Saturday, March 21, 2015

Another Fantasy Baseball Draft - 2015

Our semi-competitive, largely-fun ESPN fantasy baseball league held it's draft today.  Here are my thoughts and comments.  We use a "points" scoring system, not the traditional "rotisserie 5x5".  And we don't count strikeouts against a hitter.  So many of the rankings differ from the typical rotisserie league.  Walks count, power counts a lot, and steals are of less import than in rotisserie.  We allow up to 12 starts a week, with only 5 moves per week, so you cannot stream all, or even many, of your starts.  Starting pitching is at a high premium and it shows in our draft.  Most teams have 8-9 starters.  Note that two teams, the Springfield Wonderbolts and Displaced Braves Fan, were not present and on "autodraft".

So much as I had a strategy, it was to get several "great" pitchers, pick other starters as "high risk, high reward", trust to my skills to pick up other surprise breakout pitchers off the waiver wire, and get a lot of sluggers.  Wait on catcher, relievers, and, in general, on middle infield, with exceptions noted below.

I was pick #4.  The good news is that I was sure to get one of Kershaw, Goldi, or Stanton, all of whom are great.  As it turned out, I had a choice between Goldi and Kershaw.  Did consider the hitter, but I wanted to get a top tier pitcher before they all went, so picked Kershaw with no regrets. Felix and Scherzer went in round 1, and, before my round 2 pick, Strasburg, Sale, MadBum and Price were gone.  So I now really liked my initial pick.

Round #2 (2.17, meaning round 2, pick 17) I briefly considered Donaldson, but I had some later round 3B in mind, so went with Abreu, who is probably the better choice anyway.  Donaldson went shortly thereafter, at 2.19.

3.24.  Wanted another elite starter, so picked Johnny Cueto.  No regrets here.

4.37   I was unpleasantly surprised when Papas Grandes picked Carlos Santana at 4.32.  He draws a lot of walks and is highly ranked in our scoring.  Was thinking of picking him up in round 5 or so.  Instead, went with another huge power guy, George Springer.  Remember that Ks do not count against our hitters!

5.44  I normally wait on closers in our league.  As do many others.  Except Braves Fan likes a strategy of maxing up on closers.  Noticed here that his last 3 picks were Kimbrel, Chapman, and Holland.  O.K. by me.  I thought long and hard on this pick.  I wanted Brian Dozier, a power hitting 2B, but I liked Cole Hamels significantly better than any of the remaining pitchers.  Especially considering that he may get traded to a better team sometime.  So picked Hamels.  Since six of the next seven picks were also starters, I felt good about my pick, even when Papas Grandes picked Dozier at 6.52.  Apparently he and I were thinking alike in our planning.  I can only hope that I picked some of his guys in other rounds.  :-)

6.57   Considered Gio Gonzalez, who I like, and also Cespedes.  Went with Corey Dickerson.  Great young hitter who plays half his games at Coors field.  Gio went at 6.60 and Cespedes at 7.61

7.64  Here there were a lot of thoughts.  With Carlos Santana gone, considered Nolan Arenado as my 3B.  Also Fielder, Votto.  But wanted another great young pitcher, so took Jacob deGrom.  Now that I had 4 really nice pitchers I planned to fill in hitters for the next few rounds.

Rounds 8 and 9

At 8.72 Papas Grandes picks another of "my guys", Jorge Soler.  I was thinking more like round 10 for him, so maybe he was early.  At 8.77 I picked Mark Trumbo, who is much more valuable in points than in real life, and at 9.84 Kole Calhoun.  Bopping outfielders.

Rounds 10,11

Mookie Betts went at 10.96, just ahead of me.  But I was targeting Ryan Zimmerman, who will soon qualify at 1B,3B and OF, and hopefully will be healthy on a good offensive team.  Also considered Chris Davis, who went immediately afterwards.  Didn't know his suspension was for only 1 game, bad knowledge on my part.  Round 11.104 I reached a bit for Ben Zobrist.  He draws walks which scores well in points, gives me a ton of flexibility, and he's an Athletic.  This may have been too early, but I was a little spooked that Papas was picking "my guys" and wanted to beat him to the punch.  At 11.109 Papas picked Kris Bryant, who was also on my "coming soon" list.

Rounds 12, 13, 14, 15

Hunter Pence went right in front of me, and that manager said it was a mistake.  Considered Garrett Richards but stayed with my "pick a hitter" strategy and picked bopper Marcel Ozuna at 12.117.  Feeling pretty good about my hitting, 13.124 was Andrew Cashner, with his high upside, over the "safer" Anibal Sanchez.  At round 14 I noticed that many top relievers were gone, and it's nice to have at least one solid closer.  So picked Cishek at 14.137 over Brandon Moss, who went two later.  15.144 was Jose Quintana.

Rounds 16, 17

Several remaining "solid" relievers went just ahead of me, such as Britton, Miller, Benoit, and Perkins.  My middle infield was largely vapor, so hard to argue with Chase Utley at 16.157.  17.164 was Oswaldo Arcia.  Also considered Phil Hughes and Drew Storen, who went later in round 17.

Rounds 18,19,20

Here I did some reaching for definitely high-risk, high-reward players.  18.177 was Jose Fernandez.  Could be a big mistake.  My thinking: we have a 4-week playoff in September to decide league champion.  If I can make the playoffs, and Fernandez is back and strong, this is a great pickup.  Otherwise, not so much.  19.184 picked Pedro Alvarez.  Was also considering Billy Butler but GreenAndGold beat me to him.  20.197 Michael Pineda.  Again, high-risk, high-reward.  Perhaps should have picked Scott Kazmir who went two picks later.

Rounds 21 - 28

21.204 was Jedd Gyorko.  Flesh out the infield with a guy with potential and an improved lineup.  22.217 Danny Salazar, more high-upside.  By round 23 Ken Giles, one of my sleepers, was gone.  23.224 picked Tyler Clippard, a close call over Wade Davis.  O.K. now I have two decent closers.  At round 24, I had been considering R.A. Dickey, but he went right before me.  Maybe should have picked a pitcher here, but at 24.237 Yasmani Grandal was still available and he seemed significantly better than any other catcher.  Plus he is eligible at 1B.  If one Yasmani is good, two must be better, so 25.244 went to Yasmany Tomas.  A ton of relievers went right after him, so if I lose due to a lousy bullpen, which is unlikely in our league, one of these Yasmanis was a bad pick.  :-)   26.257 wanted John Lackey, but he was gone, so picked Drew Hutchinson, another young starter with good reviews.  27.264 considered Steve Pearce (who went right thereafter) but picked Mike Napoli.  28.277 Brandon Crawford.

Interesting picks by others:

28.274  Addison Russel.  We aren't a keeper league, but if a Cub infielder gets hurt soon this could be a very smart move.

23.222, 23.225  Michael Morse and Mark Teixeira.  I predict that one of these will look good at the end of the year, and one will look bad.  :-)

19.186 John Jaso.  He draws walks and is a good pick in our scoring system.

20.191 Matt Wieters.  Depends on his health.










Tuesday, March 10, 2015

New York Times Asks Court to Stack the Deck

In today's New York Times, the Editorial Board asks the conservative judges in Wisconsin to recuse themselves from ruling on the legality of an investigation of Scott Walker's campaign.  Why?  Because they received large donations from conservative groups in support of their elections.

Now, I agree that allowing large contributions to judge's campaigns is a terrible idea and presents a possible conflict of interest.  But how about the liberal Wisconsin judges?  How many of them received large donations from liberal interest groups, especially the public employee unions?  Since most of the controversy around and opposition to Governor Walker stems from his beat down of the public employee unions, a reasonable, non-biased observer would note that judges who received large donations from those unions also face a conflict of interest and should recuse themselves.

But, as we know, the New York Times Editorial Board is neither reasonable not unbiased.  They are a wholly owned subsidiary of the mainstream Democratic Party.

If both sides recused themselves "honorably", there may be no judge left to rule on the case.  Which is why it isn't going to happen.  The Times knows that, and is just making political theatre.  When the Republican House stupidly repeals Obamacare for the gazillionth time, the Times rightly points out that they are wasting time and money and partaking of pointless theatre.  But so is the Times, just for the other side.