28 February 2008

Fantasy Baseball Season!

Well, with February wrapping up tomorrow with a big LEAP DAY!
This also heralds the start of fantasy baseball draft season. So, today being mostly braindead, I've been doing a few mock drafts on ESPN where I either drafted all hitting first, and when I filled up all those slots, moved to the pitching and vice versa, just to see the rosters that would result. Here they are for your amusement:

Both are 10 team mixed leagues

HITTERS FIRST (round selected in parentheses) and I had the 8th pick overall.
C Russell Martin LAD (5)
1B Nick Swisher CHW (9)
2B BJ Upton TAM (3)
3B Ryan Braun MIL (1)
SS JJ Hardy MIL (12)
1B/3B Ryan Zimmerman WAS (7)
2B/SS Howie Kendrick LAA (10)
OF Carl Crawford TAM (2)
OF Nick Markakis BAL (4)
OF Brad Hawpe COL (6)
OF Jeff Francoeur ATL (8)
OF Josh Hamilton TEX (11)
U Kevin Youkilis BOS (13)
SP Chad Billingsley LAD (14)
RP Jason Isringhausen STL (15)
SP Ted Lilly CHC (16)
SP Joe Blanton OAK (17)
RP Eric Gagne MIL (18)
SP Jeff Francis COL (19)
RP Carlos Marmol CHC (20)
SP Jon Garland LAA (21)
SP Justin Duchscherer OAK (22)
B Connor Jackson ARI (23)
B Adam Jones BAL (24)
B Rafael Betancourt CLE (25)

PITCHERS FIRST and I had the 9th pick overall
C Kenji Johjima SEA (12)
1B Nick Swisher CHW (13)
2B Rickie Weeks MIL (14)
3B Troy Glaus STL (17)
SS Jhonny Peralta CLE (16)
1B/3B Joey Votto CIN (19)
2B/SS Mark Ellis OAK (20)
OF Brad Hawpe COL (10)
OF Andruw Jones LAD (11)
OF Pat Burrell PHI (15)
OF Jacoby Ellsbury BOS (18)
OF Travis Buck OAK (22)
U Evan Longoria TAM (21)
SP Jake Peavy SD (1)
SP Erik Bedard SEA (2)
SP Josh Beckett BOS (3)
SP Brandon Webb ARI (4)
RP Jonathan Papelbon BOS (5)
RP JJ Putz SEA (6)
RP Joe Nathan MIN (7)
SP Chris Young SD (8)
SP Javier Vazquez CHW (9)
B Micah Owings ARI (23)
B Kelly Johnson ATL (24)
B Jason Kubel MIN (25)

Overall, I like the makeup of the "Pitching first" roster over the "Hitting first". I think this is mostly thanks to the fact that most everyone focusing on hitting at the very beginning, so if you're picking up all the great pitchers in the first 7 rounds, you can collect all the aces/top closers. Hitters tend to be deep, so even though you might be stuck with high risk/high reward players like Votto and Longoria or potentially unexciting guys like Glaus or Johjima, overall it is still a solid lineup, minus the real big boppers.

I'll have some more draft thoughts later on ...

1 comment:

biglou said...

I have tried this strategy, and look where it gets me. Pitching first is good, but the problem is without a real offensive star, you end up in the playoffs, and someone has Ryan Howard or A-Rod, and they have a great week and you lose.