Today's Fantasy Rx

In each of the last few years I have spent a couple articles discussing The Fantasy Sports Invitational Challenge, a relatively new league for inter-site competition and bragging rights. We head into our second AL season and fifth NL campaign this summer.

The major change this year involved the addition of a 1000 IP minimum as a direct result of our punting wins and strikeouts for three straight seasons. Deploying a pitching staff with a majority of injured players and minor leaguers led to the change even though we only managed a 3rd place finish in the AL contest due to shoddy offense.

To combat the change we unsurprisingly adopted an offense and strikeouts strategy in the hope of maximizing all quantitative categories yet still finishing in the middle of the pack in ERA and WHIP. The random draw of draft spots resulted in us selecting 11th and 14th, so we planned to target offense for the first few rounds before slowly incorporating a couple of closers and then any available bargain starters.

Although chasing power in the first round tempted us, we instead followed our projections by selecting the top AL player, Scott Podsednik, with our first round pick. The end team took Hafner and Halladay, and after considering a wealth of alternatives, we settled on Eric Chavez due to our strong belief that he could earn significant MVP consideration.

With closers starting to leave the table, we ran counter to the run by drafting Bobby Crosby, easily the best shortstop left on the board. Three picks later we opted for Troy Glaus, a possible overdraft given our lack of a first baseman and limited OF power, but we just didn't like the available choices. Rounds #5 and #6 addressed both those issues as we again passed on closer to roster Jermaine Dye and Lyle Overbay.

While we filled our bullpen on the next go-round, our choices already look like disasters. We opened with Todd Jones, who we believed would carry most of the skills from his NL renaissance to the Tigers, and after missing on Chris Ray to the team drafting on the end, settled on Mike MacDougal. Looking back, we wished we would have gone with almost any of the players in the next two rounds, including Daniel Cabrera, Brad Wilkerson, Freddy Garcia, Joey Gathright, Juan Uribe, and Raul Ibanez, however hopefully MacDougal will return in time to give us 20 saves.

Kevin Mench and Luis Castillo next filled two areas of need for us, and although we hoped to keep drafting offense, the presence of Esteban Loaiza in Round 11 proved too tempting. He and Mark Kotsay joined our squad, a mere single pick ahead of Curtis Granderson as we again targeted a player we expected to rebound.

Another round of pitcher-hitter added Jake Westbrook and Ben Molina to our roster, and then we nearly completed our offense in Rounds 15 and 16 by selecting Lew Ford and Mike Cuddyer, solid upside guys, albeit in current conflict for a job until the inevitable Rondell White injury and Tony Batista struggles clears both third base and DH.

With everything save UT filled, we embarked on a K quest. Bruce Chen and David Wells proved good bargain, and we quickly followed that duo with Casey Fossum, Mike Maroth, Jason Johnson, and Kyle Lohse. Although we recognize that some of those guys qualify as downright soft-tossers, we expect double-digit wins from each of them, along with 180+ IP of good qualitative stats. Perhaps more importantly, Ted Lilly and Fernando Rodney ranked as the only players that held any serious interest for us between Rounds 17 through 22.

Round 23 began the five reserve rounds, although teams weren't required to fill their active rosters before grabbing reserves, hence our Lohse pick. With a general need for extra steals at UT, Pablo Ozuna outdistanced a couple of guys like Maicer Izturis and Nick Punto. We then completed our roster with the highest-upside pitchers available: Neal Cotts, Mike Wood, Doug Waechter, and Kirk Saarloos.

Of course, Oakland dealt Cruz instead of Saarloos, Wood failed to break camp in the rotation, Cotts didn't beat out Jenks to close, and while Waechter held his rotation slot, he remains one of baseball's riskiest starters.

Yet we still drafted a well-rounded offense filled with middle-of-the-order hitters, as well as eight respectable starters. Saves easily ranks our problem spot courtesy of injuries, so if we find any excess hitting or wins, we'll attempt to add another quality reliever.

FSICNL Roster for Rotohelp
C:	Ben Molina
CR:	Lyle Overbay, Eric Chavez, Troy Glaus
MI:	Luis Castillo, Bobby Crosby, Mike Cuddyer
OF:	Scott Podsednik, Jermaine Dye, Kevin Mench, Mark Kotsay, Lew Ford
UT:	Pablo Ozuna

SP:	Esteban Loaiza, Jake Westbrook, Bruce Chen, Casey Fossum
	Mike Maroth, Jason Johnson, Kyle Lohse, Doug Waechter
P:	Neal Cotts, Mike Wood, Kirk Saarloos
DL:	Todd Jones, Mike MacDougal, David Wells

Internet Challenge

SP(6)
Johan Santana: Sun:@CLE(J.Westbrook)
Roy Oswalt: Sat:WAS(L.Hernandez)
Pedro Martinez: No start
Chris Carpenter: Sat:@CHC(C.Zambrano)
Randy Johnson: Sat:@LAA(Er.Santana)
Jake Peavy: Sun:COL(J.Jennings)
Roy Halladay: Sun:TB(S.Kazmir)
Mark Buehrle: Sun:@KC(S.Elarton)
Barry Zito: Sat:@SEA(J.Moyer)
Rich Harden: Sun:@SEA(J.Pineiro)
Felix Hernandez: Fri:OAK(J.Blanton)
John Lackey: No start
Dan Haren: No start

Early success leads to a few easy picks here, including Peavy, Halladay, and Buehrle. With King Felix still supposedly suffering from shin splints, we're happy to deploy Zito and Harden in Seattle. While we want to run Oswalt again Livan, the latter offers better opposition than Ervin Santana to Randy, so we'll deploy the cheaper Randy, thereby enabling us to run a full Colorado platoon.

Encarncion, Uribe, Burrell, Gathright, and Pujols enter the lineup for our five Rockies.

Rotohelp.com(18th lg; 553rd overall)
Week 1b: April 7-April 9

C	Victor Martinez		1020
C	Josh Willingham		340
1B	Travis Hafner		1180
1B	Ryan Howard		880
2B	Chase Utley		1190
2B	Rickie Weeks		620
3B	David Wright		1210
3B	Edwin Encarnacion	600
SS	Jose Reyes		1030 
SS	Juan Uribe		760
OF	Jason Bay		1380
OF	Chone Figgins		1350 
OF	Pat Burrell		1040
OF	Chad Tracy		1040
OF	Ken Griffey		840 
OF	Joey Gathright		450 
DH	Albert Pujols		2060 
DH	Mark Teixeira		1470

SP	Randy Johnson		1360
SP	Jake Peavy		1240
SP	Roy Halladay		1230
SP	Mark Buehrle		1120
SP	Barry Zito		1070
SP	Rich Harden		1040
RP	Huston Street		1300
RP	Ryan Dempster		1180
RP	Mike Gonzalez		1120
RP	Chris Ray		820

Total Week 1b Salary:		29890

Today's Fantasy Rx: We forgot one of our oldest draft lessons here: when drafting near either end of a straight snake draft, don't always select the top player on your board with your pick. Selecting 11th likely could have allowed us to add Hafner and then Podsednik, Chris Shelton and then Dye, Chris Ray and then Jones, Ian Kinsler and then Esteban Loaiza, and Rondell White and then Jake Westbrook. Although we certainly suggest everyone grab their sleepers where appropriate, we missed out on players with significantly more upside because we grabbed the known quantities which we effectively overvalued compared to most published projections. While opting for guys like Hafner and Shelton may have cost us Podsednik and Dye, the superior power potential retrospectively seems far more valuable then perfectly following our expected stats.