Today's Fantasy Rx

To briefly recap our status in the draft, we had $58 to fill MIF, OF, UT, 3SP, 2P, and 2RP. We were also one of the two teams with the most available funds, and we were worried that we'd wind up bidding on the same players.

We needed another 40 points between three offensive slots to hit the projected average team offensive points' total; as the replacement-level offensive player is worth about 30 points, we were obviously going to be rather comfortable on offense.

Our pitching was somewhat more troubling as despite buying two staff aces for a combined $37 in Brown and Ortiz, we still were less than a third of the way to the average pitching point total of 491 per team. We also had to acquire two relievers (a league requirement each week), and most relievers are also less valuable than starters because of the reduced IP.

Despite valuing Astacio at $14, we let him go at $4 because we remain concerned about his arm problems. However, immediately after Astacio was drafted, we picked up two more rotation anchors (not three as I accidentally wrote yesterday after misreading our draft records).

We drafted Kevin Millwood (34bcxyz LPR; $6 earning $9) and Glendon Rusch(1234by; $6 earning $6) as we have a lot of faith in strong 2002 seasons by both pitchers. We expect them to combine for 100 points, pushing us up to 250 total pitching points and over half way to 491.

Both ourselves and the other team with significant cap room available then got into a bidding war over John Smoltz. While other closers were still available, we wanted Smoltz(14cz; projected $16) as we believe he'll get a chance to pitch 2+ IP every week or two, and therefore will finish at a higher value than most other closers. We finally snagged him for $15, and then followed that pick up with a $3 Scott Strickland(1234; projected $11). These two pitchers should combine for another 110 points, putting us nicely in range of 491 with three pitching slots to go.

Around this time we also started running into a problem with our nominations. Most owners could only bid a couple of bucks on most players while we still had around $30 left for only 6 guys. Now many of the best auction strategy guides will tell you to only nominate people you don't want to draw out funds, so we attempted to do just that.

Unfortunately, we reverted back to nominating players we wanted too late, and wound up stuck with a $1 Corey Patterson in our second utility slot and a $1 Shane Reynolds. Now we expect both players to earn a few bucks more than these salaries, but we still could have purchased superior 2002 buys if we had those rosters slots available.

The bright side is that this is a keeper league, so someone like Patterson should retain solid value in future years; while these selections don't help us much now, at least Patterson should help in 2003.

Another owner nominated Brian Jordan in the middle of these five picks, and we spent $8 to acquire him even though we only projected him to $9. However he was the best outfielder on the board, and if he stays healthy, he could double our investment.

With the addition of these three players, we now had $18 left for three players: a MIF and two pitchers. We'd targeted Juan Uribe for a while and finally nominated him; we were rather shocked when we acquired him for only $3, a full $10 below what we had budgeted and the reason we completed the draft with $10 left on the table.

Our offense was now full, and after buying Jordan, Patterson, and Uribe, we added another projected 145 points to give us a total of 870 point on offense, a comfortable two average position players ahead of the 765 point mean.

With the two pitching slots and $15 remaining, we needed another 80 points to reach the average team's 491 pitching points. We gambled on Juan Cruz for only $2 as we have a lot of confidence in his abilities, and then we settled on Hideo Nomo and his strikeout potential, picking him up for $3. After adding their projected 105 points, we now also finished about 20 points above the minimum for pitching.

Aside from the Randy mistake at the beginning and leaving $10 on the table, we're still fairly confident in our drafted roster. Now as we moved to the 10-round reserve draft, where every player is assigned a $1 salary, we wanted to augment our roster with one or two offensive players and more than a half dozen pitchers.

We've touted the strategy of rotating starting pitchers for a few years now. We employed it for most of our ESPN league championships, and we're adapting it to all our roto teams this year. Our goal is to alternate our pitchers as frequently as possible to insure two-start weeks and favorable match-ups.

We spent the second overall reserve pick on Bobby Hill to give us a solid prospect for trade or a decent keeper. Then we immediately moved onto starting pitchers, spending our next four picks on Brian Tollberg(x), Steve Trachsel(1ax), Nick Neugebauer(1.5), and Kurt Ainsworth(1.5). We missed out on Eric Gagne, Brett Tomko, Jeff Fassero, and Dennis Tankersley to make these picks, but we were still rather pleased with our team.

Considering Smoltz's injury troubles, we wanted to draft a couple of relievers to give us roster flexibility in weeks with only five good starts. We wanted to pick up a couple of relievers with closer potential, especially due to potential trades, so we grabbed Dave Veres(23) and Scott Williamson(4). In the eighth round, we finally pulled the trigger on our #1 2002 Pitching Sleeper Jose Acevedo(1ax), and then completed the draft by drafting Ray Lankford, as we couldn't believe he was still available, and then Vladimir Nunez(1).

If we're able to rotate our pitchers effectively, we expect to use a little over 80% of the starts of our 7 auctioned starters and about 40% of the five starters picked up on reserve. In case you were wondering, the seemingly excessive number of starts occurs because we'll maximize the weeks where our pitchers are scheduled for two starts each.

Subtracting the 260 points of Smoltz, Strickland, Brown, and Ortiz(as we'll likely start the latter two almost every week) from our starters' projected point total leaves us with 250 points.

We'll likely only rest our other five starters when our reserves are getting two starts, and most pitchers start twice about once every four weeks, or six times over the entire season. We should therefore be able to keep our other auctioned starters in for three of every four weeks, including 4/5 starts each month.

(4/5) * 250 = 200 points.

Our five reserved starters should combine for about 205 points; 40% of 205 = 82 points.

250 + 200 + 82 = 532, so by rotating our pitchers, we should be able to add another 20-30 points to our overall total.

Given our current projections, we believe we've drafted about 150 points more than the average team in the league. Now that only averages out to about 5.75 points more than our opponent in a given week, but with smart FAAB moves and enough time dedicated to our line-up, we expect that we'll finish in the Top 4 and make the playoffs. As we'll then be in September, we'll have to rely on luck to carry us to the title.

We also want to spend a moment to mention how impressed we were with our fellow owners. Everyone seemed to have a good grasp of both the somewhat unconventional format and resulting player values, so even with our relatively successful draft, we could easily fall to the second division due to even one or two injured players. All the teams appear quite competitive at this point, so we're definitely looking forward to the regular season.

If you have any questions about our strategy or calculation methodology, please don't hesitate to send me an e-mail. I'll be happy to elaborate on any subject on which I lacked thoroughness.

Tomorrow I'll provide an update on bullpens with regards to Spring Training Games' Finished, I'll review NL LABR this weekend, and then get to reviews of both Baseballmanager.com and the recently-published Major League Baseball 2002, The Official Guide to the 2002 Season.

Today's Fantasy Rx: When most teams are down to their last couple of picks, begin tossing out your preferred players instead of guys to pull money off the board. You may get lucky and grab your sleepers at a discount, and at worse, you'll still only wind up "settling" for players you would have nominated in the first place. There are few worse feelings at the end of the draft than having money left over while you're stuck with $1 players you wanted less than guys that only went for a couple bucks more.