2010 Fantasy Draft

The 15-team league with mostly TCR readers that I'm in had their draft yesterday. It's a 25-man roster, point based league with 9 position spots (C, 1b, 2b, 3b, SS, LF, CF, RF, Util) and 9 pitching spots (4 SP, 3 RP, 2 Util P) and a 1500 IP limit. There's also a 2nd league of TCR'ites using a similar point system that started last year, so feel free to discuss your drafts as well in the comments. For those who get annoyed or bored when talking about fantasy baseball or just hate the concept in its entirety...um, sorry. I'll get something more Cub-centric up later.

Each team gets 6 keepers and you draft them based on last year's point totals. So if the players was a top 15 player, you draft him with your first round pick, 16-30 is a second round player and so forth...multiple players in the same round get spread out to the next round. The basic strategy is you can trade keepers depending on quality of talent or if you want higher draft picks. So for example, I could have tried to trade Cliff Lee for a player that was injured last year like Carlos Beltran and had a higher draft pick in exchange for a player with some issues but more upside (in reality I made the opposite trade this offseason, getting Lee for Beltran who was a 20th round pick). I had the 13th pick in the first round with a 25-round draft, snake style. I relied heavily on BP's fantasy tier rankings to be honest. (K) indicates a keeper.

• 1st Round - Albert Pujols (13) (K) - acquired in a trade from "The Joe" that involved Grady Sizemore(and others) before the 2008 season. "The Joe" has been doing just fine without him, finishing second and first in the last two seasons.
• 2nd Round - Chase Utley (18) (K) - acquired with A-rod and Jake Peavy before last year for T. Tulowitzki, E. Santana and one other player from "JD".
• 3rd Round - Chris Carpenter (43) (K) - Low round draft pick from last year.
• 4th Round - Cliff Lee (48) (K) - I traded A. Wainwright for C. Beltran early in this offseason and then moved Beltran for Lee when Beltran's knee flared up again. Hoping for a big year in Safeco with a good defense behind him and his contract year.
• 5th Round - Alex Rodriguez (73) (K) - See Chase Utley.
• 6th Round - Carlos Lee (78) -  It was between Manny Ramirez and Lee and the pick ahead of me took Manny.
• 7th Round - Jonathan Broxton (103) (K) - My favorite closer in the league not named Mariano Rivera.
• 8th Round - Shane Victorino (108) Slim pickings left at center field by this point and starting pitchers were in abundence.
• 9th Round - Yunel Escobar  (133) - He turns 27 and putting up an .800 OPS at shortstop, it was great value in my opinion.
• 10th Round - A.J. Burnett (138) - If his arm doesn't blow out, should rack up wins with the Yankees offense and of course strikeouts.
• 11th Round - Brandon Lyon (163) - closers were flying off the board by this point, although Lyon isn't necessarily guaranteed the role with Matt Lindstrom also in their pen. 
• 12th Round - Jon Rauch (168) - if the Twins don't pick up anybody, he seems the favorite for the job.
• 13th Round - Travis Snider (193) - BP had him as a 4-star left fielder and I went for a high upside guy. His 2-position eligibility helped as well as I'll use him in right initially.
• 14th Round - Chris Iannetta (198) - Another BP 4-star ranking I was happy to get this low in the draft.
• 15th Round - Kevin Gregg (223) - I believe the last closer left in the draft, although not guaranteed the job yet.
• 16th Round - Nick Swisher (228) - We have a utility spot that Swisher will fill or take right field if Snider is a bust.
• 17th Round - JJ Hardy (253) - Shocked he made it this far as I expect a pretty good bounce back season.
• 18th Round - Mark Buehrle (258) - I'm counting on another perfect game from him this year.
• 19th Round - Marlon Byrd (283) - 3 position eligibility, decent back-up option and hopefully can ride some of his hot streaks.
• 20th Round - Rafael Betancourt (288) - The closer depth chart I was using had him as the Rockies primary set-up man, but after the draft I learned he hasn't pitched yet this spring and Franklin Morales is likely to get the save opportunities while Huston Street deals with his shoulder issues. A real good chance I'll be dropping him in the next day or so.
• 21st Round - Brad Penny (313) - I'm hoping for another Duncan miracle.
• 22nd Round - Kosukue Fukudome (318) - I'm not sure if he'll even make my Opening Day roster. Hitting higher up in the order is a better use of his skills though and he has 2-position eligibility.
• 23rd Round - Fausto Carmona (343) - Hoping another year away from surgery and he'll find some control.
• 24th Round - Justin Smoak (348) - 95% chance I drop him before I find any use for him.
• 25th Round - Troy Glaus (373) - I traded him right after the draft for Miguel Olivo.

We have daily lineup changes so what I like to do at the catcher spot is have the primary catcher and back-up from the same team and hopefully switch them when needed and the Rockies have a good duo. It didn't work at all for me last year, as I'd miss the lineups and I had the Rangers duo of Saltalamacchia and Teagarden and they were both terrible. Otherwise I'm pretty happy with my team at this moment, but I'll need to be aggressive in finding closers on the waiver wire as they help tremendously in our league with the innings pitched limit (good relievers average about 3.5-4.5 pts per innings, starters usually in the 2.5-3.5 range). I also need to find a 2b/3b eligibile player to fill-in on the days A-rod or Utley take off.