NFBC Message Boards

Hey folks, for those who may be interested, we had our second KP Expert League draft of the year today. We cruised through this 12-team draft (thanks as always to Jason Pliml at Mock Draft Central) and it was a lot of fun. The entire draft will be in our upcoming issue but here's a sneak peak at the first three rounds.



First here are the 12 experts who participated:



1. Tom Kessenich

2. Scott Engel (ESPN)

3. Brandon Funston (Yahoo)

4. Mike Rainey (RotoTimes)

5. Jeff Thomas (SportsBuff)

6. Matt Lawrence (CreativeSports)

7. Rob Gordon (BaseballHQ)

8. Greg Ambrosius

9. Mark Haverty (SportsBlurb)

10. Matthew Berry (RotoPass)

11. David Gonos (Sportsline)

12. Jason Grey (Masterball)



ROUND 1

Rodriguez, Alex

Pujols, Albert

Guerrero, Vladimir

Crawford, Carl

Teixeira, Mark

Ramirez, Manny

Lee, Derrek

Santana, Johan

Bay, Jason

Tejada, Miguel

Ortiz, David

Cabrera, Miguel



ROUND 2

Young, Michael

Abreu, Bobby

Figgins, Chone

Sheets, Ben

Wright, David

Rollins, Jimmy

Soriano, Alfonso

Reyes, Jose

Oswalt, Roy

Suzuki, Ichiro

Martinez, Pedro

Sheffield, Gary



ROUND 3

Beltran, Carlos

Utley, Chase

Helton, Todd

Ramirez, Aramis

Carpenter, Chris

Pierre, Juan

Berkman, Lance

Furcal, Rafael

Peavy, Jake

Jones, Andruw

Martinez, Victor

Jeter, Derek



[ January 31, 2006, 11:45 AM: Message edited by: Tom Kessenich ]

I had the first pick by the way while Greg was picking eighth.

Looks pretty good, Ben Sheets at 16 and Oswalt at 21 , a little high.

I'll talk about my team tomorrow as I think I did a first ever in this draft. I'll talk about it as I felt like I was playing catchup all draft long. Interesting and worth talking about...but I can't do it now during cocktail hour!

Originally posted by eddiejag:

Looks pretty good, Ben Sheets at 16 and Oswalt at 21 , a little high. You're being nice Eddie. Sheets went WAY high.



Tom, feel free to add the participants' names to the first round tomorrow.



[ January 30, 2006, 09:00 PM: Message edited by: Greg Ambrosius ]

Unless, of course, you believe that 2004 was the real deal, and that the injuries that brought him back down to Earth in 2005 will not be an issue, and he will once again be a Cy Young contender. Since I do, and we have him as such in our mag, I think he is just fine there, and happy to have gotten him there.

Originally posted by Mark Haverty:

Unless, of course, you believe that 2004 was the real deal, and that the injuries that brought him back down to Earth in 2005 will not be an issue, and he will once again be a Cy Young contender. Since I do, and we have him as such in our mag, I think he is just fine there, and happy to have gotten him there. Good, now they could bug you instead of me. Yes, I'm the #9 guy for anyone who hasn't figured it out by now.



That said, I wouldn't take him this high, this year. My main issue is the ear thing, which no one (including Rockwell) expected to return last year. The fact that it did makes me wonder if it's chronic and I don't have any kind of medical information to support it either way. At any rate, I see a few better pitchers (at least in terms of their team support) who will go later. And why not take Sheets a round later where you still could have gotten him anyway?



I will go on record to say I don't think he's any worse of a pick than Carpenter, who is also a good pitcher with health issues and questionable run support from a team that is not the Cards of old.

Mark Haverty meet Chest Rockwell. Chest Rockwell, Mark Haverty.

Okay, here's my admission about yesterday's draft:



I've competed in fantasy baseball leagues for 20 years now and I can honestly say that I have NEVER selected a pitcher in the first round of ANY draft I've ever done. I remember last year in a CBS Sportsline.com AL-only draft I had the 12th pick in a 12-team league and took Randy Johnson (nice!) with my first pick of the second round, so that's as close as I've ever come. Until yesterday.



With the eighth overall pick, I had a feeling that Johan Santana might fall to me and I made up my mind beforehand that I'd take him even though I didn't want to. Sure enough, he was there when it was my turn in this 12-team draft and I grabbed him. I had an anchor for my pitching staff and I should have been happy, right??



Yes, but I honestly felt like I had to play catchup offensively after that. I was happy to see David Wright fall to the second round (17th overall) and then was able to add a little more speed with Rafael Furcal in the third round. I still felt like I was trying to play catchup for power after that and thus grabbed Travis Hafner and Adam Dunn with my next two picks. So by round 5, I was starting to catch up offensively.



But if you take an ace in the first round, you almost feel obligated to load up that starting rotation, right? In for a penny, in for a pound, they always say. So I grabbed Billy Wagner as my closer in round 6, and then added Andy Pettitte for ERA and WHIP in Round 7 and A.J. Burnett for more strikeouts in Round 8. I later closed out my pitching staff with closers Tom Gordon and Keith Foulke, and starters Jose Contreras, Erik Bedard and Jarrod Washburn. I concentrated on low ERA and WHIP with each starter and hopefully found the right guys, but we'll see.



I'm not sure I ever caught up offensively, which is my point with this essay. By taking a starting pitcher in the first round, I just felt like I was behind in the offensive categories the entire way. Maybe I'll be okay, as I was fortunate to get Ryan Freel in the 13th round and Jermaine Dye in the 14th round (little more speed and power). I'm looking forward to playing out this league because I've never built a team like this before.



I know many of you guys don't mind picking pitchers early, but that's never how I've built my fantasy teams. This was a first for me and it was interesting the entire way. I like Santana as my anchor of my pitching staff, but it sure felt weird trying to catch up offensively.



Any thoughts on picking a starting pitcher early??? Any advice???



Here was my lineup when all was said and done.



Greg Ambrosius

1. Johan Santana (P)

2. David Wright (3B)

3. Rafael Furcal (SS)

4. Travis Hafner (DH)

5. Adam Dunn (1B,OF)

6. Billy Wagner (P)

7. Andy Pettitte (P)

8. Jim Thome (1B)

9. A.J. Burnett (P)

10. Javy Lopez (DH,C)

11. Tom Gordon (P)

12. Torii Hunter (OF)

13. Ryan Freel (2B,OF)

14. Jermaine Dye (OF)

15. Sean Casey (1B)

16. Jose Contreras (P)

17. Milton Bradley (OF)

18. Keith Foulke (P)

19. Brian McCann (C)

20. Erik Bedard (P)

21. Mike Cameron (OF)

22. Jarrod Washburn (P)

23. Juan Uribe (SS)

it is amazing how much of a difference 12 team mixed leagues are compared to 15. the talent pool is so much deeper, i'm surprised that you guys in the industry draft that way. as far as the santana pick, i don't think it hurts in the 12 team format because of the depth left, but in 15 team leagues i don't think it is wise. the fall-off in hitting is much more severe. good team though Greg.

Greg, I think you will be fine, BUT I understand where you are coming from - I think part of it is that the draft "feels bad" - feeling you have to catch up and the draft is "not coming to you".



But the other reason you may have not enjoyed it so much is coming from a 15 team state of mind - the 12 team draft is so shallow that there were lots of good players that weren't even taken.



In fact you ended up with

C J.Lopez...... SP Santana

C McCann ...... SP Burnett

1B Thome ...... SP Pettitte

3B Wright ...... SP Contreras

CI Casey ...... SP Bedard

2B Freel ...... SP Washburn

SS Furcal ...... CL Wagner

MI Uribe ...... CL Gordon

OF Dunn ...... CL Foulke

OF T. Hunter

OF Dye

OF Cameron

OF Bradley

DH Hafner



I think you certainly have enough power and speed, although you might have problems with BA.

The pitching is fairly solid - too many AL starters for my taste, but should easily be competitive in all categories.



It just felt worse because during the draft.



[ January 31, 2006, 10:50 AM: Message edited by: Captain Hook ]

the real test of whether you made a good decision is that given the situation again, would you make the same choice?

Originally posted by cindy:

it is amazing how much of a difference 12 team mixed leagues are compared to 15. the talent pool is so much deeper, i'm surprised that you guys in the industry draft that way. as far as the santana pick, i don't think it hurts in the 12 team format because of the depth left, but in 15 team leagues i don't think it is wise. the fall-off in hitting is much more severe. good team though Greg. Yup, I agree completely. I'm not sure I would have made the same move in a 15-team league as a guy like Wright wouldn't have been waiting for me in the second round and power would have been tougher to find later on. Again, that's just me, but I'm pretty sure I would have gone with a slugger. I admire all those hearty souls who can take starting pitchers early. I'm not sure I have the stomach for it!!

Yeah, Perry, I agree about the low batting average. I grabbed Casey later to try and help that. Brandon Funston ridiculed me for taking Dunn, saying he's the Shaq (FT%) of fantasy baseball. I told him he's going to hit .260 this year and will be fine. Hell, he played with a broken hand last year!!!



But you're right, BA will be tough in this league, just like my OBP will be horrid in the XFL this year!

Originally posted by Gordon Gekko:

the real test of whether you made a good decision is that given the situation again, would you make the same choice? Yup. I had considered Wright at No. 8 and had no clue that I'd get him in the second round. Plus I think I found enough power later on to compensate somewhat.



The whole point of the analysis was to say that I felt like I was trying to catch up the entire draft rather than as Perry said "letting the draft come to me." It just was an odd feeling. I guess I should have instead looked at the fact that I was ahead in pitching after the first round and others were playing catch up to me. That would have been the smart thing to do.

Here's my team drafting out of the No. 1 spot



C-A.J. Pierzynski

C-Mike Piazza

1B-Richie Sexson

2B-Jeff Kent

SS-Edgar Renteria

3B-Alex Rodriguez

CI-Nomar Garciaparra

MI-Orlando Cabrera

OF-Gary Sheffield

OF-Carlos Beltran

OF-Randy Winn

OF-Brady Clark

OF-Geoff Jenkins

OF-Jacque Jones



P-Felix Hernandez

P-John Lackey

P-Kevin Millwood

P-C.C. Sabathia

P-Matt Morris

P-Esteban Loaiza

P-Eric Gagne

P-Bob Wickman

P-Shinji Mori

Pitching, in for a penny, in for a pound (or $1,250)



I hate drafting pitchers early, but I came into the NFBC last year believing that going against conventional wisdom – building a team on offense – might be the trick. I planned to go every other round pitching and have two top SP and three 30+ save relievers in the first ten rounds. I figured that I would have to dump BA. Looking at mock drafts I felt that I could get Adam Dunn, Andrew Jones and Corey Patterson to anchor my outfield. Dunn went earlier then I expected and unfortunately Patterson didn’t.



My plan worked perfectly – two NL strikeout pitchers and three projected closers, and I finished 299th.



We all know that of the top 5 SP each year fewer than 50% produce top 5 numbers. Santana has the best chance (IMHO) to finish 2006 in the top 5 SP. My 2005 early round SP – Schmidt and Oliver Perez were effective compared to closers Percival and Mota. Billy Wagner actually produced, but I still fell well short of my 110 save/win goal (top 5%) that I hoped to obtain with a team built on pitching.



My other drafted pitchers included Esocbar, Eaton, Contreras, & Fuentes.



I believed that this staff was going to finish in top 10th percentile, and that by drafting three closers that I would avoid the free agent bidding wars for new closers.



In my home league (18 team Head-to-Head), my top SP was $4 and that is how to build a winning team.

In 2004 I drafted Prior #7 and regretted it for the rest of the year as I finished dead last in my league. That wasn't the sole reason for my last place finish but it was a huge contributing factor. Prior to my "Prior" experience I had never drafted a SP in the first round in any league and may never do so again. I might be swayed by Santana if he should happen to fall and become a super value but all in all I feel it is wise to stay away from pitchers in round 1.

One of the most amazing NFBC performances in the first year must have been from the team that drafted Prior in round 1 and then actually won his league. Don't ask me who it was but I do recall writing about it in an article.



As far as drafting a pitcher early, I always have a separate list of about 20 players. They are in the order I would take them. Pitcher need not apply. Now if Santana dropped into the second round I would pause for reflection but that will never happen.



Tom, how was drafting on the edge? Did you feel compelled to reach at times because there would be 22 players taken before you selected again - better than 28 in the NFBC. I personally think the edge is hard and it is even worse with 15 teams. How did you "feel" as the draft was progressing?

I didn't find the edge to be a problem in this draft. The only pick I wavered on was Beltran at 3:1. I was torn between him and Utley but thought I'd have a shot at getting Kent or Cantu in the next round so I went with Beltran to get some upside. As it turned out both Kent and Cantu were on the board as I hoped and I took Kent.



There were some rounds where players I liked were taken before me but that happens no matter what spot you're picking. I'm pretty happy with the team I drafted.

Originally posted by Head 2 Head:

Pitching, in for a penny, in for a pound (or $1,250)



I hate drafting pitchers early, but I came into the NFBC last year believing that going against conventional wisdom – building a team on offense – might be the trick. I planned to go every other round pitching and have two top SP and three 30+ save relievers in the first ten rounds. I figured that I would have to dump BA. Looking at mock drafts I felt that I could get Adam Dunn, Andrew Jones and Corey Patterson to anchor my outfield. Dunn went earlier then I expected and unfortunately Patterson didn’t.



My plan worked perfectly – two NL strikeout pitchers and three projected closers, and I finished 299th.



We all know that of the top 5 SP each year fewer than 50% produce top 5 numbers. Santana has the best chance (IMHO) to finish 2006 in the top 5 SP. My 2005 early round SP – Schmidt and Oliver Perez were effective compared to closers Percival and Mota. Billy Wagner actually produced, but I still fell well short of my 110 save/win goal (top 5%) that I hoped to obtain with a team built on pitching.



My other drafted pitchers included Esocbar, Eaton, Contreras, & Fuentes.



I believed that this staff was going to finish in top 10th percentile, and that by drafting three closers that I would avoid the free agent bidding wars for new closers.



In my home league (18 team Head-to-Head), my top SP was $4 and that is how to build a winning team. I took pitchers with 1 & 2 last year and 6 of the first 11 picks. 3 of them, including my first round pick, didn't really work out, but I still finished fairly well. I don't know that I agree with the argument that because pitchers fall off often we shouldn't take them. You can apply that argument to any round besides the last few. What if I only took 3 pitchers and they were all the ones who didn't work out. Then where would I have been? Or if I waited and took pitchrs in rounds 15-23?



You need to find a way to have a balanced team and that may involve taking pitchers early. Last year, I thought I could find a lot of late value in hitters, so I needed to go after pitching early. This year might be just the opposite, partially because pitchers in general seem to be valued lower, but also because a lot of better pitchers are falling to places they should not be.



In other words, it depends more on situation than philosophy. To abide by a hard rule is to close the door on opportunity.



p.s. I'd go to war with Greg's team instead of Tom's every day of the week and twice on Tuesday (no offense, Tom).



[ January 31, 2006, 06:21 PM: Message edited by: bjoak ]

I hope Sportsblurb was not hoping sales would go up after that pick.



Picking Sheets in 2005 at 9 is a heck of a lot better pick than 2006 at 16.

2007's sales will go up though when everyone realizes we were right to have faith in Sheets...