My FantasyPros911 Pundits League Draft Results

Last night, I participated in the FantasyPros911 AL-only auction Pundits league with several other fantasy baseball writers/experts. The league consists of 10 other owners, and is a 5 x 5 AL-only roto league, where everyone drafts a a standard 23 man roster. Here is a list of writers I will be competing against:

Patrick DiCaprio - FantasyPros911

Jason Collette - Baseball Prospectus

John Halpin - Fox Sports

Adam Ronis - Roto Experts

Ryan Dodson - KFFL

Pasco Varnica - Mastersball

Rudy Gamble - Razzball

Howard Bender - FanGraphs

Jason Mastrodonato - Mastersball

Matthew Cohen - Sports Judges

I wasn't sure the draft would actually happen as we had not heard from the organizer of the league until about 15 minutes before the 8pm auction draft start time. Luckily, the draft went off without a hitch. I entered the draft with no specific strategy, as i figured I would use the same strategy I used in the Tout Wars mixed league draft: draft a proven starting pitcher, a few closers and focus on hitting.

An auction draft is much different from a snake draft in that you are limited to a $260 auction budget, so the prices you pay for players you want will define your strategy mid-draft, and that is exactly what happened for me. I had thought about staying away from all the star players, in an attempt to not spend more than $30 on any one player, but that went out the door with my first winning bid on Prince Fielder. My $41 bid won the bidding on Fielder, and seconds later I asked myself whether I had overspent on Fielder, and the answer was yes. The overspending did not stop though, but i was determined to provide a core group of players that I could build around.

My next few winning bids were: Adam Jones for $30, Joe Mauer for $22 and Yoenis Cespedes for $35. Looking back, I think I overspent on Fielder and Cespedes the most. Fielder went for $35 in the recent Tout Wars AL-only league auction draft, so my $41 bid was $6 over. Jones went for $29 in the Tout Wars draft, so my $30 winning bid was in the ballpark. Cespedes also went for $29 in the Tout Wars draft, so I again spent $5-6 more than I should have.

My next winning bids were on Paul Konerko at $17 and Mike Moustakas at $15, as I could not let both go for $14 and $15 respectively. In the recent Tout Wars auction, Konerko went for $24 and Moustakas went for $19, so I think i got them at pretty good bargains. Both have some risk attached to them, as Konerko is getting old and I assume other owners in the draft felt he is due for a down year one of these years. I was willing to take the risk at $17. The risk with Moustakas is whether he can be the power hitter he showed in AA and AAA a few years ago. Time will tell, and 2013 could be his breakout year.

So here is the rest of my AL-only roster, with auction prices listed after the player's name:

Team Fake Teams
C Joe Mauer $22
C Mike Zunino $1
1B Prince Fielder $41
2B Brian Roberts $5
3B Mike Moustakas $15
SS Jhonny Peralta $7
2B/SS Eduardo Nunez $6
1B/3B Paul Konerko $17
OF Adam Jones $30
OF Yoenis Cespedes $35
OF Justin Maxwell $7
OF Dewayne Wise $1
OF Jason Bay $1
UTIL Oswaldo Arcia $1
P Glen Perkins $19
P James Shields $21
P Ernesto Frieri $12
P Brett Anderson $12
P Bartolo Colon $1
P Andy Pettitte $2
P Carter Capps $1
P Koji Uehara $1
P Chris Archer $1
Total: 259

As you can see, I filled the rest of my hitters with much cheaper options in the infield and outfield, a direct result of overspending on guys i discussed above. I think Eduardo Nunez and Justin Maxwell can be productive this season, as Nunez has 30+ steal potential and should see regular playing time with Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez on the DL. I see Maxwell putting up a 15-20 home run season along with double digit stolen bases for the light-hitting Astros lineup.

On the pitching side, I had targeted Yu Darvish, and somehow was not in the draft room when his name was called. I think I was checking emails or scores when he was auctioned. The winning bid on Darvish was $29 and I am not sure I was willing to go $30 on him. Instead, I spent $21 on James Shields, as he should good for a solid ERA/WHIP and 200+ strikeouts this year. I then focused on grabbing two closers, and won the bidding on Glen Perkins ($19) and Ernesto Frieri ($12).

I have to say that I was a little surprised at the price of closers and starting pitchers in this draft, as the top closers went in the high teens, low $20s, and the top starting pitchers went for $25+. I prefer to overspend on hitters than to spend that much on pitching.

In the end game, I am not willing to go after a starting pitcher who will hurt my ratios, so I grabbed Carter Capps and Koji Uehara. I also nabbed Bartolo Colon, Andy Pettitte and Chris Archer very late. I think Archer will be the first starter called up when the Rays need to replace a pitcher in their rotation due to injury or poor performance.

So how did I do? I will attach the complete draft results shortly.