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This was a fantasy baseball league put together by the FSWA, Fantasy Sports Writers Association.  (Grey is in the FSWA and Rudy is unlicensed.  Hopefully they don’t kick out Grey for hiring non-union labor.) We drafted this league together, which made for some disagreements in our two styles of drafting.  That was quickly mended when we realized it was only a 12 team league and we could get a stacked team no matter how many top chefs were cooking in this quickfire challenge.

C:  Mike Napoli
C:  Brandon Inge
1B: Ryan Howard
2B: Jose Lopez
3B: Chipper Jones
SS: Ryan Theriot
MI: Felipe Lopez
CI: Mark Reynolds
OF: Carlos Beltran
OF: Carlos Quentin
OF: Adam Dunn
OF: Cameron Maybin
OF: Ryan Spilborghs
UT: Fred Lewis
Bench: Colby Rasmus

P: Jonathan Papelbon
P: Felix Hernandez
P: Scott Kazmir
P: Jonathan Broxton
P: Erik Bedard
P: Troy Percival
P: Wandy Rodriguez
P: Randy Wolf
P: Fernando Rodney
Bench: Kenshin Kawakami, Joey Devine, Chad Cordero, David Aardsma
DL: Max Scherzer

OVERALL THOUGHTS:

First off, this league is 5×5 with SLG and OBP instead of HRs and Average.  We put up a bit of a fight to have that changed, but our protests fell on deaf ears.  With those two category changes, it makes our Ryan Howard and Adam Dunn selections even purdier.  Put them up to the light; they shine!  It doesn’t help the Inge selection that much, but a bit.

We selected eleventh overall and Miguel Cabrera almost made it to us in the first round after Manny Ramirez was taken 4th and Jimmy Rollins was taken 6th.  As confusing as Manny was in the 4 slot, it wasn’t as confusing as Rollins over Howard, Miggy, Braun, Utley and Sizemore.

Pitchers flew off the board in this league.  To give you an idea, Nolasco, Beckett, Billingsley and Lackey all went in the 6th round.  (This was after Lackey’s injury had surfaced.)  We decided to go with the upside of Kazmir and F-Her.  (Note:  We drafted Devine prior to the injury announcement.)

All told, we drafted 5 Mariners.  Sucky guys on sucky teams is the new black!  Luckily, Endy Chavez was not one of the drafted Mariners.  (When Don Wakamatsu named Brandon Morrow the closer, we dropped two of our Mariners.  Betcha you can guess which two.)

Our team is well-balanced with power and speed.  And we have Felipe Lopez, what’s not to love?  Our pitching is riskier than either of us would’ve preferred, but neither of us wanted to get caught up in a run with pitchers flying off the shelves that early.  In a 12 team league, we should be able to fix potential pitching holes with waiver wire pickups.