Team Texas Main Event Blog

[Doctor Who]

Let me first say this NYC weekend was a blur for me. When I landed at 10am Friday, I had been up since 4pm the prior day and worked the night before. Lesson learned. I’m not Superman. I then had some decent BBQ (I say that knowing it would be nothing like Texas BBQ) and a nice lunch with Vlad Sedler, Matt Modica (who was an amazing NYC host), and my partner in this main Paul Sporer. With the Ultimate that night, it left little time for socializing to much or drinking at all. Once that draft finished, I was so tired, I barely could keep my head up during the MTM Party afterwards. Always enjoy speaking with Mike Mager, where we didn’t really even talk before last year. His teams always are so good from top to bottom and was in this main event on Sunday as well, along with the Mouth himself in his usually spot of 15. Edelman was also so gracious enough to join us on this Sunday since he travels the world like its nothing every day of the week. I’m not even sure he knew was he was this weekend either. Scott Fleming also had the time of his life in this draft since he was directly in the firing area between Chris Liss and Sporer much of the draft. The draft also had many NFBC vets (Brunn, Bourcier, DeCavalante) and not many newbies if any, so I knew this main would be more jumpy of players than usual. I anticipated it with all the characters on twitter and from the NFBC that this could be one of the most talkative, shit-talking main events, I have ever been a part of and it didn’t disappoint. If we can get this same group together every year, I’m sure it will only get better.

So let’s get to the draft itself, and I’ll start with the plan going in. This was the second year I was teaming up with Paul Sporer in a main event, and we were much more in sync on the plan and guys we liked going into this year than last. The plan going in was to have Paul draft or be the lead dog during the draft and I’ll just be more of an influence in FAAB. He wanted to be more early than late in drafting and drew the 3rd KDS choice which was 4th. Our plan was to be aggressive with hitting, and more drafting upside in pitching as Paul does a great job identifying pitchers and see that as his strength, so wanted to take advantage of that. We both definitely wanted to draft going for the overall prize than the league prize, and even got the Overall placement bet with Chris Liss as a side bet instead of the league itself.

1.4- Mookie Betts- We definitely didn’t want Turner, and were prepared to go with Arenado or Betts in that spot. When Stanton went early, we were kind of shocked to see both there. I think we went with the more upside pick here than the safer option in Arenado, which you will see was a theme in this draft for us.

2.12- Alex Bregman- Nobody really dropped in this draft other than Judge and we weren’t fans so we drafted the best upside SS (Minus his teammate of course). I had to wear my Bieber shirt today because MTM censored me with very cool jerseys in his Friday draft, otherwise I would have worn my “Begman” jersey the Astros gave me in the playoffs last year at MMP and wouldn’t let me return it. But now that is a running joke and with him being a star in the making, gives me a great story to tell the rest of my life.

3.4- Christian Yelich- His ADP has been sky rocketing since the trade and we helped that even more in this draft. We were also thinking about Springer and Degrom here but got taken right before us. Judge was still available but still couldn’t pull the trigger on him. With our first three picks, we were able to accomplish Shawn Childs 75/75 with upside draft plan and couldn’t be happier with our base across 5 categories in hitting.

4.12- Anthony Rendon- Paul and I have been huge fans of him in the 4th round this year as we both kind of hate 3B with the drop off. We thought about C-Mart in this spot but Modica stole him 3 picks in front of us, as well as Pham who went right before.

5.4- James Paxton- We wanted Cole here but again go sniped on both sides of us. Paul really likes Paxton and our plan was to take another hitter in the 6th so needed to jump into the pitching fray here.

6.12- Luis Castillo- Paul and I were both shocked Albies got sniped 5 picks after us in the 5th as that is who we had planned out jumping in the 6th on. Albies and Acuna both have really jumped off the draft boards from their ADP before Mains started this weekend. When he was gone, Paul wanted to keep the upside going and go with one of his other favorite hype picks in Castillo.

7.4- Brad Hand- The closers started going the round before and were drying up quick so we jumped on who we think is a solid, multi-inning closer entrenched in his role.

8.12- Travis Shaw- I honestly wasn’t a big fan of his coming into this weekend but a late night conversation with Paul changed my tune on him a little. I’m not as high on him as other guys, but have started to believe rather than have him as a fade for myself. Shockingly, with two 3B on this team already, you would think we loved the pool of 3B!

9.4- Garrett Richards- We thought about the dropping Ohtani here, but Paul believes in Richards more. We took the full minute until I said to take the guy you believe in most rather than go with the pick you “think you should make regarding ADP.” Another upside SP in the books.

10.12- Shohei Ohtani- I honestly thought I would have him nowhere this season and wasn’t a believer in his ADP around 80. At almost twice his ADP, his upside was too hard to ignore and considering we almost took him in round 9, almost had to pick him when he came back to us before the first break.

-First 10 rounds, we came away with 5 pitchers and 5 hitters so we felt really balanced for the next 2/3 of the draft. We love our upside picks and are more banking on what they WILL do rather than what they HAVE done already.

I'll break down the rest of the draft i the coming days, as need to get back to sleep before work tonight. Looking forward to Vegas next weekend and following this league throughout the season with all the characters in it. If you are looking for a more well written blog with more updates, Wayne is and always will be the MAN when it comes to those. Anyways, have a good rest of drafting season boys and see some of you in Vegas!

[DOUGHBOYS]

Wait.
Wasn't 75-75 from the 60's?
Good write-up and glad you had a great time!

[Edwards Kings]

Wait.
Wasn't 75-75 from the 60's?
Good write-up and glad you had a great time!

No. They (Zager and Evans) were short of words rhyming with "five". It went from 6565 to 7510:

In the year 7510
If God's a-coming, he ought to make it by then
Maybe he'll look around himself and say
“Guess it's time for the judgement day!”

Zager and Evans, 1969

Great writeup...now get some sleep.

[Bronx Yankees]

Dusty - Really nice seeing you again and chatting in NYC, and competing against you in the MTM Ultimate and in Sunday’s Main with Paul. Man, those were some challenging drafts! Felt like my pre-draft plans were shot to hell pretty early in both drafts. Great write up on you and Paul’s team. Always interesting to hear what folks are thinking as they put a team together. Catch you in Vegas this weekend.

Mike

[Baseball Furies]

Great read, Dusty! Was great having you back for the MTM Ultimate this year, and having the added bonus of drafting with you on Sunday in the Main Event as well. Definitely one of the most entertaining Main Events I have ever participated in for sure. So much shit-talking, ball-busting, and laughs that I almost forgot how deadly serious this group of competitors were. Good luck this year, bro'!

[Glenneration X]

Nice draft and great read as always Dustin. And I'm glad I got to catch you in the Big City during your draft before I started my trip home. It was a fun draft to watch the couple rounds I was there with all the trash talk. My kinda draft!