It's that wonderful time of the season again, the one where casual, more-than-casual and obsessive sports fans prepare to become general manager for the afternoon and run their own franchise.
I prepared for my draft by charting the periphreals of each of the players I wanted to draft -- contact rates, strikeout-to-walk ration, homers per at-bat and strikeouts per at-bal for each of the hitters.
For the pitchers, I tracked HR/9 innings, K to BB and K per nine.
So, as far as our three categories — casual, more-than-casual and obsessive -- I imagine you can guess which side of the line I fall on, especially considering the grand prize is only $600.
I play in a competitive league with a rather unique set of rules.
After each season, teams keep three players for the next year. They can also keep one rookie after each season, which they can then keep for three seasons. The maximum number of keepers is 6. Do you follow?
We can also do silly things like trade draft picks, attach stipulations to trades, etc. It feels just like real life.
We use the traditional 10 categories (R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG for hitters, W, SV, K, ERA and WHIP for batters).
I've played for four years and my luck has slowly been dwindling. I won the regular-season and playoffs the first two years. Two years ago, I just won the playoffs. Last year, I fell off the map and missed the playoffs.
I think most of that is because I've begun working at nights, which has kept me from being the first to grab new closers and injury-replacements. But part of it is also that the rest of the league has caught up to how to abuse the rules of my league. If there is a low IP limit, then middle relivers can be crucial. They'll rack up more strikeouts per inning than most starters and leave you with better ERA and WHIPs.
Each league has certain rules that can be taken advantage of. Mine, for instance, doesn't have a maximum number of transactions and has daily rosters. For three years I built strong offenses, picked up lots of closers from the scrap heap and then picked up enough spot starters to win the wins and strikeout categories each week.
With more of the league resorting to that style of play, the number of offensive players kept this offseason was huge. I, meanwhile, don't have any stud offensive players, which has left me trying to adjust my style again. I've tried to build a balanced offense and a good pitching staff. I'm hoping the pitching staff can win three categories each week, and the offense can take 2 or 3.
In a head-to-head league, that means at least a .500 record. And with ERA as our playoff tiebreaker, I hope my strong pitching will win for me at the end.
I'll be blogging a lot about baseball over the course of the winter, but to start out I'll list my roster. On opening day, I'll try to post the whole league. I'll go through what I'm thinking, why I'm doing certain things, and take you through a season with an obsessive manager.
I've already made two moves -- dropping promising rookie Chris Young for the more reliable Brad Hawpe (Young's batting average will be low, he'll hit low in the D-Backs' order and I have Pelfrey -- a first-round pick who will win the Mets' No. 5 starting job -- as my early rookie hope. Hawpe, meanwhile, will bat behind Garrett Atkins, Todd Helton and Matt Holiday in Colorado.)
Yesterday's big move was trading my keeper, reliever Francisco Rodriguez, for starter Brandon Webb. I felt I needed to strengthen my rotation and I was too heavy with talented relivers. Webb give me more balance, and when (I guess if, but in my mind, when) Broxton takes the L.A. job, then I've still got four good closing options. I gave up the best closer in the game, but I got back a stud starter.
Here's the roster.
Catcher -- Jorge Posada
1B -- Justin Morneau (rookie keeper)
2B -- Brian Roberts
SS -- Mike Young
3B -- Aramis Ramirez (keeper)
OF -- Bobby Abreu (keeper)
OF -- Rocco Baldelli
OF -- Aubrey Huff
UT -- Brad Hawpe
Bench -- Julio Lugo
Bench -- Morgan Ensberg
SP -- Brandon Webb (*replacing keeper Francisco Rodriguez)
SP -- Brett Myers
SP -- Matt Cain
SP -- Chris Capuano
SP -- Javier Vazquez
SP -- John Patterson
SP -- Mike Pelfrey
RP -- Huston Street (rookie)
RP -- Chris Ray (rookie)
RP -- Eric Gagne
RP -- Jonathan Broxton