2012 Yahoo Fantasy Draft

My bi-yearly self-indulgent post on my fantasy draft. Mock away...

You probably know the drill by now, but a reminder; it's a Yahoo points league with 9 offensive players (C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, LF, CF, RF, Util) and 9 pitchers (4 SP, 3 RP, 2 Util) with 7 bench spots. Points are rigged in a way that stolen bases aren't nearly as valuable as roto leagues, i.e like real baseball. It counts as an extra base and if you get caught stealing it counts against the player. If it leads to more runs scored then that will show in the runs scored points. In other words, most of your fantasy guides aren't much use for the speedsters that get valued for their stolen bases. Middle infielders get a small defensive boost to put them closer to their corner position comrades. It's a 15-team league and we keep 6 keepers a year and draft those keepers in the appropriate round determined by their point value the year before. So a Miguel Cabrera is a first round pick and a Josh Johnson is a 25th round pick because of his injuries last year. My keeper options were Cliff Lee, Tim Lincecum, Albert Pujols, Starlin Castro, Evan Longoria, Matt Garza,  Paul Goldschmidt, Brett Lawrie and Mike Trout. I picked Lee, Lincecum, Pujols, Castro, Longoria and Lawrie. Then me and JD, whom you may know from the comments, pulled off a Jason Heyward for Brett Lawrie swap right before the draft. I picked 11th or 5th in each round, snake-style.

To my super-important draft...

1. Cliff Lee (Keeper) - duh
2. Tim Lincecum (Keeper) - duh
3. Albert Pujols (Keeper) - duh, although he's getting near the age where I wouldn't mind moving him to get younger. Oh no, I gave away my strategy, what am I to do?
4. Rickie Weeks - my first pick and it was the 11th overall in the draft when discounting other folks' keepers. I was thrilled at this. (2 players drafted before and after my pick not counting keepers: B. Gardner, J. Papelbon/M. Latos, A. Ethier)
5. Starlin Castro (Keeper) - too young to give up and better things to come hopefully
6. Evan Longoria (Keeper) - down year last year and hopefully he's over his injuries
7. Miguel Montero - probably should have waited for a catcher later, but he was the last decent bat at that position besides Soto and I'm not convinced which Soto we're getting this year. (Melky Cabrera, S. Santos/F. Freeman, M. Scherzer)
8. Y. Cespedes - potential power bat in center field, worth a shot, was hoping for J. Valverde but got nabbed just before. (Valverde, F. Cordero/B. Morrow, S. Marcum)
9. J. Nathan - closers were already going including H. Street that I desperately wanted (Street, A. Sanchez/Maybin, Markakis)
10. K. Farnsworth - must have closers although I was eyeing E. Santana (J. Santana, Bonifacio/E. Santana, J. Garcia)
11. J. Willingham - Besides the utility spot, left field was the last position spot I needed and at least there is some power there with Willingham. Ultimately I seem to always have terrible luck at that position. (J. Guerra, C. Perez/G. Soto, F. Francisco)
12. J. Broxton - well there's upside there if he gets the closer job (A. Lind, T. Lilly/F. Rodriguez, H. Kuroda)
13. M. Thornton - him and Capps were the last 2 closers left. Was looking at Kendry Morales to stash on the DL. (I. Desmond, B. Boesch/J. Kubel, K. Morales)
14. J. Danks - looking for starting pitching with some upside and Danks had a string of bad luck to start the year including a BABIP on the season that was well above his career norms. (D. Espinosa, D. Holland/V. Pestano, D. Murphy)
15. C. Volstad - homer pick, hoping this is the year he catches up to his once-upon-a-time prospect status (Iannetta, Doumit/S. Baker, A. Escobar)
16. R. Nolasco - Another BABIP victim last year, although the new park might hurt him. (Jurrjens, Altuve/Aviles, J. Lowrie)
17. C. Headley - Could use a back-up for Longoria since I traded Lawrie away and he's young enough to possibly break out a bit. An early drop candidate if I need a roster spot. (L. Duda, Scutaro/L. Lynn, C. Pena)
18. B. McCarthy - I can't imagine he'll do as well as last year, but worth a risk this late. And I like his Twitter feed. I did pass up on Cozart here hoping he'd last another round or two.  (F. Liriano, K. Wood/J.D. Martinez, Cozart)
19. A. Soriano - spring training stats count, right? Between him and Willingham maybe I can ride out the hot streaks. (Ogando, P. Coke/Quentin, Ruiz)
20. J. Mayberry - wanted a right fielder just in case JD balked on me and Mayberry's 4-position eligibility should be useful (M. Brantley, Vlad/Lidge, O' Flaherty)
21. E. Bedard - he's the Pirates #1, he must be good. See how he does in the N.L. and a lefty-friendly park. (L. Cain, Lucroy/Revere, Viciedo)
22. Rex Brothers - we do get credit for holds and Betancourt's tagged as a possible quick hook to lose his closing job. You always want 5 relievers in our league as well, since you rarely have that many of your starters going on the same day. (G. Floyd, J. Smoak/L. Perez, M. Harrison)
23. G. Sizemore - stash him on the disabled list and pick up someone on waivers. (Infante, Gorzelanny/Dickey, C. Davis)
24. Brett Jackson - homer pick, first to get waived if I need room. Hope that I can stash him though until he gets called up to replace losing Mike Trout...at least in my heart if not in the points. (Rizzo, Reimold/Thole, I. Stewart)
25. Brett Lawrie (Keeper)

I was pretty thrilled with my keepers going in, so I was going to be happy with my team regardless and flipping Lawrie for Heyward hopefully netted me another long-term keeper option while filling a position of need. Past my 2 horses, starting pitching tends to be more about wise waiver manuevering and good old fashioned luck when it comes to the mid-tier guys so we'll see how that pans out. I think my offense is pretty damn solid though with the outfield being the question mark, but there's upside there.