I was reading a few of the sites I read on a daily basis on Thursday, and found the results for an NL-Only Mock Draft over at Rotowire's free site Rotosynthesis. Rotosynthesis is similar to Fake Teams as they cover the four major fantasy sports. They have some excellent fantasy writers over at Rotosynthesis/Rotowire including Dalton Del Don, Jeff Erickson and Bernie Pleskoff, among others.

The mock draft was a 10-team draft with 14 hitters and 9 pitchers. After a quick review of the draft, I came to one conclusion: the National League is very weak in hitting talent. Wow.

Here is how the first round went:

1. Joey Votto, CIN

2. Matt Kemp, LAD

3. Roy Halladay, PHI

4. Justin Upton, ARI

5. Troy Tulowitzki, COL

6. Carlos Gonzalez, COL

7. Hanley Ramirez, MIA

8. Clayton Kershaw, LAD

9. Jose Reyes, MIA

10. Mike Stanton, MIA

This might be the first time I have ever seen 3 teams dominate the first round of an NL-Only league draft.

• The Marlins had 3 players taken in the first round-Reyes, Ramirez and Stanton
• The Rockies had 2 players taken in the first round-Tulowitzki and Gonzalez
• The Dodgers had 2 players taken-Kemp and Kershaw
• 5 players were from the NL West, the weakest division in the National League
• 4 players were from the NL East, the toughest division in the National League
• 5 players were from teams who lost 89 or more games in 2011

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Bret Sayre wrote a post yesterday articulating the case against Ian Kennedy as a Top 25 fantasy pitcher, and he did a fine job. I appreciate being challenged to reevaluate my positions (Yep, I'm the guy who ranked Kennedy 14th), so I went digging. I'll go ahead and spoil the ending: while I admit that 14 may have been a little aggressive, I don't think that it was by too much. On Bret's post, 4% of poll respondents said they thought Kennedy belonged in the Top 15, while only an additional 21% would put him in the next 5. Clearly the majority of you disagree with me, which is why I'm writing this post. I'm convinced that Kennedy can and will be a top 20 fantasy pitcher in 2012.

Ian Kennedy had a breakout 2011, his age 26 season, as he went 21-4 with a 2.88 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, and 194 strikeouts in 222 innings pitched (8.03 K/9). Those numbers were good enough for 7th among starting pitchers on both ESPN's Player Rater and FanGraphs' Fantasy Value Above Replacement (FVARz) rankings. It's generally accepted (read: I haven't seen anybody suggest otherwise) that Kennedy's performance numbers were not supported by his skill numbers in 2011. We can reasonably expect the fantasy stats to regress, especially the win total. Twenty-one wins is an unreasonable predication for anybody, really. While some regression is expected, I'm not ready to jump up and project a huge fall from grace.

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Every year, fantasy writers publish position rankings and offer their opinions on players who could outperform their draft round and other players who will underperform their draft round. Basically, offering their bounce back and bust candidates to help fantasy owners figure out who they should and should not draft on draft day.

And every year, at least one or two first round picks will bust. Last season, Hanley Ramirez was a big first round bust. So was Red Sox outfielder Carl Crawford. I am sure it will happen again this year. One of the 10-12 first round picks will be a bust, or underperform for one reason or another.

On Tuesday, Dan Szymborski from ESPN and Baseball Think Factory, penned a piece discussing some players who will outperformed projections last season and who he thinks will struggle to put up the same numbers in 2012. His list includes 3 sure-fire first round picks, and I will post just his projections for these three players, and ask that you tell me who you would prefer in 2012. Deal?

Player A: 16 HRs, 62 RBI, 40 SBs, .290-.345-.457

Player B: 36 HRs, 88 RBI, .273-.408-.566

Player C: 31 HRs, 104 RBI, 32 SBs, .280-.348-.503

I have been pretty outspoken about all three players I listed above, and all three will be first round or early second round picks this season. Who would you rather have in 2012?

The names of the players after the jump:

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To illustrate just how far the madness has gone with one-inning closers in baseball today, just take a look at what happens in a fantasy baseball league when a pitcher with the magic "C" on his chest goes down for the count for any stretch of time. If news comes down the wire that a team's closer has hurt himself and will be out for a month or so, within minutes, fantasy managers are descending upon the waiver wire like rabid jackals looking for his successor. The absurdity reaches its nadir when the lucky manager who has nabbed said new closer starts parading him around as trade bait five days later. I've watched this happen so many times it makes me want to retch.

Managers are so desperate for saves wherever they can get them, that they're willing to use a roster spot on a crappy pitcher just because he's tasked with getting the last three outs of a ball game. Take the Orioles' situation last season. Nominal closer Kevin Gregg (who was pitching for his fourth team in four years!), began to struggle mightily in mid-summer and ended up losing his job for about a month to Jim Johnson. Johnson, a nondescript setup man before this series of events, suddenly turned into waiver wire gold, simply because he was due to get some saves on the rare occasions when the Orioles actually won games.

Now, a world where Jim Johnson has fantasy value is not one I especially want to live in, but until the ghost of Jerome Holtzman rises to publicly denounce the invented stat that haunts our dreams, we're stuck with the save stat and the crummy pitchers who feed off of it.

A lot of teams have their closers set in stone, but others have late-inning situations that are far from a sure thing. After the jump, five uncertain closer scenarios to keep an eye on for those in constant search to fill their need for the all-important save stat.

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I just joined a mixed league mock draft over at Mock Draft Central, and will be live blogging my picks. The draft begins at 11:45pm EST, so I may not last for the whole mock, but I want to see how the CARS Plan would work in a mixed league.

I have the first pick in this mock draft, so I can write in who I will be choosing now:

R1: Matt Kemp, LAD

Kemp is a 5 category guy, and should have a very good shot at another 30-30 season in 2012. He hits for power, but also scores runs and hits for a solid BA.

R2: Cliff Lee, PHI

R3: Felix Hernandez, SEA

Roy Halladay and Clayton Kershaw were already taken, so I grabbed Lee and Felix here. I thought about taking Lincecum, but like Hernandez more.

The rest of my picks after the jump:

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One of my great flaws during a fantasy baseball draft was getting too caught up in the details. Yes, I was the guy that took 89 second out of every 90 second pick, belaboring each selection as if I was going to have to spoon feed it, change its diapers, and save for its college for the rest of my life.

So what I like to do now is get all granular in my planning stages and then simply turn that into a one-line note in my draft sheet as a reminder - a summarized thumbs up or thumbs down, if you will.

While I typically get more geeky on value picks or players towards the middle and end of the drafts, I'm going to focus on Felix Hernandez today as I've seen some interesting analysis on him recently, so I figured it was high time to register my one liner on him.

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Every year, a good friend of mine in my NL-Only redraft league comes to the draft, drafting a power hitter and an ace early, going about his draft attempting to balance his roster with solid hitters and starting pitchers. But by the end of April, every year, he has traded all of his power hitters for ace starting pitchers, and works other deals to get leadoff hitters who will score runs, hit for a good average and steals some bases.

One year, he challenged for the league title using this strategy, but missed first place by a few points. I tell him at the draft every year, why don't you just draft the team YOU want and not try to draft a team that is balanced. You see, he loves good starting pitchers. He does everything he can to trade for ace starters like Cliff Lee and Clayton Kershaw.

Dumping power is not for everyone, but if there was ever a year to dump power in an NL-Only league, it is THIS season. With Ryan Braun and Ryan Howard out for the first few months of the season, Albert Pujols taking his big bat to Anaheim (not LA) and Prince Fielder to Detroit, there is very little power to be had this season.

Actually, I think I might try this strategy this season. I call it the CARS Plan. The details of the strategy after the jump:

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