Today's Fantasy Rx

Last season Baseball Prospectus gathered some of their readers to form a couple of Scoresheet keeper leagues. As we previously had not played Scoresheet baseball, we decided to join the NL keeper league that drafted near Indianapolis. BP-Indy offered us a welcome alternative to our normal roster of roto and points leagues, and thanks to a few solid draft choices and a couple of good trades, our team reached the finals before losing to a starting rotation of Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, and Livan Hernandez. I provided an in-depth look at our performance in the inaugural season of the league last fall.

BP-Indy follows traditional Scoresheet keeper rules fairly closely. For 2004, each team needed to keep 13 major leaguers, including no more than one player who switched to the AL in the off-season, although the 13 protection slots were tradable commodities. Each team also could keep an essentially unlimited number of rookies as defined by Scoresheet's rookie standard. This year's draft ran from rounds 14 to round 35 in reverse order of last year's finish, and since the draft did not snake and we finished 2nd, we drafted 11th in each round.

Entering the off-season, we knew we needed to complete a few trades to address the following somewhat lopsided roster of potential keepers.

C:	J.LaRue
1B:	A.Pujols, R.Klesko
2B:	J.Vidro, D.Jimenez
3B:	F.Sanchez
SS:	E.Renteria, J.Uribe, J.Hardy
CF:	C.Patterson, T.Redman
LF/RF:	G.Sheffield, B.Wilkerson, J.Ellison

SP:	K.Millwood, C.Zambrano, J.Peavy, A.Eaton
	S.Ponson, M.Batista, K.Ainsworth
RP:	T.Hoffman, R.Beck, P.Quantrill

By the time we began seriously exploring trade options, Sheffield, Uribe, Ponson, Batista, Ainsworth, and Quantrill had left the league. While we didn't view Uribe, Quantrill, or even Batista as logical crossover keepers, we figured we could find a market for both Sheffield and Ponson, then keep Ainsworth as our crossover since we liked his upside more than even Ponson. In exchange for Sheff and Ponson, we wanted a replacement power hitter and starting pitching depth.

We also knew Freddy Sanchez would miss at least the beginning of the year due to injury, so we wanted to address third base rather than accept the defensive downside of playing Jimenez out of position. Aside from our crossovers, Klesko, Redman, Hoffman, and our rookies looked like the best trade bait.

After several conversations involving a larger trade that included a swap of Klesko for a starter, we settled on dealing Ponson for Edgar Gonzalez, an 18th rd pick, and a protection slot, which gave us the extra spot we needed to keep LaRue. While LaRue isn't a great offensive option, he remains one of the best defensive catchers in the league. Keeping him also meant we didn't need to make catching a priority in the draft.

Then we found that the main problem in shopping Sheffield is that the exodus of talent to the AL this winter included Vlad, Schilling, Vazquez, and Kevin Brown, giving us few logical trade partners who possesses both a crossover slot and a comparable outfield. While our logical partner owned Brian Giles and Luis Gonzalez, we couldn't find a match for Giles, so we settled on a deal of Sheffield for Luis Gonzalez and Todd Wellemeyer. Of course, we found out after completing the trade that Wellemeyer didn't qualify as a Scoresheet rookie, and we wanted to move Gonzalez ASAP for fear of a season-ending injury thanks to his elbow problems, but this trade at least gave us options.

We followed those moves with a deal of Hoffman for Adam LaRoche, providing the offensive depth we wanted before moving Sheffield or Klesko.

Unfortunately, our third base preference, Scott Rolen, is not available in trade unless we deal Pujols, and we currently see no reason to move him. Of course, Rolen's owner also employed Mike Lowell as his first basemen. Our offer of Klesko, Redman, and Sanchez for Lowell and a 31st round pick solved our third base problem.

Perhaps our biggest strategy change this season is that we wanted to accumulate an excess of starters so we didn't need to acquire more relievers during every supplemental draft. Keeping Millwood, Zambrano, Eaton, Peavy, Ainsworth, and Edgar Gonzalez was a good start, but we wanted another couple of young arms. We couldn't acquire Edwin Jackson, but in exchange for J.J. Hardy, who likely never would have playde for us over Renteria, we picked up Adam Wainwright, who may be the safest NL rookie starter to own.

With Lowell, LaRoche, Wainwright, Edgar Gonzalez, and a couple extra picks secured, our last goal involved moving Luis Gonzalez and Jason Ellison for a similar yet less risky outfielder. Our league turner over five owners this year and the resulting chaos left us with few good trade options. After several different conversations, we returned to the owner who acquired Ponson for us, and we worked out a deal for Shawn Green. While we needed to include LaRoche with Gonzalez and Ellison, we also picked up a 21st round pick, leaving us with 23 draft picks and the following 16-man keeper roster:

C:	J.LaRue
1B:	A.Pujols
2B:	J.Vidro, D.Jimenez
3B:	M.Lowell
SS:	E.Renteria
CF:	C.Patterson
LF/RF:	S.Green, B.Wilkerson
SP:	K.Millwood, C.Zambrano, A.Eaton, J.Peavy
	K.Ainsworth, Ed.Gonzalez, A.Wainwright

Heading into the draft, we knew that Kaz Matsui, Nick Johnson, Mike Cameron, and Andy Pettitte would go at the top of Round 14. A.J. Pierzynski, Roger Clemens, Carl Everett, and Eric Milton also seemed like logical picks. We hoped to draft either John Thomson, a definite sleeper and potentially the best player available, or David Wells, who should post nice numbers in San Diego. Unexpected selections of Robby Hammock and Oliver Perez left us Thomson, and we happily took him. Wells almost made it back to us in the next round, but he fell one pick before us, leaving us with Brett Tomko as a slightly better option than LaTroy Hawkins or Juan Cruz.

Of course, with our starting pitching addressed, we wanted to find a bat to replace LaRoche and give us an alternate offensive source in case of injury. Lyle Overbay matched those requirements, so we grabbed him.

Unfortunately, Juan Cruz, like Wells, went to the owner selecting one pick before us. In retrospect, we probably should have taken Cruz, especially since Overbay is fairly similar to J.T. Snow, who we took in Round 28. However, we like Overbay and believe he gives us a nice bat off the bench.

Over the next five rounds, we solidified our bench by grabbing Craig Counsell, Mike Barrett, J.J. Davis, and Ricky Ledee, along with Braden Looper to give us one late-inning option. While Barrett disappointed us last year, we believe he'll rebound with the Cubs, and Ledee offers both good offensive and defensive upside.

With most of the best big leaguers off the board by the 21st round, we decided to us our back-to-back picks to make a preemptive selection of the only two rookies we truly wanted. We irritated a couple of owners by drafting Edwin Encarnacion and Franklin Gutierrez, but now we have a long-term replacement for Lowell, and if we somehow don't lose any of our established contributors to the AL, Gutierrez, even in Cleveland, should be an offensive stud for us. Conversely, unless a severe rash of trades and free agent movement creates a new abundance of crossovers, we should be able to find a decent trade market for him.

Kevin Correia was an easy choice with our next pick since we love his upside, and Juan Rivera was a great sleeper in the 23rd round. Following selections of Amaury Telemaco, Jim Brower, and Dan Wheeler to stabilize our bullpen, we opted for Aaron Heilmann and then J.T. Snow as the best value picks left on the board.

In the 30th round, taking Salomon Torres over Ryan Vogelsong probably was a mistake, but we believe Torres should pitch very well when left in relief full-time, and we certainly didn't need another starter. We drafted Endy Chavez with our next pick to give us an excellent late-inning defensive option alongside Patterson and Ledee.

By round 31, only five other teams still had picks left as each owner kept an average of four rookies. With another set of back-to-back picks, we addressed our lack of middle infield depth by rostering Felipe Lopez and Chris Burke, both of whom we expect to win starting jobs by next spring.

Finally, although we considered grabbing another pitcher, we opted for Florida's Abraham Nunez and then completed our roster with a third catcher, Corky Miller, who we expected would be Cincinnati's only backup catcher. Hopefully the decision to keep Javier Valentin doesn't result in Miller's demotion or we'll spend a second straight season scouring for catcher at-bats.

2004 BP-Indy Drafted Roster for Always Polko-Cola
1.	Edgar Renteria, SS
2.	Jose Vidro, 2B
3.	Albert Pujols, 1B
4.	Shawn Green, RF
5.	Mike Lowell, 3B
6.	Brad Wilkerson, LF
7.	Corey Patterson, CF
8.	Jason LaRue, C

C:	Michael Barrett, Corky Miller
IF:	Lyle Overbay, J.T. Snow, D'Angelo Jimenez, Craig Counsell
OF:	J.J. Davis, Ricky Ledee, Juan Rivera,
	Endy Chavez, Abraham Nunez
Prospects: Edwin Encarnacion, Franklin Gutierrez,
	Felipe Lopez, Chris Burke

SP: 	Kevin Millwood, John Thomson, Carlos Zambrano, Adam Eaton
	Jake Peavy, Brett Tomko
	Dan Wheeler, Jim Brower, Amaury Telemaco, Salomon Torres
RP:	Braden Looper
Prospects: Aaron Heilmann, Kevin Correia,
	Edgar Gonzalez, Adam Wainwright

The good news is our lineup is solid both offensively and defensively, we can withstand a couple of injuries, and we possess enough starting pitching so that we shouldn't need to hunt for innings at any point. If Davis, Rivera, or Nunez emerges as a quality starter, we can deal them to address any in-season problems that develop, and we also probably could move a starting pitcher if necessary to upgrade elsewhere.

Of course, a quick glance illustrates several obvious problems. We didn't draft any left-handed pitchers, which could leave us at a slight disadvantage against some teams. While every pitcher except Looper can start Scoresheet games, we don't have any dominant pitchers like Quantrill or Beck last year and only Millwood and Thomson are established quality starters. Despite owning perhaps the best first basemen, second basemen, and shortstop in the league, the bottom of our lineup is potentially weak, and we likely will platoon Green and LaRue with Rivera and Barrett. Cuts at the end of spring training also leave us with only 29 active players, creating a potential problem until the first supplemental draft at the beginning of May.

Fortunately, we still expect our core players to provide the foundation for another playoff run, and if one or two of our youngsters develops quickly, hopefully we can add another top-of-the-rotation starter, dominant reliever, or upgrade our catcher or corner outfielders. While only Thomson and Encarnacion currently look like long-term solutions for us from this draft, our acquired depth nicely augmented our keeper roster. Even if we make no more moves aside from whomever we select in the mid-season drafts, we believe this team possesses enough talent and roster flexibility to keep us competitive both in 2004 and future seasons.

Internet Challenge

Our team started out about as bad as possible here thanks to nearly across-the-board offensive problems and poor outings from Halladay, Chacon, and Herges. Now Matt LeCroy's injury forces us to burn a move early, but at least we get to rectify one of our initial roster mistakes. We'll add Mike Piazza(990), cutting LeCroy since we don't have the roster space to carry him until he returns from the DL. Piazza started off very hot and will head to Puerto Rico this weekend, making him a great pick-up this Friday.

While burning a second move this early isn't always advisable, we're attributing Kaz Matsui's poor spring stats to his injury. His debut impressed us, and if we ever were going to add him, rostering him now as the Mets head to Puerto Rico is the move with the most upside. As he also gives us an additional 400 of cap space over Rafael Furcal, and we don't believe we need Furcal's speed, we'll cut the Braves' shortstop in favor of his division rival. Perhaps more importantly, making this move also reduces the cap burden of adding Piazza.

SP(6)
Pedro Martinez: Sat:TOR(R.Halladay)
Curt Schilling: Sun:TOR(M.Batista)
Randy Johnson: Sun:STL(J.Marquis)
Mike Mussina: Sun:CHW(D.Wright)
Roy Halladay: Sat:@BOS(P.Martinez)
Tim Hudson: Sat:SEA(G.Meche)
Roy Oswalt: Sun:@MIL(Do.Davis)
Kerry Wood: Sun:@ATL(Ru.Ortiz)
Josh Beckett: Sun:PHI(Millwood)
Jose Contreras: Fri:CHW(J.Garland)
Shawn Chacon: 3 Road at LA.

No starts: Vazquez, Brown.

We don't want to run Pedro or Halladay, and we want to see a strong outing from Mussina before running him, however Schilling, Randy, Hudson, Beckett, and Contreras give us five hopefully solid home starts. Despite his disaster last night, we also still trust Chacon and will run him in Los Angeles.

Replacing Miguel Cabrera and Alex Cintron with Carl Crawford and Brad Fullmer also should give us a nice quantitative jolt this weekend.

The Umpire Hunter(25th lg; 916th overall)
Week 1b: April 9-April 11

C	Mike Piazza		990
C	Jason Varitek		680
1B	Mark Teixeira		760
1B	Josh Phelps		580
2B	Alfonso Soriano		1930
2B	Marcus Giles		990
3B	Eric Hinske		990
3B	Hank Blalock		850
SS	Alex Rodriguez		2010
SS	Kazuo Matsui		750
OF	Carlos Beltran		1760
OF	Juan Pierre		1470
OF	Vernon Wells		1150
OF	Carl Everett		880
OF	Adam Dunn		690
OF	Brad Wilkerson		690
DH	Carl Crawford		1040
DH	Brad Fullmer		700

SP	Curt Schilling		1610
SP	Randy Johnson		1550
SP	Tim Hudson		1320
SP	Josh Beckett		990
SP	Jose Contreras		800
SP	Shawn Chacon		630
RP	Eric Gagne		1890
RP	David Riske		820
RP	Arthur Rhodes		800
RP	Matt Herges		670

Total Salary for Week 1b: 	30000

Today's Fantasy Rx: Even if a solid player has slipped several rounds in a straight draft, don't necessarily select him if adding him to your team causes you to alter your planned strategy to any significant extent.