Fantasy baseball team!

[dr4b]

I'm not sure it's appropriate to post this on Marinerds so instead I'm posting it here for the sake of the one or two of you who will be amused by it. We just had our live draft for the Phillies Blog All-Star fantasy baseball league, and here's who I came away with. I was seriously going for my All-Cute team, and I was picking 10th out of 14:


The 2006 Red Swinglines

1. 3B David Wright, NYM (Chase Utley was my #1 pick but unsurprisingly got taken at #6 overall, so I made sure to take David Wright first round. Nick would be proud of me)
2. OF Jason Bay, PIT (I had to choose between him and Ichiro)
3. C Joe Mauer, MIN (Victor Martinez went three slots before him, so I figured I better take him)
4. SP Felix Hernandez, SEA (surprisingly still available)
5. CL Joe Nathan, MIN (people started taking closers at this point... my all-cute Burrell, Sizemore, Pettitte, and Lidge were all gone, anyway)
6. SP Barry Zito, OAK (this is the only early choice I regret. I should have taken Noah Lowry. He's a west-coast lefty who's just as cute as zito)
7. 2B Tadahito Iguchi, CHW (Tom Goyne took Danny Haren and John Lackey at this point, so rather than go for more pitchers I decided to revisit the rest of the roster. I had to decide between Iguchi and the Orioles' Brian Roberts, and decided to go with Iguchi.)
8. SP Zach Duke, PIT (but, I didn't want to miss out on this one.)
9. OF Brian Giles, SDP (I needed outfielders, and he seems a good bet to repeat his OBP, though he slightly goes against my All-Cute standards)
10. OF Randy Winn, SFG (I like Randy Winn. Also, Jeff Francoeur got taken right after I took Giles... I shoulda just taken Frenchy in the first place)
11. SS Bobby Crosby, OAK (I needed an SS and all the good ones were gone. I figured I'd get laughed at if I took Marco Scutaro or David Eckstein. Crosby's cute too)
12. 1B Sean Casey, PIT (Again, Pirates bias, plus I think Casey is seriously cute, and Mark Teixeira was my first choice for first baseman... but he went #4 overall)
13. RP Ryan Madson, PHI (I said "wheeeee", chose Madson, and immeditely got a big virtual middle finger from Tom G, who is the leader of the "Madson for Rotation" campaign. I joked that I took Madson just to spite him -- though astute observers will note Madson was a big winner on my All-Cute list. He's so dreamy.)
14. 1B/OF Nick Swisher, OAK (Again, Tom G was like "Dammit! Swisher! Sniped!")
15. RP Scot Shields, ANA (I can't believe he was still available. I watched one guy take Joe Crede, who was on my list but he was so low on Yahoo rankings that I figured I'd get him next round. So I decided immediately that Shields was my man that round. One of the guys before me timed out so it took forever, but fortunately nobody else took Shields! Yay! He's like the hidden weapon of the AL West, I swear.)
16. OF Mark Kotsay, OAK (by this point I'm not sure what the hell I was going for, but I think Kotsay's pretty cute)
17. SP Aaron Heilman, NYM (Nick would be proud of me for this choice too)
18. C Brian Schneider, WSH (Can you believe that NOBODY took him by then? Jeez!)
19. SP Jamie Moyer, SEA (Again, I was just grabbing pitchers, heh)
20. OF Lew Ford, MIN (I debated between Lew Ford and Eric Byrnes at this point. I dunno.)

Comments

[gomezticator.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Felix is a lottery pick (Top 10) in most Mariner fan league drafts. Elsewhere, he's greeted with the same skepticism as Gustavo Chacin, which isn't really fair.

Madson was my top choice among middle relievers (even though he's in the hunt for a rotation slot), but I waited one round too long.

Lew Ford looks like Lou Gehrig, hits like him sometimes, and it's a shame the Twins can't get him into the lineup more. LEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!! The Mariners should trade for him (heh, especially now; how's that wrist feeling, Jeremy?). Even though Eric Byrnes has a better shot at starting, I would've taken Lew too.

I'm also surprised Schneider lasted til round 19 of your draft, with how thin catcher is this year. What, do people think Fat Lazy Catcher's gonna take the job from him?

Given you were aiming for cute ballplayers, Deanna, I'm rather impressed with the haul you made out with in your draft. That's a quality set of players. I ended up with Omar Vizquel and Tony Batista in my starting infield (yes, SS was thin this year, with several teams unsure who their starter will be; I'm looking at YOU, Minnesota).

[dr4b]

It should be pretty telling that nobody took Mike Lieberthal on a Phillies blogger fantasy league.

Brian McCann also didn't get taken, though.

Our rosters were 1 each of the position players, 1 util, 3 SP, 2 RP, 3 other pitchers, and 3 bench beyond, for a total of 20. I don't know if that's normal.

Hum, come to think of it I didn't even think of taking George Sherrill, which may be dumb since he's got a good WHIP. Oh well. I may have too many starting pitchers and not enough closers/etc and may lose out on saves and all that. I don't really entirely understand how fantasy baseball works, to be honest. I did say a while back that there were a lot of really good baseball players who I also think are really cute, though!

[gomezticator.livejournal.com]

George Sherrill, as much as we all like him, could struggle this year (granted, he's never had a good spring, ever). I at first didn't feel good about my good faith trade with Goose where I traded him Sherrill for Julio Mateo, but as I see Sherrill fight to get guys out, I become more and more glad I made that trade.

Yeah, we Mariners are huge homers when it comes to fantasy baseball. I think it comes in part from having the best bloggers and most well-researched fans in baseball :P

[nickjong.livejournal.com]

Yay! I am proud of you, Deanna. :o)

I think David Wright is cute, too.

[dr4b]

Now the question is, how good will Aaron Heilman be this year? Is he going to be a starting pitcher or not? I mean, we *know* David Wright is awesome.

[nickjong.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm a fan of Heilman, but his role on the staff is currently the biggest story for the Mets media now that Pedro's toe seems okay and Matsui is out of the way for now. Heilman really wants to start, but the management seems ambivalent. The Mets traded away Jae Seo and Kris Benson to shore up the bullpen, but both of those trades yielded pitchers who are less effective against lefties; Heilman's changeup neutralizes lefties to some extent. Heilman has made his case to start by allowing only two earned runs in 14 spring-training innings, and some of the lefties in the camp have finally begun to pitch well enough to take the lefty-specialist role. But rookie Brian Bannister has allowed only two earned runs in 19 innings, and there's talk that the Mets want to load the bullpen, given the questionable durability of the starting rotation. Heilman's best chance to make the rotation may be for the management to conclude that promoting Bannister now leaves the organization with essentially no depth in starting pitching.

Honestly, it seems likely that if Heilman had never voiced an opinion, he'd be in the bullpen already. During the offseason a number of clubs asked about him, apparently seeing him as the next Scot Shields. (The Mets had zero interest in trading him.) Personally, I think he should get the rotation spot. Either he'll succeed, or he'll figure out that two good pitches isn't enough for a starter and he'll learn to be content to be an awesome reliever.

[nppyinzer.livejournal.com]

As I said after my own fantasy draft, I don't understand the fascination with David Wright. Is he really that much better (looks aside) than Morgan Ensberg, Aramis Ramirez, or Scott Rolen?

I'm surprised Duke was around in the eighth. When I play with "well-researched" fans, they almost always reach for prospects and rookies early and leave Matt Morris, Gustavo Chacin, and Bronson Arroyo for me in three of the last four rounds.

Outstanding pickup on Shields; he's one of my faves, and I was sad to not get him this year. I took Duschcherer instead, and already kind of regret it.

Zito over Lowry is a good choice in my book; the Giants are going to be awful, and that'll hurt Lowry's numbers.

[dr4b]

I think Morgan Ensberg's 36 home runs last year were a fluke.

I'd expect pretty good all-around stats out of Wright this year -- our league is taking R,HR,RBI,SB,OPS, all of which I expect to be decent for him.

Plus, I really like David Wright as a player all-around -- fielding, hitting, character, looks, he has it all. If part of the point of the whole fantasy league is to have various players you're cheering for to do well regardless of their real team, he's a guy I was going to be cheering for anyway. Rolen and Ramirez are both traitors (to the Phillies and Pirates respectively), plus Ramirez has lousy OBP/SB and who knows how Rolen will be after coming back from his injury last year.

Duke was rated fairly low by Yahoo, so I guess nobody bothered pushing him up in their queues. Either that or nobody's paying attention to the Pirates rotation except the guy who snagged Oliver Perez and Paul Maholm. I dunno. I was surprised Felix Hernandez was around in the 4th round, even.

Duschschscherererer was in my list too, because he's cute and a good pitcher, but I'd rather have Shields over him too. I'm a huge Scot Shields fan both for his playing and for who he is -- he's probably one of the nicest baseball players in the world, though you wouldn't know it unless you observed him over several pre-games.

We're still counting K, ERA, WHIP, etc, though, and I expect Lowry to do pretty well in those categories. But I do really like Barry Zito and he'll probably be pretty good too. It wasn't a bad choice so much as I just sort of like Noah Lowry, and since I knew I intended to snag Zach Duke, I wasn't going to get Lowry having Felix and Zito already.

[nickjong.livejournal.com]

Whoops, it looks like Heilman will start the season in the pen. http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060328&content_id=1365375&vkey=spt2006news&fext=.jsp&c_id=nym