Today's Fantasy Rx

Please refer to the Tout Wars American League rosters here.

While we weren't able to attend the Tout Wars' draft in person this year, we followed the AL auction live through the Tout website. To our knowledge, no other site is running any official shadowdraft this year, but we wanted to see how a simulated live shadowdraft team would compare to the Tout teams.

The rules of the shadowdraft are simple: Pick a 23-man roster from the league you're observing, selecting each player at $1 more than the player's auction price, and make no transactions the entire year. Anyone not selected in the auction is available for $1. For example, Jason Grey nominated Keith Foulke to begin the 2003 AL Tout Wars draft, and he sold for $28 to Lawr Michaels. If we wanted to select Keith Foulke for our shadowdraft team, we would roster him at $29.

When the season ends, compared your stat totals to see where you might have finished in the league.

Drafting a team "live" is more difficult since you need to decide on each player as they're selected. BaseballHQ's Doug Dennis shadowdrafted the 2001 NL LABR draft in this method, and we finally had time this year to try something similar.

Our strategy, which we're employing in another 5x5 league, was to punt wins and only roster sufficient innings to barely qualify for the 950 IP minimum. By spending $220+ on our position players, we hope to finish at the front of the pack in all five offensive categories while also netting first place finishes in saves, ERA, and WHIP, thereby accumulating 80-90 points even without replacing injured players during the season

Based on our observations of these drafts over the past few years, we also planned to target expensive talent early since intriguing bargains normally appear at the beginning of most auctions.

With that in mind, we rostered ARod at $41 and Ichiro at $34 even before every owner had the chance to nominate a player. While we paid slightly more than intended for ARod, we see no problem locking in a power-hitting middle infielder at a price roughly in line with his value. As we expect Ichiro to lead the league in 5x5 value, adding him was an easy decision.

We selected Dmitri Young at $12 since we liked the $6 bargain here, however we failed to anticipate the DH bargains available later in the draft.

David Eckstein looked good to us at $21, and Manny Ramirez, who we expect to finish as the leading AL power hitter, was a nice complement to Ichiro in our outfield for $37. However a $17 Raul Mondesi and Matt Anderson at $11 were our only picks among the next few dozen nominations.

Mike MacDougal at $6 seemed like an easy decision given our faith in him as a closer, and we finished exhausting our saves budget by rostering Chad Fox at $3.

Our irritation at Young's DH-only eligibility significantly jumped when we had to pass on David Ortiz at only $5 thanks to our lack of roster space.

The high price of most decent catching made Einar Diaz acceptable at $5, and we were ecstatic to see Doug Glanville available for only $7, especially since he looks set to remain Texas' leadoff hitter indefinitely.

At that point, we'd spent $198 and still needed to fill a catcher, three COR slots, a 2B, an OF, and 6 pitchers, including at least four starters to insure we reach the IP minimum.

Grabbing Doug Mientkiewicz at $12 and Gary Matthews at $15 appealed to us given that both players are in their primes and capable of exceeding our reasonable projections. As we expected to roster most of our pitchers near the minimum, dropping to $35 this late in the draft also didn't bother us.

Kyle Lohse emerged as the anchor of our staff at $7, primarily because he was the only healthy starter in 2002 on a quality defensive team, but also because he possesses the skills necessary to emerge as a double-digit earner. We grabbed D'Angelo Jimenez at $13 to fill our 2B hole, and then spent a total of $4 to grab White Sox free agent additions Esteban Loaiza and Tom Gordon.

We knew then we were short on wins and strikeouts as expected, but we don't believe we'll finish poorly in ERA or WHIP and we like our offensive depth. We spent our last $5 above minimum bids to select a $5 Bill Mueller and $2 Casey Blake, the former for his BA/R upside and the latter because of our belief he'll reach double-digit value rather easily this year.

With $4 left as the auction closes, we need to grab one catcher, at least two starters, and perhaps one reliever. Selecting Doug Mirabelli was an easy call since we like his skills and remain concerned about Varitek's past fragility; Mirabelli looks like the AL counterpart to Todd Pratt in many respects.

Among several intriguing pitchers like Jeremy Fikac, Ben Weber, and Chris Hammond, we grabbed Juan Acevedo for his saves' potential, and then completed our team with Jason Johnson and Mark Hendrickson, who hopefully should insure we qualify for ERA and WHIP points.

Owner: Tim Polko
Site: Rotohelp.com
$ Left: $0.
Split: $225H/$35P = 87/13.

Rotohelp's 2003 AL Tout Shadowdraft Roster
C	Einar Diaz		$7
C	Doug Mirabelli		$1
1B	Doug Mientkiewicz	$12
3B	Bill Mueller		$5
CR	Casey Blake		$2
2B	D'Angelo Jimenez	$13
SS	Alex Rodriguez		$41
MI	David Eckstein		$21
OF	Manny Ramirez		$37
OF	Ichiro Suzuki		$34
OF	Raul Mondesi		$18
OF	Gary Matthews		$15
OF	Doug Glanville		$7
DH	Dmitri Young		$12

SP	Kyle Lohse		$7
SP	Esteban Loaiza		$2
SP	Jason Johnson		$1
SP	Mark Hendrickson	$1
P	Juan Acevedo		$1
P	Tom Gordon		$2
P	Chad Fox		$4
R	Mike MacDougal		$6
CL	Matt Anderson		$11

No reserve roster selected as we won't make any roster moves.

Nice pick: Ichiro Suzuki, $33; we liked Rick Fogel's pick so much we paid an extra buck.
Top sleeper: Mark Hendrickson, $1; we're depending on him for both respectable qualitative numbers and 150 IP.
Potential bust: Esteban Loaiza, $2; Loaiza could kill our WHIP, however we like the direction of his skill trends and believe he's one of the more valuable pitchers available under $5.
Wasted picks (that won't contribute in the majors): None.
Early bad luck: Fox looked terrible in his first two appearances, and Casey Blake already might be losing time to John McDonald.
Category to trade: N/A.

Although we could have allocated our $235 for offense in a slightly better method, such as rostering David Ortiz and a better third baseman, we should pace the league in SB and BA while finishing highly in the other qualitative categories. Of course, any severe injury to ARod or Manny will leave us floundering badly.

Obviously our pitching is in worse shape, however we're pleased with our two closers and three potential closers. Our four starters don't exactly possess great upside, but hopefully they'll at least allow a middle-of-the-pack finish in ERA and WHIP.

Summary: We lack the pitching to finish in the money, however our offense should net sufficient points to challenge for a first division finish, a difficult accomplishment given we can't replace anyone on this roster.

I'll continue tomorrow with the NL Tout Wars draft.

Today's Fantasy Rx: If anyone is interested in submitting a Shadowdraft team, please select a team of 23 players at standard positions for $260 with each player costing $1 more than the draft prices found here. E-mail me your rosters by April 15th, and following the conclusion of the season, I will total each team's stats and let you know the results.

Please let me know if you do not want me discussing your team in a column after the season.