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Leave it to the man living in Oregon, born and raised in Washington to take you to Electric Ladyland in the title.  PNW represent *tries showing PNW with flashy gang sign…fails…breaks all fingers*.  Fine, I’ll just throw up the West Coast symbol a la 2Pac and be fine with it.  Grey originally pinged me with the idea of heading up a league for the NFBC back in February.  When I said yes, I assumed we were talking ‘Norwegian Female Bikini Challenge’ and graciously accepted.  I mean they’re right next to Sweden; what could possibly go wrong?  Well, ALOT could go wrong, let me tell you.  Thankfully, I had Rudy‘s recap of his 2013 team and the wherewithal and the guile to forge my own path for my own team.  For those interested in only RCL style of play…well, first off that’s the link to sign up for one and second of all, make an about face.  This ain’t it.  No trades and no FA pickups in season.  Nope, you play against 15 other teams in 5×5 roto set up and draft 50 players a team.  That’s 750 players.  There’s only 30 teams and they only roster 25 players at the major league level at a time.  So basically, we’re drafting the entire MLB in one fell swoop.  That’s special.  And hard.  And especially hard.  But let’s not talk about bedroom things just yet.  Instead, let’s review my NFBC team for the 2015 Fantasy Baseball season…

First thing I’d like to do is provide you all with a synopsis breakdown of my draft pick by pick.  You can read that here on my google drive.  The main thing to realize is that this is a slow draft so spring training developments can have an affect on when and where a guy will go.  For example, Dillon Gee hung out on the board for the longest time.  Then Zack Wheeler went down to TJS and boom, he was drafted two picks later.  In other words, the value of players fluctuate in draft more so than they would in your standard draft.  A spring training HR here, a blurb about added MPH on a fastball there and boom, a guy can quickly slide up or down anyone’s board.  It’s about as accurate a reflection of fantasy baseball mirroring the stock market in real time as I’ve ever been able to witness and it’s been downright fascinating to be involved with.  But these are just my rumblings about how much I enjoyed my first go, let’s get to the meat and potatoes.  Here’s my 2015 NFBC team:

Pos Player Pos Player
C Russell Martin SP Max Scherzer
C Hank Conger SP Carlos Carrasco
1B Paul Goldschmidt SP Drew Hutchison
2B Rougned Odor SP Andrew Cashner
3B Nolan Arenado SP Scott Kazmir
SS Javier Baez SP Jason Hammel
MI Luis Valbuena SP Nathan Eovaldi
CI Carlos Santana RP David Robertson
OF Jason Heyward RP Jordan Walden
OF Alex Gordon
OF Gregory Polanco
OF Dexter Fowler
OF Travis Snider
UTIL Ryan Zimmerman
Bench Hitters Bench Pitchers
C Tuffy Gosewisch RP Kenley Jansen
1B,OF Marc Krauss SP R.A. Dickey
1B,3B Danny Valencia SP Jon Niese
2B Maicer Izturis SP Wade Miley
2B Taylor Featherston SP Rubby De La Rosa
2B Logan Forsythe SP Marco Gonzales
3B Juan Uribe SP Kyle Gibson
3B Luis Jimenez SP Nick Tropeano
3B Cory Spangenberg SP David Buchanan
SS Wilmer Flores SP Rafael Montero
SS Addison Russell
OF Ryan Rua
OF Grady Sizemore
OF Justin Ruggiano
OF Kyle Parker
OF Brandon Barnes
UTIL Billy Burns

Your hitting is thinner than my Grandpappy’s hairline; does this worry you?

Did ya even have to ask?  The success of my season is gonna hinge a lot on the health of my starting hitters and yes, it’s sad I say that knowing full well Ryan Zimmerman is a part of that equation.  In my defense, I did my best to choose the backups to injury-prone guys around the league to try and pad this possible issue out.  My combo of Brandon Barnes/Kyle Parker?  I’m clearly hoping/waiting for the CarGo injury to pave the way to some at-bats.  Marc Krauss?  Josh Hamilton already hurt and Albert Pujols is still an injury risk at this stage.  Luis Jimenez?  I mean, does Aramis Ramirez still really exist?  In league settings like this, you have to take chances so I took mine on my hitting.  Pray for me.

Javier Baez could make or break you and you took Wilmer Flores as his backup?

Let’s just say I never learned the safety dance.  I did take Addison Russell later as a major Baez hedge that hopefully doesn’t come to fruition but yeah, SS is easily my scariest situation right now.  It wasn’t intentional, I can promise you, but the price for MI was too damn high in this draft and I wasn’t willing to pay it.  Now hopefully I don’t have to pay the piper for my misdeeds and Baez lives up to his potential and Wilmer stays a good MI back up.

Any hitters of note that make you wanna do jazzhands on your bench?

Though my bench is thin, I did get some guys I wanted.  I really like Ryan Rua to eventually win the LF job in Texas and hit for power while I also like Billy Burns to turn into a big part of the A’s offense this year and become huge for me in the steals category.  I know, only two guys but some of the others like Cory Spangenberg and Justin Ruggiano aren’t far off from being productive if given PAs, in my opinion.  Overall, I didn’t take much sexy on the bench for hitters and there was a reason for it.

You have pitching for days on end; I assume that was your strategy (if you even had one)

Thanks for that insult and in fact it was my intention to not have the cupboard laid bare at the SP slot.  I took a lot of arms I wouldn’t normally sniff at in a regular league like Jon Niese, Kyle Gibson, and R.A. Dickey simply because they can be innings eaters based on recent performance.  Pitching depth is huge in the NFBC setting.  A TJS injury here, a week or so of strained forearm there and anyone without good depth at pitching could fall majorly behind in the race for counting stats for the season.  It’s an ugly hole to fall into and hopefully one I’ve managed to avoid by drafting 12 actual starters and four potential breakout ones to round my staff out.  It’s here I hope my NFBC team shines, anchored by Max Scherzer and solid arms behind him.