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After yet another frustrating season in 2002, I decided my draft strategy needed further refinement. My big change was to the way I prepared for the draft: Rather than setting up a spreadsheet of values from the previous season and drafting in an ad-hoc way off of that, I created such a spreadsheet as an initial pass, and then created a completely different document listing every player (in theory) which I would consider drafting, ordering them, and breaking them up by my own picks. So, for instance, I had the 12th overall pick, so I listed 12 players I'd be willing to take with my first pick. Then there were 13 picks before my second-round pick, so I listed another 13 players for my second-round pick, and so forth. In drawing up the list I again biased my picks towards younger players (if someone else wanted to spend a 4th-round pick on Roger Clemens or Roberto Alomar, they were welcome to do so). I also resolved to pick a shortstop and a catcher early in the draft to avoid having big sucking holes at those two positions. So after all that, I ended up with a team that looked like this:
I came out of the draft feeling pretty good: My offense looked very solid, and the risks mostly were low-round picks with a high upside. I've made a pretty conscious decision to not spend decent picks on relief pitching, since cobbling together a decent staff is not too hard if you pay attention. My pitching seemed a little shaky, with Zito and a bunch of solid but unspectacular guys. Sabathia and Wells had the potential to be more, but the others were simply solid journeymen. Incidentally, league founder Keith stepped down from day-to-day running the league, and Subrata, Syd and I took over managing the league, with myself as commissioner. Syd hosted the draft at his lovely east bay house.
Results: I hung in around first place through April, and then slipped to around 4th and stayed in that vicinity for the rest of the season. Around August I realized my chance to finish 3rd or higher was tough because my pitching was just not very solid (I should have spent my 3rd and 5th round picks on pitching rather than on Damon and Nady), so I traded Brian Lawrence and a draft pick for Bobby Abreu and cemented my run for the best offense prize, which I won going away. Delgado, Pujols, Kendall, Giles and Renteria all stepped up their performance from their recent seasons and I just had a powerhouse offense all around, even with injuries to Sweeney and Mench. I other words, at its core, my team consisted oy me keepers, and my 1st, 2nd, 4th and 8th round picks. The other guys were marginal contributors. If nothing else, that's a testament to how important your early picks are. Subrata swung some big trades during the season to turn his decent team into a true contender, but he only finished one spot ahead of me, and I think hurt his draft position for 2004 considerably. The final standings:
TW Mgr Team Total Diff Win% W-L GB Nxt PB AVG 1 Keith Prior Offenses 7128 1575 .642 100 56 0 - 0 297 2 Chris Retirement Home 6769 1216 .609 95- 61 5 359 359 282 3 Phil 6377 824 .574 89- 66 11 392 751 266 4 Subrata Can They Play? 6372 819 .574 89- 66 11 5 756 266 5 MichR Great White Whales 6321 768 .569 89- 67 11 51 807 263 6 John 5968 415 .537 84- 72 16 353 1160 249 7 Tim Operation Enduring Medi 5793 240 .522 81- 74 19 175 1335 241 8 MichJ Who's on First? 5766 213 .519 81- 75 19 27 1362 240 9 Steve 5293 -260 .477 74- 81 26 473 1835 220 10 MichB Operation Shutdown 5207 -346 .469 73- 83 27 86 1921 216 11 Scott 5094 -459 .459 71- 84 29 113 2034 212 12 Kevin 5025 -528 .452 70- 85 30 69 2103 209 13 Roger PokSox 4775 -778 .430 67- 89 33 250 2353 198 14 Eric Kevin Phillip's Bong 4629 -924 .417 65- 91 35 146 2499 192 15 Syd Veteran Leadership 4199 -1354 .378 59- 97 41 430 2929 174 16 Sean The 90% Half Mentals 4136 -1417 .372 58- 98 42 63 2992 172I lucked into a claim of budding Marlins star Miguel Cabrera when he came up, and also claimed Indians outfielder Jody Gerut who'd been left on the free agent heap despite a solid season; both are probable keepers - with Abreu - for 2004. I also claimed Morgan Ensberg to replace the terribly disappointing Beltre, and he might also be worth keeping. All-in-all I think my new approach worked very well, although it underscores my team's essential weakness in not having either a keepable shortstop or catcher going forward. Moreover, Keith inherited Nate's team (the pair ran it jointly in 2003 and Nate decided to bail after the season), which is a true powerhouse featuring Alex Rodriguez, Vladimir Guerrero, Adam Dunn, Jorge Posada, Hank Blalock, Josh Beckett and Mark Prior, which will make him very difficult to beat in the next few years. Still, with Pujols, Cabrera, Reyes (being moved to 2B by the Mets after signing Kaz Matsui from Japan) and Giles as my core, I think I'm positioned to be competitive for a while. Especially if I continue to refine my draft ability.
hits since 27 March 2004.
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