The Hardball Times Fantasy

Team Singman’s Yahoo F&F League roster

by Paul Singman
March 17, 2009

As some of you may know, I was lucky enough to be invited into Yahoo!'s Family and Friends League, which held its draft last Thursday. The league includes 14 teams, a little over half of which are managed by Yahoo experts and the rest by various other experts like myself.

Overall, I am pleased with my team but what matters more is what you think. For the full results of the draft click here, and below is my team reproduced.

Having performed well in the WBC, hopefully Votto will continue his good play this season (Icon/SMI)

+-----+-------------------+-------+
| POS | PLAYER            | Round |
+-----+-------------------+-------+
| C   | Chris Iannetta    |   8   |
| 1B  | James Loney       |  10   |
| 2B  | Dustin Pedroia    |   2   |
| 3B  | Kevin Youkilis    |   3   |
| SS  | Jimmy Rollins     |   1   |
| CI  | Joey Votto        |   6   |
| MI  | JJ Hardy          |   5   |
| OF  | Alex Rios         |   4   |
| OF  | Adam Lind         |  14   |
| OF  | Fred Lewis        |  16   |
| OF  | Denard Span       |  17   |
| UT  | Adam Dunn         |   7   |
| UT  | Skip Schumaker    |  23   |
+-----+-------------------+-------+
| P   | Adam Wainwright   |   9   |
| P   | Matt Garza        |  11   |
| P   | Brandon Morrow    |  12   |
| P   | Jesse Litsch      |  19   |
| P   | Jason Motte       |  20   |
| P   | Frank Francisco   |  13   |
| P   | Chris Perez       |  15   |
| P   | Chris Ray         |  21   |
| P   | Justin Duchscherer|  22   |
+-----+-------------------+-------+
| BN  | Dallas McPherson  |  18   |
| BN  | Gio Gonzalez      |  24   |
| BN  | Emmanuel Burriss  |  25   |
+-----+-------------------+-------+

As you can see, I focused on getting hitting early and more specifically filling the scarcer hitting positions. I like the way this strategy worked, as I was still able to fill my outfield and first base positions with solid players in the middle-to-late rounds.

It is not that I drafted to trade—meaning I selected a player with the intention of trading him—but I focused on my hitting on purpose because I guarantee more teams are more uncomfortable with their current hitting state than their pitching state. Many teams will be looking to bolster their lineups—especially up the middle—and with Rollins, Hardy, and Pedroia (and Burriss to back them up) I should be able to complete a favorable trade in which I give one of those players and receive pitching help or maybe an outfield upgrade. I have already started discussions with several teams interested in making a similar deal.

Another way to put it: The price to acquire pitchers during the draft was higher than what I expect it will cost to trade for a pitcher after the draft. Why, then, would I spend high draft picks on pitchers? You could also look at it the other way; that hitters after the draft will be harder to acquire.

As for my rotation, well, I admit it is on the weak side. But as it is, I probably would hold my own in ERA, WHIP, and Saves if I use my starters sparingly, which I can do since there is no minimum innings pitched limit. Even so, there is a good chance I improve my rotation by Opening Day through trades.

A few other thoughts from the draft:

{exp:list_maker}In one catcher leagues, there is no reason to take a catcher early. I took Chris Iannetta in the eighth round, which is good value based on my projection for him and his usual ADP, but when catchers like Mike Napoli and AJ Pierzynski get taken in the 20th round it becomes worth it to wait.
Skip Schumaker, who I selected in the 23rd round, does not have second base eligibility yet, but the Cardinals are trying to convert him into a second baseman. If this experiment is successful, he will be a solid second baseman and therefore is worth a flier in most leagues.
A lot of the players on my team are competing in the World Baseball Classic. We will see if any of them get off to unusually cold (or hot) starts and hopefully none of them get hurt between now and the end of the Classic, unlike Matt Lindstrom.
{/exp:list_maker}
That's it for now. Be sure to check Yahoo in the upcoming days for an article with all of the participants' thoughts on the draft.

Paul has been managing fantasy baseball teams for many seasons and writing for THT Fantasy over the past three years. He is currently a student at UPenn welcomes readers' thoughts at his email here or in the comments below.

<< Return to Article