along with a 3B option to rest Chipper Jones, so Cabrera fits in perfectly. And he has a .972 OPS#! Thrilled to add him to the team, and I think it takes my deep offense and just adds another terrific layer to it. Was also considering Cody Ross here until Ron took him ahead of me.

Round 22 – C J.T. Realmuto

Still needed a backup catcher to Javy Lopez, and knew I wanted someone with an A+ arm. Really wanted Eddie Perez at this spot, but Ron took him back in Round 17. Realmuto will do fine; not much of a bat, but good base-runner and has that A+ arm I was looking for.

Round 23 – RP Addison Reed

Just the next best reliever. Nothing much else to say here.

Round 24 – RP Seth Lugo

These were the last 2 wild card spots. Im at 1550 innings at this point, so didn't necessarily need another arm, but wanted to snag an extra in case one of my arms performs worse than I anticipate. Plus, I dont really have a huge need for offense or defense at this point. I think snagging the extra arm was the safe way to go.

Round 25 PH Mike Jacobs

I did decide to select one extra bat. Was really torn between Jacobs being an extra pinch hitter/DH replacement, or Placido Polanco being a defensive replacement/platoon mate for Utley. However, Polanco i didn't think would be an upgrade over Utley, and I do have good enough outfield defense, especially with Andruw Jones in center. So I went with Jacobs, who should be able to DH some against righties when other players need a breather.

Recap

Overall, I'm happy with my team. I wish the starting rotation was a bit stronger, but I'm very happy with how my bullpen and offense turned out. I'm hoping my offense can carry this team to a playoff spot, and from there I can get some good performances to ride into a championship. Thanks again to Juice and Schwarze for keeping up with this tournament, and I wish everyone the best of luck here in the final!

Overall Strategy
These drafts are similar to schwarze's Quick Drafts he ran a few years ago which were always a blast thanks to the strategy and speed involved (bring them back, schwarze?!). While his drafts usually incorporated a lowest-salary-drafts-first each round--adding an extra element of strategy--the rest of the elements remain in place. With just 4 teams, even a limited pool of players is still very deep. Marginal value is king. A 3-deep position could mean all three go in the first few rounds, while a 4-deep position could see all four still available in the late rounds, even if all are pretty good players. (Side note: This burned me big time in one of the Quick Drafts during an Angels draft when I though I could wait until the very end and grab Jim Fregosi. Schwarze of course sniped him to play 2B, leaving me with Gary Disarcina. Lesson learned = you can wait, but maybe not TOO long!).

In eras with ample relief pitching, which these drafts will certainly have, I'll almost always use all 13 available pitching spots, trying to get around 1450 innings of as high quality as possible. Often, I'll grab my last starting pitcher at the end, stick him as Long B and try to maximize the rest of the roster. A replacement-level starter is often not much worse than a mid-rounds pick, plus you can drop him from your playoff rotation if you make it that far. In this era, you likely need at least 4 starters for about 800 IP and that leaves you needing 650 IP from the final 9 spots, which is about 70 innings per pitcher. Along the way, there are some tradeoffs, where grabbing some extra innings from a big-inning starter (though not much more than 250 in this era) or a long-reliever (there are usually a few in the 100-150 range) can allow you to grab a better short-inning reliever. My preffered staff is usually set up with 3 starters, 1 long reliever, and the rest of my relievers just set to Setup A and let it roll.

That means I only have 12 hitting spots to work with, and in a DH league, that's a bit tougher. Two of the 12 spots usually need to be catcher, which leaves 10 players to fill 8 full-time positions. I like to draft partial-season studs when I can and fill in the rest of the PAs as best I can. Usually can afford 2-3 of these guys. If I can grab full-time 2B/3B/SS, that allows more flexibility at the less-demanding 1B/OF/DH positions. Finally, I found success playing 1B out-of-position in the OF, as long as they had pretty good ratings at 1B.

Division Selection: NL Central, 1st Pick
With my early choice of division, Arrieta was the best prize left. The NL West probably has the best collection of talent. The downside is its harder to win the division, but it should benefit by getting the wild card and having an upper hand in the playoffs. That said, just getting to the playoffs will be the most important thing, so I'd rather have the headstart on my division foes. Arrieta gives me that.

I laid out the available players by groupings. While these are mostly by position, I do combine some and divide others to create groupings that are competing with each other for spots. Catcher and the non-1B infield positions are usually pretty separate, though there is some overlap between SS/2B either by players playing both positions or a very good SS being playable out-of-position at 2B. For 1B, OF, and DH, I mostly group them together, with a couple exceptions. 1B with poor defense I do not try to play in the OF, but I'm more than willing to play guys with As and Bs at first in a corner OF spot. Also, I generally like to have a CF with A or B fielding and range.

In the NL Central, Catcher, 2B and SS have little separation. I plan to wait until the later rounds for each of those. At 3B, Rolen is the full-time stud and worthy of a high pick. Ke'Bryan Hayes has a killer partial and is probably worthy of a high-to-mid-round pick. After those two, there are lots of similar options--decent-hitting, right-handed, good-fielding guys. I noted both Kris Bryant (who can play other positions) and Albert Pujols (who has a 3B-eligible season, but his best 1B seasons are too valuable to pass up).

1B has McGwire and Pujols who should go very high. While there are several players in the next tier, having the DH means you can't wait on 1B since the 5th/6th/7th options will generally be the best DH options. Both Schwindel (RH) and Will Clark (LH) have good partials that could platoon. Similarly, Sosa is easily the top OF, but the best-available OF will always be an option because you have 12 OF spots to fill (among the 4 teams in the division) plus the DH. So I didn't spend much time tiering this group, will just do it dynamically as the draft progresses.

For pitchers, I used 3 groups--starters, relievers, and swingmen. The latter group isn't large, but I'm generally talking about the 100-150 IP range. They're important because this is all about filling up 1450 innings with 13 spots with as much quality as possible. The simple breakdown I started with is 4 starters @ 200 IP each = 800 IP total plus 9 relievers @ 70 IP = 630 IP, for 1430 total. The issue, of course, is that not all starters have 200 IP nor relievers 70 IP, especially the best ones. A "swingman" works as kind of a bridge...if you're short on innings, you can get some more without having to get a 5th starter. Or if you have surplus innings but can't fully replace a starter with a reliever, you can get some extra quality here.

I know I'll get Arrieta with the 1st pick but the next 3 best starters will go before my 2nd pick--Bauer, Burnes, and Darvish. There are 7 guys in the next broad tier with ERC# between 2.06 and 2.34. I projected "replacement-level" ERC# for starters around 2.75. There were 20-21 starters at that level or better (5 per team). (NOTE: That turned out to be pretty good estimate. There were 19 starters drafted, with Ted Lilly at 2.94, Ryan Dempster at 2.87, and Miles Mikolas at 2.72 the worst by solely ERC# standards.) There are a few swingmen of note, I mentioned 5 or 6 in my initial review. And for relievers, Devin Williams is the premier guy, then similar to OFs, just have to react as the draft gets going to who the top relievers are as there will be about 30 of them drafted.

Pick 1: Jake Arrieta

Starting pitching is always at a premium in drafts like this. I much prefer to go with relievers and offense when I can and here I figured I'd be able to get McGwire and/or Sosa at the turn on my next picks. I was very wrong.

Pick 2: Chris Carpenter
Pick 3: Devin Williams
Wow! Bauer went 2nd but then Sosa, Pujols, and McGwire were 3 of the next 4 picks. Two of those were by njbigwig, which will become a pattern. I had Burnes as the 3rd-best pitcher and slightly got my hopes up but of course darthdurron made the correct choice and took him right before me.

Carpenter was the next-best starter so he was relatively easy as one of my choices. I still can't believe all 3 of the top hitters are gone. There are some other good ones, but not at that level. There's tons of reliever depth here but Devin Williams is the best of the best. I like to draft him early in the schwarze-type drafts where each round is determined by cumulative draft salary--he gives you a dominant reliever and helps your draft position. That's not the case here but he's a stud regardless.

Pick 4: Christian Yelich
Pick 5: Johnny Cueto
Derrek Lee was the next-best hitter after the big 3, and he went shortly after my last picks, but Yelich is arguably a better hitter. He only has 579 PA, but that's more than enough to hit all righties and some lefties. There's some really good righty platoon options like Holliday, Schwindel, etc. as well. The defense isn't CF-quality but is fine for a corner spot. Cueto has a bit of a higher HR# (0.72) but his other numbers are quite good and his 244 innings will be hugely beneficial alongside Arrieta's 229.

Pick 6: Brian Giles
Pick 7: Ke'Bryan Hayes
Giles is super helpful because he's a good player, but also he has two similar-quality but different profile seasons. One of them he has very good defense with A-/B- and still an OBP# over .400 and OPS# over 1.000. The other has worse fielding but he can absolutely mash with a .449 OBP#. That one can DH or even hold down a corner OF spot with C/D fielding. I ended up using the better-fielding version with him in LF and Yelich in RF. I was torn here between Hayes and Rolen. Rolen is the best full-time 3B by far but Hayes is arguably the best per-PA hitter in the whole division. He's the perfect weakside of a platoon. There's not a great platoon partner, but I don't have to worry about efficiency with no cap and plenty of depth. Even a righty 3B with a full season of PA can be paired here. I thought Kris Bryant would be a good option available late as he also has ratings at 1B and OF, but he surprisingly went before my next pick. Not a big deal as there are plenty of other options later on.

Pick 8: Paul Goldschmidt
Pick 9: Shin-Soo Choo
I'd been eyeing Goldschmidt for a while. I'd been trying to monitor other teams but with the DH, you can't really count out anybody from still drafting a 1B. In njbigwig's case, he might just draft all of them. His first four picks were Sosa, McGwire, Lee, and Votto! With Edmonds and McCutchen also in tow, that's 6 players for 5 realistic spots. It looks like he'll play one of them out-of-position at 2B. Anyway, Goldschmidt is a great value at this point. His .982 OPS# isn't that far off from Derrek Lee (1.064) for example and he comes with A+/A+ defense that will be valuable at 1B or can easily slide to the outfield.

I was very happy to add Choo here. Centerfield quality defense (B+/A)? Check. OBP# of .431? Check. Enough PAs (712) to comfortably lead off? Check. 85 speed? That'll do. He even hits for a fair amount of power and is a lefty. He'll fit perfectly atop my lineup.

Pick 10: Ryan Helsley
Pick 11: Brandon Woodruff
Time to get back to the pitching staff. Helsley has the 2nd-best ERC# of any 50+ inning reliever at 1.20 (behind Devin Williams). Woodruff is a little short on innings but gives me the ability to level up. He has a 199-inning season with 2.39 ERC# and a 179-inning season with 2.19 ERC#. So if I need the extra innings, I can go with the former, and if not, I can upgrade the quality.

Pick 12: Lance Berkman
Pick 13: Jason Isringhausen
I've got my OF set (Giles, Choo, Yelich) as well as 1B (Goldschmidt) and half of 3B. I know I can wait on Catcher, 2B, SS, and the rest of my 3B. That leaves just pitching or DH. There are some intriguing partials like Holliday, Clark, etc. that I could try to stack up but I only have so many roster spots. Berkamn is the best of the semi-full-time DH, with 587 PA. He's a switch-hitter and can play both 1B and corner OF if needed, albeit poorly. That means I can easily take Holliday or someone similar without a PA issue. Isringhausen is just another 66-inning reliever with a strong ERC# (1.55). His 0.00 HR# and still relatively-low walk rate should play well in this league.

Pick 14: Matt Holliday
Pick 15: Raisel Iglesias
It always feels a little weird to grab part-timers and yet another reliever when I need 4 full-time spots, but there's little separating my options. Even with 6 picks in between mine, I'm not a risk of a run decimating my options. Holliday is the best part-timer and with Giles/Yelich/Berkman all a bit short on PAs, he'll be able to play full-time against lefties with the other 3 taking turns resting while the other two man RF and DH spots. Iglesias...another really good 62-inning reliever with solid HR and BB numbers.

Pick 16: Kwang Hyun Kim
Pick 17: Russell Martin
I'm finally out of luxury hitting spots--my final 5 hitting spots need to be 2 catchers, a 2B, 3B, and SS, with my 3B hopefully a good enough hitter to fill in any stray 1B/OF/DH at-bats when guys need a rest. I also am finally running out quality 60-inning relievers so getting a few extra innings will allow me to dip down and grab some relievers with innings in the 30-50 range. Enter Kwang Hyun Kim with 109 innings and an ERC# just under 2.00. Plus he's a lefty, which I don't have any yet.

Of the positions I still need offensively, Martin stands out the most. He has a great OBP and A+ arm. Just 460 PA, but will need a backup catcher regardless.

Pick 18: Ryan Tepera
Pick 19: Andrew Chafin
At 2B, I'm still happy with Gennett or Fernando Vina. Both lefties with good defense, solid hitting, and enough PA to play full-time. I'm pretty sure njbigwig is rolling with Derrek Lee or someone at 2B, but he may grab a real 2B-man. But I can't see someone else grabbing another one. 3B has even more options with Aramis Ramirez, Cirillo, Arenado, and Tatis all still around. At SS, I prefer Cozart (though light on PA) or Villar for a better bat, but Baez, Segura, et al. are fine glove-first options as well.

With Kim in the fold, I have a little flexibility on innings, needing about 230 with 4 spots to go, or a bit under 60 per pitcher. Tepera has 61 but Chafin has just 39 innings. However, he's got a 1.31 ERC# and he's a lefty.

Pick 20: Scooter Gennett
Pick 21: Jeff Cirillo
Alright need 130 or so innings from 2 spots and then need to finally grab my infield starters and catcher backup. Decide to go with Gennett over Vina for reasons that escape me now. I guess the extra power and the A+ range? Cirillo (with Aramis Ramirez now gone) is the best 3B optoin. I like the .401 OBP over the lower on-base, higher slugging options. Plus, I need some extra at-bats and he has both A/A defense at 3B that will play in the OF plus actual A+/B+ ratings at 1B. Nice bonus.

Pick 22: David Ross
Pick 23: Mike Gonzalez
In hindsight, I should have just locked in Villar here as my SS. It's not a big deal, but Cozart's 507 PA will cause me some headaches. Ross is a great platoon partner for Martin. If only one of them were a lefty. I took Mike Gonzalez as just the best reliever left (and another lefty). I'll decide at the end if I want 85-90 innings from a reliever or just get a bigger-inning mop up guy.

Pick 24: Zack Cozart
Pick 25: Carlos Marmol
Of course darthdurron takes Villar. He's a switch-hitter and has 679 PA, plus A range. Cozart certainly has better hitting with a higher OBP and much more power, but he's a righty, has B/C fielding, and as I mentioned only slightly above 500 PA. I'll bat him last and just have Cirillo slide over if needed, hopefully in as low-leverage of situatins as possible.

For my final innings, Marmol easily had the best ERC# of guys who got me the innings I needed. He never performs because of his high HR and BB numbers, but he's gotta be better than a starter with an ERC# a full run worse...right? There weren't really many other options. There were a few other relievers in the 75-85 inning range with ERC# in the 1.95 to 2.15 range, but that's fewer innings and a material drop in ERC#. The first pitcher you hit as you go down the ERC# list that has more innings than Marmol is Tejay Antone with 95 innings and a 2.22 ERC#. And the next-best starter is in the 2.7s. Marmol it is.

Ballpark: PNC Park
Not a lot of great options. I don't have a ton of power relative to my divisionmates (especially, njbigwig), but I have pretty good hitting overall. My pitching should be the best in the league thanks to Arrieta especially. They don't give up a ton of HRs so probably don't need help, but I'd rather supress HR than amplify given my roster. PNC Park is better for lefty HR hitters (-1 to RF, but -2 to LF), which si good for Yelich, Giles, and Berkman. More importantly, it's plus for singles and doubles.

Lineup:

CF Choo
LF Giles/Holliday
1B Goldschmidt
RF Yelich
DH Berkman
C Martin/Ross
3B Cirillo/Hayes
2B Gennett
SS Cozart

Choo will leadoff. Giles, Goldschmidt, Yelich, and Berkman will make up the heart of the order, with Holliday and Ke'Bryan Hayes sliding in against lefties. Against lefties, I'll have Giles/Yelich/Berkman all rotate for two spots in RF and DH. It might make a little more sense to put a better OBP guy at the bottom but for fatigue reasons, Cozart will bat 9th and hopefully hold up for most of the season.

Pitching staff:

Arrieta, Carpenter, and Cueto will form a 3-man rotation, with Woodruff in long relief and spot starts. Kim will be in long relief with him. The rest of the pen has ERC# below 1.61, except for Marmol who will hopefully be used last among my short relievers.

Expectation:

I did pretty well with schwarze's quick drafts, though this is a slightly different test and a great group of owners. I worry the NL Central is pretty weak overall and so I probably have to win the division and then would be an underdog in the playoffs to the NL West teams. Still, I think I have by far the best pitching staff in the division and my lineup I hope is competitive with darth and steveizzy (njbigwig will rake for sure). nj did a great job cornering the market on swingmen (he drafted 5 guys between 130 and 175 innings) to round out his staff after spending all those high picks on hitters. His team is worrisome. I think we'll be competitive for the division title, then hopefully Arrieta and a heavy pinch of luck can carry us in the playoffs.

The Return of the Reservation
A.L. Central – Pick #1

Well surprise, surprise! We made it to the final round! With the level of competition here combined with the multiple teams still alive by some of the best owners in WIS, I’m feeling pretty good about that accomplishment. Now on to the task at hand!

I ended up with the 16^th pick for my only team. In how this league is set up, I don’t see much of a disadvantage drafting this late. If I could get a 1^st or 4^th pick in the division draft that would be great. In the NL West would be even better but, probably unlikely. It is the best division, IMO. Maybe I can get into the AL West so I can use Safeco as my park?

When it got to my turn, as suspected, the talent rich NL West was full. The AL West had the 2^nd and 3^rd picks available. The AL Central had the 1^st pick still available. And the AL East had their 4^th pick still available. I felt that the ALC had the best SP’s and being that I’m a glutton for pitching, I decided to take the #1 spot. Now who do we pick 1^st?

Strategy: As I said earlier, I’m a glutton for pitching, and the ALC has a lot of it, probably 2^nd to the NLW. And since the rest of the divisions are going to be offensive juggernauts, I plan to take advantage of the pitching and try to build the best rotation I can. I’m not worried about the bullpen as this division is going to leave some very good relief pitchers undrafted.

Looks like I will probably get only 1 good 200+ inning pitcher since there are only 6 good ones but I will get the best one. That means the rest will be between 120-180 innings and none of them would be Maeda. That being said, I want(ed) to run a 6-man rotation. I could get 3 in the first 3 rounds and then decide on my 4^th based on how the draft is moving. I noticed there weren’t a whole lot of dominant LH SP’s past Johan and Sale. Francisco Liriano and Carlos Rodon are both low inning starters that would be perfect in the 5^th and 6^th spots. We’ll plan on sneaking them in around rounds 9 or 10.

So, SP’s in rounds 1,2,3,7, 9, 10; Pos players in rounds 4,5,6,8,11,12,13,14,15, 23, 24, 25; and RP’s in rounds 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. If I stick to this plan, I should have one of the top pitching staffs in the American League. Then it’s just a matter of building an offense that will score more runs than we allow. Sounds easy enough. Now let’s see how well I can muck this draft up.

Round 1 – 2020 Shane Bieber, SP (209 IP, 1.54 ERC#, .176 OAV#, 0.88 WHIP#, 0.52 HR/9#) - I was 99.99% sure I was drafting Bieber 1^st when I took the 1^st pick but just for fun, I wanted to take one last moment to 2^nd guess myself. The other options I valued were Maeda, Santana, Verlander, and Mauer. Mauer is arguably the best hitting option and makes some sense as not only does he provide great offense and defense but he is by far the best option at a difficult position to fill. Then again, if I don’t take a SP now, there will be at least 5 taken before it gets back to me. Maeda is short on innings but he is a beast. Someone is going to enjoy having him, but it won’t be me. Although Verlander is statistically better than Joahn, I value Johan more in this draft due to his being a lefty. Almost enough to replace Bieb’s. Almost… If I’m lucky, I’ll get Sale next round

Round 2 – 2013 Max Scherzer, SP (214 IP, 2.05 ERC#, .202 OAV#, 0.99 WHIP#, 0.58 HR/9#) – The first surprise of the draft. I did not expect to see Scherzer still on the board when my turn came up. I was expecting to draft Sale here but two things happened: 1) schwarze drafted Greinke over Scherzer first. I had Scherzer rated slightly higher than Greinke due to his significantly lower OAV# (.202 vs .227) but they’re both still really close. 2) Then barracuda3 saved me the embarrassment of skipping over Mauer again (yep, I was skipping him) by making him his 2^nd round pick and leaving Scherzer and his 214 innings for me. I’ll take it!

Round 3 – 2014 Chris Sale, SP (174 IP, 2.25 ERC#, .210 OAV#, 1.00 WHIP#, 0.57 HR/9#) – Turning the corner this pick was easy. I knew I needed a lefty and I like Sale better than Keuchel, again due to the significant difference in OAV# (.210 vs .228). The rest of the big inning lefty starters (2008 Cliff Lee, 2015 David Price, 2008 C.C. Sabathia, and 2001 Mark Buehrle) are only inning eaters who would most likely get 20 losses, even in a reduced role. Sabathia is interesting, though. I have seen him used at caps between $100-120M with moderate success. I myself have never used him but it’s something to keep in mind…

Round 4 – 2002 Jim Thome, 1B (613 PA, .303/.444/.658/1.102, 8 HR/100#, C+/D) – It was time to draft some offense and the run has already begun. Cabrera went to barracuda3 who now has the best two position players in the draft. Toysboys takes the best 2B in Alomar and follows with offensive monster Mags Ordonez. That leaves OPS champ Frank Thomas for schwarze to build his offense around and then barracuda grabs Jose Ramirez! Crap, the Ramirez pick was great and not expected right then. It would have loved to fill my 3B and then SS with this next corner pick. Thome isn’t a switch-hitter but he is a lefty who has a high OBP to go with his high SLG. My other option is Manny Ramirez but he’s a righty and the OF draft pool is a little deeper than 1B is. So Thome it is…

Round 5 – 2004 Carlos Guillen, SS (583 PA, .314/.375/.516/.890, 6 2B/100#, B/A-) – Up to this point in the draft, SS and RP were the only positions that had not been picked yet. As I stated earlier, the RP pool is extremely deep and not necessary to draft this early. So I looked at the SS pool and found Guillen, Anderson, Vizquel, Gimenez, and Lindor. Although I could live with any of these 5 SS’s, I felt Guillen was definitely the best of the lot. At least now I have the best (arguably) player at one position.

Round 6 – 2020 Zach Plesac, SP (149 IP, 1.70 ERC#, .200 OAV#, 0.81 WHIP#, 0.36 HR/9#) – This one is another surprise, although now I know why. Although Plesac has only 149 innings, it’ll be just fine as my #4 in a 6-man rotation. I could have grabbed Keuchel here but his high OAV# compared to the Rodon/Liriano pairing I was planning made it easy to pass on.

Round 7 – 2003 Dmitri Young, 3B (635 PA, .295/.369/.518/.883, 5 2B/100#, C-/D) – I think I made this pick out of panic. Schwarze used the schwarze on me when he mentioned barracuda3 could still be in the hunt for a 3B and then took Moncada. Not wanting to be stuck with Fryman or Koskie, I opted to draft Young and put him at 3B. On the positive he is a switch-hitter and he has a little pop. On the negative, his defense sucks. That could be a problem for us. With Thome, we have no corner defense. I’ll need to look for a defensive replacement near the end of the draft. In hind sight, I think I could have gotten Young a few rounds later. I should have drafted the best hitter available at this time, Victor Martinez. Schwarze took him two picks later.

Round 8 – 2000 Johnny Damon, CF (741 PA, .319/.372/.463/.835, 5 2B/100#, B/A-) – I was still suffering from the repercussions of schwarze’s mind trick, I decided I needed to shore up my defense. Damon not only provides solid CF defense but he will also bat leadoff and steal some bases for us (46/9, 88 spd).
Round 9 – 2007 Placido Polanco, 2B (641 PA, .336/.383/.437/.821, 5 2B/100#, A+/B) – This is where I really went sideways. Had I stuck to the plan, I would have drafted Liriano here. But no, I was still stuck on shoring up the middle. Polanco isn’t a horrible pick but I think could have got him a few rounds later. After all, he is a righty…

Round 10 – 2017 J.D. Martinez, DH (489 PA, .307/.379/.669/1.047, 7 HR/100#) – I was all set to take Liriano here and then barracuda3 snatches him right before I pick. Damn! Now what??? Do I take Rodon now or do I switch to best value? If I take Rodon who else do I grab to fill the rest of the starting innings I needed? Maybe I draft Sabathia and stick to a 5-man rotation? I could always bench him down the stretch. I could probably take Sabathia with the 25^th pick. So, what now??? I still needed a DH and C along with LF and RF. I also need someone to bat behind Thome. Martinez has an OPS# of 1.047 and hopefully that will translate to run production.

Round 11 – 2020 Salvador Perez, C ( 421 PA, .345/.358/.618/.976, 8 2B/100#, A+/A+/C-) – Since I was now thinking of drafting Sabathia, I could go ahead and draft my C. Initially, I wanted an A+ arm and the only other option aside from 2021 Perez was Pudge Rodriguez. Pudge has lost some punch so Perez was my guy. I decided on his 2020 season instead. No arm but a much higher average and still hits for a little power. But now I’ll need to draft a back-up C with an A+ arm.

Round 12 – 2006 Jermaine Dye, LF (611 PA, .309/.379/.594/.973, 6 HR/100#, C+/C+) – I am starting to have 2^nd thoughts about drafting Sabathia but I only need two OF’s to finish my starting 9. I also considered looking for a 3B with better defense and moving Young to LF. But it was still Koskie or Fryman. I think I’d rather have Dye’s offense and just suffer through Young’s horrible D at third.

Round 13 – 2011 Alex Gordon, RF (690 PA, .305/.380/.489/.869, 6 2B/100#, A-/B-) – I initially tried to pick Brantley here but he had already been taken by schwarze. I had been trying to update my spreadsheet from my phone and was not doing a very good job of it. It’s here where I got and passed another opportunity to grab Rodon but I still hadn’t fully tossed the idea of Sabathia. I considered moving Martinez to LF and Dye to RF so I could draft a different DH but I needed a LH bat and there weren’t a whole lot of choices. Hosmer maybe? Too bad Nelson Cruz is a righty. I like Gordon and he plays good defense. I can play him in RF. He’ll be just fine.

Round 14 – 2022 Triston McKenzie, SP (191 IP, 2.40 ERC#, .211 OAV#, 1.00 WHIP#, 0.91 HR/9#) – After my last pick I went back to look at who I could pair with Rodon and avoid taking Sabathia. I came across McKenzie, low ERC#, low OAV#, low BB/9#, 191 innings… the only issue was his high HR/9# of 0.91. I could live with that as long as we minimize baserunners. I could grab him and then Rodon on the turn. That would work. And then boom, schwarze takes Rodon. Crap. Still taking McKenzie. Sabathia is an option again. I’m really dogging this draft…

Round 15 – 2013 Caleb Thielbar, RP (46 IP, 1.36 ERC#, .157 OAV#, 0.85 WHIP#, 0.61 HR/9#) – I looked long and hard for another LH starter. The best option I could come up with was 2023 Cole Ragans. I could probably pitch him in 15 games and get 75-80 innings out of him. But he would require a lot of relief innings when he pitched, 3-4 innings most games. Either I draft an inning eater to give my bullpen some rest or I draft an extra reliever. I have time to decide…

Round 16 – 2007 Rafael Perez, RP (60 IP, 1.60 ERC#, .183 OAV#, 0.90 WHIP#, 0.58 HR/9#) – Wanted to make sure I had plenty of LH relief pitching. I like those low OAV#’s…

Round 17 – 2008 Craig Breslow, RP (38 IP, 1.40 ERC#, .178 OAV#, 0.97 WHIP#, 0.00 HR/9#) – Continued with loading up on LH relievers. Breslow doesn’t allow hits, not even HR’s. His BB/9# is a little high and in hind sight, for my short inning LH reliever, I should have just bit the bullet and drafted 2018 Oliver Perez. It was only 6 innings less. I probably could have gotten 40 appearances out of him. Breslow will be the same if he can’t keep walks down.

Round 18 – 2013 Greg Holland, RP (67 IP, 1.40 ERC#, .173 OAV#, 0.89 WHIP#, 0.30 HR/9#) – Only one pitcher was taken since my last pick. Not sure that’s a good sign or not but there are still plenty of relievers out there. I took Holland over guys like Alex Colome and Codi Heuer due to their BB/9# being over 3 (a concern I already have with my lefty relievers). I passed on Otero due to his high OAV# amongst the RH relievers. I had my eye on Jeff Manship, Joakim Soria, Matt Foster and…

Round 19 – 2020 Tyler Duffey, RP (65 IP, 1.36 ERC#, .162 OAV#, 0.81 WHIP#, 0.48 HR/9#) – Continuing to build my bullpen. Another low OAV# guy. I may be able to run with the 5-man rotation I have if I can keep adding these high performing relief pitchers. I have 937 starter innings. That should get me around 1020 sim innings. I only need 400 IP/162 to make it work and so far I have 276 with 3 pitcher slots left. Still not sure the right way to go…

Round 20 – 2020 Trevor Rosenthal, RP (64 IP, 1.46 ERC#, .157 OAV#, 0.86 WHIP#, 0.49 HR/9#) – Rosenthal gets me to 340. I also learned that I missed out on LH RP Brad Hand. Somehow I had him highlighted as already being picked. I would’ve taken him over Breslow any day. I guess that makes up for Plesac…

Round 21 – 2018 Taylor Rogers, RP (68 IP, 1.78 ERC#, .212 OAV#, 0.97 WHIP#, 0.26 HR/9#) – I needed another LH RP. Would love to grab Perez but I’m thinking of grabbing Manship instead so I need 60+ innings here. Rogers OAV# is pretty high for a relief pitcher but everything else checks out. We’ll need to keep an eye on him.

Round 22 – 2020 Tim Anderson, SS/3B (597 PA, .333/.363/.512/.875, 5 2B/100#, B-/B+) – Well I shouldn’t be surprised. I really didn’t think Sabathia would get drafted by anyone and he was still a consideration for my last pitching slot. But then barracuda3 actually drafts him. In hind sight, this was probably better. I really didn’t need an inning eater and I was starting to really like Manship in my final spot. But then barracuda3 did it again and right before this pick, he swoops up Manship. That’s a great pick. Now what??? I do need to fill some SS PA’s and Andersen can do that. I’ll also play him at 3B as a defensive replacement for Young. We’ll see if his SS ratings translate well.

Round 23 – 2020 Yasmani Grandal, C (524 PA, .239/.356/.406/.762, 3 HR/100#, B+/A+/A+) – Not sure how I feel about this one. I love his arm, his bat, not so much. But he’s going to play and hit more than I like. Hopefully he helps keep runners from stealing at the end of our games.

Round 24 – 2011 Alejandro De Aza, DH/OF (171 PA, .332/.403/.506/.910, 6 2B/100#, A-/C-) – De Aza gets us a LH bat who can play in the LF when Martinez needs to rest and Dye moves to DH to cover him. De Aza can also cover LF at the end of games in general.

Round 25 – 2017 David Robertson, RP (68 IP, 1.41 ERC#, .151 OAV#, 0.86 WHIP#, 0.52 HR/9#) – Decided on a 5-man rotation and picked up one more RH RP. I had passed on Robertson earlier in the draft due to his above 3 BB/9# but at this point, it’s barely over and he’s probably the best of what’s left.

Ballpark: Jacobs Field (HR LF/RF:-1/-1 1B:-1 2B:0 3B:-2, 0.97 PF) – As usual, went with a pitchers park, or as close to one as I could get. Decided on Jacobs Field for its -1 in singles and HR’s along with the -2 in triples.

Strengths: Balanced line-up, high AVG# and SLG#, good middle infield and outfield defense, low OAV# and ERC#, strong rotation, and strong, flexible bullpen.

Weaknesses: Not as many switch-hitters as my opponents, bad corner IF defense, low OBP, we’re slow on the base paths, pushing the IP/162 minimum for a $120M DH league with only 1412 innings, high HR/9# for this league, SP’s will average less than 7 innings/game, placing more stress on the bullpen.

Outlook: Overall I think I did ok. I should have one of the top pitching staffs in the AL and if I can keep opponents off the basepaths, we should survive the high HR/9#. The question will be, can we score enough runs to win games? I’m hoping we have enough variation between single/double hitters and homerun hitters to be effective in any ballpark when we’re on the road. We only need to score more than our opponents, not lead the league in runs, which we most certainly will not. We’re shooting for big money this round (lol, aren’t we all???) but we have some giants to get past in schwarze, barracuda3, and toysboys. Hopefully, bringing back our reference to Native Americans will bring us good luck. We’re going to need all the luck we can get!

Lastly, I, too, would like to express my thanks to thejuice6 and schwarze for putting on this tournament. It’s a monumental task and you guys run it flawlessly. Your banter, organization and theme planning made this tournament the absolute most fun I’ve had on this site and I am thrilled to have been a participant. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU HAVE DONE!

Good luck everyone!

BO		Player	B	PA/ 162	HR	AVG#	OBP#	SLG#	OPS#	2B/ 100#	3B/ 100#	HR/ 100#	SB/ SBA	SPD	Salary	DEF
1	CF	Damon, Johnny	L	741	16	0.319	0.372	0.463	0.835	5	1	1	0.836	88	$7,202,298	B/A-
2	2B	Polanco, Placido	R	641	9	0.336	0.383	0.437	0.821	5	0	1	0.700	66	$6,730,538	A+/B
3	1B	Thome, Jim	L	613	52	0.303	0.444	0.658	1.102	3	0	8	0.333	50	$6,977,983	C+/D
4	DH	Martinez, J.D.	R	489	45	0.307	0.379	0.669	1.047	5	0	7	1.000	65	$5,146,748	--
5	SS	Guillen, Carlos	S	583	20	0.314	0.375	0.516	0.890	6	2	2	0.706	74	$6,228,956	B/A-
6	LF	Dye, Jermaine	R	611	44	0.309	0.379	0.594	0.973	4	0	6	0.700	67	$5,944,943	C+/C+
7	RF	Gordon, Alex	L	690	23	0.305	0.380	0.489	0.869	6	0	2	0.680	79	$6,691,462	A-/B-
8	3B	Young, Dmitri	S	635	29	0.295	0.369	0.514	0.883	5	1	3	0.667	55	$5,209,062	C-/D
9	C	Perez, Salvador	R	421	11	0.345	0.358	0.618	0.976	8	0	5	1.000	45	$4,545,604	A+/A+/C-
10	C	Grandal, Yasmani	S	524	8	0.239	0.356	0.406	0.762	4	0	3	0.000	44	$4,162,063	B+/A+/A+
11	OF	De Aza, Alejandro	L	171	4	0.332	0.403	0.506	0.910	6	2	2	0.706	89	$1,685,461	A-/C-
12	SS	Anderson, Tim	R	597	10	0.333	0.363	0.512	0.875	5	1	3	0.714	75	$5,952,749	B-/B+
				6716	271	0.310	0.379	0.528	0.907	5.1	0.5	3.5			$66,477,867

POS	Player	T	IP/162	ERA#	ERC#	OAV#	WHIP#	BB/9#	K/9#	HR/9#	$/IP	Salary	F/R
SP	Bieber, Shane	R	209	1.48	1.54	0.176	0.88	2.34	6.96	0.52	$45,871	$9,586,963	B/D
SP	Scherzer, Max	R	214	2.83	2.05	0.202	0.99	2.42	6.48	0.58	$37,529	$8,043,795	C-/D+
SP	Sale, Chris	L	174	2.18	2.25	0.210	1.00	2.14	6.72	0.57	$35,429	$6,164,734	A+/D-
SP	Plesac, Zach	R	149	2.08	1.70	0.200	0.81	0.93	5.62	0.89	$39,111	$5,827,578	B/A-
SP	McKenzie, Triston	R	191	2.94	2.40	0.211	1.00	2.14	5.70	0.91	$30,697	$5,873,415	B/D-
RP	Duffey, Tyler	R	65	1.71	1.36	0.162	0.81	2.16	6.33	0.48	$46,963	$3,052,579	A+/D-
RP	Holland, Greg	R	67	1.18	1.40	0.173	0.89	2.49	7.75	0.30	$48,464	$3,247,113	A+/D-
RP	Breslow, Craig	L	38	1.50	1.40	0.178	0.97	3.22	5.78	0.00	$44,227	$1,680,653	A+/A+
RP	Thielbar, Caleb	L	46	1.72	1.36	0.157	0.85	2.82	5.43	0.61	$42,069	$1,935,212	A+/D-
RP	Rosenthal, Trevor	R	64	1.74	1.46	0.157	0.86	2.92	7.02	0.49	$46,585	$2,981,428	A+/D-
RP	Perez, Rafael	L	60	1.60	1.60	0.183	0.90	2.20	6.73	0.58	$40,714	$2,442,860	D-/B-
RP	Rogers, Taylor	L	68	2.47	1.78	0.212	0.97	2.13	6.01	0.26	$38,015	$2,597,693	A+/D-
RP	Robertson, David	R	68	1.70	1.41	0.151	0.86	3.04	7.03	0.52	$46,560	$3,181,648	D/D-
			1413	2.11	1.82	0.190	0.92	2.23	6.42	0.59	$40,068	$56,615,671

Division Selection: AL West, 1st Pick
With my first selection (4th overall) I went NL Central so this is my other selection (9th overall) and I have to go to the AL. Only two picks there so far. I know I'm not going to the AL East to compete with schwarze and Pedro Martinez. redcped took the 4th pick in the AL West and the AL Central is wide open. I thought about taking both 1st and 4th pick in the AL Central. First, I like having back-to-back picks in these drafts...you don't have to worry about reaching vs waiting on a pick as much. Picking 4th you get two of the top 5 starters (Bieber, Maeda, Kluber, Santana, Verlander). Picking 1st I would have gone for Bieber and while you do get 2 of the top 5 players if you pick 4th, you get 3 of the top 9 if you pick first!

I decided to go West though. Verlander has the ugly 0.96 HR# on his best season (223 IP) but he also has a 175 IP season with slightly better ERC# (1.61 vs 1.66) but more importantly a HR# less than half of the other. Depending on my innings, I have flexibility there. I like the hitting options better here in the AL West as well.

Planning out the depth around the division, I note that 2B I can wait on, but every other position has some high-pick players for consideration. At catcher, I-Rod and Napoli are the top dogs. I-Rod has either a great full-time season, or an ever better partial with 389 PA, but no ideal platoon partner (except Napoli maybe?!). There's a big dropoff after these two.

Shortstop also has a big two with Seager and A-Rod. After that is a drop, but still some interesting players like Marcus Semien, Carlos Correa (321 PA), and Andrus. Bregman is a wild card between SS and 3B as he can play both in his best season. 3B depth is worse so he probably gets played there. Glaus is the next-best 3B option but seems to underperform for me. After Bregman, can probably wait on 3B with Beltre, Ensberg, Donaldson, Chavez, and Chapman all reasonable options and not too dissimilar from each other.

The masher category (1B/DH/OF) is led by Giambi at 1B and he's a premier target. Hoping to get him with my picks at the first turn. He has the best hitting and his C+/A defense at 1B would play well there or in the OF. Trout also rates highly but just never performs. After that is a dropoff but still strong 2nd tier wtih guys like Bagwell, Palmeiro, Berkman, Erstad, Hamilton, etc. Further down, Ohtani the hitter is an option as a pure DH and there are some really good partials with Teixeira, Schwindel, Olson, and Luke Scott.

On the pitching side of things, after Verlander, I expect Clemens, Cole and Felix to go quickly (all have ERC# less than 2.00). There there's a group of 10 starters in the 2.12 to 2.34 ERC# range. Similar to the NL Central, I calculate replacement-level starter to be around 2.70 to 2.75 ERC#.

There are 6 swingmen of note with 3 in the low 100s and the other 3 in the 140s. Will keep an eye on them for inning management. Finally, there is no Devin Williams here but Hendriks, Wagner, Putz, and Trienen are the top dogs. On to the draft!

Pick 1: Justin Verlander
As I said, Verland is the best starter and provides flexibility. Done.

Pick 2: Jason Giambi
Pick 3: Mike Napoli
As expected, the next 3 picks after Verlander are Clemens, Cole, and Felix. Both Seager and I-Rod go in the 2nd Round, with Greinke the only pitcher going. There's really no other starter that calls out to me. I think Greinke was a reach and have Jered Weaver, Keuchel, and Hudson atop my list. It's too early for a reliever, even for me.

That pushes me to the hitters. I'm thrilled that Giambi is here and he was an easy choice. Based on my valuations, Trout was the next-highest rated hitter, but I just can't pull the trigger. With both SS and C being two-man positions and one of the two gone for each, I focus on A-Rod vs Napoli. While A-Rod is great, he also underperforms for me some. And I like the SS options later on better than the catching options. Napoli usually peforms well for me. I'll target Bregman next round, perhaps, if he's on the board.

Pick 4: Alex Bregman
Pick 5: Darin Erstad
A-Rod goes with the immediate next pick after my last selections. Pedrocerrano is good. A few OF go including Trout, but also Ichiro, Berkman, and Josh Hamilton. Plus first blood on 2B, which is good for me. I want to wait on that position.

As I dig in, I really want Bregman. Not only is he the best SS left, he's ALSO the best 3B left, giving me tons of flexibility later on to draft either position. Getting Giambi, Napoli, and Bregman is a great start. For my other pick, still seems too early for another pitcher. No pitchers were taken in between my picks. I looked at a few 1B/OF but Erstad was the winner. He has A/A defense, a ton of PAs, and is essentially a .400 OBP# guy. He'll play center and leadoff. Loving my offense so far. Pitching? Ehhh, who needs that.

Pick 6: Jered Weaver
Pick 7: Liam Hendriks
Okay, now the pitchers go. Six straight between my picks. Interestingly, my top starter, Jered Weaver, did not go. He's got a slightly high HR# but it's not that bad at 0.61. Plus he's got 236 innings, which will really help.

For the second pick, I looked at the best hitters, but guys like Hidalgo, Griffey, and Palmeiro aren't all that different from the group below them. Glaus and Boone rate out well but Glaus underperforms and I want to wait on 2B. I shift back to pitching. I could grab another starter like Pettitte, Oswalt, or Freddy Garcia. But there's plenty of similar options in that range. Instead, I grab the best reliever in Hendriks. 68 innings and an ERC# below 1.00. Low HR# (0.22) and very low BB# (1.02)...absolutely.

Pick 8: J.J. Putz
Pick 9: Jeff Bagwell
Kicked off a little reliever run with Wagner, Treinen, K-Rod, and Diekman going. Nice. Pettitte also went as did one hitter--Beltre. I still have the same hitters at the top of the list. Should I grab Oswalt? Nah, he's not that different from a few others. The next-best reliever by a fair margin for me is Putz. He has 71 innings, a 1.11 ERC#, and reasonable HR/BB numbers. Will probably grab my third starter next round.

After perusing the hitters, I settled on Bagwell. He and Ohtani are the best pure hitters left, but Bagwell has that beautiful .447 OBP#. He's a B+/C- at 1B so either he'll DH for me (with Giambi at 1B) or I'll move Giambi to a corner OF spot and play Bagwell at 1B. Erstad-Bagwell-Giambi-Napoli-Bregman atop the order is great. Feeling cautiously optimistic about how this draft is going to this point.

Pick 10: Freddy Garcia
Pick 11: Edwin Diaz
A few more relievers go, as do a pair of the top OFers in Griffey and Hidalgo. Boone is the second 2B off the board, which is great for me. I did like Hidalgo, but don't see a great hitting option out there for me. Palmeiro is my top-rated and I could play him or Giambi in the OF, but I only need two corner OF spots and will likely want to platoon one of them. Glaus or Semien are the top 3B or SS, but I have tons of options and flexibility there thanks to Bregman. I gave a brief thought to taking both Ohtani the hitter and Ohtani the pitcher, but neither is at the top of the options for me.

Back to pitchers. Oswalt is still there as is Freddy Garcia. I settle on Garcia for the lower HR# and extra 27 innings. I don't need another starter anytime soon, so it's back to relievers. Nobody stands out as much as Putz did last time. Jeff Zimmerman has a slightly elevated HR# of 0.66 but does have 88 innings and 1.33 ERC#. Doolittle and Rhodes are lefties with over 60 innings. Dotel has 98 innings, though his ERC# is a bit lower at 1.56. I decide to go with Edwin Diaz. He has 73 innings at 1.45 ERC# and good HR/BB numbers. I probably should have gone Dotel here in hindsight for the extra 25 innings, but Diaz will be fine.

Pick 12: Yordan Alvarez
Pick 13: Mike Adams
Both Ohtanis go plus a couple more swingmen and relievers. Only Lucroy and Ohtani the hitter went as position players. As I dig in on the hitters, I like Yordan Alvarez. He has a 561 PA season that I'll likely use. He's playable in a corner with C/D defense or I can DH him and do the Bagwell/Giambi shift. Either way he's the best bat left and a lefty. But he also has a 360 PA season with a little more pop if I want it. Slightly worse defense in the OF though with D- range.

I could also take the best partial hitter here in Teixeira, but hopefully can wait on him. I only need one 1B/DH/OF spot really at this point, though Alvarez needs some help. I still want to wait on 2B and 3B/SS. With 3 starters locked up, it's back to the reliever well. Mike Adams, another 74 innings with 1.29 ERC# and reasonable HR# numbers. Now have a pen of Hendriks, Putz, Diaz, and Adams. Still feeling good, something will ruin that I'm sure.

Pick 14: Sean Doolittle
Pick 15: Mike Mayers
Cano goes and now all 3 owners have a 2B. I'm going to get Biggio or Kinsler way later and get basically the same production. Feel good about that. Still deciding on 3B/SS--Semien is probably my favorite SS. Going with him would be more of a defense play, though his .373 OBP# is solid. I could go with Glaus and mash, but still scared off of him. Teixeira is still out there as well, and I considered him.

With relievers going, though, I decide to get another pair. Doolittle is last remaining lefty in his tier and has 63 innings with 1.27 ERC#. The HR# is 0.61, so not ideal but not terrible. I hope. Mayers is more of a volume play. With Doolittle's HR numbers, I pass over Zimmerman and Dotel for him. This gives me about 1100 innings, depending on which Verlander I go with. I need about 300-350 from my final 4 spots. That's likely a starter/swingman and 3 relievers.

Pick 16: Marcus Semien
Pick 17: Mark Teixeira
A few more relievers go and a couple OF. Time to lock in Teixeira, who as a switch-hitter can platoon in a bunch of ways but likely will play a corner OF spot against lefties, spelling Alvarez. I decide to finally take a stand on the 3B/SS and go with Semien. Each time I look at it, I just like him the best of the options and I slightly prefer Bregman at 3B to avoid his D range at SS. Offensively, really just need my 2B (still waiting) and one more corner OF/DH spot. Plus a back up catcher with a couple hundred PA.

Pick 18: Luke Scott
Pick 19: Joe Nathan
Roy Oswalt finally goes. Nice value pick by ejstockman, I considered him back when I took Garcia in the 10th. Glaus is still there too, wow. In any case, I'm looking at my masher options and Luke Scott just keeps catching my eye. He's A+/D- in the OF and has the best pure hitting of anybody left over 150 PA. He's not the full side of a platoon with just 249 PA but he's hard to pass up. I am eyeing Nelson Cruz, Edgar Martinez, and Milton Bradley as my last DH/OF option, so I shouldn't have a problem there. Only one Luke Scott though!

The best starting pitcher left is Marco Gonzales, but just 188 innings and 0.68 HR#. Each of the other owners have 1237 IP or more so they probably are looking elsewhere. Zimmerman is STILL out there, I guess that 0.66 HR# is really scaring people off, me included. Joe Nathan has a bit of a walks problem (3.15) but a 0.21 HR# and 64 innings. He's the best relief option left if it's not Zimmerman.

Pick 20: Marco Gonzales
Pick 21: Jeff Zimmerman
A couple pitchers go as do four OFers but none were the guys I was targeting so I feel I can still wait. Time to lock in Gonzales knowing that I can get to 1450 innings with him. Also, it is finally time to pull the trigger on Zimmerman. Maybe he's a chronic underperformer? Still, he's 88 innings and there's not as much left to pass him over for. That's 276 more innings and I'm now comfortably into the 1400s. Feeling pretty good about my staff, albeit a bit homer-prone.

Pick 22: Craig Biggio
Pick 23: Milton Bradley
At this point, my final 4 picks will be starting 2B, bulk DH/OF, backup C, and final pitcher. Thrilled to get Biggio this late in the game. The B/C+ defense isn't great, but certinaly passable and he's got a .402 OBP# and over 700 PAs. Kinsler had better defense but short on PAs and lower OBP#.

I thought a bunch between Cruz, Edgar, and Bradley. Ultimately, I went with Bradley for two main reasons: he's a switch-hitter and he can play the OF passably if needed (D-/B). I'll have to decide between Bradley, Bagwell, and Alvarez who spends the most time in the field vs DHing. Bradley, though, is in the top 15 for hitting value in the whole division. My corner OF will be poor fielders, whoever they are, but they will rake.

Pick 24: John Jaso
Pick 25: Neftali Feliz
Correa goes, a nice pick by pedrocerrano. Troy Glaus finally goes. May underperform but in the 23rd round, that's good value by redcped. I need 200-some-odd PA to complement Napoli behind the plate. There are a few all-hit, no-arm options (Nola, Garver, Stassi, Jaso) and some all-arm, no-hit options ( Murphy, Gattis, Wooten). I chose Jaso because he's left-handed, has the best OBP# of the group and his arm is D instead of D-. He's got enough pop to pinch-hit or DH if needed. Will try to spell Napoli against righties so Jaso can get the platoon advantage at least.

I'm still debating at this point which Verlander to use, but either way I don't need a ton of innings here. Neftali Feliz only has 31 of them, but the 1.03 ERC# will play nicely in the few games he can pitch in.

I actually submitted my first version with the higher-inning, worse-HR Verlander. My thinking being that even with worse production, he's better than my other options and so 50 more innings of him is positive. That logic maybe still should carry the day but I had second thoughts on the HR issue. I have enough IP to get through the season. And I'm also thinking about the playoffs, should we be fortunate enough to get there. So I swapped out the big-inning Verlander for the 175 IP version. Fingers crossed.

Ballpark: Angel Stadium
Ugh, not a lot of great options here. I am more worried about my HR-prone-ness from my staff than helping my HR hitters. Angel Stadium is pretty neutral, leaning negative across the board.

Lineup:
CF Erstad
1B Bagwell
LF Giambi
3B Bregman
RF Alvarez
C Napoli
DH Scott/Bradley
SS Semien
2B Biggio

Erstad and Biggio will swap against lefties. Teixeira will spell Alvarez. I still have not completely made up my mind on defensive alignment. Probably needs some more thought/research.

Pitching staff:

Verlander, Weaver, and Garcia will start with the lefty Marco Gonzales in long relief. Feliz will be a Closer with his short innings but my other 8 relievers--all between 63 and 88 innigns and all below 1.52 ERC#--will all be set to Setup.

Expectation:

I rate my team as having the best pitching staff in the league, though pedrocerrano did a great job getting a ton of good relievers. ej and redcped went the other route and loaded up on the swingmen types. Will be interesting to see how they all play out. Offensively, everyone can crush in this division. Will my weak defense in the corner OF spots and average defense at 2B/3B hurt me? I feel pretty good about the draft, no major surprises and got some nice gifts with the draft breaking for me in a few spots. Again, hoping we can compete for the division, this one looks to be very competitive.

Of my three teams in this round, my 2nd choice was at pick #8. I wanted a team in the strongest division (NL West) and was happy when redcped (at #7) chose to go into the AL West. I was able to grab the last spot (draft slot #2). I know the competition will be tough, but by picking this division, I believe this gives me a 50% chance at making the playoffs (I would be shocked if the NL wildcard doesn't come from this division).

Round #1
Not surprising, but emanes10 drafted Bonds at #1, so Zack Greinke was the clear-cut #2 choice. I wanted the righty over Randy Johnson or Clayton Kershaw. Greinke is one of my favorite pitchers of this era.

Round #2
No surprises with the next 4 picks... R.Johnson, Helton, Kershaw, J.Schmidt. I'm sure emanes10 was expecting me to draft Lamet here, but I much prefer Kevin Brown and his 257-inning 1998 season where he only allowed 8 HRs In this league, there is going to be a crapload of homeruns. Might as well limit them as much as I can.

Round #3
emanes10 takes Lincecum & Lamet. Again, so far, no mistakes in this draft. I grab my third starting pitcher, Jake Peavy, another relatively low-HR guy. I am hoping either Eric Gagne or Tony Gonsolin falls to me in round 4. After Helton and Larry Walker, I can make an argument that I can wait on any of the positions and get a guy who is perfectly acceptable.

Round #4
Zac Gallen, Walker Buehler and Larry Walker go with the next 3 picks. I am one pick away. I'm not sure what I will do if both Gagne & Gonsolin are available. pedrocerrano eventually takes Gonsolin. I quickly grab Eric Gagne. After this pick, emanes10 says "You guys are killing me. This is not how my mock draft went. Switching gears..." He takes Posey and Tulowitzki. As the top full-time player at two tough-to-fill positions, these are certainly reasonable choices, but I had already made up my mind that I was going to wait at catcher and shortstop.

Round #5
Four rounds, four pitchers. It's time to get my stud hitter. I am happy to grab Luis Gonzalez and his 57-HR 2001 season. pedrocerrano was not happy and posted "I wanted Gagne, Posey, Tulowitzki, or Gonzalez". Did I mention that this is a very tough draft and nobody is making any drafting mistakes.

Round #6
The next four picks are Blackmon, Piazza, Beltre & Kemp. All solid hitting options. I was certain pedrocerrano was going to take one of the last two stud 1B (Freeman or Goldschmidt) and I was going to take the other one (since emanes10 didn't have a 1B yet), but pedro went with Kemp instead. So now, I decide that I can wait another round to take my 1B. So what do I do with this seemingly *free* pick? DJ LeMajieu seems like an obvious choice, due to his lefty bat and great defense, but I convince myself I can live with Kent or Loretta later. 3B is deep enough. I already decided not to take a catcher or shortstop early. There are a ton of good OF options left, so I can wait on that position too. This is where the first drafting mistake is made. For some unknown reason, I waste this pick on Odalis Perez. Yes, he was 200+ inning SP with the best ERC# left, but I already had three very good SPs and now I grab a guy that allows too many HRs that nobody was taking this early. Dumb.

Round #7
As expected, emanes10 takes a 1B, Freddie Freeman. He also takes Arenado. He's putting together a nice team. I quickly grab Paul Goldschmidt. Right after my pick, pedrocerrano grabs LeMajieu and that's when I realized that maybe I should have taken LeMajieu, then Goldschmidt. Oh well.

Round #8
The other three picks made before my turn were Holliday, Scherzer & Lo Duca. I was a bit surprised by the Lo Duca pick. He's fine, but I wasn't taking a catcher this early. I can piece together a decent platoon. I had been eyeing Mike Yastrzemski to play CF for me, but like I mentioned before, OF is very deep. What I didn't realize until it was too late was that all the great OFs in this league all have bad range. I decided to grab a stud lefty reliever, Hong-Chih Kuo. I love my pitching. My only two hitters so far are Luis Gonzalez and Paul Goldschmidt, which isn't too shabby.

Round #9
And right on queue, emanes10 selects Mike Yastrzemski. Damn it! He also grabs the second 2B taken, Jeff Kent, but there are still three guys I am fine taking later (T.Turner, A.Hill, Loretta). I do need to start adding some offense though. I have Clay Bellinger as the best OF left, but I wanted the switch hitter so I grab everybody's favorite cookie, Ketel Marte.

Round #10
Three RPs (H.Bell, Jensen, M.Adams) plus Hanley Ramirez went before my turn this round. With emanes10 drafting Tulowitzki, I considered drafting Hanley this round had he made it back to me, then taking Seager on the way back. Since I didn't get Hanley, I already have my full-time shortstop pegged for a later round. Since I don't need a SP, I already have two stud RPs, and I am waiting on C, 2B, 3B, SS, it's going to be an outfielder. Let's continue the big bats, with Clay Bellinger. If I don't end up moving one of these three OFs to DH, my range in the OF is kind of sucky. But you can't argue with the SLG of .688, .629 & .592.

Round #11
This is where I made the biggest drafting mistake. I was in my car driving, and I was all set to take Randy Winn here and use his full season to play CF. He's always hit well for me and I needed his A+ range. I kept trying to type his name in whenever I stopped at a light, but the light would change to green before I could finish my post. I finally got home, and then decided I could wait another round. I wanted a decent long-reliever / spot starter type and Chris Young was clearly the best one of those types left. I was for sure taking Winn coming back.

Round #12
Nooooo! Dougsdawgs13 grabs Randy Winn, and my heart sank. Stupid Chris Young pick. Had one of the lights just stayed red a bit longer... crap! There really isn't a good range OF that can hit enough to justify playing over the DH I will end up rostering. I decide to add Trevor Rosenthal. With Gagne sometimes not being able to finish the 9th due to pitch-count, hopefully I get many high-leverage 1-out saves from Rosenthal's 27-innings.

Round #13
For no reason that I can think of, I select Mark Loretta despite there being three 2B left that I like, and only 1 other team that needs a 2B. I am still reeling from losing out on R.Winn.

Round #14
Nobody that I wanted got taken since my last pick. I really looked for a defensive-minded OF before making this selection, but there just isn't one. I decided to make a sneaky pick here, grabbing Pablo Sandoval. He has two usable seasons (the partial 2011 season is the better fielder), but I plan on using his full 2009 season and will be using him at DH, with the intention of drafting Chase Headley or Vinny Castilla later.

Round #15
I had assumed that Dougsdawgs13 was using Trea Turner at 2B so I had him as still needing a SS, so I selected a favorite of mine, Rafael Furcal. Switch hitter - check. A+ range - check. I know Rich Aurilia was still left, but I'd rather have the switch hitter who's offense is not dependent on HRs. Aurilia never got drafted.

Round #16
Gabe White, Cla Meredith and Robb Nen went. I grab reliever Evan Phillips.

Round #17
The pitcher run started right after I took Furcal. Fourteen of the next sixteen picks are pitchers. Ten of those are relievers. Of course, for some reason, I hadn't realized this and drafted Chase Headley in this round. I still don't have my catcher yet, but all the other teams have theirs. The obvious pick for me is Miguel Montero. He's a lefty bat with a good OBP and an A+ arm. Maybe I will get him with my next pick

Round #18
pedrocerrano sticks it to me by taking Montero (he did need some extra PAs at catcher). I'm sure he was annoyed that he grabbed Lo Duca tens rounds ago and he didn't want me to get a catcher that was nearly as good as Lo Duca this late. But that's ok, I have a backup plan that I will employ in a few rounds. Let's grab another RP, Ryan Brasier. Another stud shirt-inning RP. I love my pitching.

Round #19
I'm not sure why I selected Hyun-Jin Ryu here, but I think I wanted another spot starter, long-relief pitcher type. I have my four main SPs (Greinke, K.Brown, Peavy, O.Perez) and two long-relievers (C.Young, Ryu) who will pitch when my starter gets knocked out early and also spot start, then all my short-inning RPs can pitch the 7th-8th-9th.

Round #20
Now it's time to start getting my catching platoon. I take Will Smith, but not his 2021 501-PA season (.853 ops), but his 2020 370-PA season (.963 ops).

Round #21
I still need a fourth OF. I was eyeing both Carlos Gonzalez (for hitting) or AJ Pollack (for defense) but emanes10 take both of these guys on his double-pick. So, I delay my platoon catcher one round and grab outfielder Melky Cabrera. I guess getting a swtich-hitting .340-average batter isn't a bad consolation prize.

Round #22
And my other half of my catching platoon is switch-hitter Todd Hundley. So my two catchers have OPS of .980 and .954. For comparison purposes, 4th-round pick Buster Posey's OPS is .957. I can give up a few SBs when I get this much offense this late in the draft.

Round #23
I have a free pick and wanted another hitter. I've never used Chase Headley before, so I wanted to add another 3B, plus I realize that pedrocerrano still doesn't have a starting 3B. So let's add Vinny Castilla, forcing pedro to draft the poor-fielding Garret Atkins. These drafts are 80% trying to build the best roster you can and 20% trying to screw others so their roster is weakened.

Round #24 & #25
My last two picks are short-inning relievers. Having Young and Ryu allows me the luxury of rostering sub-40 innings RPs. So I take Huston Street (39 ip, 0.72 whip) and Jeremy Fikac (27 ip, 0.76 whip). I now have 7 RPs with cumulative stats of 338 innings, .138 oav, 0.71 whip, 0.27 hr/9, 11.7 k/9, 2.2 bb/9.

My hitting looks like this...
C: Todd Hundley (S) .284, .375, 579 (C-/A+/D) & Will Smith (R) .290, .401, .579 (A+/A+D)
1B: Paul Goldschmidt (R) .321, .435, .570 (A/A)
2B: Mark Loretta (R) .335, .391, .495 (B+/B)
3B: Chase Headley (S) .286, .376, .498 (A/A-) & Vinny Castilla (R) .319, .362, .589 (A/C+)
SS: Rafael Furcal (S) .300, .369, .445 (C+/A+)
LF: Ketel Marte (S) .329, .389, .592 (A/D+)
CF: Cody Belliner (R) .305, .406, .629 (B+/C)
RF: Lois Gonzalez (L) .325, .429, .688 (A/D+)
DH: Pablo Sandoval (S) .330, .387, .556
Backup DH/OF: Melky Cabrera (S) .346, .390, 516 (C+/C-)
Total Hitting .317, .393, .559, $75.0 million

My Pitching
SP: Zack Greinke (R) 223 ip, 187 oav, 0.84 whip, 0.57 hr/9
SP: Kevin Brown (R) 257 ip, .235 oav, 1.07 whip, 0.28 hr/9
SP: Jake Peavy (R) 221 ip, .208 oav, 1.06 whip, 0.52 hr/9
SP: Odalis Perez (L) 223 ip, .226 oav, 0.99 whip, 0.85 hr/9

SP/Long: Chris Young (R) 171 ip, .191 oav, 1.10 whip, 0.52 hr/9
SP/Long: Hyun-Jin Ryu (L) 183 ip, .234 oav, 1.01 whip, 0.84 hr/9

RP: Eric Gagne (R) 83 ip, .133 oav, 0.69 whip, 0.22 hr/9
RP: Hing-Chih Kuo (L) 60 ip, .139 oav, 0.78 whip, 0.15 hr/9
RP: Trevor Rosenthal (R) 27 ip, .091 oav, 0.40 whip, 0.00 hr/9
RP: Evan Phillips (R) 63 ip, .155 oav, 0.76 whip, 0.29 hr/9
RP: Ryan Brasier (R) 39 ip, .140 oav, 0.72 whip, 0.23 hr/9
RP: Huston Street (R) 39 ip, .130 oav, .0.72 whip, 0.46 hr/9
RP: Jeremy Fikac (R) 27 ip, 161 oav, 0.76 whip, 0.68 hr/9
Total Pitching Stats: 1615 ip, .199 oav, 0.95 whip, 0.52 hr/9, 9.0 k/9, 2.0 bb/9, $74.7 million

I have a over 300 HRs on my starting nine, so I wanted a decent HR park. But there are a bunch of negative HR parks in this division. I'm not brave enough to play in Coors field, and Arizona's Chase/BankOne also inflated offense a bit too much for my taste (1.08 factor). So I went with the 3Com Park which is -1 for singles, -1 for triples and 0 everyplace else (park factor 0.95). The key for this team is for the SPs to get to the 7th/8th inning so my strong bullpen can seal the deal. If Chris Young and Hyun-Jin Ryu have to pitch a lot, that means my SPs are getting roughed up early. I am a bit worried that the poor OF range will cause some issues, but at least my infield defense is solid. This team looks so strong compared to my other two teams, but I'm sure all four teams in this division are strong. I bet the fourth place team in the NL West finishes near .500, at the worst.

Really great write-ups so far! I just finished reading Schwarze's above and I think you can see I have similar reactions to other picks in this division. Here's what I was thinking:

I had the first overall pick in this round and after some research I concluded that ALE pick #1 was definitely the smartest pick. However, the NLW has incredible depth and there was one thing about this league that I just couldn't let go of; There just isn't any pitching that can stop hitters from hitting homers. Even 2000 Pedro has a weakness for homeruns. And, do you know who is capable of hitting lots of homers? Barry Bonds. How valuable is he in a modern pitching league? This is too enticing. Winning this league of HOF WIS users is unlikely, so I'm going to build a fun team. And if I'm going to go for it, I might as well GO FOR IT. So I committed to taking Bonds and I decided I will be playing in Coors.


I have never built a successful Coors team because in a salary capped league, you just need so many more innings than everyone else, that the quality of your players suffers. But this is an uncapped, modern draft and I am the only team that can have Bonds, so I figured this was the ideal scenario to try this. It might fail miserably, but I thought it would be a fun season regardless.

I decided to draft for hitting like I did in round 6 where I finished first overall (Hornsby, then Sisler, then Ashburn), yet my team ended up having the 2nd place (Feller) and the 3rd place finishers (Hippo) in Cy Young voting. I believe this was because they were backed by outstanding defense, mainly range. 3 Ashburns in the OF, T. Jackson at SS and Stan Hack at 3B. So, I would like to try something similar and try to ensure that the pitching I do take can keep the ball in the ballpark, and then draft great hitters who can also play defense. Plus plays will be essential in Coors.

Round	.	Pick	.	Owner	.	Player	Pos
1		1		emanes10		Bonds, Barry	OF
1		2		schwarze		Greinke, Zack	P
1		3		pedrocerrano		Johnson, Randy	P
1		4		dougsdawgs13		Helton, Todd	1B
2		5		dougsdawgs13		Kershaw, Clayton	P
2		6		pedrocerrano		Schmidt, Jason	P
2		7		schwarze		Brown, Kevin	P

This was exactly as I scripted except for one MAJOR hiccup. Schwarze took Kevin Brown instead of Dinleson Lamet in the top 7. Devastated! Brown has 257 IP which I really wanted, but more importantly, he has a league best 0.24 HR9# which I so desperately need to make this work. Everyone else is going pitching as expected and I need to lock in 2 starters before I start building my hitting.

2		8		emanes10		Lincecum, Tim	P
3		9		emanes10		Lamet, Dinelson	P
3		10		schwarze		Peavy, Jake	P
3		11		pedrocerrano		Gallen, Zac	P
3		12		dougsdawgs13		Buehler, Walker	P
4		13		dougsdawgs13		Walker, Larry	OF
4		14		pedrocerrano		Gonsolin, Tony	P
4		15		schwarze		Gagne, Eric	P

Lamet doesn't have the homer prevention I want but he's too good to pass up, and I think there is a bit of a drop-off after him. Lincecum is the next best top SP at preventing homers and I knew he would be here for me. More pitching gets taken and only Walker comes off the board. I don't think I would have taken him as I can't build a good D team and have Bonds and Walker in the OF. I hope I get enough talent that I can move Bonds to DH eventually.

4		16		emanes10		Posey, Buster	C
5		17		emanes10		Tulowitzki, Troy	SS
5		18		schwarze		Gonzalez, Luis	OF
5		19		pedrocerrano		Blackmon, Charlie	OF
5		20		dougsdawgs13		Piazza, Mike	C
6		21		dougsdawgs13		Beltre, Adrian	3B
6		22		pedrocerrano		Kemp, Matt	OF
6		23		schwarze		Perez, Odalis	P

Posey was an easy pick here. Doesn't have power, but .340 / .410 and over 600 PA. I think there is a drop-off after him. I picked Tulo with the intent on using the 375 PA version. He's by far the best SS in the sim as far as I'm concerned even if it's only just over half a season. I thought about Beltre here as he checks all the boxes, however his OBP is a bit low and with the 3 hitters I have so far, I am also building a pretty great AVG/OBP team. I figured if Beltre didn't make it back, then Arenado would, and he is also an A/A defender at 3B who has some power.

6		24		emanes10		Arenado, Nolan	3B
7		25		emanes10		Freeman, Freddie	1B
7		26		schwarze		Goldschmidt, Paul	1B
7		27		pedrocerrano		LeMahieu, DJ	2B
7		28		dougsdawgs13		Holliday, Matt	OF
8		29		dougsdawgs13		Scherzer, Max	P
8		30		pedrocerrano		Lo Duca, Paul	C
8		31		schwarze		Kuo, Hong-Chih	P

Arenado was there as expected so I grabbed him. I really considered Lemahieui here, but now I'm starting to worry that I don't even have enough power to make this Coors thing work. Goldy and Freeman were pretty even for me, but Freeman has 730 PA which means I won't need a back-up and he also hits a crazy amount of doubles which will play just great in +3 2B Coors. He's also a great defender and I'm almost done with my infield with great hitters and defenders.

8		32		emanes10		Yastrzemski, Mike	OF
9		33		emanes10		Kent, Jeff	2B
9		34		schwarze		Marte, Ketel	OF
9		35		pedrocerrano		Bell, Heath	P
9		36		dougsdawgs13		Jansen, Kenley	P
10		37		dougsdawgs13		Adams, Mike	P
10		38		pedrocerrano		Ramirez, Hanley	SS
10		39		schwarze		Bellinger, Cody	OF

I noticed a bit of a run on OF and I realized that they were probably more scarce than infield in these mini drafts. Yaz again doesn't have the power, but he does hit doubles and some triples and is another A/A defender. As long as I can keep racking up solid hitters that defend I will do it. Kent I think was a mistake. I picked Tulo earlier with the intention of pairing him with Hanley Ramirez. It's an elite platoon. But Kent is .330 / .420 and I'm now obsessed with making it miserable for all the teams that are loading up on pitching to come play me. Sure enough, Hanley gets picked 2 picks before I go again. Misery. Also Bellinger goes who has the homers I really should be adding to make this work. This power team doesn't have much power other than Bonds so far.

10		40		emanes10		Hoffman, Trevor	P
11		41		emanes10		Gonzalez, Victor	P
11		42		schwarze		Young, Chris	P
11		43		pedrocerrano		Saito, Takashi	P
11		44		dougsdawgs13		Scutaro, Marcus	IF
12		45		dougsdawgs13		Winn, Randy	OF
12		46		pedrocerrano		Seager, Corey	SS
12		47		schwarze		Rosenthal, Trevor	P

I decide to pivot here as relievers are starting to come off the board and I can probably wait on my other potential SS platoon partner Marco Scutaro. I take Hoffman and Gonzalez who have decent IP for relievers and more importantly don't give up homers (0 in VG's case). More sniping on the turn as DD takes both Scutaro and Randy Winn. I was going to do this exact move with my next pick! Scutaro to fill in SS PA but can also back up 2B and 3B which allows me to take the best available later. Brutal! Everyone in this draft is really sharp, and it's annoying as hell. Winn has the perfect low PA season for me with speed and A+ range to boot. He also has a great full season option if I decided I needed it. But I waited too long.

12		48		emanes10		Ramirez, Manny	OF
13		49		emanes10		Cain, Matt	P
13		50		schwarze		Loretta, Mark	DH
13		51		pedrocerrano		Sheffield, Gary	2B
13		52		dougsdawgs13		Turner, Trea	2B
14		53		dougsdawgs13		Burks, Ellis	OF
14		54		pedrocerrano		Rodon, Carlos	P
14		55		schwarze		Sandoval, Pablo	3B/DH

I take Manny on tilt as a result of my other losses. His low PA .396 AVG season is worth $22,000 $/PA. Every once in a while I will stack him with Bonds against a lefty in Coors and wait for the fireworks. I also can't keep waiting on pitching. I know I am going to need a huge amount of innings, which means at least 6 starters in a modern league. I am already down 70 IP from plan because of the Brown/Lamet debacle. Matt Cain is average, but he is one of the lower HR# options at SP. Every low HR pitcher that I get is also a guy off the board for everyone else to stop me.

14		56		emanes10		Hill, Rich	P
15		57		emanes10		Machado, Manny	3B
15		58		schwarze		Furcal, Rafael	SS
15		59		pedrocerrano		White, Gabe	P
15		60		dougsdawgs13		Schilling, Curt	P
16		61		dougsdawgs13		Meredith, Cla	P
16		62		pedrocerrano		Nen, Robb	P
16		63		schwarze		Phillips, Evan	P

Starting pitching is officially ugly now. I don't WANT anyone out there more than any others. If 110 IP Rich Hill had more IP, he would be long gone, so that's the best I can do here. I thought about Schilling because getting 260 IP here would be pretty useful, and I am sure there will be homer preventing parks to start him in. I hoped he would make it back, and I was wrong (again). Machado was probably a dumb pick here, especially in hindsight after losing Schilling. I did it because I know now that I will need 13 pitchers which means only 12 hitters and a short bench. Machado fills the SS PA I need, and he also played 3B and Arenado is a bit short on PA. I do think Aurilila and Story are better SS options here, but the 3B eligibility tipped me to MM. This is a bad mistake as you will see (Spoiler: Aurilia and Story are not even drafted)

16		64		emanes10		Bumgarner, Madison	P
17		65		emanes10		Morrow, Brandon	P
17		66		schwarze		Headley, Chase	3B
17		67		pedrocerrano		Kolarek, Adam	P
17		68		dougsdawgs13		Benoit, Joaquin	P
18		69		dougsdawgs13		Romo, Sergio	P
18		70		pedrocerrano		Montero, Miguel	C
18		71		schwarze		Brasier, Ryan	P

MadBum is a downgrade from Schilling. He is worse with 60 fewer IP. I realize missing Schilling wasn't great. I really need innings and pitchers are not getting better. I add Morrow who is another 50 innings of 0 homers. This "defense makes bad pitching better" thing better work. Meanwhile I am passing up better relievers like Meredith and Romo for the low homer guys which is making me wonder if Coors is stupid. Too late to go back.

18		72		emanes10		Jimenez, Ubaldo	P
19		73		emanes10		Yates, Kirby	P
19		74		schwarze		Ryu, Hyun-Jin	P
19		75		pedrocerrano		Belt, Brandon	1B
19		76		dougsdawgs13		Broxton, Jonathan	P
20		77		dougsdawgs13		Betts, Mookie	OF
20		78		pedrocerrano		Martinez, J.D.	1B
20		79		schwarze		Smith, Will	C

I was really patient with Ubaldo, but I really did want him. He has 0.33 HR9# which is top tier for this league along with Lincecum and Cain. The rest of his stats ARE NOT. Come on, defense. Yates is another reliever with solid homer prevention. A nice add, and now I have a solid bullpen I think. Not a Schwarze bullpen, but solid.

20		80		emanes10		Gonzalez, Carlos	OF
21		81		emanes10		Pollack, A.J.	OF
21		82		schwarze		Cabrera, Melky	OF
21		83		pedrocerrano		Neshek, Pat	P
21		84		dougsdawgs13		Gregerson, Luke	P
22		85		dougsdawgs13		Green, Shawn	OF
22		86		pedrocerrano		Giles, Brian	OF
22		87		schwarze		Hundley, Todd	C

Cargo is a great get here. .340 hitter with some power. A fielder but poor range. If anything, he is an upgrade over Bonds in the OF. Pollock hit .320 and is another A/A defender. He's speedy and steals bases with a great success rate. A perfect 9th hitter for this team I think. I now have great or elite defenders everywhere except 2B and one corner OF.

22		88		emanes10		Matsui, Kazuo	2B
23		89		emanes10		Herrmann, Chris	C
23		90		schwarze		Castilla, Vinny	3B
23		91		pedrocerrano		Rodriguez, Felix	P
23		92		dougsdawgs13		Hudson, Daniel	P
24		93		dougsdawgs13		McGee, Jake	P
24		94		pedrocerrano		Atkins, Garrett	3B
24		95		schwarze		Street, Huston	P

I think I became more obsessed with fielding than power as this draft went on. Matsui offers a def replacement and part-time starter to Kent at 2B. He hit .340 with speed and triples and he's of course A/A. also this was a dumb pick, I should have picked a pitcher because now I will only have 12 which backs me into a corner next turn. Hermann is a lefty bat to Posey who hit well and is a defensive upgrade.

24		96		emanes10		Darvish, Yu	P
25		97		emanes10		May, Dustin	P
25		98		schwarze		Fikac, Jeremy	P
25		99		pedrocerrano		Thatcher, Joe	P
25		100		dougsdawgs13		Bard, Josh	C

I might not even dress Darvish in Coors field. He can stay at the team hotel. He has a good whip and can save his energy for maybe 2 of 3 starts in a road series in a homer-prevention park. Dustin May doesn't give up homers for 48 IP. He can pitch out of the bullpen and hopefully make a playoff start at home. I would have preferred to take 105 IP Guillermo Mota here, but the last thing I want to do is to lose no salary cap league because I don't have enough innings in Coors. Who know how many I will need, so I want to be safe.

Not feeling as confident about my strategy as when this started. I missed some key guys and I didn't draft as much power as I set out to do. Coors is +3 in all types of hits and I am very equipped to do some hitting, especially doubles. My # slash line is .332 / .418 / .576 which includes some bench players that bring it down. I might guess that this is league high, not that it means anything. My pitching is easily the worst in the division, but I think my defense is the best. My homer prevention is also the best despite the poor pitching, so hopefully that does something.

The big decision: Which Bonds?
2001 Bonds has the 11HR# which is so mouth watering for this team in this league in this stadium. Also more PA than the other 2 options which keeps him in the lineup. His .328 AVG# is probably why I am taking a pass.
2002 Bonds has the highest AVG# at .372 with a .580 OBP#. He "only" has 9 HR# but has 7 2B#, more than the other 2. This Bonds is D+/D+ in the OF.
2004 Bonds is the most expensive full-time hitter. His OBP# is .609. What? He is a better defender than the other 2. His AVG# is 10 points lower than 2002

I went with 2002 because of the higher AVG# and the fact that he wioll play DH most of the time. I find that Bonds underperforms in a lot of leagues because he just walks all the time. That's still valuable, but I'm hoping for something more. I actually prefer the lower OBP in order to get the higher AVG# which will play better in my park. I like doubles too. One last experiment is I will be hitting Bonds lead-off. I think the sim is pretty much programmed to walk him in every reasonable scenario, so I'm hoping that this increases the chance he gets to hit. If not, then I could do a lot worse than starting off the game with a baserunner 60% of the time.

Expectation:
Anywhere between 50 wins and 110. No idea. My lack of great pitching could really backfire.

Line-up
Bonds .370/.582
Kent .334 / .424
Freeman .331 / .410
Cargo or Manny .336 / .376 or .396 / .489
Arenado .315 / .379
Posey .336 / .408
Tulo .340 / .432
Yaz .297 / .400
Pollock .315 / .367

This team will have some fun games and some pitching nightmares. I'm very happy to be in this last round and can't wait to see how it turns out.

Good luck Everyone!

During the last series of this most recent round, I had a shot at getting the #1 overall pick. I had won 3 games in a row while emanes10 lost 3 games in a row, putting us in a tie for the best overall record (and I owned the tie-breaker). But I lost my last game while emanes10 won his, giving him the #1 pick. I hadn't really done much research for the next round at that time, but I'm pretty sure that I would have made the same selection I ended up making with the #2 overall pick. That is 1st choice in the AL East draft.

I know the AL East doesn't have very strong pitching compared to some of the other divisions, but as I stated when I made this pick, the difference between '00 Pedro and the #2 pitcher in the AL East is pretty large. The other spot I was considering was Jake Arrieta in the NL Central, for mainly the same reasons... a big gap over the other SPs in that division. Had I taken #1 in the NL Central instead, I was still planning on gabbing an NL West team with my #8 overall pick, forcing my last team into the AL (which my #20 pick ended up anyway).

Another reason I went into the AL East is because I assumed everybody would avoid this division, which meant the last few owners (i.e., thejuice6, kstober) would end up there with me... which meant that I would avoid having to play against pedrocerrano, footballmm11, barracuda3, etc. Spoiler Alert, With pick #17, pedrocerrano voluntarily put his third team into the NL East with me, which was a big shock, and a bit annoying. That's ok, we'll get even with him later.

Rounds 1-3
My goal for the first 3 rounds was to grab Pedro Martinez, Roy Halladay and Mike Mussina. After I took Pedro, I figured Clemens, Lowe, Cole, Sale, Snell and Nomar would be selected. I was close... didn't expect Posada to go, which left Snell for me. I just don't like taking LH SPs with < 200 innings that early. I wanted RHPs with 200+ innings, which is why I chose Mussina and Halladay over guys like Severino, Manoah, Morton.

Rounds 4-5
Snell, Judge, Delgado, Uehara, Betts, Manoah went. pedrocerrano is putting together a formidable offense with Nomar, Judge and Betts. Yikes! I will counter with Jose Bautista and Bernie Williams. A couple of great fielders, including a personal favorite of mine, Bernie Williams. I'm not even thinking about adding any more pitching for a while... I need to grab as much offense as I can.

Rounds 6-7
D.Price, Ellsbury, Severino, Cano, Morton, J.Martinez all go off the board. I was taking none of those guys. This draft seems way too easy. I can't believe it, but DJ LeMajieu falls to me, as does Alex Rodriguez. Since I already have Bautista, LeMajieu will play 2B and A-Rod will be my DH. This draft is going better than I could have imagined.

Rounds 8-9
S.Green, Betances, Donaldson, D.Ortiz, Jeter, M.Ramirez get taken. Note that Pedro already has Nomar when he snipes Jeter from kstober. I learned after the draft, that Jeter will be playing 2B. I will be interested to see how his poor range at SS translates to 2B. I can't believe it but Jason Giambi is still on the board. I also learned my lesson from the other draft... "do not wait on the short-AB stud at a tough-to-fill position". So I grab the right-handed catching platoon, with Gary Sanchez, planning on taking the switch-hitting Jason Varitek next round. Holy crap, my offense is looking pretty darn good. Five of my six hitters have OPS > 1.000, with the worst being Bernie Williams at 971.

Rounds 10-11
This is the round where I made a huge mistake. I was so high on getting basically everybody I wanted that I didn't take a step back and "read the room". The next six picks included Pedroia, T.Gordon, J.Shields, Z.Britton, Ch.Johnson, Tejada. Two key RPs went off the board here. My two picks should have been Fernando Rodney and BJ Ryan. I considered taking Rodney, but I really wanted to lock in another switch hitter since I had 4 right-handed bats so far. In retrospect, Victor Martinez is not that much different than Varitek (D vs D- arm is bacially the difference). And besides taking Jason Varitek, I also selected outfielder Carl Everett, another switch-hitter. The other three teams already had six OFs between them. There was no hurry to take one here. As a result, if this team fails to make the playoffs, it will be because of a below-average bullpen, because this was the round to get two stud RPs.

Rounds 12-13
Of course, five pitchers went on the next six picks, including F.Rodney, B.Ryan, Cortes, McClanahan, A.Gonzalez, M.Rivera. kstober sniped Rivera as I was for sure taking him here. The next few 60+ inning RPs on the board are guys I don't like and/or have not had luck with, so I instead go with Kyle Bradish and Clay Buchholz. I knew I was going to end up with bunch of short-inning RPs, so I wanted to make sure I had enough innings to make this work. Bradish will also get some spot starts as I expect my SP4 to be a 220-inning guy, resulting in roughly 900-910 SP-innings with my 4 main SPs.

Rounds 14-15
Ch.Green, Papelbon, R.Winn, Granderson, Escobar, A.Chapman go next... that's four more pitchers. I selected Aaron Slegers and Cesar Valdez here. Why, I ask myself. There are other better RPs available. I'm pretty sure I am avoiding guys with low IP/G numbers, which is why I passed on Nick Anderson (0.86 ip/g). I've never used Slegers before but am intrigued by his 2.36 ip/g. I also am using Cesar Valdez in another league is he is crushing it (0.86 whip, 1.99 era in 40 ips).

Rounds 16-17
Of course, Nick Anderson goes on the next pick. J.McGee, Benoit, Bedard, Wakefield, Kimbrel all get taken... six more pitchers. I think folks are going to start drafting hitters again soon. Two teams still need a shortstop. There are exactly two shortstops worth taking, and one of them is 3B-eligible. I can't afford somebody taking Machado to play 3B, then juice taking the last good shortstop (X.Bogaerts), so I take Manny Machado here. For those keeping score at home, that's four players that have 3B-eligibility that I have now rostered (Bautista, LeMajieu, A-Rod, Machado). The 3B position is very deep in the AL East. Still on the board are Mevlin Mora, Adrian Beltre, Bill Mueller, Rafael Devers, Evan Longoria and Kevin Youkilis. The only starting position I still need is outfielder, but none jump out at me. I decide top grab another RP with a good ip/g, Michael Pineda.

Rounds 18-19
I was right about the offense, five of the next six picks are hitters... J.Lopez, M.Vaughn, C.Crawford, Sh.Spencer, Osuna, Chr.Davis. Note that Vaughn and Davis are great hitting first basemen, which is why I guess Jason Giambi was still on the board in round 8. I should have drafted one of those 1B and played one at a corner OF spot. The OFs left just aren't that great. I need some extra PAs at 2B and I assumed pedrocerrano was using Jeter at DH and still needed a 2B, so I grabbed another switch-hitter-high-on-base guy, Brian Roberts. He'll leadoff and play 2B against lefty pitchers. Based on who's left, I realize that I am better off playing Jose Bautista in the OF and drafting another 3B, giving me five starting-quality 3B on my roster. Did I mention that two teams in this division still don't have a starting 3B? Since I hate losing out on Bautista's great defense at 3B, I go with Adrian Belte over the slightly better hitter, Melvin Mora. I can only imagine kstober's and pedrocerrano's surprise when they see this pick.

Rounds 20-21
Next two picks off the board... kstober takes Melvin Mora, pedrocerrano takes Kevin Youkilis. Maybe next time, pedrocerrano will try to avoid my division, when he has other options. Anyway, that was fun. I still need some outfield PAs to fill since B.Williams, Bautista, C.Everett only have a combined 1900 PAs. I really like Steve Pearce. Solid hitter (.929 OPS) and he's a decent enough fielder in the OF (A+/C+) and can be a defensive replacement at 1B for Giambi. I also still need to draft my SP4. I strongly consider taking Curt Schilling here, but there are other SPs with similar numbers that I am ok with, so I grab my first lefty RP, Alex Torres.

Rounds 22-23
J.Lester, C.Schilling, X.Bogaerts, R.McGuire, A.Miller, N.Markakis are off the board. I had a feeling somebody would take Schilling. I couldn't believe thejuice6 waited so long on Bogaerts.... the drop-off to the next SS is huge. I take my SP4, Rick Porcello. His and Schillings numbers are very close. I also grab another short-inning reliever, Aaron Sanchez. Sanchez and C.Valdez (both with 0.70 whips) will share the role of closer for me.

Rounds 24-25
I knew I needed at least one more reliever to get to 1500 innings, and I needed another lefty so Rich Hill it is. He's a bit HR-prone but you can't argue with a 0.66 whip reliever this late in the draft. I really have no more needs, so my last pick is can be anything. I wanted somebody that I will actually use. Trot Nixon (lefty bat, OF, .949 ops) would have allowed me to occasionally start Bautista at 3B if Beltre underachieved. I strongly considered him. But, I ultimately decided to grab some extra PAs at SS. Machado is a decent fielder but lacks range (A-/C-). Ramon Urias can hit (.360/.407/.560) as has good range. (C/A).

My hitting looks like this...
C: Jason Varitek (S) .296, .390, 482 (A/A+/D) & Gary Sanchez (R) .299, .376, .657 (B/A+/A+)
1B: Jason Giambi (L) .314, .435, .5985 (A-/D+)
2B: DJ LeMajiue (R) .364, .421, .590 (C/C) & Brian Roberts (S) .314, .387, .515 (A-/C-)
3B: Adrian Beltre (R) .321, .365, .553 (B/A)
SS: Manny Machado (R) .297, .367, .538 (A-/C-) & Ramon Urias (R) .360, .407, .560 (C/A)
LF: Carl Everett (S) .300, .373, .587 (C+/B+) & Steve Pearce (R) .293, .373, .556 (A+/C+)
CF: Bernie Williams (S) .342, .435, .536 (B/A)
RF: Jose Bautista (R) .302, .447, .608 (C/B-)
DH: Alex Rodriguez (R) .314, .422, .645
Total Hitting .312, 401, .567, $76.9 million

My Pitching
SP: Pedro Martinez (R) 217 ip, .167 oav, 0.74 whip, 0.71 hr/9
SP: Mike Mussina (R) 229 ip, 237 oav, 1.07 whip, 0.79 hr/9
SP: Roy Halladay (R) 246 ip, .237 oav, 1.05 whip, 0.66 hr/9
SP: Rick Porcello (R) 223 ip, .230 oav, 1.01 whip, 0.93 hr/9

SP/Long: Kyle Bradish (R) 169 ip, .214 oav, 1.04 whip, 0.75 hr/9
Long RP: Clay Buchholz (R) 108 ip, .199 oav, 1.02 whip, 0.33 hr/9

RP: Aaron Slegers (R) 70 ip, .194 oav, 0.88 whip, 0.35 hr/9
RP: Cesar Valdez (R) 39 ip, .143 oav, 0.70 whip, .000 hr/9
RP: Alex Torres (L) 57 ip, .159 oav, 0.90 whip, 0.16 hr/9
RP: Aaron Sanchez (R) 33 ip, .128 oav, 0.70 whip, 0.27 hr/9
RP: Michael Pineda (R) 76 ip, .200 oav, 0.83 whip, 0.59 hr/9
RP: Rich Hill (L) 29 ip, .141 oav, .0.66 whip, 0.62 hr/9
RP: Dan Otero (R) 71 ip, 211 oav, 0.91 whip, 0.25 hr/9
Total Pitching Stats: 1496 ip, .209 oav, 0.96 whip, 0.67 hr/9, 8.7 k/9, 1.7 bb/9, $64.5 million

I am playing in Oriole Park at Camden Yards (+1 HR, 0 single, -2 double, -3 triples, 0.96 factor) to take advantage of the 300 HRs my starting lineup has. I don't really have any triples hitters, so I don't mind the -3. Basically, I wanted a stadium with a park factor below 1.00. It would be a disappointment if this team doesn't make the playoffs given the huge advantage Pedro is. The defense is just ok, nothing great, but not terrible. The overall pitching in the AL East isn't great, but my bullpen is certainly worse (or at least not as deep) as the other teams in the division, and that could be my undoing.

I ended up with the 6th pick. My first thought was if I could get in the NL West to go for it no matter the pick available but as I researched I found myself drawn to the hitters in the NL East; The pitching in the West was clearly the best of any division but as I looked closer at the NL East I felt like there was enough pitching depth to take a chance and try and build with my preferred hitters.

I selected the Number 2 pick in the NL East ( number 1 was already off the board to Ronthegenius). I figured as much as I would rather not be in Ron's division at this point there are no easy divisions everyone left is a top owner.

Round 1
Ronthegenius Jacob deGrom
Bill_James47 Greg Maddux
richiebrown6 Chipper Jones
ybjsports Bryce Harper

Round 1 starts with Ron selectin deGrom which I figured he would and also hoped he would due to the extra innings Maddux gives me. I figure quality innings are at a premium adding an extra 30 is huge for me. The next two picks are both hitters which catches my attention as I have some hitters I really want and figure I need to be flexible on my next pick whether I should take a pitcher or hitter.

Round 2
ybjsports Matt Harvey
richiebrown6 Juan Soto
Bill_James47 Freddie Freeman
Ronthegenius Max Scherzer

By the time it comes to me in Round 2 three hitters and 1 pitcher have been taken since my last pick so I look at the top starters on my board and I don't see enough separation among them to take one and grab a bat I really want in Freeman

Round 3
Ronthegenius Jose Fernandez
Bill_James47 Jose Reyes
richiebrown6 Javy Lopez
ybjsports Pedro Martinez

Ron grabs 2 more pitchers on the turn thankfully only one I was targeting in Fernandez. With all the power in this league I am trying to cap my starters at .5 hr/9#. This pick is tough for me as the starting pitcher pool of guys I want is starting to thin out I was planning to take a pitcher here for sure but with the amount of position players getting picked I take a chance and grab my next hitting target Jose Reyes. My goal in this draft is to have a versatile offence because I know there will be teams that end up with lots of hr prone pitchers so I want enough power to hurt them but I don't want to rely completely on the long ball. Reyes and Freeman ensure I have a somewhat dynamic high average extra base hitting top of the order.

Round 4
ybjsports Aaron Nola
richiebrown6 Kevin Millwood
Bill_James47 Sandy Alcantara
Ronthegenius Spencer Strider

Javy Lopes and 3 pitchers off the board between my round 3 and 4 picks, luckily for me only Nola was a target but now that I see these starters getting grabbed I can't wait any longer to grab another starter Sandy Alcantara is the top guy on my board and I am happy to get him in round 4

Round 5
Ronthegenius Chris Martin
Bill_James47 Zack Wheeler
richiebrown6 Stephen Strasburg
ybjsports Ronald Acuna Jr

I had 2 starters I was hoping would make it back to me Wheeler and Strasburg lucky for me Ron goes with 2 shorter inning guys on the turn and I have my pick of the 2. I opt for Wheeler who I don't think is as good because I want the extra innings. After 5 rounds I am happy with the way things are going I got the 2 hitters I wanted and 3 starters who give me close to 700 innings all under .5 hr/9#

Round 6
ybjsports Craig Kimbrel
richiebrown6 Javier Vazquez
Bill_James47 David Wright
Ronthegenius Sean Doolittle

After my Wheeler pick Strasburg gets taken, with that I am now happy to wait for a while before I worry about taking a 4th starter from the next tier of guys. Looking at the board I feel like 2nd base and the outfield are quite deep. 3rd base and catcher seem thinner to me. No catcher is standing out to me but I see David Wright who I love for a good obp solid range gap power and really high percentage base stealing. I like the idea of using him as a lead off man with Reyes 2nd and Freeman 3rd it feels like the start of an offense that could win in any park

Round 7
Ronthegenius Kris Medlen
Bill_James47 Marcell Ozuna
richiebrown6 Cole Hammels
?ybjsports Jimmy Rollins

Now it feels like time to take a big outfield bat I need to add a bit of power as I know there will be lots of hr prone pitchers in this league Marcel Ozuna it is. He is a bit error prone but has decent range I can live with that on a corner spot in the outfield

Round 8
ybjsports Roy Halladay
richiebrown6 Ryan Howard
Bill_James47 Doug Glanville
Ronthegenius Max Fried

Things seem to be going well for me other people are generally taking relievers I am not ready to spend the draft capital to get (the pen seems fairly deep to me) or Starting Pitchers I don't want or guys at positions I already have a starter. I decide I want to get two more outfielders with my next 2 picks I am looking at Doug Glanville to play CF with his A+ range season in which he hits close to 330 avg# and is 34/36 sb and I want one of Vladdy or Gary Sheffield to play the other corner outfield spot. What order should I pick them in? Ron has yet to take a hitter so the idea he might grab both Vlad and Sheffield seems real but I have played many leagues with Ron and I know he values defense so I take Glanville and take my chances one of the other two makes it back to me

Round 9
Ronthegenius Carlos Beltran
Bill_James47 Vladdy Guerrero Sr
richiebrown6 Chase Utley
?ybjsports John Olerud

I get lucky as Ron doesn't pick either of my guys. Now I am faced with a choice between the two hitters They both hit 5 hr/100# are similar defensively Vladdy hits for a higher avg but walks less an Sheffield is much better base stealer. In the end the higher avg# and Vladdy 2 3b/100# win out. the triples are interesting to me as I starting to think this team might end up playing in the Vet. I feel quite good about getting Ozuna and Vladdy I was thinking I might be picking between them to get one earlier in the draft.

Round 10
ybjsports Rheal Cormier
richiebrown6 Andruw Jones
Bill_James47 Daniel Murphy
Ronthegenius Mike Piazza

I am on the fence between taking a DH or a catcher here. Piazza is still available but I don't love his arm and I want another high end left handed bat Daniel Murphy has been the guy I have been thinking about for a few rounds John Olerud was another option I was looking at but he was taken since my last pick. I like Murphy with his high avg and ability to hit doubles. plus he isn't a masher but 3 hr/100# is enough to still provide some punch against modern hr prone pitchers. As I am about to type his name in I start thinking about getting greedy and taking Sheffield for another power bat. A quick look at the other drafts and there aren't that many lefty starters getting drafted I don't want to be too right handed so I go with Murphy. I figure he is B/D+ in the field if he plays at 2nd sometimes if I need an extra bat in the line up having a DH that can sub out a middle infield bat seems like a nice option for the rest of the build

Round 11
Ronthegenius Gio Gonzalez
Bill_James47 Josh Johnson
richiebrown6 Gary Sheffield
?ybjsports Billy Wagner

Ron grabs Piazza and Gio Gonzalez on the turn. With that I decide I will wait for a while on a catcher. I still can't stop looking at Sheffield thinking about using Murphy in the field and adding Sheffield to my lineup. The idea is interesting but the market for low hr/9# starters is getting depleted and I still need a 4th starter, I decide I will take Josh Johnson and if Sheffield makes it back to me next round I will take him

Round 12
ybjsports Marcus Giles
richiebrown6 JD Drew
Bill_James47 John Smoltz
Ronthegenius Bobby Abreau

Sheffield doesn't make it back to me so I figure my hitting is looking good I need to add a 2nd baseman ( Jose Vidro is my target and I figure he will be around late) a catcher ( none are standing out) and a few versatile bench guys without a cap some nice short season guys can be fun to use in match up driven spots. I need to start adding relievers and I need some 60 inning guys I am going to need some bulk innings. Of the 60 plus inning guys I want John Smoltz and Ryan Madson with my next 2 picks. I think Madson is the better of the 2 but I opt to take Smoltz first in case things go sideways later in the draft and I need to use his 168 inning season.

Round 13
Ronthegenius Rafael Furcal
Bill_James47 Ryan Madson
richiebrown6 Arminto Benitez
ybjsports Brian McCann

Ron took a few position players on the turn and I get Madson.

Round 14
ybjsports Giancarlo Stanton
richiebrown6 Miguel Rojas
Bill_James47 Ken Giles
Ronthegenius Scott Rolen

I getting very lucky I seem to be on a different priority list almost every round and keep hitting my targets I want to lock down a closer and I love Ken Giles so I grab him. Seeing Rojas go does get me thinking about short season targets of my own and when I should be targeting them

Round 15
Ronthegenius Andrew Stephenson
Bill_James47 Trea Turner
richiebrown6 Edwin Diaz
ybjsports Matt Olson

I am looking at catchers as Carlos Ruiz is the one I want out of everyone left. All 3 other teams have a catcher that will need a partner so I feel like I can wait but not too long, I need a 5th starter I am eyeing Al Leiter everyone has at least 4 starters so I decide to take a chance and hold off on both and grab super sub Trea Turner I really like the idea that he can play everyday vs lefties either in the outfield and bump Vladdy to DH or at 2nd base to get an extra bat in for Vidro as well as pinch run 33/39 sb and defensive sub in the outfield .After seeing Rojas and Stevenson go I got nervous about short season guys and I grab him

Round 16
ybjsports Anthony Rendon
richiebrown6 Hanley Ramirez
Bill_James47 Carlos Ruiz
Ronthegenius Al Leiter

This is the first round I really got stung I want Ruiz and Leiter with my next 2 picks and feel like there is a significate drop to the next available guy with each of them. I am trying to guess what Ron will do. he used a ton of draft capitol on pitchers early and he has Piazza who needs a partner to fill out the position. I figure he is more likely to grab Ruiz so I pick Ruiz . Didn't work out that way with the next pick Ron grabs Leiter and Eddie Perez (who he most likely would have taken either way) I feel like this is my biggest mistake of the draft so far

Round 17
Ronthegenius Eddie Perez
Bill_James47 Johnathon Papelbon
richiebrown6 Yimi Garcia
ybjsports Roy Oswalt

With Leiter gone I need to start thinking about back up plans. Maybe look at Roy Oswalt and use him in HR suppressing parks? A quick look at the other drafts and it just seems like ever team has power so I don't love that idea. I figure I should take another 60+ inning reliever as Smoltz might need to be downgraded from his relief season that I want to use to a 5th starter season. Papelbon is the guy I like best within that criteria (60+innings)

Round 18
ybjsports Cliff Lee
richiebrown6 Ranger Suarez
Bill_James47 Tanner Roark
Ronthegenius Mark Texiera

Oswald got picked so that idea is gone. Still not sure how this will play out so I want to lockdown as many quality bullpen innings as I can. Tanner Roark is my choice with his .14 hr/9#

Round 19
Ronthegenius Dee Gordon
Bill_James47 Mark Melancon
richiebrown6 Tanner Scott
ybjsports Tim Spoonbarger

Unsure about how I am going to solve my 5th starter problem I just keep drafting higher inning relievers. I know I can't afford the roster spots for the lower inning guys as I still need a 2nd basemen, backup catcher and defensive replacement at shortstop who can start a few games and I want Nyjer Morgan but I can't take him till I figure out how to make my innings work with 12 pitchers. Although there are better short inning relievers left I grab Mark Melancon and his 70 innings

Round 20
ybjsports Darren O'Day
richiebrown6 Curt Schilling
Bill_James47 Nyger Morgan
Ronthegenius Dominic Smith

Looking at pitching options I see Trevor Rogers with 133 innings who supresses hr and not much else. but I really want to keep my Smoltz in the pen so I decide I will take Rogers and give him the odd spot start and use him as a mop up man. This will also leave me a roster spot grab Morgan. As I am about to type Rogers in I think about how Ron has so much pitching he can possibly need Rogers but he might like Morgan so I grab Nyger Morgan and hope Trevor Rogers makes it back to me\

Round 21
Ronthegenius Cody Ross
Bill_James47 Trevor Rogers
richiebrown6 Miguel Cabrera
ybjsports Starling Marte

Rogers is there Ron grabs two hitters I get both my guys

Round 22
ybjsports Wilson Ramos
richiebrown6 J T Realmuto
Bill_James47 Ian Anderson
Ronthegenius Raisel Iglesias

I needed one more pitcher to finish off my rotation, Anderson offered 87 innings with enough in/g to go multiple innings. A low oav and hr/9 his only issue are walks but I can't be mad about him as a long reliver type in the 22nd round. Now I need a catcher ( wasn't thrilled to see Realmuto and Ramos go) a defensive shortstop and a semi regular 2nd basemen

Round 23
Ronthegenius Denard Span
Bill_James47 Jose Vidro
richiebrown6 Addison Reed
ybjsports Luis Avilan

I didn't want to mess around guessing what other guys where taking I actually want Vidro to start often so I didn't want to mess around thinking if my other targets might be more likely to get picked I just grabbed my guy Jose Vidro

Round 24
ybjsports Luis Arraez
richiebrown6 Seth Lugo
Bill_James47 Mike Redmond
Ronthegenius Rondell White\

Mike Redmond has a 290 PA season that hits 300 and throws out over 40 percent of would be base stealers. He can be a defensive sub and start if there are some speed teams in the league

Round 25
Ronthegenius Adeiny Hechevarria
Bill_James47 Andrelton Simmons
richiebrown6 Mike Jacobs
ybjsports Robin Ventura

Simmons has good range and a sure glove he will be a late inning defensive sub and start the odd game against lefties to keep Reyes at 100 percent. He hits around 300 him starting the odd game it isn't so bad.

Final Thoughts

The idea with this team was to try and have pitchers who can keep the ball in the park as much as possible and to have an offense based on avg extra base power with some high% base stealers sprinkled in. .I think there will be a ton of power in the league and many teams will end up with an offense whose best attribute is power and a pitching staffs who's biggest weakness is allowing homeruns I am not sure if people will put those teams in + or - homerun parks so I want to have a balanced offense with enough power to hurt a low oav guy who is vulnerable to the home run but also be able to beat up on guys with a high oav who can supress homeruns with extra base hits and speed.
We will play in the Vet -2 1b +2 2/b +1 3b 0 HR.
I traded low oav for hr suppression so hopefully the -2 1b helps with that and my outfield has solid to very good range depending on who is out there so hopefully that helps slow the extra base hits. On Offense even thought I know many teams will have more power then me I didn't want to let high hr/9 pitchers off the hook with a -hr park. I have a ton of elite doubles and triples guys so hopefully they can over come the -2 1b and fill the alleys with baseballs.