The 2012 ‘Battle of the Fantasy Gods’ Draft Results

I’m not putting that title up there to brag.  That’s really the name of the league.  But within a few rounds of bidding I tittered like a little school girl when Troy Tulowitzki went for $42 and Miguel Cabrera went for only $40 as proof that even Gods don’t do everything right.  I mean, have you seen what a platypus looks like?  But I digress, the draft didn’t go as perfectly as I wanted but I don’t feel bad about the end result.  With it being a 14 team league with no bench positions except for two DL spots, having a strong hitting crew was important; so important I broke a bit from the 180/80 strategy posted here.  I overspent by about $20 on hitting and left $3 on the table when it was done.  In hindsight, looking over my pitching staff and that remainder on the table, I wish I’d thrown a couple more bucks at Jordan Zimmermann who went for $12, but that’s what auction drafts are for: 20/20 thoughts about a time when you weren’t as strapped for cash as you perceived.  For the list of the entire draft results, click here.  Fooled!  Sorry, they didn’t make the league public but you should still click on that link for random awkwardness.  Now without further ado or foofaraw, here were the experts:

Razzball – ONC

FP911.com – Rich Wilson

FP911.com – Paul Greco

RotoRob – Tim McLeod

CBS Sports – Scott White

Fantasy Alarm – Ryan Hallam

Fantasy Baseball Sherpa – Bob S and Scott Swanay

Fantasy Sports Empires – Jeff Boggis

FantasyBaseball.com – Chris McDonnell

FB Tonight – RC Rizza and Todd Farino

FB365 – Charlie Saponara

RotoExperts.com – Dave Gawron

The Fantasy Man – Mike Kuchera

TPFS Baseball – Mike Myers

Full disclaimer here: I was a little nervous at first.  I mean, I was drafting to represent Razzball here.  I had a quick ‘palms sweaty, mom’s spaghetti’ moment as I had two spreadsheets on the right screen, draft on the left screen with my two hands on the keyboard and my third hand reaching for a slice of pizza.  Well, at least that’s what I must’ve been thinking when I ordered one.  Barely got a bite when nominations were posted and were alotting 15 seconds to bid.  But more to the ‘stop whining ONC, we don’t care just bring us the goods’ point: my offense is stacked.  Like a game of Jenga where the blocks haven’t been moved stacked.  With there being no bench, that’s important.  I can stream pitchers if I need it, but it’s harder to stream hitters.  I will probably move a bat in the near future for at least one solid arm to go with my core staff of Anibal Sanchez, Brandon Beachy, Shaun Marcum, and Ubaldo Jimenez but the trade will be on my terms.  I wanted guys like Zack Greinke and Madison Bumgarner but couldn’t justify their respective $25 and $20 pricetags.  The lone regret of my crew was the dreaded click slip – an embarassment on par with Tara Reid’s nip slip if she hadn’t been too coked out to notice – as I went to nominate Max Scherzer and wound up with Neftali Feliz for a $1.  I quickly fixed this, grabbing Henry Rodriguez for K’s and saves potential but did curse at the screen for a bit afterwards.  Thankfully, everyone had left work by that time or I might have been visiting HR the next day.

True to form from my catchers post, I treated my backstops like pole dancers, throwing singles at Josh Donaldson and Wilin Rosario at the end which oddly matched my keeper league catchers for the year.  I was saved from spending any money on Ryan Doumit when a mini-bidding war for his services came to pass, pushing his price up to $7 at the end of the draft.  I don’t have extremely high hopes for either of my guys but with how the rest of my offense came to be and how much Doumit went for – especially with the Justin Morneau as near full-time DH news – I don’t have to worry much about it.  My Evan Longoria steal left me feeling saucy.  So saucy, I actually dove right in on Hanley Ramirez when he came up and then shocked myself with a $17 Starlin Castro.  Auctions make for weird drafting patterns.  Its from SS I feel I have a good chance to grab myself a solid starter via trade if I need it.  I really wanted one of the top end first basemen but the prices were just too high to justify so I ended up with the savvy veteran – code word for ‘old as the hills’ – Paul Konerko for $17.  Not my most favorite pick, but even if he gets me 25 HRs and a .275 average, I don’t see a reason to complain.  With Eric Hosmer going for $30 and my Paul Goldschmidt and Mat Gamel pickups only costing me $11 in total, I’ve left myself plenty of trade space with Konerko as well.

Based on CBS projections and going off of this helpful Razzball post, we’re a little light in steals (148), almost in line with runs (1021), up on average (.274) & RBIs (1039) and flat out obliterating HRs (305) for a 14 team league.  As to be expected based off the draft, we’re behind on our pitching stats at the moment in wins (83), saves (66) and ERA (3.65) but are still far ahead in strikeouts (1226) and good in WHIP (1.24).  Considering there is no innings cap, we can stream for wins as needed and where appropriate.  As far as saves and steals well…SAGNOF suckas!  All and all, a bit off the beaten strategy path but still a team set to compete in a roto setting for 2012.