By Dalton Del Don
So here’s my team:
| Pos | Player | Price |
| C | Chris Iannetta | 12 |
| C | Ryan Doumit | 11 |
| 1B | Bobby Crosby | 1 |
| 2B | Chase Utley | 35 |
| 3B | Chipper Jones | 15 |
| SS | Orlando Cabrera | 14 |
| CI | Troy Glaus | 13 |
| MI | Placido Polanco | 16 |
| OF | Carlos Gonzalez | 24 |
| OF | Nyjer Morgan | 22 |
| OF | Scott Hairston | 7 |
| OF | Tony Gywnn Jr. | 3 |
| OF | Aaron Cunningham | 1 |
| U | Matt Gamel | 3 |
| P | Johan Santana | 22 |
| P | Roy Oswalt | 15 |
| P | Tim Hudson | 12 |
| P | Stephen Strasburg | 9 |
| P | Kenshin Kawakami | 3 |
| P | Brad Lidge | 11 |
| P | Jason Motte | 3 |
| P | Drew Storen | 4 |
| P | Peter Moylan | 1 |
| P | Pedro Martinez | 3 |
| B | Andrew Miller | R |
| B | Jason Giambi | R |
| B | Dan Meyer | R |
| B | Jeff Samardzija | R |
| B | Simon Castro | R |
| B | Jason Michaels | R |
My immediate reaction is I’m not all that happy with this team, but there’s not necessarily a correlation there (my first year in LABR two years ago I had no idea what I was doing, showed up late to the auction after a late night/morning of drinking and yet finished in 2nd place. Last year I really liked my team yet finished in the middle of the pack and nowhere close to being a contender). Before I dissect my team in greater detail, I want to make it clear just how deep this NL-only, 13-team league is. My team has holes, but this is a league that requires 26 starting catchers (there are only 16 of those in the National League), so realize all teams are going to have some problem areas.
In this type of format, I like to “spread the risk” and don’t think I had ever spent more than $25 on a single player my previous two years, yet I ended up with Chase Utley at $35. At age 31 and an injury risk, he was absolutely not a target of mine, but he came cheaper than Prince Fielder, David Wright and Tim Lincecum, and second base is pretty thin in the NL. Still, I wouldn’t have gone to $37, that’s for sure.
Afterward I felt like spending $30 on Orlando Cabrera and Placido Polanco was a panic move to fill my middle infield. I actually kind of like Polanco hitting second in a potent lineup while playing the less demanding defensive position in the easier league and a better hitter’s park, but that buy looks worse in hindsight, since Dan Uggla went for just $1 more and Rickie Weeks was the same price.
My two main targets entering the auction were Carlos Gonzalez and Nyjer Morgan, but neither came at a discount. In fact, I probably overpaid for both (Michael Bourn came at the same price as Morgan, which may seem bad in the market, but I actually prefer Morgan, who is less volatile in batting average).
I blew it with my first base situation. I was stuck with taking stabs late, and guys I had in mind like Logan Morrison went way higher than I anticipated. And I would have got Mike Jacobs cheap, but I didn’t realize he was only UTIL eligible. Dumb me. No I don’t expect Bobby Crosby to be of much value, but at least I should be able to move Troy Glaus to 1B soon, meaning I need to just come up with a CI, with Crosby, Mat Gamel and Jason Giambi as options.
Who knows how my three SD outfielders fare, but you’ve got to realize there’s a possibility of plenty of ABs here at a total of $11. One of my main strategies was if I came up short on offense, I felt like outfield (and corner infield) is the easiest position to fill through free agency during the season. A fourth outfielder is plenty valuable in this format.
As for my pitching, I don’t even necessarily like Johan Santana. Hopefully last year’s declining strikeout rate can be directly attributed to the bone chips removed during the offseason, and it’s worth noting he doesn’t turn 31 years old until Saturday, and Citi Field played as a pretty good pitcher’s park last season. I was kind of caught price enforcing here, and honestly, I’d prefer Tommy Hanson, Clayton Kershaw and even Cole Hamels to him in 2010, but we are talking about one of the most dominant pitchers of the past decade, and it’s also pretty safe to assume he was pitching with a damaged arm for a while in 2009; he had 86 strikeouts over 66 innings with a 1.77 ERA over the first two months last season. Still, I didn’t necessarily want him, but I thought he’d go for more.
Although they may not be a big help in Ks, I do like Roy Oswalt and Tim Hudson for a combined $27. But I wish I had gone with Ian Kennedy instead of Kenshin Kawakami. I do like going ugly with Brad Lidge. And if one of Drew Storen, Jason Motte, Dan Meyer, Peter Moylan or Jeff Samardzija picked up some saves this season, I wouldn’t be opposed to it. Andrew Miller will almost certainly continue to suck, but in this league, I thought he wasn’t a bad first pick in the reserve rounds. Vote for Pedro!
Ryan Doumit, Chipper Jones, Troy Glaus (and even Utley) are all big injury risks, which are far less ideal in this format, where there is no replacement value. But enough of my self-deprecating; I got Stephen Strasburg for $9! He was actually the first player called out in the auction, and I probably wouldn’t have gone to $11, but come on, this is “Baseball Jesus” we are talking about. It doesn’t matter he’s yet to throw a single pitch in the minor leagues, this is the best pitching prospect in the history of baseball, with a fastball he has decided to throw two-seam to produce more grounders. And his curve/slider is indefinable because no previous hurler has ever been able to throw a pitch with such velocity and break. Oh, and his four-seamer can reach 100 mph with ease, but that was before the adrenaline has kicked in at the MLB level, so 102-105 mph can’t be ruled out. In all honesty, I’ve noticed in industry leagues like this, the opposite of hype often occurs. Most don’t want to be the “sucker” who goes after the overly talked about prospect (and in reality, 99% of baseball players do need experience before realizing their potential), so for example, Matt Wieters went cheaper in AL LABR last year (which turned out to be the correct pricing) than the majority of other leagues. But we aren’t talking about mere mortals like the inferior Wieters in this case. Strasburg is going to make LeBron James look overhyped.
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