On Saturday, I completed my first fantasy baseball draft of the year. It’s my first time competing in a dynasty league (also known as a keeper league), where you simply get to keep a certain amount of players from the previous year. Of course there’s other things that made this draft exciting, such as the fact there’s a 100-million dollar salary cap and also a minor-league draft. If that wasn’t enough to get me pumped, it was also marked my first attempt at drafting in a 20-team league.
Entering the draft, here’s what my team looked like. I won’t go into details about contract years, mainly because I don’t want to bore or scare anyone.
Catcher: Alex Avila (Detroit)
1st Base: Nick Swisher (Cleveland)
1st Base: Gaby Sanchez (Miami)
2nd Base: Ian Kinsler (Texas)
Shortstop: Tyler Pastornicky (Atlanta)
3rd Base: Chase Headley (San Diego)
Centerfield: Peter Bourjos (Anaheim)
Outfield: J.D. Martinez
Outfield: Wil Myers
Starting pitcher: Adam Wainwright (St. Louis)
Starting pitcher: Max Scherzer (Detroit)
Starting pitcher: Cole Hamels (Philadelphia)
Starting pitching: Cory Luebke (San Diego)
Entering the draft, I had some quite obvious holes to fill. I knew I couldn’t leave Pastornicky at shortstop or Bourjos in centerfield, mainly because I have no idea how much playing time they’re going to get. Another big question mark is Luebke, who is currently rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, and will likely be out until at least June. Throw in the fact that I had no closers, and you can see why I had some work left to do.
When I began to prepare for the draft, I seen that I had 38.21 million dollars left to spend on eight roster spots. This is important, because you always want to make sure you’re spending your money wisely. Although I could have gone crazy and drafted Mark Teixeira, he would costed me 23.13 million, leaving me just 15 million for the seven players I had remaining.
I decided that with the sixth overall pick, I was either going to take Adam LaRoche or Erick Aybar. Although both players were on the high end in terms of cost (10 million for LaRoche vs 8.75 million for Aybar), I liked what both players provided. Aybar would slot in well as my shortstop, and I can’t help but think that hitting after Mike Trout and before Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton will do anything increase his offensive numbers this year. LaRoche was arguably the best offensive player in the draft, and getting him would simply mean that Swisher would be placed in my outfield.
As it was, LaRoche was off the board, and I selected Aybar. Since I finally got my shortstop, it changed a little bit of my strategy. I knew that I was going to take the best centerfielder available in the 2nd round, but I no longer needed to draft a lower-grade shortstop in the third round (ie. Marco Scutaro or Jhonny Peralta). Much to my surprise, Jon Jay was still available in the second round when it got back to me. I was willing to draft Shane Victorino or Jay, but preferred Jay due to the fact he would only cost me 500 thousand, rather than the 13 million it would be for Victorino.
Now that I had all of my position players pretty much set, I wanted to get the best closer available. Although I’m not usually an advocate of drafting players who are almost old enough to be my father, I decided to take Mariano Rivera. The 10-million dollar salary does scare me a bit, but it’s hard to argue against his consistency throughout the years.
I had two picks left in fourth round and was hoping to select both an outfielder and starting pitcher with low cost, but a relatively high upside. Seeing as I only had 19 million dollars left to spend, I needed to have a few cost-efficient picks. I was able to first draft Anthony Bass (who got his first real chance as a starting pitcher in 2012), and Andy Dirks (projected to be starting left fielder for Detroit).
Since I managed to get two low-salaried picks in the fourth round, I had some options for my two picks in the fifth round. I went back and forth about the possibility of drafting an expensive player such as Lance Berkman (since I was one of the few teams that could still afford him), but instead I opted for another closer. Jonathan Papelbon and Rafael Soriano were both still on the board, but I decided to go with Papelbon, who has more of a track record.
For my second pick of the round, I wanted to get myself a backup catcher. Due to financial constraints, I really didn’t want to spend any more than two-million dollars, which left me with few options. I opted for Gerald Laird, once again uniting him with Alex Avila. I’ve always thought Laird was underrated offensively (not saying he’s great, I promise you that), so I think he was worth the million and a half dollars.
For my final pick, I wanted to go with a backup second baseman, since I had no one else with eligibility there. My options were basically Ramon Santiago and Ryan Theriot. The pro side for Santiago is that he will playing about 50 games with the Tigers. Theriot still hasn’t signed a contract at this point, but I still think he has a lot more upside than Santiago.
When the dust settled, this is how my team now looks. Although I still have to figure out who I’m going to add contract years to (not to mention how many years for those players), I’m still pretty pleased with how it turned out.
My completed roster after the draft