C Jared Saltalamacchia
1B Prince Fielder 21
2B Brandon Phillips 28
3B David Wright (4)
SS Stephen Drew 76
MI Orlando Cabrera
CI Justin Morneau 45
OF Nate McClouth 52
OF Jermaine Dye 93
OF Torii Hunter 100
OF Carlos Gomez
OF Elijah Dukes
Util Alex Gordon 124
BN Chase Headley

P Felix Hernandez 69
P Matt Cain 117
P Johnny Cueto 141
P David Price 148
P Brian Wilson 165
P John Danks 172
P Erik Bedard 189
P Joel Hanrahan 196
P Chris Young
BN Jeremy Guthrie
BN Oliver Perez

The rest is history. Grey thoughts?

25 - C A.J. Pierzynski - Wieters fill in
12 - 1B Pablo Sandoval - Versatility? Plus his nick name is Kung Fu panda, I'll be ridin' this Panda Express to championship town. Maybe. Probably not.
18 - 2B Felipe Lopez - Last time he was in a bandbox he jacked 20+
04 - 3B Chipper Jones - Average
01 - SS Jimmy Rollins - First rd? Yikes.
20 - MI Emilio Bonifacio - Sagnof
06 - CI Chris Davis - Bill James projections please
03 - OF Jason Bay - From America's hat
07 - OF Hunter Pence - Hunter Pence none the richer
08 - OF Jay Bruce - Homer(s) pick
09 - OF Chris Young - 30/30 maybe?
16 - OF Delmon Young - Convert bat throwing power to ball hitting power please
19 - UT Casey Kotchman - I took the under on 16 HRs in a bet with a friend last year, I won. Brett Myers hits harder, ask his girlfriend.
14 - BN Matt Wieters - Mauer with power

02 - SP Tim Lincecum - Ace
10 - SP Edinson Volquez - Rolls hard
13 - SP Clayton Kershaw - Sounds like a country music singer
14 - SP Justin Verlander - Enrollment in the Justin Verlander school for kids who can't pitch good and want to learn to do other stuff good too.
17 - SP Gavin Floyd - Saw him in spring training, looked solid vs. Dodgers
21 - SP Anthony Reyes - Best dressed.
05 - RP Jonathan Papelbon - Papelboner
11 - RP Jose Valverde - Salsa
23 - RP Dan Wheeler - Mr. B with save opps?
22 - BN Kelvim Escobar - DL stashee with upside
24 - BN Ian Snell - His pitching snells bad, potential Cliff Lee though?

I had 2 goals going into this draft. 1, draft a team that is different from my others. 2, use a different strategy than usual (zig when they zag). I accomplished both, I think. I woke super hungover and 2 picks late, and was autodrafted Rollins/Lincecum. Picking 12th was effing difficult, basically I dubbed it Reach Around Corner b/c reaching is necessary with that many picks between picks. Drafting with Razzball readers is an exercise in futility. My queue was more like an extraordinary rendition line than draft queue, I'd put people there just to have them disappear seconds later. All in all it was a fun draft, and the good thing is I'm guaranteed to improve on my 14th place finish from last year (only 12 teams this year!).

Crazy you were able to get Bedard that late. That could potentially be the steal of the draft. You grabbed F-Her a bit early. I do like your pitching overall. They might struggle to get Wins, but it's really hard to predict Wins anyway, so no big whoop there. Re: your hitting, Morneau went that late? Wow. I really talked him down a lot, huh? That's good value at 45, even if I'm not a huge fan. Overall I like your hitting, hopefully your outfield gives you even power numbers. You may struggle a bit on average, but not terrible.

Kung Fu Panda? Is that really his nickname or did you just christen him? You totally zagged on stuff I said, that's for sure. Lincecum in the 2nd? Rollins in the first 12? You know what those two picks did to you, right? Your offense is kinda weak. It's not a great place to be. Ah... I just read your last paragraph to see what you were thinking. So I see we're on the same page. Sorry, you know I love you, but your team's a mess. Even with Lincecum, your pitching's a bit risky. Volquez and Verlander could easily mess up whatever Lincecum helps with. I'd see if you could trade some pitching, but it's probably going to be tough in the RCL.

C - Brian McCann (51)
1B - Albert Pujols (3)
2B - Dan Uggla (70)
SS - Rafael Furcal (75)
3B - Mark Reynolds (190)
MI - Mike Aviles (147)
CI - Mike Jacobs (171)
OF - Manny Ramirez (22)
OF - Matt Kemp (27)
OF - Alex Rios (46)
OF - Ryan Ludwick (94)
OF - Brett Gardner (214)
U - Jason Giambi (291)
P - Scott Kazmir (99)
P - A.J. Burnett (118)
P - Josh Johnson (122)
P - Aaron Harang (142)
P - Chris Carpenter (166)
P - Huston Street (195)
P - Carlos Marmol (219)
P - Fernando Rodney (238)
P - Carlos Villanueva (262)

BN - Josh Fields (243)
BN - Rick Porcello (267)
BN - James McDonald (286)


With the third pick, I was planning on doing my pick #3 strategy, which has been in effect two drafts so far this year. That usually surrounds picking Reyes and then punting steals the rest of the draft. I sort of got scooped and Pujols fell in my lap with the #3 and all hell broke loose. I figured I needed to make up some steals in a balanced way, so this became my semi-strategy throughout. This didn't work to my advantage after the early rounds, so I'm stuck with 4 hackers in the CI, U and 3B slots. I haven't taken a catcher early in any of my drafts this year, so I pulled a BRAN and took McCann in the 5th.

I expect this team to compete in the top 3 in hr/rbi/sb, but should lag behind in avg or runs. So those reading this, if you have a runs/avg steady outfielder such as Abreu or comparable, I'm looking to trade.

I'll be the first to admit that my pitching will have major issues this year. I held off until the middle rounds to pick a pitcher, only to watch as people snagged my usual targets of Shields, Bills, FHer, etc., fall off the board. Huge injury risks in Kazmir, Carpenter and Burnett and I'm not sold on Harang, though I expect good things from Josh Johnson. I largely punted saves, so working the wire will be a necessity and I think that Marmol will be good for about a dozen or so.

I'll be trading for a small downgrade in SS/2B and an upgrade in SP.

Overall, I give this draft a grade of a B. Above average, but not my best effort.

I was watching the final Giants spring training game and that's were I heard Kung Fu Panda, I guess his teammates gave it to him.

I agree with what you said about your hitting. Reynolds, Uggla, Jacobs and Ludwick can do that to you. I sorta agree about your pitching. I think they're actually a bit worse than you're letting on. But if those three guys somehow work out for you, you should actually be in a good place.

C-Baker
1b-Loney
2b-Utley
3b-Mora
SS-Young
MI-Theriot
CI-Cantu
OF-Hamilton, Damon, Ibanez, Milledge, Spillbourghs
Util-Andrus
Bench-FraGu
DL-A Rod

SP-Halladay, Shields, Liriano, Lowe, Meche, J Zimmerman
RP-Wood, Motte, Percival
Bench-JJ Putz

Needless to say, I punted 1B to take pitchers, waiting on guys like Loney and Cantu to fall to me. Don't recommend it, but it seemed to work out OK. What say Grey?

You love Halladay. It looks like you kinda punted hitting. You only have three guys that might hit 30 HRs. Where do you see your pop coming from? I love your pitching but it's kinda too strong. With Halladay, I'm not sure you needed Shields. Halladay, Liriano and Lowe were probably enough. Might've been nice to take another hitter where you grabbed Shields. Anyway, you could be in the hunt, but I think you have some work to do.

"Where do you see your pop coming from?"

From Hamilton, Utley, Ibanez, possibly Mora hits 23 again , Cantu with a ton of RBIs hittin 4th for Florida. Don't forget A Rod on the DL.

Got work to do, yeah, but I believe!!!! 6 other guys in my lineup can potentially hit 15.

Edit: Typo boyzz!