Sports Blogger League: My Team
A lot of my fellow writers that participated in this league have posted their teams, and I encourage you to check their posts out. Since they have recommended the same action, I figured I'd comply and go ahead and post my fantastic roster...
C - Geovany Soto (10)
C - Ronny Paulino (20)
1B - Alex Gordon (11)
2B - Aaron Hill (15)
SS - Jose Reyes (1)
3B - Ryan Zimmerman (7)
CI - Evan Longoria (16)
MI - Julio Lugo (22)/ Akinori Iwamura (26)
OF - Vladimir Guerrero (2)
OF - Lance Berkman (3)
OF - Gary Sheffield (5)
OF - Willy Taveras (12)
OF - Chris Duncan (23)
Utility - Frank Thomas (19)
P - Josh Beckett (4), Daisuke Matsuzaka (9), Pedro Martinez (13), Brad Penny (14), Kelvim Escobar (17), Greg Maddux (21), John Garland (25)
Francisco Rodriguez (6), Mariano Rivera (8), George Sherrill (18), Hideki Okajima (24)
- Some analysis: I think the real value of preparing is to get value with late round picks. Of my picks after Longoria, I felt that I got great value. Kelvim Escobar, despite missing April, could be a real steal in the 17th round. My only change would have been drafting my fifth outfielder before Paulino, as he isn't that much better than the marginal catchers.
- I have an ongoing dialogue in my head of what I think about Gordon at first. Pete suggested I put Berkman at 1st and grab a FA outfielder. Is Longoria, who would be pushed out of the roster, going to be better than the best FA outfielder, who I'd consider as Xavier Nady. I'll let you decide, but I think Gordon is staying put for now.
P.S. - To the authors of other sites that participated, please comment if I missed your draft analysis and roster. I tried to limit the links to those authors who posted their lineups for comparison.
Labels: Expert Drafts
posted by Zachary Piso at
1:02 PM
10 Comments:
If I were you, I would drop Iwamura, and pick up Nady. That would give you flexibility to put Berkman at 1B, Gordon at CI and then Nady in the OF. I like Longoria; but he could turn out like Gordon or Braun last year. It COULD be a huge bargain, but for now I'd leave him on the bench and go for the fairly certain option in Nady rather than the lightning in a bottle approach.
I talk about my FantasyHurler.com team here.
How about dealing Iwamura to me? I was set to make him Mr. Irrelevent with my final pick.
Sure, I'll throw him into any even deal for Loney, since I need a high average first basemen. I'm not sure what I'd have to give up here though, so you make the first offer.
Seems to me your roster is heavy on young players who have not proven to be superstars, with the potential to play above their past returns.
With the exception of Berkman and Vlad, I wouldn't want to be that heavily vested in young players with 1,2 or 3 years of experience in a non-keeper format. You are speculating alot that Reyes, Berkman, Vlad and sheffield will bounce back. the only pick i like at all of your first 4 is Beckett with your 4th pick. You passed up wright and santana with your first pick, both of which I would have taken over Reyes with the second pick. Vlad in the second round I think is a bad pick. Huge injury risk, aging player, declining production. You had two elite pitchers in Santana and Peavy staring you in the face and you didn't take them. I would rather have had peavy and Santana and the rest of your team then Reyes and vlad and the rest of your team. It just doesn't look like you had a clear strategy going into the draft other then high risk high reward type players, which doesn't fit with your format. You traded down to get Reyes. I don't think that was a wise move in retrospect. I'd have to give your drafted team a C+ at best.
Two fallacies I see with that argument: First, I try very hard not to draft "last year's team", so up and coming players in the offseason of 2007-2008 should be the up players of 2008. Zimmerman, Reyes, and Hill I consider of this quality.
Secondly, taking Reyes with the first pick was a strategy that I think is necessary in deep leagues. While I'm not a huge advocate of the "steals are scarce" mentality, I do think most of the speed/power outfielders are gone by my second pick, and hence my best picks would be sluggers of the Guerrero/Berkman mold. They complement Reyes better than they complement Wright, although it was a tough decision there.
Also, and this is one strategy that I'm in consensus with most experts on, I'm not a big fan of taking pitchers in the early rounds beyond one "sure thing". Carpenters injury last year and Oswalt regression shows what happens when you invest too much in early pitchers. Guys like Beckett, Peavy, and Haren were taken several rounds later and put up stellar seasons.
Wanted to update a trade that I just made. I traded Gordon and Iwamura (who I was going to take Desther's advice and trade for a FA outfielder) for James Loney. Loney was taken with the last pick of the round before Gordon went, so not much difference in draft value. It's a small deal exchanging a dozen steals and possibly a half dozen dingers for 40 points of average.
Zach,
I think most "experts" are way under-valuing pitching, especially in a roto format. Santana and Peavy are the two most consistent high strike-out pitchers out there. There is a reason they are the first two pitchers off the draft board.
Btw, a list of speed/power OF'ers (let's call them at least 15 Hr's and 20 or more SB's or 20 Hr's and at least 15 SB's) available after your second pick, in no special order):
BJ Upton, Curtis Granderson, Eric Byrnes, Shane Victorino, Chris young, Corey Hart, Cameron Maybin (rookie risk I know), Bobby abreu (Not a sexy pick anymore, but he's been a very good number 2 OF'er with the Yankees), Nick Markakis, rocco Baldelli (injury Risk), Alex Rios, Tori Hunter, Gary Matthews, Hunter Pemnce, and Vernon Wells (maybe if he stays limber on those legs of his).
In a roto format, you need to balance across 10 categories to win. A guy like Reyes is nice, but the 70 steals needs to be complemented by RBI, Avg and Hr's to help. Is Reyes power number from 2 years ago a fluke? Maybe not, but what has he show that convinces you it wasn't? David Wright is going to be a perrennial 30/30 guy, and then move ino the 40/20 range at some point sooner then later. He hit 18 more Hr's, 50 more RBI, 50 points higher in 80 fewer AB's (Reyes high AB total and lower .280 avg will drag your avg as a team down, and you need to be in the .290+ range to be near the top.) Reyes did almost double Wrights SB's, but 34 SB's at 3B is nothing to scoff at. when you factor in you can grab a rafael furcal in the middle rounds, or even take a much lower risk oin a guy like Julio Lugo really late, the SB difference between a guy like Furcal/Lugo and Wright, and Reyes and zimmerman is going to be much more minimal then you might think at first, and the power difference will be leaning towards wright and another SS. the difference is really going to be in the BA and RBI on the wright side.
As far as Pitchers go, Santana 1, Peavy 2, gives you about 500 K's, potentiall 45-50 wins, 460 IP at about 3.00 ERA and 1.10 WHIP. They are both as sure thing as you can get pitcher wise. You still grab Berkman at the 3rd spot, and maybe Vlad is still sitting there at the 3rd spot anyway as you grabbing santana and peavy like that would cause a run on picthers for sure and make beckett and webb go much sooner then they did, and would probably force Haren earlier.
I'm still giving you a C+ for your team. It could perform much higher then that, but I think you have alot of risk on your team and that the makeup of your team is better suited towards a keeper league.
Btw, I don't have an account here, my name is Dan.
dmendro at gmail d0t c0m
I appreciate the extensive evaluation. Im not sold that Wright is going to go 30-30 again, plus I'm expected a power increase from Reyes. I do agree very much that pitching in underrated, but I think that its somewhat necessary to follow the trends of a league. This topic itself deserve a lot of consideration.
I think that you bring up an interesting point about Wright + Furcal being better than Reyes + Zimmerman. One of the reasons I took Reyes was that, in the "expert draft" with the same people on MDC and then on seamless baseball's roster magazine, atkins was expected to be around with my fourth round pick. Reyes + Atkins is, in my opinion, as good as Wright + Furcal, and Furcal has been going earlier than his ADP with these players.
I definitely and happier now that I grabbed Loney for Gordon. Overall, I think I have about a "B" team, but your points are correct about risk and undervaluing pitchers.
A bunch of moves today as my pitching has experienced a lot of injuries. I figured I'd post my revised roster rather than go through the minute details and letting you figure out the new lineup.
C - Soto
C - Paulino
1B - Loney
2B - Hill
SS - Reyes
3B - Zimmerman
CI - Overbay
MI - Lugo
OF - Guerrero
OF - Berkman
OF - Sheffield
OF - Taveras
OF - Nady
Util - Thomas
Bench - Longoria
P - K-Rod, Rivera, Sherrill, Penny, Daisuke, Pedro, Wakefield, Robertson, Maddux, Buerhle, Garland
DL - Beckett, Alou
I'll drop whichever pitcher seems weak when Beckett comes back, and keep Nady till Alou is convincingly healthy. Comments?
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