This years marks our first time participating in LABR (League of Alternative Baseball Reality) which is sponsored by USA Today and is the granddaddy of all fantasy baseball expert leagues.
We had an awesome time at the draft. It was pretty crazy to be in the same room with a number of guys that we’d only known through the little headshots they have on their website. Plus, the draft was held in Phoenix – giving us the opportunity to catch two Cactus League games (nothing too notable except that Lonnie Chisenhall and Drew Pomeranz of the Indians look really good) and eat at Pizzeria Bianco (potentially the best pizzeria in the US).
We are in the 13-team NL-only league which is C/C/1B/2B/SS/3B/5 OF/CI/MI/UTIL/10 P. The reason for the 13th team and 10 pitchers (vs. 9) is to make the roster depth equivalent to the 12-team AL-only league. The budget is $260/team. After everyone has filled their starting roster, there is a snake draft where we pick 6 reserves.
Below is our roster (To see all the rosters, see this post on USA Today’s Fantasy Windup blog). We feel pretty good about the team. I think you can lose the season at the draft but you can’t win one…..and I don’t think we lost it.
C R. Barajas $3
C D. Mesoraco $1
1B A. Pujols $40
2B D. Espinosa $13
SS J. Reyes $29
3B C. Blake $5
OF R. Braun $37
OF L. Morrison $18
OF M. DeRosa $5
OF S. Hairston $2
OF N. Schierholtz $1
CI Jeff Baker $4
MI N. Walker $18
UT J. Francisco $2
P Y. Gallardo $21
P C. Marmol $20
P J. Vazquez $11
P H. Kuo $6
P C. Hensley $5
P C. Richard $5
P C. Capuano $4
P R. Wolf $3
P M. Lindstrom $2
P T. Gorzelanny $2
Reserve:
C Eli Whiteside
2B/OF Eric Patterson
3B Mat Gamel
P Yuniesky Maya
P Aneury Rodriguez
P Zack Braddock
One big difference in a draft this deep against such experienced competition is that we couldn’t follow our usual strategy of “find the best bargains”. We didn’t expect to see any bargains in this draft and that proved correct. We made three big bets (Pujols, Braun, Reyes) that will likely make or break our offense. But who would you rather bet on? (okay, maybe not Reyes but SBs are expensive either in $ or the players other stats). I don’t love the Neil Walker and Logan Morrison picks but they are guaranteed playing time and should be solid R/RBI producers without hurting our AVG. Our pitching staff could use a real 2nd starter (I’d consider Vazquez a #3) but we should be close to league average in most categories – hopefully Kuo or Hensley get us some cheap saves and 4 of our bottom 6 SPs (counting the two in reserves) can post decent numbers.
We’ll keep y’all posted on the team as the season goes on…