Nominated Player: 2019 Gerrit Cole (212 ip, 1.86 erc#, .190 oav#, 0.90 whip#, 0.79 hr.9#)
Teammate: Justin Verlander (223, 1.66, .176, 0.81, 0.96)
Teammate: Alex Bregman (690 pa, .301 avg# / .427 obp#, .563 slg#, B+/C+)
When setting the rule variations for this version, I really didn’t have any specific player in mind. A number of player nominations had been made before I even started researching. My initial search criteria included starting pitchers with only 8 seasons with some high-priced bad seasons. J.R. Richard was my initial choice. He’s got three mediocre $7-8 million seasons and a terrible $4.8M season. Not a lot of great teammates though. I also considered Dean Chance, Joe Horlen, Gary Peters, Jacob deGrom, Stephen Strasburg, among others. I finally settled on Gerrit Cole due the plethora of teammate options available (Verlander, Greinke, Bregman). After seeing other nominations and all the teammate options, I strongly considered reverting back to J.R. but decided to stick with Cole. Anyway, I knew I would be picking in the bottom half of the draft.
Round 1: 2002 Chris Haney (cheap, not usable)
Teammate: 2002 Pedro Martinez (200, 1.85, .197, 0.92, 0.43)
Teammate: 2002 Derek Lowe (220, 1.99, .210, 0.97, 0.36)
Teammate: 2002 Nomar Garciaparra (693, .310, .351, .506, C+/B+)
Once the draft order was set, I set my sites on four players… 2018 or 2019 Yelich, 2013 Harvey or 2002 Haney. I knew there were plenty of teammate options in this draft and wanted to make sure I grabbed a few solid stud usable players first. Before it got to me, 2018 Yelich and 2013 Harvey were taken so now I had two choices. I actually posted 2019 Yelich for about 5 minutes (not sure if anybody saw it). Then I realized if I grabbed the cheap ’02 Haney instead, I moved way up in the draft order and have a really good shot at getting Yelich also (only had to get past Jtpsops & calhoop). I changed my pick before any other picks could be made. The downside of the Haney pick... Haney is a player most people will wait on. I hate using an early pick on a guy everybody else will wait on.
Round 2: 2014 Jose Abreu (622, .322, .390, .577, B+/A-)
Teammate: 2014 Chris Sale 174, 2.25, .210, 1.00, 0.57)
DAMN IT! calhoop thwarted my plan by grabbing '19 Yelich right in front of me. So close. At least there are other full season usable Yelich seasons to choose from. Since I missed out on the two stud Yelich years, I had to get a stud Abreu year. It was an extra bonus that he brings with him a very strong Chris Sale year. I’ve already determined that all my teammate pitchers will be starting pitchers and I will be juggling them between starting and relieving. I should be able to get seven solid pitchers totaling 1400 innings, including 5 teammates.
Round 3: 1979 Doug Rau (salary saver)
Easy pick here. I do not want to waste $4+ million on a pitcher I don’t intend to use.
Round 4: 2015 Matt Harvey (189, 2.46, .227, 1.05, 0.69)
Teammate: 2015 Jacob deGrom (191, 2.15, .220, 1.01, 0.60)
This was a critical pick for me as I needed another usable decent pitcher to save a teammate spot and '15 Harvey was the last, IMO. This version of Harvey isn’t a stud but is not terrible either. I didn’t even consider rostering deGrom until I realized he is a bit better than ’19 Greinke. I now have my seven usable pitchers… Cole, Verlander, Pedro, Lowe, Sale, Harvey & deGrom. Totals for these 7 pitchers: 1410 ip, 2.49 era, .021 oav, 0.93 whip, 0.88 hr/9. $54 million in salary. Any mopup innings will come from Rau, Sorensen, etc.
Round 5: 2016 Adam Eaton (706, .287, .366, .407, B+/A+)
With pitching out of the way, I need to focus on getting some hitters. With 5 teammates allocated to pitching, that leaves 4 teammates to the offense. I already know I will be using a teammate at 2B, 3B & SS. That means I need to roster usable seasons of Yelich & Eaton. Yelich has a few more full-season choices, so grabbing Eaton’s most expensive season seemed like the obvious choice. Looks like he's an A+++ range in the outfield too.
Round 6: 1979 Jerry Remy (345, .294, .348, .334, C/D)
I made this selection for three reasons. It’s cheap, it's usable and I wanted 1979 Fred Lynn as my third OF. This pick gave also me the option to pair Remy with a 2B-eligible Baez to combine into a 2B platoon, if I needed an extra teammate option elsewhere. I still could have made this work and used my last teammate spot on a $2-3M stud reliever. But I just can't stomach two terrible fielding 2B (Baez is C-/D at 2B).
Round 7: 1970 Johnny Roseboro (salary saver)
Round 8: 1969 Pete Ward (salary saver)
Round 9: 2014 Ki.ke Hernandez (salary saver)
Knowing that I was going to get stuck with a $4M+ Tony Conigliaro, I was on the fence about which Yelich I should draft. I’ve been eyeing the 2016 version for each of these last three rounds, but I was going to have salary cap issues unless I got some cheap versions of Roseboro, Ward and Hernandez. If I missed out on these cheap seasons, I was planning on drafting 2013 Yelich and pairing him with Conigliaro as my third OF.
Round 10: 2016 Christian Yelich (663, .302, .380, .467, C/D+)
I was able to get my salary down to manageable level with the last three picks. Also, 2013 Yelich just got picked so now I have to grab 2016 Yelich. Not great defensively but I can’t complain getting a full-time batter with a .380 OBP this late. I still haven’t figured out what I am doing at 2B.
Round 11: 1989 David West (salary saver)
I just realized I still had a $2.4M David West penciled in on my roster. Let’s remedy that right now and free up $2 million. Now I got some options.
Round 12: 1975 Thurman Munson (670, .321, .367, .431, D+/A/A+)
It seems everybody had the same idea…. Wait on Munson. I didn’t want to be the last person to take a Munson so this was the round to draft him. Since I went super cheap on Roseboro, I grabbed a Munson who could start 162 games. Still no idea of what I am going to do at 2B.
Round 13: 1970 Tony Conigliaro (617, .273, .328, .500, C+/D+)
Teammate: 1970 Carl Yastzremski (697, .336, .456, .594, D/C-)
Both remaining Conigliaros were going to be a $4M waste of salary, but I chose this one because of Yaz. He’s a better hitter than ’79 Lynn and is cheaper and has more PA’s. The defense suffers but I have more options of what I am going to do at 2B. With an average of 685 PA each for my three starting OFs, Tony will only be used as a pinch hitter.
Round 14: 1980 Lary Sorensen ($3.3 million of wasted salary)
Teammate: 1980 Paul Molitor (512, .301, .370, .429, C/A+)
I had ’80 Sorensen penciled in from the beginning, figuring he’d be the cheapest Sorensen available if I waited till the end. I never considered until this round that he would also provide me my starting 2B. Thankfully, my ’79 Jerry Remy pick will make up the shortfall in PAs. Also, this pick means that I don’t have to use Javy Baez.
Round 15: 2021 Javy Baez ($2.7 million of wasted salary)
I guess Baez could be a defensive replacement at SS, although is a C-/A+ really that much better than a C+/B+?
I know that this league has tons of great pitching. My hope is that most folks have at least one weak SP (i.e., Rau, Sorensen, lesser Cole) and that my pitching depth will be enough to offset what appears to be a weaker than normal offense. Prediction: Top 4 in ERA. Bottom half in runs scored. Estimate wins in the 86-89 range, probably not good enough to win a tough division.
(Stats excluding scrubs)
Overall Hitting: 5598 pa, .306 avg, .384 obp, .499 slg, $50.8 million
Overall Pitching: 1410 ip, 2.49 era, .201 oav, 0.93 whip, 00.88 hr/9, $54.3 million
My nine teammates salary totals $65 million ($40M pitching, $25M hitting)
12/21/2021 3:28 PM (edited)