2010 Scoresheet Fantasy Baseball Draft

Draft is over. I will provide some analysis once I get a chance to look over everything.

Farm Team Round--This is where you get your player pool from for the year. We have second pick, so we will take a look and see what we can get. We took the Washington Nationals. Who knows with this stuff, but we can probably get some good bullpen help.

33rd Round--Final round is starting and thank goodness. Our final pick is Jarrod Parker. He may be up sometime, but no one else would have helped, so why not take a chance on a young prospect.

32nd Round--I get a guy that I have targeted for over a month now, Esmailin Caridad. You heard it here first, setup man, maybe closer. Mark it down...or we won't ever hear from him again. Either way

31st Round--Holy cow I am about to fall asleep. I woke up a little with the Pedro Alvarez pick. He is in the minors, but he should be called up to play 1st or 3rd, so could be nice value.

30th Round--Big pick with, wait for it, Yorvit Torrealba. Yes, backup catcher for the Padres, but we have Hundley, so it is a necessary pick.

29th Round--Oscar Salazar was our choice. Could play outfield or on the left side of the infield, so why not.

28th Round--Took my chances on Fernado Nieve for the Mets. Could be the 5th starter and that is enough at this point.

27th Round--Another middle relief picther with Brian Bruney. It is time to turn back to hitters.

26th Round--Dad got his pick here with Houston SS Tommy Manzella. Could turn out to be a nice help as a backup infielder, we shall see. Well, the thing I feared with picking Manzella came true here and Mike Stanton came off the board. He is a year away, but still wanted to have him just in case it started at the end of this year.

Final Break

25th Round--This is no longer for the weak at heart. We are on hour five and players are moving off the board at a slow pace. The good news is you usually get the guys are target because everyone is filling their own needs. Going to the bullpen again this time around. Got a nice late innings guy with Dan Meyer of the Marlins. Should pitch in the 8th a lot for us. By the way, it is Arizona Fruit Punch time!

24th Round--We took a chance on Pittsburg's 5th starter Daniel McCutchen. Why not at this point, he has been named the fifth starter and if it works, great, if not, no big deal.

23rd Round--I got to get one of my sleepers, Gaby Sanchez. We have Fielder, so we won't need much backup, but he is still a good bat and can come in handy as a pinch hitter

22nd Round--I still have some names on my board that I really want to go after, but we are hurting at catcher, so we will probably go there. There are a few starting pitchers and some quaility relief innings, so we should be okay. We took Ronny Paulino. He is a backup catcher for the Marlins, but he plays about 45% of the time and puts up good production, so why not.

21st Round--Another no thrills pick with Sergio Romo, but he is solid out of the pen, so he can help. This is where the draft gets dual and the weak fall off and the strong survive. We finally take a catcher with Nick Hundley.

20th Round--Took Felipe Lopez to have the ultimate middle infield backup.

19th Round--It is still early and there are guys flying off the board I have never heard of. Middle relief, but still. Picked an old friend of our Jeff Francis. He is due for a strong comeback year.

18th Round--This is where you fill out your roster with enough versitale players as you can. Long inning relief, backup middle infielder. So, in that sprite, we took Felipe Lopez.

17th Round--Franklin Morales was our selection. I like him a lot and he is a power pitcher and left handed, so why not.

16th Round--Now it is kicking in. We take Jeremy Affeldt. Probably not going closer this year, or a good one, just doing to get a bunch of strong relief innings. The guy who made the trade earlier just picked his trade pick and got Ryan Madson. So Madson and Josh Johnson for Joey Votto. Nice trade.

Break time

15th Round--First pick of the 15th round cause me to say "who". It was Kris Medlen. He the 4th guy out of the bullpen for the Braves. I remember him now, but no where on my draft list. Well, this is my first, "fuck it" pick. Akinori Iwamura. Nothing special, just a .280 to .290 hitter. He won't hurt us, but not much help either.

14th Round--Well, I took Milledge. He is just too good to be sitting there this late. I don't know, but this could be a backup in case Heyward doesn't work out. The end of the 14th feature the first repick, which isn't too bad.

13th Round--Aaron Cook gets Round 13 off on the right foot, this is what it is about. Names like Cook, Chad Qualls, and Casey Blake is what the rounds are like now. And we continue to take pitchers with Randy Wells. He is better than people think and we are just stock piling them now. We are officially back on track with our plan. Poor Lastings Milledge. He is still on the board. The first guy not on my hitter list just got taken, Craig Counsel.

12th Round--It gets ugly quick now. There have been 132 players taken and it is hard to find picks now. We took Brad Penny. Now before you start, he is a solid pitcher, and we aren't so much drafting him as we are Dave Duncan. Kyle Blanks just got taken by the other owner other than us to know of such values. The kid is going to be a stud, and it could be this year

11th Round--We took Everth Cabrera, SS from SD. I like him a lot because he is young and has speed. Brandon Webb finally got taken, which is a good upside, especially for an owner who doesn't have many other injury risks. Nyjer Morgan just came of the board at an incredible value. He hits for average and has speed, real nice value.

Tenth--Now is when it gets a little crazy. And so you know, with a little help, I'm about to go a little crazy. Carlos Beltran in the 10th good be a huge steal. Mind you the owner also has Reyes, Hudson, Oswalt. Could be a long season, or a great season. This is the second pick that will either win it for us or lose it, Stephen Strasburg. We will have to wait, but it will be worth the wait. In and NL Only to get Heyward in the 6th and Strasburg in the 10th is real good value, if they are who we think they are, to modify a Dennis Green quote. The first player off my third page of hitters just got taken, Kosuke Fukudome

Ninth Round--Starting to dig in now. Everyone is realy quite and trying to figure out who to fill out their teams. This is where we are at our best and pick up the guys that cause us to win. Young and steady pitching again this round with J.A. Happ. I like this pick at this time a lot. Jeff Francoeur just got picked, holy cow, it is starting up again.

Eigth Round--Back from break and probably looking to take a pitcher. I went old and steady last pick, so here comes young and wild. And right now cue, we take Bud Norris, young, wild, and huge upside. Chipper Jones finally comes off the board. If you understand what you are getting with him, you will be happy. Michael Bourn just got picked, another good value pick.

First Break--Pretty happy with my team, but we have some holes to fill.

Seventh Round--We got Ted Lilly, blah, but steady. I don't usually like those types of pitchers, but we need some steady innings at this point.

Sixth Round--Stephen Drew was the first pick in the 6th round, which is just great. The same owner that got Hudson just drafted Reyes, if it works it will work, if not, it will be a disaster. Another utility guy off the board, Skip Schumaker. They are valuable, but not that valuable. Well, I was the one who reached Heyward, but the 6th round isn't a reach in an NL Only League. Remember when I talked about winning or losing a draft with one decision, we just made ours.

Fifth Round--We were able to get Carlos Gonzalez, which makes me really happy and I can calm down now. Not many surprises in the fifth, course how could there be with the first four rounds, this is where most of those guys should be being drafted. Tim Hudson got picked up, which could turn out to be the pick of the draft. I was hoping he came back around, but oh well.

Forth Round--Thank goodness the 3rd is over, maybe now some sanity can be established. Not really, Uggla and Cantu were picked with the 1st and 3rd picks in the round. We just got Yovani Gallardo, which I never thought would be there. This isn't going to plan, but is looking good. Ubaldo Jimenez was selected and it breaks my heart. The new guy just pulled a little move. He drafted two first baseman and then traded away his pick and got Josh Johnson and a 16th rounder. A nice little move.

Third Round--A little reach for Kershaw with the 3rd pick in the 3rd round, considering Wainwright, Gallardo, Carpenter are all still on the board, though in fairness, some people are much higher on him than I am. Holy cow, Geovany Soto just came off the board in the 3rd round, at best he is a 7th round pick, at best. We got Jayson Werth and I am thrilled, because he shouldn't have been there. I am always surprised, that I am surprised. Martin Prado just came off the board, great pick but too early. Utility infielders are real important in this league, but better players could have been had and then scooped up Prado a couple rounds later. Russell Martin is now gone, my goodness.

Second Round--We were able to get Sandoval, as I wanted, so that is good. No big surprises. As I typed that, Manny Ramirez was selected about 4 rounds too early. The first big reach just happened. Well shit, someone else was just as high on Andre Ethier as I was and he is off the board, time to regroup. Only three pitchers off the board in the first two rounds, that is a surprise.

9:20--Pujols goes first, to no one's surprise. Ramirez second, again no surprise. Utley goes next, a little early on some draft boards, but not for this league, he's probably the best player. Braun predictably goes next. And our first surprise, Brian McCann goes much too early with the fifth pick. Halladay goes sixth and I am glad to see he is the first pitcher off the board, because he should be. That leaves Prince Fielder to fall to us, I love Matt Kemp, but power is a must and something to build a team around. Tulowitski goes eighth and Lincecum follows, both solid picks, though a little early for Tulo. Ryan Howard is a surprise 10th, only because the owner always drafts pitchers first. My man Matt Kemp gets off the board and my heart sinks, great pick at 11. Rounding out the first round is Matt Holliday...I'm not going to do every round, just recaps from now on.

9:15--Getting started with introduction and then the picks will start coming in.

8:10--It’s ten after eight and the draft starts at 9:00. I have already showed up at the draft site, probably about 30 minutes before anyone else will show up. That’s just my style. Well, I am pretty sure that this is my 19th year of playing in this league. That would have put us as starting when I was 11. Needless to say, I know more today than I did back then. It took us 15 years to win our first Championship, but since then we have won two and should have had a third. We won last year in dominating fashion, so it is going to be tough to repeat that feat, but we will find out today how close we can come to that goal.
For you fantasy baseball players out there, let me tell you a little about the league. We are in a 12 team, NL Sim League. We play on a system called Scoresheet Baseball. There will be 33 rounds today and a farm team chosen for each team to use as their player pool. On the day of the All Star game, there will be a supplemental draft where another 6 players will be chosen. There is a 40 man roster limit.
Anyway, there are 45 minutes until the first pick of the draft and several questions that will be answered that happen every year. For example,
Who will be the first to reach for a player reached for? It will be Jason Heyward and I predict it will be in the 3rd or 4th Round. This isn’t a keeper league, so the owner who takes him that early can have him.
Who will be the first owner to draft someone and I say “what”? This happens every year. Look, I have a certain drafting style and others have their own, but very early in the draft, before the 3rd Round, someone will make a pick that just baffles me.
Who will be the first owner to draft someone and I say “who”? This also happens regularly. I don’t consider myself to be the best drafter, or have endless knowledge of NL rosters, but very few people can be more prepared for a draft than me, yet there will still be players drafted fairly early, who I have to look up on my computer to see who they are.
At what point in the draft is Dad going to tap me on the shoulder and point to a name on his piece of paper as the person we should draft, the person, Rickie Weeks? I have said this before, but on Dad’s tomb, we are going to write “Here lies Dennis Sutton…He believed in Rickie Weeks.” It is without doubt that about the sixth round Dad is going to start pointing to him and I will tell him we will look at him next round and then say a little prayer that someone else drafts him. Remind me to thank that guy at the break.
What Round will be the round that determines whether you win or lose the league? There is a round in every league that determines how your team is shaped, especially in a Sim League like ours where there aren’t waivers and many trades. Most likely it is around the 7th or 8th Round where we will have to determine the direction of our team. Being able to identify that pick is what determines whether your team will win or lose.
When will Dad say, “but he is the #5 starters for the Marlins”? Earlier than you think.
Alright, I am going to prepare a little more. I will be blogging throughout the draft, so keep coming back to see how it is going…later