Typically when I draft, I will pick two or three pitchers in the first ten, try to get a catcher, but then pretty much go for the most points/best available batting talent regardless of position. If I can get a MI who has the same or nearly the same stats as others left available, I will go with the MI. But this twelve-teamer provided an interesting opportunity. It might just be a façade, but after spending so much time planning on 15-teamers, the extra 90 available players in the 12-teamer suggested a more aggressive strategy. I am swimming a little upstream this year as I feel the outfield talent is not quite what it has been in the past and the pitching talent is deeper at the top and middle than in the past. The additional available players and the (at least perceived) depth at pitching gave credence to a strategy Dave Clum suggested to me more than once. What if you ditched pitching until after the first ten picks (or even later)? You will not get a chance at Lincecum, Halladay, Sabathia, Hernandez, Haren, Grienke, or Verlander but so what? I would never pick a pitcher before the fifth round anyway.
Also, Shawn Childs challenged me Thursday night at the NCAA viewing party to think outside of the box for the seventh pick in the Main Event. My lame butt answer was something like “Teixeira?” but Shawn said “Tulowitzki”, a pick he actually made the following Saturday for his Main Event team. His rational was Tulo is arguably the second best shortstop after Hanley, and Shawn felt Tulo is the Man if you want to color a little outside the lines. You should usually listen when a child speaks, and you should always listen when Childs speaks, so the conversation stuck with me. Now for a 15-teamer, taking Tulo at seven is a contradiction to nature to a conservative player like me and a unhealthy display of man-love for a player with a good (not necessarily great) batting eye with slightly above average power and average speed when sooooooo many big boppers (Tex, Fielder, Howard, Miguel Cabrera, Longoria) are available. Shawn I am sure will finish in the upper-upper crust again this year, but this won’t be the pick that does it for him (Shawn in my opinion is actually the best in season manager there is).
But all that is for a 15-Teamer. Now how about a 12-Teamer? If I am going to consider basically building my offense with my ten picks, why not grab Tulo in the first and make up any power I leave on the table with the next nine picks? That is what I decided to try to do. By the way, Shawn stopped by our draft Friday and I pointed out my Tulo pick. He asked me if I had been drinking!
I did not write down exactly when I picked all my players. Just forgot to. During the draft, when it became obvious what my “strategy” was, what some of my picks were and based on some of the comments I made during the draft (I am one of those chatty types), Bobby Jurney accused me of channeling Dave Clum. Bobby, Dave, and I were in some leagues together down in Florida (with Kent Stermon and Bill Strickler and others), so I guess I was. Dave and I are friends and I certainly hope that some of his expertise has rubbed off on me. Dave is kind of a quiet type of guy, so you do not see him blowing his own horn on the message boards like some shameless attention-whxxxs do, but I would match what Dave has been able to accomplish in these events with the best of them.
Any way, my first ten players, in some approximate order, were Tulowitzki, Justin Upton (those who know me know a 21 year old outfielder is WAY outside my comfort zone this early), Kevin Youkilis, Andre Either (he better do well as I have him in all three of my leagues), Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Lee, Matt Weiters, Brian Roberts, Carlos Quentin, and Juan Pierre (also out of the box for me as I typically do not pick Judy’s unless backed into a corner). Out of this group, pretty much everyone is hitting up in their respective line-ups with plenty of #3 and #4 hitters (Weiters may be the exception, but the Orioles are considering batting him third), all but Pierre and Roberts are good bets to hit at least 25 homeruns and at least five will end the year with 30+ homeruns. I have one great source of speed and one good source of speed. Most of the rest can/will toss in 5 steals or a few more on average. I will go out on a limb and say BA will not be a problem either.
So after ten rounds, I have locked up all but one corner, one middle, one catcher, and one utility. Now it is time for a pitcher run. One other point about my drafting style is I try not to emphasize closers too much. However, in a 12-Team, I know some teams (maybe as many as half) will use three closers most of the time. I wanted that option going into the draft.
I think I went pitchers for seven consecutive picks grabbing starters James Shields, Scott Baker, Kevin Slowey, Roy Oswalt and Ted Lilly. No Sabathia’s, but these guys will average better than seven strike-outs per nine innings and better than three strike-outs per walk. Each of the other teams has at least one pitcher I would rank higher than these guys, but this staff will not get left in the dust. Solid K’s and above average WHIP and ERA. As to closers, in this seven pitcher run I picked up Bobby Jenks and Brian Fuentes. Later I picked up Octavio Dotel. This is my area of greatest risk, but between the three and reserve round set up guy/potential closer Brandon League, I should be ok.
Sometime after the 18th round, I picked up my final starter, Derek Lowe. People as well as the Braves management are down on Lowe. He doesn’t fit my team real well either if I end up using three closers for any length of time during the year because of his low strikeouts, but I remember when I got him I thought he had slipped in the draft a bit. Even with his off year last year he won 15 games. So he comes into this year, I think with a feeling he needs to justify his excessive contract and given his sinker is working, tossing something like 60% ground balls with a better than average MI behind him (Escobar and Prado). I like his chances and outside of K’s, he will help my team.
To sit in for Lilly early, I picked up Rick Vandenhurk. Given a few brief cups of coffee over the last few years, Vandenhurk had shown a few things other than a madding propensity to serve up taters (some games you would think he was working the fry station at the concession stand). He is an extreme fly ball pitcher, but you can live with that if he pitches half his games down in humid Miami . He has also shown a solid strike-out arm (say 7.5 to 8.5 K’s per IP) and good control. With Johnson and Nolasco heading the rotation, Vandenhurk should lock down the middle of the Fish rotation. He is a good breakout candidate.
Also I have Diasuke Matsuzaka. I already have him in my auction league so I guess my insanity is at least consistent. He will be ready late April and if he can approach his potential, he could replace Lowe long term if I go with only six starters. His WHIP can be absorbed quite well by the other five solid controls pitchers.
Rolling out my last picks, I went with Kelly Johnson as my final MI. I have him as well in my auction and I like him here as I liked him there. Left handed without much competition with average speed and slightly above average power hitting in that nice Arizona dry air. Like I mentioned in my auction analysis, if he moves up in the line-up, he could be a steal.
John Baker is my second catcher. Part of a solid platoon, Baker disappointed me last year. I think he will hit for better average than last year (at one time last year the Marlins were thinking of batting him second…won’t happen this year either because of his slow foot speed, but shows what the coaches think about his contact potential). Being left-handed, he will at least get most of the starts.
Speaking of being left-handed, in the NL, there are four teams other than the Marlins that will probably go into the season with no wrong-handers in the rotation and two of them are in the Marlin’s division ( Atlanta and Cincinnati ). Several other teams have only one ( Houston , LA , and St. Louis ). Only one team looks to have more than two ( Milwaukee if Parra holds his job). Of the 20 or so left-handed starters projected in the NL, some have names like Olsen, Perez, Doug Davis, Francis, and Gorzelanny. Very hittable. So if you drafted good LH starters, I think you have given yourself a nice advantage as teams are not going to be seeing too much elite LH talent over the course of the year which is I think an advantage to the pitcher. If you are drafting LH batters, the steady diet of RHers means AB for your team.
My last corner goes to Casey Blake. A recent article pointed out how consistent Blake has been, but given his age (36), the decline is coming and when it comes, it will be steep. To that end, I picked up two CM in the reserve draft, Huff (not great in SF, but underrated) and Rolen. Either could take Blakes place in the line-up quite nicely I think as both have at least as much power and production potential as him.
My UT will be Josh Willingham. I see a pattern in my drafts as I am gravitating towards several players consistently. Willingham is one of them. With Dukes gone, Willingham is in line for an at-bat increase and I think he will produce something north of what he produced last year. Not a bad UT even for a 12-teamer. My other reserves are in the MI with Marco Scutaro and Luis Valbuena.
So, I do I assess how the strategy change went? Pretty much exactly the way I planned it. I will not win steals, but have enough to be north of the middle I think. BA, HR, R, and RBI…it is going to be tough to beat me.
I will not win any pitching categories as I will not stay with three closers all year, but all categories have solid nine to ten point possibilities which should be enough for me to get 80% of the points there. This is a good team and I am going to have fun with it.
Another league with a bunch of great people in it. Unfortunately, I had to run too soon after the draft to meet my social responsibilities (my wife and I and another couple went downtown to the Freemont Street Experience and it was!), so I did not get to chat as much as I wanted to. I hope all the guys are active on the boards so we can talk some trash.
