March 25th – April 12th

Fantasy Baseball Writers League (Brock4Broglio) – 12 team mixed league – currently in 8th (63 pts, 16 pts out of 1st)

This was my first draft of the year, all the way back in late February. Aside from compounding the regret I had over taking Juan Pierre in the 9th round, I haven’t been adversely affected by the early draft date (whew on Lackey).

My pitching is doing just fine at this point with about 40 points. This was expected since I drafted pitching higher than most in the league. My offense is sucking in the early going with 2nd catcher Mike Napoli my HR leader at 3 and Mark Ellis my SB leader at 2. I’ve got a number of notorious slow starters like Teixiera and Atkins so I’m trying to stay patient.

Kudos to Tim @ RotoAuthority for his early lead, fueled by a 50 point offense with quick starters Derrek Lee, Nate McLouth, and Rick Ankiel.

Fantasy Baseball Experts League (Greener on the Other Side) - 12 team mixed league – currently in 1st place (91 pts, up by 4.5 pts)

I didn’t think my draft for this team was much different than the BrockforBroglio league and still don’t. The pitching is pretty similar as I have Santana and Haren on both. The difference is that I’ve had a lot of luck so far with early season power numbers. Mike Jacobs was a late round 2nd UTIL slot pick and his 5 HRs are followed by Torii’s 4, and 3 from Francouer and Peralta.

My starting pitching is a bit shallow in this league but I lucked out having the 1st waiver pick so I was able to replace Pedro with Johnny Cueto. But I’m pretty lucky to have 7 wins so far as my bevy of relievers have contributed three (Betancourt, Okajima, Rauch).

Kudos to me for the early lead and here’s hoping for better luck to league host Greener on the Other Side.

The participants are:
David Bloom- Baseball Happenings
Jay Sarney & Brett Greenfield – Greener on the Other Side
Brad Stewart- MLB Front Office
Geoff Stein- Mock Draft Central
Adam Ronis- Newsday
Mike Sessa and Chris Corcione- Pseudo Sports
Rudy Gamble- Razzball
Ken Mathe- Roto Advice
Eric Stashin- Roto Professor
Jordan Frank- Roto Rob
Sean Salsbery- Warning Track Power
Arnie The Regular Guy (the one non-blogger in the bunch)

It had been about a month since my first blogger draft and I hadn’t made too many adjustments to my rankings (move Pierre down, move Josh Hamilton and Billy Butler up, etc.).

My strategy remained the same – get the most value out of each pick and don’t leave the draft with any glaring weaknesses (harder in a 12 team league to fill holes via free agency – espec. in an advanced league). After running projections for each team, I feel quite strong about my team in all categories except SB and Wins. But with Pierre and Velez, I’ve got hope in SB and I’d prefer to finish middle of the pack in Wins than use crappy starters and damage my ERA/WHIP.

The only other observation I have coming out of this draft is a mild note of surprise at the number of reach picks that were made (vs. Average Draft Position). Examples include Kinsler in the 4th round, Zimmerman in the 5th round, Hamilton and Victorino in the 6th round, Carlos Gomez and Billy Butler in the 13th round, and Andre Ethier in the 14th round. It goes to show that despite all the mock and real drafts done by the members of this league, it’s tough to know exactly when a certain player might come off the board. I prefer to avoid reaching more than a round over ADP for any player but definitely respect a team going after ‘their players’.

See below for my team and the rosters of the other teams. Those in blue are players that I have on my other blogger league team.

If you are so inclined, feel free to comment on my team…

C (131) Jorge Posada
1B (14) David Ortiz
2B (182) Ty Wigginton
SS (107) Michael Young
3B (38) Garrett Atkins
CI (179) Adam LaRoche
MI (158) Jhonny Peralta
OF (35) Nick Markakis
OF (59) Torii Hunter
OF (86) Jeff Francoeur
OF (203) Nate McLouth
OF (251) Melky Cabrera
UTIL (278) Mike Jacobs
UTIL (206) Juan Pierre
SP (11) Johan Santana
SP (62) Dan Haren
SP (155) Pedro Martínez
SP (230) Andy Pettitte
RP (83) Joe Nathan
RP (110) Mariano Rivera
RP (134) Matt Capps
RP (227) Rafael Betancourt
RP (302) Hideki Okajima

Bench (299) Jon Rauch
Bench (254) Kelvim Escobar
Bench (275) Eugenio Velez
Bench (323) Kazuo Fukumori
Bench (326) Jonny Gomes