Fantasy Baseball Draft #1

Tonight is the first fantasy draft of the year for me (out of three). I am beyond psyched, and I'll be posting my roster here as I draft (8th pick overall).

1. Sammy Sosa
2. Mike Mussina
3. Robb Nen
4. Rich Aurilia
5. Jason Kendall
6. Eric Chavez
7. Joe Mays
8. Eric Milton
9. Adam Dunn
10. John Olerud
11. Antonio Alfonseca
12. Hank Blalock
13. Ray Durham
14. Jim Edmonds
15. Paul Konerko
16. Joel Pineiro
17. Roy Halladay
18. Cory Lidle
19. Carlos Lee
20. Alex Gonzalez (ChC)
21. Carlos Pena
22. A.J. Pierzynski
23. Michael Young
24. Mark Quinn
25. Torii Hunter
26. Luke Prokopec

Quick, quick draft; only took 1:45 to draft 26 rounds. I've never played in a Yahoo! league before, and their live draft applet is far inferior to ESPN's. Simply put, though, it's free, and I picked it up after a few rounds anyway.

This league is a strange one, as there are fewer active slots than I am used to: 1 each for C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, IF, and Util, 3 OF slots, 2 SP slots, 2 RP slots, and 3 general purpose P slots. This translates to 9(!) bench slots.

Pitching: I'm pretty pleased with how my draft strategy worked out here. I have two closers, one guaranteed front-line starter, two up-and-coming starters in Mays and Milton, and four potentially solid contributors in Pineiro, Halladay, Lidle and Prokopec. I was actually one pick away from cornering the market on Twins starters (Radke). I may be a little SP heavy at this point, but there are teams that are extremely deficient at that position, so I should be able to trade for another closer if I need one.

Offense: Wow. I haven't ever felt this strongly about an offense I've put together. Centered around Thammy Thotha, I have what looks to be a good mix of Proven Veterans and Promising Young Players. Two early nominees for ROY honors in Dunn and Blalock make this lineup potentially very dangerous.

March 27, 2002 - 08:06 PM

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