2002 Out Of Our League

2002 Out Of Our League

Last updated: 27 March 2004

My 2001 season in the league came to a frustrating end thanks to a horrible pitching staff, so that was my main goal for 2002: Improve my pitching. My strategy of drafting young players last year resulted in a number of promising prospects on my team (including Albert Pujols and Marcus Giles) and a wealth of keepers. Having finished 13th last year, I'd have the 4th overall pick in the draft, and I traded a few keeper years for additional picks in the 10th and 11th round. Overall, my strategy this year was:

Try not to draft anyone over age 32.
With my first pick, choose Barry Bonds, Gary Sheffield or Mike Mussina. (If all of them had been taken, I guess I'd have taken Jeff Bagwell.)
Sign an impact hitter with my second-round pick, preferably an outfielder, as my infield was strong.
Target prospects starting around the 8th round.

Here's the team I ended up with:

Pos Player Team Round Age Comments

C Michael Barrett Mon 12 25

1B Mike Sweeney KC Keeper 28

1B Richie Sexson Mil 2 27

2B Marcus Giles Atl Keeper 23

2B/SS/3B Desi Relaford Sea 11 28 How much will he play?

SS Christian Guzman Min Keeper 24

SS Ramon Vazquez SD Suppl 25 I felt lucky to get him so late.

3B Morgan Ensberg Hou 3 26 Seems like a risky pick. Should I have taken Eric Hinske instead?

1B/3B/OF Albert Pujols StL Keeper 22 My über-sub!

OF Trot Nixon Bos Keeper 27

OF Mark Kotsay SD 5 26

OF Daryle Ward Hou 7 26

OF Terrence Long Oak 8 26

OF Dustan Mohr Min Suppl 25 Missed out on Vernon Wells by a round. Not sure I expect a lot from Mohr.

SP Mike Mussina NYY 1 33

SP Barry Zito Oak Keeper 23

SP Ruben Quevedo Mil Keeper 23

SP Jason Marquis Atl Keeper 23

SP Corey Lidle Oak 6 30

SP Bud Smith StL 9 22 Happy to get him so late.

SP Kip Wells Pit 14 24 Seems like everyone - including me - overlooked him.

SP/RP Erik Hiljus Oak 11 29

RP Octavio Dotel Hou 4 28 I can't believe I spent so high a pick on a reliever.

RP Arthur Rhodes Sea 10 32

RP Scott Sullivan Cin Suppl 31

2B Bobby Hill ChC 10 Reserve/Minors. Could be up this year.

OF Chris Snelling Sea 13 Reserve/Minors. Kind of a wacky pick; might be 2 years away.

SP Jerome Williams SF 15 Reserve/Minors. The Giants are going to need someone to pitch for them in 2003.

I think my pitching rocks. Mussina and Zito could be two of the most valuable pitchers in our league, and Wells, Smith, Quevedo and Marquis all seem like good picks with substantial upside. Lidle and Hiljus seem like gravy by comparison. Of course, pitching is always risky, but these seem like quality risks.

My hitting, though, concerns me. A lot depends on guys like Giles, Long and Ward developing like they should, without a significant dropoff from Pujols, Sweeney and Sexson. It seems like a lot of these guys are low-ceiling players, albeit ones who might be poised for career years.

My big lament is holding off for so long on picking a catcher. Michael Barrett seems like a very risky pick, and I don't have a lot to fall back on on the waiver wire. Other folks in the league seem to value catchers more highly than their raw hitting stats suggest, probably because the dropoff is so steep. I need to figure out how to compensate for that next year.

Finally, I'm very worried that I picked Morgan Ensberg way too high. I guess the Astros are basically committed to him, but you never know. If he just doesn't hit, then they'll find someone who can, even if he might not have a bright future. Seems like I could have been smarter here, but the 3rd-through-6th rounds seemed like tough ones to pick in. There were a lot of old veterans whose upside seemed to be in the past.

Well, even if victory isn't in my future, at least I should be able to climb out of the bottom quartile this year. Here's hoping!

Results

Another year, another disappointing season. This time around I finished 7th out of 16, which is better than 13th, but still. Not in the money. (We have 7 prizes in this league - not all for finishing at the top of the standings - but the level of competition is high.) Subrata finished 12th, but had the "Most Improved" team in the second half, and so got a prize share. My other recruit, Syd, finished dead last, which I think is what he expected as an expansion team.

The final standings (with the entertaining team names):

TW Mgr     Team                   Total  Diff Win%   W-L  GB Nxt   PB AVG
 1 Keith   "Labor Contractions"    7055  1205 .603 98- 64  0   -    0 282
 2 Steve                           6962  1112 .595 96- 66  2  93   93 278
 3 Nate    "Standard Deviants"     6782   932 .580 94- 68  4 180  273 271
 4 MichJ   "Who's On First?"       6637   787 .567 92- 70  6 145  418 265
 5 Chris   "Retirement Home"       6348   498 .543 88- 74 10 289  707 254
 6 Phil    "Injured Reserve"       6060   210 .518 84- 78 14 288  995 242
 7 MichR   "Stupid Bat Tricks"     5951   101 .509 82- 80 16 109 1104 238
 8 MichB   "Titanic"               5822   -28 .498 81- 81 17 129 1233 233
 9 Rao                             5799   -51 .496 80- 82 18  23 1256 232
10 John    "Sirang Katawan"        5786   -64 .494 80- 82 18  13 1269 231
11 Marcus  "Defensive Specialists" 5386  -464 .460 75- 87 23 400 1669 215
12 Rick    "Audball's"             5239  -611 .448 73- 89 25 147 1816 210
13 Subrata "Utterly Unremarkable"  5237  -613 .448 73- 89 25   2 1818 209
14 Tim     "Axis Of Evil"          5067  -783 .433 70- 92 28 170 1988 203
15 Eric    "PTFLBPPOBB... Hooray!" 4815 -1035 .412 67- 95 31 252 2240 193
16 Syd     "They Might Be Pirates" 4660 -1190 .398 65- 97 33 155 2395 186

What sunk me this is year that every risk I took - even some, I thought, that we pretty good - went sour on me. Hiljus and Quevedo imploded, Marquis struggled for playing time, Long and Ward were both just awful, Marcus Giles fell into Bobby Cox's doghouse, Guzman stopped hitting, Ensberg was the scapegoat for the Astros' early troubles and was sent to the minors. Plus I got bit again by having a weak catcher.

There are definitely some things I can correct here. Like not spending my third-round pick on a prospect with questionable chances! I'll see if I can do better this year. My in-season management is good enough that if I could just draft an 8th-place team I bet I can struggle into the money. It'd be nice to do even better, of course.

hits since 8 April 2002.