Today's Fantasy Rx

Last year I spent two days discussing The Fantasy Sports Invitational Challenge, a new league for inter-site competition and bragging rights. We participated in the inaugural NL draft in 2002, although we unfortunately only managed a 10th place finish last year thanks to a lack of starting position players and few saves other than two good months from Vlad Nunez. The league rules include an interesting twist that stipulates the 11th and 12th place finishers are not invited to return the following season, so we certainly hope to improve our standing this year.

FSICNL, which drafted on March 7th, employs a straight snake draft and is an NL 5x5 league with 23-man rosters and four reserve slots. As there are no AB/IP max/mins, we decided to focus on our offense and design a pitching staff that included the option of punting wins and strikeouts in favor of maximizing our finishes in the other three categories. The top two teams last year finished only a couple points over 80, so we figured that we would place among the top teams if we could manage no worse than third place in saves, ERA, WHIP, and every hitting category.

Therefore, we only selected one pitcher among our first thirteen picks, thereby filling all six infield slots, five outfield slots, and one catcher spot before we even began examining starting pitchers.

A random draw gave us the #3 pick in the first round, and after teams one and two chose Vlad and Randy respectively as expected, we grabbed Jeff Kent. In retrospect, we probably should have selected Albert Pujols for the additional flexibility, however we wanted to target middle infielders early so that we avoided scrambling to fill scarcer position at the end of the draft for a second straight year.

We were quite pleased when Edgar Renteria remained available for us at pick #22 overall, thereby insuring we owned the top two middle infielders on our draft board. With Aaron Boone still available in the third round, we continued our plan by grabbing the last available 3B valued above $20.

The closer run started at the beginning of round 4, with Benitez, Wagner, and Nen going in succession. However as no other closers were selected before our 4th round pick, we decided to wait two more rounds in a gamble that someone like Jimenez, Mesa, or Williamson would fall to us. As we started emphasizing power over four-category contributions centered on speed, we grabbed Jose Hernandez over Jimmy Rollins.

As of our 5th round pick, we appeared to desperately need a first baseman as only Derrek Lee and Richie Sexson remained of $20+ 1B. The weak Milwaukee lineup and strong skills trends of Lee led us to select the Marlins' first baseman, leaving us only the COR position open in our infield.

Unfortunately, all three closers, Dave Roberts, and Adrian Beltre left the board almost immediately prior to our selection in round #6, leaving us with very few acceptable options. Mike Lowell owned a notable edge over the remaining cornermen, so we completed our infield with him and then grabbed Jason Kendall as our primary catcher in round #7.

Our next goal was rostering three starting outfielders, including at least one SB sources, and preferably either two more starters or platoon players. Moises Alou was a simple call in round #8, since we conservatively projected him for 20 HR and 81 RBI, numbers he easily could exceed if he avoids the DL.

The primary deviation from our plan occurred in round #9. We were looking at Braden Looper, but we lost him right after we selected Alou, leaving one pitcher ranked clearly ahead of any alternative. Byung-Hyun Kim wound up our ninth round pick, hopefully giving us a respectable staff anchor and potentially a top closer.

We were disappointed to lose our chance to select Brad Wilkerson early in the 10th round, and as Ben Sheets was drafted immediately prior to our 10th round pick, we grabbed a speed source in Alex Sanchez.

The next major gamble in our strategy occurred on our 11th round pick. Brian Jordan and Reggie Sanders topped our OF draft board, and as we believed Jordan certainly would have gone by our next selection, we grabbed Jordan in round #11. Of course Baseball Guru, who already had selected Beltre, Josh Beckett, and Sheets prior to our picks in even-numbered rounds, grabbed Sanders with their 11th round pick.

As few respectable starting outfielders remained by our 12th round choice, we completed our OF with Bubba Trammell, who then looked like San Diego's undisputed starting left fielder, and Gabe Kapler, thanks to his Coors-inflated upside.

Last season we took our first starters in Round 12, and while we missed the chance to grab a couple of decent pitchers like Brandon Duckworth, Octavio Dotel, Orlando Hernandez, Steve Trachsel, and Brett Tomko thanks to finishing our OF, the only lost pitcher that truly irritated us was Jake Peavy, which left John Patterson as the top starter on our board.

With a two-man rotation of Kim and Patterson, you can probably guess we rapidly grew concerned about our pitching.

Our next four picks included Glendon Rusch, Brandon Villafuerte, Mark Redman, and Jason Middlebrook. While Villafuerte looks quite good now considering he was only a potential closer at the time, we probably should have taken relievers rather than rostering Rusch, Redman, and the now-demoted Middlebrook.

As we knew from last year that solid relievers would remain available until weeks into the regular season, we decided to solidify our offense. While we grabbed Paul Shuey in the 20th round, we also selected Matt Williams and Felipe Lopez to give us two solid utility players, and since we liked few of the remaining catchers, we gambled that Lieberthal's injury would lead to more playing time for Todd Pratt.

We waited until our last pick to gamble on a potential starter, rostering Atlanta's Trey Hodges, but since we missed out on any established closer, we needed to spend most of our late picks on saves gambles. Colorado's Todd Jones continues to be the subject of trade rumors for teams needing a former closer, so we chanced a pick on him in round #23, and Kyle Farnsworth's upside led us to grab him in the 24th round.

During the draft we occasionally snuck peaks at the Cubs' game on WGN, and Rod Beck's new svelte physique and solid pitching led us to believe he might wind up closing for someone like Montreal before the end of Spring Training. With our 25th and 26th picks, we chose Joey Hamilton, who looked like the best healthy right-hander on the Cardinals, and Beck.

Rotohelp's Drafted 2003 FSICNL Roster
C: Jason Kendall and Todd Pratt
CR: Derrek Lee, Aaron Boone, and Mike Lowell
MI: Jeff Kent, Edgar Renteria, and Jose Hernandez
OF: Moises Alou, Alex Sanchez, Brian Jordan, Bubba Trammell, and Gabe Kapler
UT: Matt Williams
Bench: Felipe Lopez

Starters: Byung-Hyun Kim, John Patterson, Glendon Rusch, Mark Redman, and Jason Middlebrook

Relievers: Brandon Villafuerte, Paul Shuey, Todd Jones, Kyle Farnsworth, Joey Hamilton, Rod Beck, and Trey Hodges.

One of the restrictions of FSIC is that teams only can add one free agent per week, with selections completed in reverse order of the previous week's standings. Despite a draft the first weekend of March, free agency also didn't begin until last Thursday.

Therefore our Opening Day roster included one solid bench player in Lopez and four minor league pitchers: Patterson, Middlebrook, Hamilton, and Beck, as well as Todd Jones, who we had no intention of employing if he remained with the Rockies.

Perhaps the only benefit to the transaction restrictions is that we can leave minor leaguers active on our roster, and while they offer no upside, they also obviously won't hurt our qualitative marks. Consequently, we opened the season with Kim, Rusch, and Jones joining Lopez on our bench, instead filling our starting lineup with Redman, Villafuerte, Shuey, Farnsworth, Hodges, and our four minor leaguers. Last week we added Ray King for Todd Jones, and while we intend to sporadically employ our starters, we're pursuing trade opportunities for Kim and Redman. If he succeeds in his double start this week, we hope to see interest in Patterson. Our targets include any closer, co-closer, or skilled reliever, as well as potentially an OF upgrade on Trammell. While we'll finish dead last in wins and strikeouts as expected, our qualitative marks look good right now. Any additional relief help will improve our standing in saves, hopefully insuring we'll finish among the top 4 teams.

Today's Fantasy Rx: National and most state income tax returns must be postmarked by tomorrow. If you have not either finished and mailed your taxes or filed for an extension, we strongly recommend you take steps to immediately complete either action.