Day 63: Starting Fresh

Just a little heads up, I'm going to get this badboy rolling again here in the next few days so be prepared to have your minds...wait for it....BLOWN!

In the meantime here's a .gif of Ozzie Guillen imitating Big Papi bunting...and apparently "rolling" down the bases in a wheelchair??

Either way it's phenomenal!

http://i550.photobucket.com/albums/ii426/kensai808/Memories%20Of%20Kevin%20Malone/OzzieGuillenDavidOrtizWheels.gif

Day 61: Are Batters Better? (Fantasy Baseball Discussion Part 3)

Yesterday I discussed one possible outcome of going pitcher heavy early in your fantasy baseball draft, today will be focused on the contrary. Hitters will be taken early and often, and hopefully by the end of today's discussion a clear picture of the differences in the two strategies will be brought to light.

I assumed the same size draft and same drafting position as yesterday (6th spot in a 10 team draft).

1st Rd, 6th Pick (6th overall) - Matt Kemp (OF)
2nd Rd, 5th Pick (15th overall) - David Wright (3B)
3rd Rd, 6th Pick (26th overall)- Jimmy Rollins (SS)
4th Rd, (35th overall) - Brandon Phillips (2B)
5th Rd, (46th overall) - Justin Morneau (1B)
6th Rd, (55th overall) - Curtis Granderson (OF)
7th Rd, (66th overall) - Jon Lester (SP)
8th Rd, (75th overall) - Josh Beckett (SP)
9th Rd, (86th overall) - Cole Hamels (SP)
10th Rd, (95th overall) - Matt Cain (SP)
11th Rd, (106th overall) - Jair Jurrjens (SP)
12th Rd, (115th overall) - Carlos Gonzalez (OF)
13th Rd, (126th overall) - Francisco Cordero (CP)
14th Rd, (135th overall) - Kurt Suzuki (C)
15th Rd, (146th overall) - Alex Rios (OF)
16th Rd, (155th overall) - Ben Sheets (SP)
17th Rd, (166th overall) - David Aardsma (CP)
18th Rd, (175th overall) - Vladimir Guerrero (UTIL)
19th Rd, (186th overall) - Ted Lilly (SP)
20th Rd, (195th overall) - Trevor Hoffman (CP)
21st Rd, (206th overall) - David Price (SP)
22nd Rd, (215th overall) - J.A. Happ (SP)
23rd Rd, (226th overall) - Phil Hughes (SP)

As mentioned already, this is the heavy bats approach, so here I tried to avoid taking a pitcher for as long as possible while taking as many big bats as possible. I opted for Matt Kemp in the first round because of his potential. He spent most of the season last year being juggled around by Joe Torre batting in all spots in the lineup before finally winding up batting 3-4 for the last third of the season. If he managed to put up monster numbers while being jerked around like that, I am 100% positive that he can put up even bigger numbers while batting cleanup the entire season.

Given that I opted for an OF in the first round the next few rounds I planned on making up for it by drafting prime bats at "rare" positions; hence, David Wright, Jimmy Rollins and Brandon Phillips. So four rounds into the draft and I've got four guys capable of 25/25 or better and a nearly completed infield. Round 5 gave me my obligatory Twins player, Justin Morneau, who's got good power and he's an RBI machine while posting a good batting average.

After taking another 25/25 candidate in Granderson to fill another spot in the outfield I felt that it might be best to start drafting a pitcher. SO here we are 6 rounds into the draft and I have every position filled except for my catcher; I had originally thought about a catcher here but there wasn't anyone I was willing to take this early so it was finally time to start building my rotation. At this point every other team had already drafted a pitcher so I was definitely playing catchup, but with my next five picks I drafted SP/SP/SP/SP/SP. Now the nucleus of my rotation consisted of Lester/Beckett/Hamels/Cain/Jurrjens, considering I hadn't drafted a pitcher till the sixth round I'm pretty content with that as an initial base rotation.

I was now in a point where I no longer felt like I had to draft another pitcher, so I grabbed Carlos Gonzalez (a player I'm really big on coming into this year). I've got Gonzalez slated for a 25/25 type year with big AVG/R/RBI numbers. Why take him so late then? Because he's going to be available, so why would you overpay if you don't have to? The next few rounds I spent filling out roster needs, with CoCo (I've already established my feeling on him), Suzuki (very solid catcher for the 14th round), Alex Rios (a potential "bounce back" candidate on a better offensive team). So by the 15th round my roster was completed (save for an additional closer) and I got to spend the next 7 rounds drafting bench players (which consisted primarily of starting pitching).

I snaked a couple more closers later in the draft (Hoffman and Aardsma) mostly because neither of them are sure things, but they both could be big contributors to SV/ERA/WHIP, assuming years even similar to last year. The last few rounds were spent drafting the same sort of players I ended up drafting in the "Pitcher Heavy" draft yesterday.

All in all I'm pretty damn happy with the results of this draft. My primary aces would probably end up being Lester and Cain, since Beckett's likely due for a nasty case of the "blisters" again this year, but the supporting rotation I ended up being able to snag is pretty good. I was even able to snag a few high upside type pitchers in Sheets, Hughes, and Happ while drafting the ever sturdy but incredibly boring Ted Lilly.

I'll save my decision on which of these two drafts I actually prefer in my next Fantasy Baseball discussion, but I hope that this at least sparks some interest for those of you that are (possibly) reading this...although I'm guessing the ratio of people who started reading this versus the numbers of people who FINISHED reading this is pretty high...Oh well.

So, are Batters Better?

Day 51: Freedom Isn't Free Agency

While perusing ESPN.com's MLB site yesterday I came across Jerry Crasnik's list of free agents that are still available and was blown away. For being this late in the season, I'm not sure I remember such a high quality class of Free Agents available (Twins I'm looking in your general direction). The free agency pool is usually filled with injured players with questionable work ethic; however, this year there's some real gems out there. So what I decided to do was to put together a team made entirely of free agents, replace the San Diego Padres with my Free Agency All-stars team and simulate last years playoffs (assuming the Padres won the wild card rather than the Rockies) on WhatIfSports.com--yeah I took it to another level there I know.

Here's my roster (its a little wacky but just go with it, also they made me fill out 25 players so some SP's are being forced into RP roles, but I think they'll be fine with it...):

C - Yorvit Torrealba

1B - Jim Thome

2B - Orlando Hudson

3B - Miguel Tejada

SS - Orlando Cabrera

OF - Johnny Damon

OF - Rick Ankiel

OF - Jermaine Dye

BN - Xavier Nady

BN - Rod Barajas

BN - Russell Branyan

BN - Joe Crede

BN - Jim Edmonds (You knew that was coming)

BN - Marcus Thames

BN - Rocco Baldelli

(It doesn't let you specify particular roles in the free version of WhatIfSports.com so all of my pitchers can be used for RPs as it turns out)

SP - Ben Sheets

SP - Erik Bedard

SP - Noah Lowry

SP - Braden Looper

SP - Jon Garland

RP - Pedro Martinez

RP - Todd Wellemeyer

RP - Jose Contreras

RP - John Smoltz

RP - Chien-Ming Wang

Alright so remember my Free Agency Allstars are replacing the Rockies in the 2009 Playoffs, meaning they get start off with a 5 game series against the Phillies. Also I'll be posting the Box Scores and everything, so prepare yourself for fake baseball immersion!

The full box scores are seen below, followed by the Top-Level scoring box scores. If you click on the figures below it will bring up a window allowing you to see the details (however if you middle-click then it'll open them in a new window, either that or right-click and tell it to open figure in new window...either way).

Well, somehow the scrap heap team has made it passed (what were) the defending World Series Champions, and the eventual representative of the NL in the REAL World Series (not the MTV Show). Some highlights from the 4-game series win for the Free Agency Allstars include:

• Orlando Cabrera hitting .563 through the series
• A blown save by Brad Lidge off of a pinch hit 3 Run HR by Russell Branyan in the bottom of the 9th in game 4 to seal the deal
• Edmonds with 2-run Pinch Hit HR...stud

So after advancing past the Phillies, the Free Agency Allstars then met up with the Dodgers in the NLDS for what turned out to be maybe the most epic NLDS in the history of baseball. The results are shown below. The same formatting is used here, the full box scores are shown first followed by the top-level box scores. Again, if you click on the pictures they'll open a separate window for you to see further details.

After falling behind early in the series (0-2) to the Dodgers, thanks in large part to a couple ridiculous pitching performances by the Dodgers top 2 starters (Billingsley and Kershaw), the Free Agency Allstars won Game 3 (at home) and were poised to win Game 4 until Erik Bedard (the default Closer for the Allstars) had a meltdown in the 9th and issued 4 walks in a single inning en route to giving up both the go ahead and insurance runs. The series then went back to Los Angeles for a must win Game 5.

The Free Agency Allstars were well on their way to victory behind a brilliant performance by Noah Lowry (7.0 IP, 4 H, 0 ER) when in the bottom of the 9th, Erik Bedard--fresh off recent struggles in Game 4--comes in and gets the first out. Shortly after that, the wheels fell off. Bedard then gave up back-to-back walks followed by a double to Manny Ramirez that cut the lead to one. After having seen enough of that, Scott Roland called in the righty Wang who promptly gave up the next run making it a tie ballgame in the bottom of the 9th. However, a two run HR in the 11th by Johnny Damon eventually put the game out of reach (although not for lack of trying as LA scored another run in the bottom of the 11th) and brought the series back to 3-2.

Back in San Diego, Game 6 was a pitching duel for the ages. Jon Garland put up what is perhaps his best game of his career going 8.0 innings of 2-hit, shutout ball before Erik Bedard got in the game and went two innings to snag the win. Los Angeles' had a 4-pitcher shutout going before giving up a double by Russell Branyan and a single by Johnny Damon in the bottom of the 10th, evening the series up at 3-3.

So here we are Game 7 of the NLCS with a team constructed solely of scrap heap players. Scott Roland opted to go with Ben Sheets on short rest for Game 7 and Los Angeles did the same going with Billingsley on 3 days rest. Things got off to a quick start for the Allstars, with Jim Thome hitting a 3-run shot along with Nady going Yard Sale (solo) in the top of the 3rd Inning, the Allstars were up 4-0 on Billingsley with 6 innings to play--you might say they were pretty optimistic at this point...Then came the bottom of the 4th. The short rest apparently caught up with Sheets, he walked 5 consecutive batters and gave up a 2-run single to Billingsley and another run on a double to Casey Blake. So after four innings everything was squared away at 4-4.

In the top of the 10th inning the Free Agency Allstars looked to have the game going their way when they loaded the bases with no outs, only Ramon Trancoso got a strikeout and an incredibly clutch double-play by Rafael Furcal to end the inning. As it would turn out, that double play was the nail in coffin for the All Stars as the bottom of the 11th approached and Jose Contreras (out of the bullpen) was their last "best" hope and it played out like so:

So the Dodgers advance to the World Series on a play at home in which ManRam slides under the tag to score the winning run. Pretty damn sweet if you ask me.

So what's the point of all of this? Twofold I guess...the first point is to show that though this is just a simulation and doesn't necessarily reflect reality or anything pertaining to reality, it does show that you can built a competitive team fairly easily and without too much payroll (the total payroll of this squad was $64 Million). The other point is to show that the Free Agent pool is ripe with talent and that teams looking for, oh, I donno, a Third basemen or perhaps some extra pitching talent or some outfielders, or pretty much anything, have a lot to choose from and if the Twins are smart (which sometimes I question) they would begin to become serious players in this pool. What actually happens remains to be seen...Is it baseball season yet?