My Baseball Fantasy Draft 2008

Well, I had my fantasy draft Sunday for baseball. I did something I never do this year. I actually drafted some closers. I can't believe it myself. My pitching staff is pretty terrible, but I am not worried. I build it later as the season goes. I have an Ace in CC Sabathia, so I can build it from there. All I did was draft these guys late and just pull everyone I could get that was going to have a solid K rate and more than 150 Ks on the year. That is how I am shedding positive lighting on my draft.

There were quite a few comeback options in the draft this year, and I pretty much took them when they were there. Guys that would have been keepers a year or two ago. Other than Jason Bay I probably picked up 2-3 of these guys at least.

Stat categories:

Scoring for Batting Categories
2B - Doubles
BA - Batting Average
H - Hits
HR - Home Runs
KO - Strikeouts (Batter)
OBP - On Base Pct
R - Runs
RBI - Runs Batted In
SB - Stolen Bases
SLG - Slugging Pct

Scoring for Pitching Categories
BBI - Walks Issued (Pitchers)
CG - Complete Games
ERA - Earned Run Average
K - Strikeouts (Pitcher)
Kd9 - Strikeouts per Nine
L - Losses
QS - Quality Starts
S - Saves
W - Wins
WHIP - Walks + Hits / Inning

Keepers going in: Albert Pujols, CC Sabathia, Adam Dunn, Ichiro, Manny Ramirez.

Not going to put these in order. I can't remember and i'm not going to copy/paste them from the draft because I have to delete everyone elses' picks to do it. One thing I had was 6 of the first 37 picks in the draft with trades in the preseason so you can see some of the reason with the hitters I have. A couple other notes about this league and draft. This is a mostly Tiger fan league, and I wanted Aramis Ramirez as my first pick, but I picked #2 and the first guy took him even though he has Miggy already as a keeper.

C-R. Hernandez (came to camp in great shape, one of my late picks)
1B-Pujols (keeper)
2B-Kelly Johnson (real happy with this acquisition. Expect a lot from him)
SS-Tejada (Got him in the 2nd non-keeper round. Big year in Houston expected)
3B-Blalock (HAving a great spring, and I gamble on him every year. This is the year!)
OF-Manny (keeper)
OF-Ichiro (keeper)
OF-Dunn (keeper)
UTIL-Curtis Granderson (#2 overall non-keeper pick. Went on DL day after draft, but not a long stretch. Had to do it in this league. On DL right now)
UTIL-Carlos Pena (2nd round non-keeper pick. Former Tiger so people had doubts. Think this was a steal)
BN-Cuddyer (Got him real late. Last few rounds.)
BN-Andruw Jones (Nobody wanted him so what the hell. I'll take 35-40 HRs and 100 RBI form a guy who is out to prove last year was a fluke.)
BN-DeRosa (garbage fill in player. Probably drop him when something better comes along)
BN-Alexei Ramirez (didn't actually draft him. Picked him up because he is potential and will play 2B and OF)
BN-Todd Helton (steal. Late teens. Monster in with these settings)


SP-Sabathia (keeper)
SP-Bronson Arroyo (His 2nd half last year was solid. Consider first half an abboration)
SP-Bonderman (Meh...Tiger league. Maybe he has a chage up)
SP-Jeremy Guthrie (lol..who knows. Opening day for O's.)
SP-Wainwright (Could be cgood. Could suck. Worth a shot)
RP-Wagner (HAd to. It was late. monster K rate)
RP-Francisco Cordero (same as Wagner. High K Rate)
RP-Gregg (Really late. Great K rate)
RP-Open (meh)
BN-Jon Lester (coin flip)
BN-Jason Bergman (coin flip)
BN-Jason Schmidt (Worth a shot. LAst year sucked, but he isn't that far removed from 180Ks and sub-4 ERA. 2006. Not sure how long he will be out.)

Clearly my pitching will need work, but I have 3 hitters on my bench that would start on any other team. Pitching is a crap shoot anyways. There will be plenty of surprises in the free agent pool as the season goes on. With hitting like I have I really don't need to get a ton from my pitching to win H2H in a given week. Just need to run a few categories and eat the hitting ones. Saves, K/9, and Ks may be good for me most weeks. Wins/losses BBI, ERA, and WHIP are a crap shoot.