At 2:15 AM, the fact I missed the first draft of the 2009 fantasy baseball season diminished in importance. With the birth of my fourth son, I was reminded of the importance of perspective. However, I still was thinking about what went wrong with the team that was auto-drafted.
Here is my team:
1. (12) Josh Hamilton
2. (13) Chase Utley
3. (36) Matt Kemp
4. (37) Brian McCann
5. (60) Joey Votto
6. (61) Jay Bruce
7. (84) Bobby Abreu
8. (85) Joakim Soria
9. (108) Brian Wilson
10. (109) Pablo Sandoval
11. (132) Troy Tulowitzki
12. (133) Yovani Gallardo
13. (156) Adam Wainwright
14. (157) Zack Greinke
15. (180) Josh Johnson
16. (181) Chris Pérez
17. (204) Conor Jackson
18. (205) Adrián Béltre
19. (228) Kelly Johnson
20. (229) Bengie Molina
21. (252) Ryan Theriot
What surprised me the most was not having a SP drafted until the 13th round and then seeing the auto-draft take nothing but hitters for my bench. If I had attended the live draft, I would have grabbed three or four pitchers to gamble on saves and to use to stream in and out of the line-up. This would especially be so because Pablo Sandoval qualifies at C and 1B in this format.
Why was the computer taking hitters at the end? There was a tremendous run on starting pitching in the first ten rounds and then throughout the remaining ones. This left nothing but higher ranked hitters available when my turns came around.
For perspective, the top five starters went in the first 25 picks. By the time my Votto selection came around, there were ten SP off the board. Before the end of the 7th round, another nine SP were off the board.
I had missed a huge run. Will it prove to be fatal?