http://economics.about.com
I quite like my team as well. I think it's the opposite of yours.. I plan to win steals and runs most weeks, but OBP and SLG may give me some problems.

I'd feel better if I had another corner infielder. If anyone needs saves, I'd be willing to move Nen for a good 1B/3B player.

I still have a good feeling about Craig Biggio.

Mike

I must say, this was not one of my better drafts. The last spot is great in a 12 person league but never fun in a league this size. Thems the breaks though and I'll always play with the hand I was dealt like a trooper...insert any of your other favorite maxims here. The main reason for my poor draft (poor in my own mind but I'll still win some weeks) was likely the quality of the other owners. A 20 team league where the majority know what they are doing is really tough.

Brian Giles as the 1st pick of the 2nd round was a favorite pick of mine...I was pleased to get him in an OBP and SLG league (kick in a few steals). My selection of Mark Prior 61st overall was where I figured he would go but along with Josh Beckett 141st, Mike Hampton 261st and Shane Reynolds 461st, my starting staff has realistic potential to be anywhere from terrible to amazing. Pretty volatile.

Having been in Montreal for the past few days, I didn't spend as much time scouring the transactions wire and missed Kirk Saarloos and John Stephens getting sent down after being pretty highly thought of by their respective teams. Oh well.

I went steal crazy. Carlos Beltran (20th overall), Giles, Derek Lee (60th), Luis Castillo (101st), Jimmy Rollins (161st), Raul Mondesi (221st) and Willie Harris (360st) should fuel domination, or close to it, on the basepaths. With HR having been taken out as a category, it makes steals that much more valuable as a counting stat. Some of those guys are pretty bad at getting on base. Choosing Mark Bellhorn (121st) and Sean Casey (321st) should balance that out somewhat.

I was pleased to get a Coors-infused Charles Johnson (181st) as my catcher but again, a pretty risky pick.

Kent stole my bench in choosing Mark Loretta so I settled for Desi Relaford (380th).

I don't believe in Hank Blalock, or the general health of the Rangers, so Herbert Perry at 440th wasn't bad at all.

Looking at my roster, this team could do anything. I'll be relying on my favorite category...luck.

Good draft everyone.

That was a total blast. One of the reasons 10-team ESPN drafts begin to get dull after a while is that everyone ends up with a near-All-Star team. But when it's 12:30 am and you're trying to decide between Joe Roa and Tanyon Sturtze, that's just more fun than people.

The good: Jose Hernandez at SS in the 5th round, Al Leiter in round 7 (what was he still doing there?), Brad Wilkerson in the 8th, David Bell in the 14th and (best of all) John Patterson in the 15th.

The bad: Robbie Alomar in the 3rd round (way overreacted to the scarcity of middle infielders), Jose Valentin in the 7th (every year I get him, and ever year he jinxes me) and Alex Gonzalez in the 18th (just on general principles, he's a bad pick).

Watchful drafters may have noticed that I punted saves like Reggie Roby. But I have what may well be the finest collection of setup men in the western hemisphere:

- Octavio Dotel
- Mike Remlinger
- JC Romero
- Luis Vizcaino
- Jeff Tam
- Paul Shuey
- Dave Veres

However, seeing as how Joe Roa is my fourth starter, I'm willing to deal one of these guys for a starting pitcher, or possibly an outfielder.

I too went the middle reliever route with Ramiro Mendoza, Damaso Marte, Franklyn German and the new El Guapo, Ricardo Rincon (hey, all ALers...like I said, not a normal draft for me).

My thinking is that a middle reliever who can help in 3 cats (ERA, WHIP, K/BB) is better than a second or third tier closer who will get saves but nothing else (Antonio Alfonseca, Lance Carter, Mike MacDougal, Matt Anderson and Danys Baez were all taken).

http://economics.about.com
My only major mistake was taking Biggio in the 6th. I really like him, but I could have gotten him later. I have to admit, I panicked. There was a lot of bang-bang-bang picks that reduced my queue to Biggio and Arthur Rhodes. So I took Biggio. I wish I had taken Josh Phelps instead. Oh well.

I also think I took one too many pitchers and one too few batters.

On the bright side, I was happy to get Omar Vizquel in the 9th, and I was *really* happy to get Jeter in the 2nd. I liked getting Brian Schneider in the 17th but only because I'm a huge Expos fan.

I comitted at least two rookie mistakes, one general and one specific. In general, I didn't have a master plan for which stats to specialize in. You could say my team is well rounded, but more likely it's just not especially good at anything. More by lack of strategy than by design, I've pretty much punted steals and saves. Not that I can think of any other stats I'd rather punt.

Oh yes, the specific mistake: I burned my 11th round pick on Eric Milton. I can't imagine that I never heard he was injured, but apparently I managed to forget (absent-mindedness has stabbed me in the back in many ways over many years). At least I'll make good use of my DL spot. I subsequently loaded up on starting pitching depth, so I expect to do well in IP and W.

As a service to Blue Jay fans everywhere, I managed to keep Hinske & Wells together. If J.P. believes, I believe! While I'm not ready to put down $30 million, I'm hoping they're keepers for the next 5 years. The ironic idea of re-uniting Koch & Escobar occured to me, but apparently I wasn't the only one who thought Kelvim has some value in this league and he went just a few picks ahead of me. Maybe I can engineer a three-way deal involving Duckworth...

Spicol, I think you'll do well with Mondesi. Sure it's easy to slam him in the real world, but without the huge salary I think he's a definite asset. I didn't believe it when my spreadsheet told me so, but it insisted so I investigated further... as overrated as he has been, last year looks like an off year and I expect him to put up some good fantasy numbers. I would have picked him one or two rounds later if you hadn't.

Now that you guys have (presumably) already taken full advantage of any knowledge-based competitive edge vis-a-vis the other fantasy GMs...what, in your opinion, is the most definitive site for injury/roster updates?

(My auction is tomorrow.)

What, in your opinion, is the most definitive site for injury/roster updates?

To my mind, Rotowire is the best available. They went pay-per-view last year, but I find the $40 for a season's worth of updates is worth it. If you prefer the no-charge route, Rotoworld is fine, though it tends to bypass the role players and concentrate on the big guns on the roster. Useful if you're in a shallow league, not as useful in a deep one.

Very interesting draft. Thanks for providing a link, Kent, as it makes for interesting reading. Can someone please explain why Miguel Tejada was chosen with the sixth overall pick? That caused my eyebrows to shoot up in disbelief!

D'oh! I just went to Roto Times to get the URL and learned that Carl Pavano, my 20th-rounder, hurt his shoulder yesterday. Good player notes, updated often. Also a free utility to generate $ values based on your league's settings (and RT projections).

Jason (Garces) took five players off the top of my queue. The earlier ones were no big deal, but I had just taken Politte, and Hendrickson was next. That hurt; I own the big fella in a few other leagues. And I won't be taking my first opponent lightly; Scott took Preston Wilson out of my clutches, made a nice pre-emptive move on Josh Phelps, forcing me to settle for Huff, then did it again with Crede; it was disappointing to settle for Baez that round. Jason Davis was another heartbreaker; I waited too long.

Miguel Tejada was chosen with the sixth overall pick? That caused my eyebrows to shoot up in disbelief!
Oi! I was afraid I'd made a third major mistake!

Immediately pre-draft I got very nervous about my first pick, sure that I'd screw it up... My reasoning on Tejada went like this:

General knowledge states and my calculations confirmed (emphatically) that there is a lack of depth in middle infielders who can hit. Considering second base,

Soriano - one great year and one mediocre year under his belt, wanted a safer pick
Kent - old and not as productive as Tejada
Durham - see above
Vidro - got him in round 2

At shortstop, there's a significant gap between A-Rod and the other big 3.

A-Rod - not available
Jeter - on the decline
Garciaparra - felt more confident in Tejada, Tejada outranked him by my calculations

(Incidentally, Garciaparra was taken 10th - was that also questionable?)

For all other positions besides SP I felt that positional scarcity was a more important factor. Even for starting pitchers there was significantly more depth (including the fact that we were required to draft 4 SP), and I had some concerns with 4 of the top 5 starters that were taken (Johnson & Schlling old as dirt, Zito volatile, Halladay only great for 1.5 seasons so far)

That leaves Pedro, and in retrospect that's probably who I should have taken. Does anybody think I made a reasonable choice?

In the 10th round I picked up Nick Johnson who has good potential to jack my offense. My best low picks were Jay Gibbons (14th round), Dustin Hermanson (21st), and Sidney Ponson (24th). Hopefully these 4 help compensate if I screwed up by not taking a masher or an ace in the first round.

No slight intended. The last line of your preceding post sums up my thoughts on the matter--I like taking a real masher or an ace in round one; I believe in taking the best available player, period. As you say, Nick the Stick and some of your other later picks might well pick up the slack, if there is any to be picked up. Good luck.

http://www.rototimes.com/baseball1/index.html
I used rototimes (in the homepage link). Found it very helpful, but made a couple of mistakes due to haste.

I feel good about my team despite a few bad picks. I grabbed Brad Radke way too early, Nick Nuebauger (who is out for the year) in the 20th, and he cost me one of many good players that went late.

I know this happened to everyone, and it has to in a 20 team league, but there were 4 or 5 times that "sleeper" types got snatched up right before I was going to grab them- Coach took Larson, who was hidden on the OF list, and Geoff grabbed Cat (earleir than I thought he'd go), F-Lo, and Thurman, all of whom I planned on grabbing.

Overall, I think my team is pretty well-rounded. I probably drafted JD Drew too early- I keep banking on an injury-free continuation of his '01 season, but it probably ain't gonna happen this year either. I should've grabbed Chavez, Kent or Glaus instead of Green in round 2, but I like owning players I can root for, which works as often as it doesn't. The same thing happened with Alfonzo, which hurts looking over the spreadsheet and seeing all the OF power I could've
grabbed.

To even out some bad picks, I feel like I made some good ones in the late rounds. Overbay could post good numbers, Todd Jones might go to SD and take the closer's role, Mike DeJean AFIK will get save opps. once a month when the Brewers have a lead, Eishen went in round 21 despite a 1.34 ERA, and Burnett went late b/c of injury concerns, but with any luck he'll recover and be a 9th round steal. I snatched I. Rodriguez early b/c I hate getting stuck with guys like Greg Myers, and got Craig Wilson on reports that he'll qualify at C for when I-Rod goes down. Even though I'm not convinced he's for real, Dessens went late for a guy who pitched so well last year.

Big upside guys: D. Jimenez, Wigginton, Timo Perez (who is on fire and should be the LH part of a CF platoon), Drew, Burnett, Choi, Wilson, Brandon Phillips and Cliff Lee.

Big downside guys: Glavine (move to Shea should help, but loss of OF defense could hurt), Burnett (could be out for a while), Alfonzo goes from a bad hitting park to a worse one, which could depress an otherwise solid performance. Drew could totally suck again this year. Dessens might be real bad. Against my better judgement I took Woodward, even though I think he might collapse. Choi might get buried behind Karros, which will drive me crazy all season.

My roster is balanced- not a lot of huge risks, not a lot of offensive drains. I paid too much attention to position scarcity, passing on the big 1B and OFs, but wound up with a pretty solid infield as a result. I don't plan on sweeping any categories, but I don't plan on getting buried in any either...

The draft was great- I hate the 10 team leagues because trades are basically unnecessary with so much talent on the waiver wire. This is my first keeper league (even though I didn't draft like it is), and I'm really looking forward to it.

Coach, was Aurilla one of the picks I took from your queue?

I had a lot of fun but after the first three rounds of the draft I wanted to tear my hair out in frustration at many points. The following is a novel of my experience.

My fears of being near the middle of the order of such a deep draft were realized when I had to make very tough decisions at every turn. For whatever reason I've almost always been stuck near the end of drafts (usually late in the round) which makes for some very long waits but allows you to fill two slots at a time, letting you address your needs much better.

I chose 7th overall and my first tough decision came when BOTH Schilling and Martinez became available to me. After a few seconds of haphazard deliberation, I decided I liked Schilling's innings and pristine K/BB ratio over Martinez' superhuman potential in ERA. Strategy for the next two or three rounds with Schilling already chosen, choose the best all-around bats. Sheffield came up in the second (the equivalent of the 4th round of a 10 team league) and then Piazza fell to me in the third...I couldn't resist having the big bat at one of the two or three weakest positions. I was then to choose Bagwell to complete my troika of solid bats but he was taken before I picked again (a refrain that would be familiar for the rest of the draft). So I took Andru Jones who remains capable of helping in multiple categories and is (still) at an age where he could take a step forward.

So three relatively big bats in tow, it was time again to concentrate on pitching, particularly starters. Or so I thought. My next FIVE picks were bats...mainly because everytime I targeted one or two starters for my next pick they would be taken. Between my fourth and fifth picks FIVE starting pitchers were chosen and I was left scratching my head...I took one of only quality starters at second base left in Spivey. The results were disturbing again...NINE starters off the queue and a handful of closers. I choose Cameron's four category help. FIVE more starters go out the window including my big sleeper in Kevin Brown who I was supposed to take next. I had to settle for OPS-master Durazo at first instead.

And so it went on and on, the starters I wanted all got taken and I was forced to take a lot of bats. Not a terrible thing mind you. I was quite pleased with Durazo and Carlos Lee in the 8th and 9th rounds. But that didn't change the fact that in the 10th round I still hadn't chosen a second pitcher. So between the 10th and 15th rounds I chose two starters (Appier & Myers) and three closers (Jimenez, Villefuerte, and Looper). The exception being Ventura who fell all the way to the 13th...he's old but as a 3B he's definately way more than the 13th round of a 20 team league.

The fun ensued in scraping together the rest of my pitching staff from the dregs of the league...although Adam Eaton has the potential to be much better than a dreg after recovering from Tommy John surgery. Zach Day is looking solid for Montreal and my real wildcard was Sturtze in the 23rd round...his control is much improved this spring with a new delivery. Though I expect his ERA and WHIP might still be average, if he can cut the walks down and give me a lot of innings and a good K/BB rate, I'll be happy. I finished things off with Chad Fox who should give me some wins and saves in the Boston relief mix.

In case you haven't guess already, I'm in the market for one or two solid starting pitchers. I'm willing to trade an outfield bat or a third base bat.

I totally punted saves as well. My main "strategy" I guess was with swingmen. Pineiro, Johan Santana, Affeldt, and Juan Cruz all qualify as relievers (and to a lesser extent, Andy Ashby should as well), so in addition to Halladay, Vazquez, Lackey and Benson, I hope to corner the market on wins and IP. Catcher and middle infield was really tough if you left it to the mid-rounds. My toughest decision was Carlos Pena and Travis Hafner... the only time I used up the 90 seconds.

Hey, I'm no rat! It's funny, Soriano and Oswalt were the two guys that led me to victory in a league last year and I unintentionally winded up with them as my first two picks this time around. I'm confident Randy Winn will get more runs and RBI opportunities on a potent Seattle team. Kevin Millar is red-hot this spring, as are Darren Dreifort and Horacio Ramirez (who will be the fourth starter for Atlanta while Byrd is out). Joe Borchard and Victor Martinez are starting off in AAA, but I expect to see them before too long. I will need to find someone to fill a Utility spot in the meantime, and would consider trading Adam Kennedy.

Jason, just like Billie, I was drooling over Kevin Brown when you took him. I also was ready to grab Clement and Jones, and really wanted Osuna. I agree that Aurilia's going to have a big year -- not just from hitting in front of Bonds, but he was still hurting until about the All-Star break last year, so the power should come back. But I believed in loading up on 1B/DH types and letting C, 2B, SS and MI go to the very end, probably because I had very good luck last year with FA at those positions.

Regarding the Tejada pick, that's the opposite of my strategy. Owning one of the very best SS and/or 2B is a big advantage, as Jonny's data told him. The theory that 1B/OF are plentiful but the Tejadas and Vidros are scarce is valid. I liked Jordan's picks of Alomar, Hernandez and Valentin at 3, 5 and 6; it's the "middle class" at those positions (and C) I consider overvalued, with a few exceptions that were snapped up early.

I'm not wild about my draft-I'll chalk it up to inexperience. I'm happy about the middle infield and the pitching staff, but I'm fairly sure that my corner infielders and outfielders in particular are going to be just good enough to get me beat.

Garciaparra may indeed have been a reach at 10-in what would be a recurring theme throughout the evening, I panicked when the people immediately ahead of him flew off the board. Derek Lowe might also have been a high pick at 32. I think I settled down a little for the next few rounds, and I can't think of anything I would have done differently other than Dan Wilson, whose injury I forgot about. It was a lot of fun. Beware the Rats.

Coach, I do understand positional scarcity (I protected Jose Vidro in one league for just that reason). There are valid reasons for choosing top players at scarce positions early. My personal reaction was that 6 was just too early, and that such a high slot would have earned more had Jonny chosen Pedro Martinez, for example.

Before being too critical of anyone's picks, we have to remember that this is Head-to-Head. If there is any truth to the "anything can happen in a short series" adage, then consider that H2H is like playing a short series every week for 22 weeks.

Great draft. Lots of fun. I've never played in a league with more than 13 teams or in a head-to-head, so it was quite a challenge.

My rankings for our 6x6 system produced some interesting rankings relative to the typical 5x5. For example, I had Schilling ranked higher than Johnson thanks to Schilling's unreal K/BB ratio. Pitchers with very good control gained value, while high-strikeout pitchers with mediocre control (Wood, Nomo, Clement) lost value. Hence, I think DP's choice of Radke in the eighth round is defensible, and it's why I took Rick Reed in the same round. I also agree with Spicol about the value of good middle relievers versus "all hat no cattle" closers.

On the hitter's side, one-trick ponies like Tony Batista lost value as they were punished twice: for low average as well as low on-base percentage. Generally, walk-averse players like Glanville and Grissom lost value.

As for my draft, I'm satisfied overall, though I wasn't able to get any sleepers (or much value at all) near the end. The quality of middle infielders was pitiful in the last rounds. Marlon Anderson, anyone? First basemen disappeared faster than I expected. My relief pitching is good; my outfield is weak.

I liked getting Pujols and Kent to start off, and I think Crede in the 11th and Tino in the 18th will pay off. Several people questioned my choice of Phelps in the 6th round. I don't like that he's only a DH but he was the best player on my board when I picked him. Maybe my board is confused.

I really wanted Javier Vazquez (T'bird) and Hafner (Walrus), both of whom were taken immediately before my turn.

The seal has been broken on the trade flow. If the Rules Committee hasn't done so already, please check out the proposed trade within Yahoo and veto it if you think it's outrageously unfair.

What's the protocol with respect to trade offers? Should we discuss them here before they are processed? Should non-owners be allowed input? We all know they would provide it if we post trade talk. I'm thinking no, we shouldn't but don't really care...as long as we're consistent.

I think trade rumours are fine, although I'm not sure how interesting they'd be to people who aren't in the league. After all, there are always rumours swirling around any 'real' trade, even though those are at least technically subject to the same sorts of restrictions that ours are.

So, just what is the inaugural trade in the BB league? Curiosity may have killed the cat, but the suspense is killing me. ;)

Well as far as I know, the inaugural veto was Andruw Jones and Todd Hollandsworth for Shannon Stewart and Javier Vazquez.

Arrf, not veto, I meant "rejection" of course.

Moscow Rats traded Ray Durham and Orlando Hernandez to Red Mosquitos for Carlos Beltran and Willie Harris. There have been no objections, so it looks like it will become official at midnight Monday.

I don't think we'll have many objections. Most of us may have an opinion of which team "won" or "lost" a particular deal (this one's hard to analyze because of Beltran's minor injury and uncertainty about how El Duque will perform in his new situation) but we'll let anything go that doesn't seem collusive.

Depending on how (if?) we modify the keeper rule and what other features we decide to add for next year, there could be "lopsided" trades -- immediate help for a contender, prospects going the other way -- that still make sense.

And you thought you were just drafting your own team for your own interests... I present to you The MLB Preseason Power Rankings, as told by the collective wisdom of the BBFL owners.

Some explanation is in order. For each player taken in Round 1, I assigned his team 25 points (Jays score 25 for Roy Halladay). Each subsequent round was worth one less point. For example, the Jays score 17 + 17 = 34 points in Round 9 for their animals, the O-Dog and Cat. (As you can see from this example, the general bias of the owners in this league means that the Jays will do better than perhaps they should in this analysis.)

Here are the results, sorted by Total Score for each team. "#" indicates the number of players taken from a team, "Average Score" indicates the average number of points per player from that team.

        Total Average
Team  # Score Player
---------------------
NYY  21  351   16.7
Bos  21  324   15.4
Min  21  309   14.7
Sea  20  301   15.1
Ana  20  278   13.9
---------------------
Tor  20  270   13.5
Oak  20  266   13.3
Phi  18  259   14.4
CWS  19  252   13.3
SF   18  249   13.8
---------------------
LA   17  246   14.5
Atl  18  241   13.4
StL  16  238   14.9
Hou  17  238   14.0
ChC  19  237   12.5
---------------------
NYM  17  224   13.2
Fla  17  219   12.9
Ari  14  212   15.1
Cin  15  212   14.1
Mon  17  204   12.0
---------------------
Tex  16  188   11.8
Pit  15  185   12.3
Col  17  174   10.2
SD   15  172   11.5
Cle  16  145    9.1
---------------------
Bal  15  134    8.9
KC   11  117   10.6
Mil  11  107    9.7
TB   12   80    6.7
Det   7   68    9.7

While the results seem mostly reasonable in terms of the order of AL teams and the order of NL teams, the curious part is AL-NL split. The top 7 teams are all from the AL, then 12 of the next 13 are from the National. Are we predicting extreme parity in the NL?

One explanation that comes to mind is that most of us are more familiar with the AL and therefore drafted with an AL bias, but the numbers don't bear that out. We drafted 261 players (52.2%) from the NL, 239 from the AL. Given that 53.3% of MLB players play in the NL, this was close to an even split. Average points per player went 17.1 - 16.3 in favour of the AL, but this doesn't strike me as a big enough difference to explain the split either.

The bottom line is simply this: Detroit will be terrible.

Jonny German is a rookie owner in the BBFL. This story was not subject to the approval of the BBFL or its clubs.