Today's Fantasy Rx

Before beginning today's columns, we need to mention a brief problem we discovered this morning. We're concerned we may have missed several e-mails since we left for Arizona. As we've replied to all e-mails we've received since October 31st, if you've sent us e-mail within the last two weeks and haven't received a response, please re-send your message if possible and we'll make every effort to address your questions and comments by the weekend. We apologize for any inconvenience.

I analyzed the LABR drafts back in March, discussing the NL draft on March 16th and March 17th. Now I'd like to return to my evaluations for a couple days to see how my expectations matched the "experts".

Final Standings

78.0	CBS Sportsline.com (Tristan Cockroft)
76.0	ESPN.com (Eric Karabell)
72.5	Rotowire (Peter Schoenke & Jeff Erickson)
64.0	Regular Guys (David Vandersand & Kevin Davidson)
61.5	RotoAuctioneer.com (Roger Anderson)
61.0	Fantasy Sports Magazine (Greg Ambrosius)
55.5	Rototouts.com (Alex Patton)
54.5	BaseballHQ.com (Ron Shandler)
54.5	Baseball Prospectus (Chris Kahrl)
46.5	Baseball America (Josh Boyd & Will Kimmey)
41.0	Baseball Outsider (Steve Moyer)
39.0	CDM Diamond Challenge (Miodrag Stanoev)
24.0	Baseball Weekly (John Hunt)

Unfortunately my NL LABR predictions didn't work out nearly as well as my dead-on AL choice for first place. My predicted 1-2, Ron Shandler and John Hunt, finished a respective 8th and 13th. At least my first division picks worked out nicely, as I correctly expected Jeff Erickson to finish 3rd and both Greg Ambrosius and Alex Patton to remain very competitive; both finished in the first division.

78.0(1st): CBS Sportsline.com (Tristan Cockroft)

Summary: He drafted an interesting team, and while he'll have to deal and FAAB like crazy, I think he could finish in the money.

Sportsline left $6 on the table while spending 58% of their money on hitting. However he scored big by adding Junior Spivey, the best position player available in reserve rounds. Grabbing Schilling($28), Vazquez($21), Jason Schmidt($9) and Jose Jimenez($14) gave him a solid pitching foundation. I also really liked his picks of Shawn Green($32) and Brad Wilkerson($1) in the spring, which looked even better after he dealt Green and Jimenez in August for Vlad Guerrero and Felix Rodriguez, netting 14 steals and giving him his 2-point margin of victory. However if he'd gotten only two less homers and six fewer RBI, he would have lost to ESPN by 2 points.

Cockroft also made some great FAAB additions, including Jason Jennings on Opening Day, and Oliver Perez($8). Between Spivey, Mike Lowell($16), and his studs, I see why he outperformed our projection to finish first.

76.0(2nd): ESPN.com (Eric Karabell)

Summary: He'll need some luck to secure a first division finish.

ESPN spent all their money, allocating 72% to hitting. As mentioned above, Karabell only barely missed winning, and a relatively low budget starting staff of Josh Beckett($14), Dessens($4), Kip Wells($3), Padilla($3), and reserve Josh Fogg provided him with good pitching numbers. His closer picks of Mesa($21) and Mike Williams($13) also allowed him to easily pace the field in saves, and a $1 bid on Joe Borowski paid handsome dividends.

Unfortunately his offense was more troublesome as Sosa($40), Scott Rolen($29), Jimmy Rollins($29), Paul Lo Duca($23), and $97 free agent Kenny Lofton all failed to meet expectations. At least good years from Steve Finley($16), Jose Hernandez($10), and $1 FAAB pickup Reggie Taylor kept him in the race. Aside from Taylor, Karabell experienced extremely good luck with his four sub-$5 starters, and an August swap of Padilla, Beckett, and Polanco for Chipper Jones and Juan Cruz almost pushed him to first. I'm suitably impressed with the finishes of both teams from the major mainstream media online sites in the league.

72.5(3rd): Rotowire (Peter Schoenke & Jeff Erickson)

Summary: I definitely think they can finish in the first division, and quite possibly high in the money.

Rotowire left no money on the table while spending 73% of their money on hitting. While Rotohelp fave Jose Acevedo bombed here, Gary Matthews gave them one nice reserve pick. A $6 Opening Day bid netted Dave Roberts, easily one of the best FAAB grabs of the year, and they also made wonderful acquisitions of Alan Embree($1), Tim Worrell($1), and Joe Roa($1). Even a late-year $20 bid on Steve Trachsel helped a lot.

Their major trade involved exchanging Roberts and Worrell in a package for Berkman, although they also swapped a $3 Vlad Nunez in mid-May for Aaron Boone. Erickson succeeded due to selecting fantastic pitching in the draft. Aside from Nunez and a $30 Trevor Hoffman, he found fantastic bargains in Hideo Nomo($8), Brett Tomko($3), Tomo Ohka($1), and Mike DeJean($1). Rotowire could have finished first without the bombings of Brian Tollberg, Bobby J. Jones, and Garrett Stephenson, and as few people expected so many disasters from the first two, this finish appears very solid.

64.0(4th): Regular Guys (David Vandersand & Kevin Davidson)

Summary: Unless they make some fantastic trades to gain roster depth at the expense of their superstars, I don't see them cracking the first division.

The regular guys left $0 on the table while spending 76% on hitting. They compensated for a somewhat weak draft, including wasting $7 on Rick Ankiel and a buck on J.R. House, by a variety of free agent pickups, including Omar Daal($6), Michael Tejera($1), Steve Reed($1), Mike Koplove($3), Steve Kline($1), Felix Rodriguez($7), and Troy O'Leary($44). Jake Peavy turned out to be a great reserve pick, and while they didn't receive value from drafting Juan Pierre($34), Roberto Alomar($31), or Richard Hidalgo($21), they kept turning over their roster.

Vandersand and Davidson were quite active on the trade market, completing over a half-dozen deals, all appearing fairly balanced. They combined the pickups of several quality middle relievers with the trade for roster depth that I expected in the spring to boost a fairly balanced team to fourth place.

61.5(5th): RotoAuctioneer.com (Roger Anderson)

Summary: He's trying an interesting strategy, and while this may just be my bias against Rockies' pitchers at work, I don't see him in the first division with likely last place finishes in ERA/WHIP and few saves.

RotoAuctioneer left $2 on the table while spending a whopping 82% of their budget on hitting. He made a few very strong FAAB moves, including adding Luis Vizcaino($2), Andy Fox($7), Chris Hammond($2), and Brandon Larson($8), so he wound up barely using his Rockies' starters. The combination of Vizcaino and Hammond with Russ Ortiz($14), Randy Wolf($10), and Odalis Perez($1) allowed him to finish first in both ERA and WHIP, a nice surprise given his interesting reserve strategy of selecting Neagle, Thomson, Chacon, and Elarton. While none of his offensive players were bargains, he at least received respectable production from Todd Helton($39), Cliff Floyd($29), Todd Hollandsworth($22), and Juan Encarnacion($12).

After abandoning his Colorado pitchers, the main reason Anderson didn't finish higher was a swap of Derrek Lee($20) and Aaron Boone($19) in mid-May for Fernando Vina($13) and Vlad Nunez($3). While he gained 13 saves, he lost about 40 homers, 75 RBI, and 30 steals; Anderson essentially dropped about 20 points on offense while picking up only one or two in saves. He probably would have finished first if he hadn't made any trades.

61.0(6th): Fantasy Sports Magazine (Greg Ambrosius)

Summary: While I'm not normally enamored of teams featuring players with less than two years of experience or more than 10, I have a good feeling about this team. If he can acquire a decent starter or two, he could definitely finish in the money.

Fantasy Sports left no money on the table while spending 66% on hitting. Basing his team around Dunn($29) and Andruw Jones($28) worked out decently, although among his offensive players, perhaps only Jay Payton($6) turned in a noteworthy profit. Ambrosius made no trades and only one FAAB bid; fortunately spending $99 on Bartolo Colon was one of the best moves any team could make.

Ambrosius essentially drafted a fairly uninteresting roster, where the surprises of Tom Glavine($13) and A.J. Burnett($9) were cancelled by terrible seasons from Jose Cabrera($1) and Sean Burroughs($16). A 6th place, middle-of-the-pack finish seems appropriate given this collection of players and the lack of FAAB moves.

55.5(7th): Rototouts.com (Alex Patton)

Summary: He'll finish in the first division unless he loses two of his five studs to injury, and he only needs one or two good trades or FAAB pick-ups to finish in the money.

Rototouts.com left $2 on the table and spend 63% on hitting. Adding a $1 Mark Bellhorn on Opening Day turned out nicely; unfortunately his high-ticket bids on Julio Franco($31), Brad Aumus($26), and Kirk Saarloos($9) barely helped at all. Every one of his five studs of Randy Johnson($38), Barry Bonds($37), Luis Gonzalez($31), Preston Wilson($28), and John Smoltz($25) worked out fairly nicely, especially since he moved Wilson and Terry Adams for Billy Wagner and Eric Owners. The problem was that only Marquis Grissom($1) really contributed out of his dozen scrubs, and he cycled through about thirty players to fill his OF, UT, C, and pitcher slots.

With practically no combination of players working, the majority of his helpful stats came from his five elite players. Patton only finished particularly strong in HR, RBI, and Saves, and winding up dead last in batting average seems quite surprising given he owned Bonds. Perhaps he could have risen higher in the standings in leagues using OBP instead of BA, but Patton should probably hold back on price-enforcing people like Gonzalez in future years unless he's quite comfortable searching for FAAB bargains.

54.5(8th): BaseballHQ.com (Ron Shandler)

Summary: I see no reason why he should finish lower than third.

BaseballHQ left $0 on the table while spending 75% on offense. While his Jeff Shaw reserve pick gamble bombed, Shandeler struggled due to an unforeseen pitching disaster, grabbing only 8 points between wins, ERA, and WHIP. A properly-executed LIMA plan normally involves top-3 finishes in the qualitative categories, but several pitchers, including Brandon Duckworth, Ruben Quevedo, Jason Bere, Bruce Chen, Terry Adams, and Brian Moehler simply ransacked his pitching staff. Even outstanding picks like Octavio Dotel($9), Brian Lawrence($7), Eric Gagne($3), and spending $37 of FAAB on Chuck Finley couldn't negate the stats of his problem pitchers.

Although I picked Shandler to finish first, and he would have finished in the top 3 with inverse finishes in ERA and WHIP, I'm at least pleased that I nailed reviews of his specific players in the spring by designating Luis Castillo($25) "nice pick", Brent Butler($1) "top sleeper", and Moises Alou($23) "potential bust". Shandler made a few nice trades and received value from most of his draft picks, so I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with the LIMA plan; he just should have benched unexpected disasters like Duckworth, Quevedo, and Bere a few weeks sooner. However we made the same mistakes in a couple leagues with Duckworth and Quevedo, so maybe an 8th place finish isn't too bad.

54.5(9th): Baseball Prospectus (Chris Kahrl)

Summary: If they make good trades, they should have a decent shot at a first division finish.

Baseball Prospectus left $1 on the table and spent 68% on hitting. I'm rather surprised they finished dead last in both homers and RBI. However, like everyone else that spend a ton of FAAB on Jeremy Giambi($65), they can blame Larry Bowa for part of their troubles. Dealing Marcus Giles on Opening Day for Alex Sanchez and Braden Looper ranks with the best LABR trades of the year, and swapping those two at the trading deadline for Ryan Klesko and Andy Ashby continued to help. Two more late-season deals for speed and BA at least allowed them to finish above double-digits.

I expected them to struggle with saves due to the lack of relievers on their drafted roster, though their starting pitching remained strong with Maddux($26), Oswalt($18), Wade Miller($14), and reserve pick Kirk Rueter all turning in nice seasons. Unfortunately a few selections like Jose Ortiz($20) and D'Angelo Jimenez($10) worked out very badly, leaving them below power expectations and struggling in most quantitative categories. Considering Prospectus wasn't pleased with the draft, they at least wound up with decent contributions from most of their high-buck players like Bobby Abreu($33) and Lance Berkman($32).

46.5(10th): Baseball America (Josh Boyd & Will Kimmey)

Summary: There's enough potential for a first division finish, but he'll need to convert one of his superstars into a closer and decent replacement bat.

Baseball America left $2 on the table while spending 72% on hitting. Few other teams received no help from their reserve picks, however their three superstar hitters of Chipper($33), Sheffield($29), and Brian Giles($29) led them to 29 points in HR, RBI, and BA. Unfortunately they finished dead last in steals while only grabbing 16.5 points in the pitching categories. They received little help from any of their FAAB picks, particularly Sandy Alomar($62) and Paul Shuey($1), leaving only Al Leiter($15) as a solid contributor to the pitching staff for the entire year.

Boyd and Kimmey also didn't fair well in trading, making only one small deal until August, and then failing to jump-start their pitching despite moving Chipper. While their $4 Austin Kearns paid off, I don't see any other obvious bargains on their team, so between the lack of profit and a failure to target pitching help early, I understand why they finished this low.

41.0(11th): Baseball Outsider (Steve Moyer)

Summary: While I think he can practically sweep the offensive categories and make a nice showing in saves, the downside to "scrubs pitching" is that you risk awful outings on a regular basis, leaving him vulnerable in ERA, WHIP, and wins. I don't like betting against Steve, but I'd be surprised if he finished Top 3.

Baseball Outsider left no money on the table while spending an impressive 79% on offense. Most teams with Ken Griffey, Jr.($29) struggled, but how many other teams also rostered noted 2002 roto bums Aramis Ramirez($25), Roger Cedeno($23), and Mo Vaughn($23). Aside from his 11 points in BA, I can see why he only scored 10 points between the other three offensive categories despite my expectation that he'd sweep them. Ryan Klesko($29), Jeff Kent($25), Jim Edmonds($21), and Jose Vidro($20) worked out quite well, although Moyer traded his best players while keeping the guys that slumped all year.

Moyer also found very little value in his "scrubs", releasing Scott Williamson in July while rostering Brian Moehler, and also dumping Joe Roa, who he touted while in the minors, after only one week. In the past he's advocated "stars and scrubs" by arguing that you can dump a $1 player with little emotional attachment, but he definitely moved too soon on these guys. With only Armando Benitez($26) as a pitching staff anchor, I'm not surprised that Steve plummeted to 11th.

39.0(12th): CDM Diamond Challenge (Miodrag Stanoev)

Summary: His team has first place upside, but $25 spent on Hampton and Gordon will be tough to overcome. I think he should make it into the first division, but he'll need some luck with Hill or Veres to have enough depth.

The 2001 Diamond Challenge winner left no money on the table and spent 60% of his budget on hitting. Reserve pick Carlos Zambrano helped, as did a $14 Opening Day FAAB of Ryan Jensen. However he left over $70 of FAAB on the table.

Stanoev didn't make a single move with his team after July 21st, an inexcusable insult to the thousands of competitors he beat out to "earn" this LABR berth. Keeping B.J. Surhoff on his reserve roster all year might be the dumbest move I've observed in reviewing these teams. While we feel he deserved to finish last, somehow everyone he left on his roster remained healthy most of the year, including a powerful starting quad of Wood($23), Morris($23), Millwood($8), and Sheets($5), that at least allowed him to net 12 points in wins.

24.0(13th): Baseball Weekly (John Hunt)

Summary: Even his $1 position players(Miguel Cairo, Ramon E. Martinez, and Greg Colbrunn) should earn a few dollars profit, as might almost everyone on the roster. I'll be surprised if he doesn't wind up in the first division, and I expect an in-the-money finish.

Hunt left $4 on the table and spent 63% on hitting. However I barely feel like reviewing this travesty.

Despite founding and running these leagues, Hunt didn't bother making a single move after August 18th, leaving Sean Casey active even though he went out for the year the first week in September. I find it very difficult to believe that there wasn't a single cornerman available to help his team with either quantitatively or with BA like an Angel Echevarria. While his roster was otherwise fairly solid despite the lack of moves, we really don't like the example set by the ex-Baseball Weekly staffers in these expert leagues. We certainly understand that merging into Sports Weekly was likely a horrible and traumatic experience, but that's no reason to abandon your team.

I'll at least admit that Hunt experienced some horrible luck, including an $11 Opening Day FAAB of Alex Sanchez prior to immediately packaging Sanchez and Braden Looper for Marcus Giles. He also grabbed Andy Fox $4, releasing him two weeks later, only a little before he took over the Florida shortstop job. Disasters like Kevin Brown($24) and Scott Strickland($15) also helped cripple his pitching staff, but we're still quite disappointed with Hunt's overall handling of his team.

As I briefly mentioned yesterday, please let us know if you're aware of any LABR rule that prohibits you from cutting a useless minor leaguer taking up space on a reserve roster.

Today's Fantasy Rx: Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets opens tonight at midnight in most major metropolitan areas. As I can't even remember the last time we saw a movie in theaters, we're going to see if the likely more rambunctious midnight crowds remain amusing. All reports indicate that they're going to focus much more on the plot than on any character development, so hopefully this second film will stay even closer to the book than the first one. We're comfortable recommending the movie based on previews to anyone looking for a break this weekend, or just to avoid the terrible weather around much of the country. However I'll definitely let you know tomorrow if it's as good as we expect.