My 2001 Fantasy Baseball Team

So we had the long-awaited fantasy baseball draft today. We started around noon and finished up around 7. This entry is mostly about that, with a little bit of other stuff at the very end. So if you don't care about baseball, feel free to skip down.

Our league has 16 teams, and we do a straight draft (rather than an auction) from all 30 Major League teams. Our scoring system is not "category Rotisserie" but rather a total-points system which sort of approximates the value of players in the real world (except that it works out that hitters are worth about twice as much as pitchers). We all get to keep a certain number of players from the previous year, weighted towards young players.

Last year I finished 12th, having largely drafted by just picking useful players who had the most value among those remaining. What this meant is that I basically ended up with a team of older outfielders and first basemen, and very few good pitchers. My few good pitchers quickly flamed out (e.g., Omar Daal) and the season was just about over at that point for me. My goal this year was to do better. Crunching more stats wasn't the answer: I needed a plan.

The plan I came up with had a few specific points:

1. Try not to draft anyone over age 32.

2. Unless they're a superstar or there's some other reason to believe they won't decline this year.

3. If possible, in the first round draft Greg Maddux, Mike Mussina or Tom Glavine (in that order). Since Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Kevin Brown were kept by other teams, these were the remaining topmost starting pitchers.

4. Try to get a solid starter at every hitting position. Don't fill up my team with aging outfielders.

5. Draft a few valuable prospects in the late rounds.

6. Don't worry much about relief pitching.

Pos	Player	Team	Round/Pick	Age	Comments
C	Bobby Estalella	SF	5/69	26
C	Jason LaRue	Cin	15/221	27
1B	Mike Sweeney	KC	2/28	27
1B	David Ortiz	Min	9/127	25
2B	Edgardo Alfonzo	NYM	Keeper	27
2B	Luis Rivas	Min	12/183	21
SS	Christian Guzman	Min	7/95	23
2B/SS/3B	Placido Polanco	StL	11/159	25
3B	Mike Lowell	Flo	4/60	27
3B/OF	Albert Pujols	StL	16/242	21
OF	Peter Bergeron	Mon	Keeper	23
OF	Trot Nixon	Bos	Keeper	27
OF	Mike Cameron	Sea	Keeper	28
OF	Tim Salmon	Ana	3/37	32
OF	Mark Kotsay	SD	8/118	25
2B	Marcus Giles	Atl	13/192	23	Reserve
SP	Barry Zito	Oak	Keeper	23
SP	Jim Parque	ChW	Keeper	26
SP	Glendon Rusch	NYM	Keeper	26
SP	Tom Glavine	Atl	1/5	35
SP	Hideo Nomo	Bos	6/86	32
SP	Andy Benes	StL	10/150	33
RP	Kelly Wunsch	ChW	Keeper	28
RP	Paul Shuey	Cle	Suppl	30
RP	Rod Beck	Bos	Suppl	32
RP	Bob Wells	Min	Suppl	34
SP	Matt Kinney	Min	14/214	24	Reserve
SP	Sun-Woo Kim	Bos	17/244	23	Reserve

I'm pretty happy with this team. The only position where I didn't draft a solid starter is shortstop, and Guzman and Polanco at least have some upside. As you can see, every position player except Tim Salmon is under age 30, which means they might overall perform substantially better this year than last. Polanco and Cameron are the main two who I specifically expect a decline from last year, but Cameron's still very good, and Polanco has value for playing multiple positions.

My pitching relies perhaps a bit too much on Zito and Rusch living up to their potential, and Nomo and Benes not sucking. But then, most teams have the potential to have truly lousy pitching staffs. Glavine and Beck are the old men of my team, which I can live with since Beck was basically free and great pitchers often maintain their excellence throughout their 30s.

My one mistake was not realizing that Luis Rivas was in the Majors, since it means I have to play him, I can't put him on my reserve squad. I don't expect he'll amount to a lot this year. I expect both him and Pujols to be sent down soon and give me more space to play with my roster. By contrast, Kinney might be called up soon.

I don't think any of these players are unusual injury risks, which isn't a factor I specifically drafted for (except to avoid the pitchers with known problems), but hopefully will help.

It's impossible to know at this point how my team really stacks up against others. I lack any of the six most valuable players in the game (Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, Todd Helton, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds or Sammy Sosa) which is a drawback, but perhaps I made up for it in other ways. I am bummed that I missed out on both Rich Aurilia and Todd Hundley, both of whom I just barely missed (I took Mike Lowell and expected one of them to be around for my next pick; I ended up with Estalella instead). Quality shortstops are always in short supply.

I also got some ideas for how to prepare better next year in a way that helps me execute my plan more precisely.

But, it's the start of a long season. We'll see how it goes. Unlike last year, if tis team crashes and burns for reasons other than bad luck I'll have a hard time pinning down exactly what went wrong, I suspect. But, if all goes according to plan, maybe I'll win the league this year.

And maybe monkeys will fly out my butt!

After the draft I went to the book discussion for Wicked, which basically had two-thirds of the group loving the book, and three or four of us not caring for it much. The consensus (more-or-less) seemed to be that people who weren't focused on plot enjoyed it more. (Certainly the plot is the biggest glaring problem with the book.)

We've got several fantasy novels on tap for the next few months. Well, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is perhaps SF (I've resisted reading it for years mainly because I've never been in the mood to read something that dark). Although by and large I don't read much fantasy, I'm going to try to start going to the groups regularly again, though.