http://www.couchmanagers.com/mock_drafts/?draftnum=17953

Password is razzdaft.

It’s a guaranteed good time!

Also, we’ve given thought on how to develop a tracker where we provide weekly spotlights on FA pickups. Will keep you (and everyone) posted….

I haven’t found a way to move the rankings to excel without manually typing them in. I do use CBSsports though, and they have a nice link to open stats or projections in an Excel spreadsheet. So, you’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way for building a pre-draft ranking list. The CBS stats are nice for evaluating players after the season starts though. You can add in formulas for stats like K/9 and BB/K and such, then use filters to find the best players out there and stay one step ahead of the rest of the league.

I find this strategy to be particularly effective: Concentrate on hitters in your draft. Draft starting pitchers with solid peripherals (K/9, etc). Get closers who have good peripherals too, but they are less important. Just make sure they are the team’s primary closer. That’s most important. At the beginning of the season, look for breakout pitchers to fill those holes that exist in your pitching staff. Using a spreadsheet to analyze pitching stats is an excellent way to find these pitchers.

i can keep 9. who should they be?

E. Longoria……3B
T. Tulowitzki….SS
N.R. Cruz OF….OF
S.-S. Choo…….OF
B. Hawpe……..OF
A. Rios………..OF
C. Maybin…….OF
J. Bruce……….OF

C.C. Sabathia…P
Y. Gallardo……P
J. Verlander…..P
M. Garza………P
K. Kershaw…..P
M. Scherzer…..P
T. Lilly……….P
B. Meyers……P
J. Vazquez……P

thanks in advance!

@Baron Von Vulturewins: Yeah, it’s a very good point. Peralta’s good, but he puts a huge drain on your OFs.

@Tony: Hill – bleh.

@Tony: Alexei, Drew, Hardy, Tulo, Peralta, SSs will be tomorrow.

@Tom: Schumaker’s a poor man’s Orlando Hudson <–Not a compliment.

I’m pretty high on Drew, but a little worried he might revert back to his 2007 .235 ish average? Are we looking at a steadily improving player or a guy who’s gonna fall into the middle of his 2007 and 2008 stats?

Because to compensate you have to carry noodle-bats like Ellsbury or Juan Pierre in the OF, instead of boppers. So you wind up with a 2B who hits 17 HRs and steals 6 bases, and an OF who steals 38 bags and hits 8 HRs. Which is just a fancy way of saying “out of the money.”

Almost as depressing: “Mike Cameron at second base.”

This kind of dross is why I’m willing to burn a top pick on someone like Utley or Kinsler and not have to sift through Round 18 looking for Nana’s broach.

THAT SAID, I also like Lopez this year, a lot. (Felipe, not Jose. Jose is the president of Yawnstipation Nation. His stats look good but a regular 15% drop-off across the board turns him into the middle-class man’s Kelly Johnson.)

Felipe, however, has mad skills and, in Yahoo!, is eligible at about every position except catcher. I don’t know about 20/20, but if he leads off for AZ and stays healthy I think 100 runs plus 12/20 is a lock, with updrafts from there. He is definitely fall back plan A if I still need an MI after Round 15 or so.

(He will now be drafted in Round 6 in RCL leagues, right after Sandoval.)