Fantasy Baseball

Fantasy baseball drafts are exhilarating. Between the sleeper picks, the keeper leagues, the depth charts, the players who come back from injuries, the potential production in a new team--it's all incredibly analytical. I ended up with a pretty solid team in a twelve-man keeper league draft last night--my results were:
Round Pick Player Position
1. (4) Chase Utley 2B
2. (21) Jimmy Rollins SS
3. (28) CC Sabathia SP
4. (45) Derrek Lee 1B
5. (52) Johan Santana SP
6. (69) Matt Wieters C
7. (76) Chone Figgins 3B
8. (93) Carlos Peña 1B
9. (100) Francisco Rodríguez RP
10. (117) José Valverde RP
11. (124) James Shields SP
12. (141) Ryan Ludwick OF
13. (148) Brandon Webb SP
14. (165) Nate McLouth OF
15. (172) Ben Sheets SP
16. (189) Chris Coghlan OF
17. (196) Justin Duchscherer SP
18. (213) Ryan Rowland-Smith SP
19. (220) Joba Chamberlain SP
20. (237) Ted Lilly SP
21. (244) Russell Branyan 1B
22. (261) Ken Griffey Jr. OF

The main thing that worked well for me is stalling on the OF. I ended up picking an OF in my twelfth round in picking Ryan Ludwick. Of course I followed up two rounds later and picked Nate McLouth who was ranked about 70 something in Yahoo and is a great player--but by the time that teams get to him, they already have a filled up OF crew. This is where the key picks come in where you snag a really good player late in the draft.

Another good thing to keep in mind is the power hitters that are not ranked high. Carlos Pena isn't among the top picks but certainly is home run hitting beast who has a pretty good on base percentage. A valued pick late in the draft to secure the RBI's and Homers.

Take risks with pitchers. You will probably end up dropping and adding a lot of different pitchers because a bad start completely turns you off from certain pitchers. What I say is pick up those once amazing starters like Brandon Webb and
Justin Duchscherer and Ben Sheets (sure he got bombed in Spring training but he's an Ace of the squad for a reason).

And of course I did something similar by taking Ken Griffey Jr. He is my favorite player to ever play the game and just having him on my team makes me feel like this is going to be a good year. Who knows, maybe with the new Mariners--he can produce something? I don't know--but take the change.

The Mariners have one of the best defenses in the league and have a good line-up with a solid 1 and 2. I picked up their number 3 because I think he'll have a great deal of success; Rowland-Smith has potential and I say look out for him.

The countdown begins.