Clearing The Bases

Well my draft season has ended.  Tuesday night was my 15th and final draft.  I said to myself just before the draft how happy I was that it was finally over, but the truth is I will miss it.  Love to draft.  Now I don’t get to experience that feeling again until football season is about to start.

As for this column.  I’ve decided to go over the different types of leagues I’m playing in and the anomalies that have occurred so far.  In other words, what kind of leagues I’m in, different types of rules, and who I’m playing against.  Now generally I only play in leagues against other people in the industry, good way to network, and the competition is better, plus in those types of leagues teams tend to try as hard as they can all year long.  Don’t like it when teams get off to a slow start and then decide to pack it in.  In expert leagues everyone has a reputation to protect so they stay involved with their teams.  That being said, if I’m playing in a money league, you are more than welcome to give up early, I’ll take the cash.  Here is the breakdown.

12 mixed leagues, 2 NL only leagues, 1 AL only league.

I prefer to play in mixed leagues as you can tell, like the bigger player pool.  If I didn’t work in this business I probably wouldn’t play in an “only league”, and I would also seem to be a bit of a hypocrite if I talked/wrote about “only leagues” but didn’t actually play in them.

8 daily leagues, 6 weekly leagues, 1 league where you have no reserves but FAAB is run daily.

I prefer daily leagues since I like to be able to make moves each and every day.  It’s no fun finding out on Monday after your lineup deadline that so and so is out for the week, just annoys me, but since I play in so many leagues, I try and split it up, even I don’t have the time to set my lineup each day for 15 teams.

12 snake draft leagues and 3 auction leagues.

Once again you can tell by the disparity that I prefer the snake draft.  I know that seems to go against the grain, but I like the fact that I know where I’m going to pick and can figure out a draft strategy.  Sure in an auction you can theoretically get anyone you want, but still I prefer the sure thing.  Another pet peeve is that auctions tend to take forever while snakes generally go between 2-3 hours.

12 re-draft leagues and 3 keeper leagues.

I actually like to have some kind of keeper rules, but those leagues can be difficult, you need dedicated owner season in and season out.  Without them, it could be tough to recruit new owners and the league could disband quickly.  I would also like to play in a dynasty league, but just haven’t had that opportunity yet.  For those wondering, the difference between a keeper and a dynasty league.  In a keeper league you’re allowed to keep a certainly amount of players from one year to the next, in a dynasty league, you keep them all.  In my three keeper leagues, I’m allowed to keep up to 22 of 40 players (up to 12 major leaguers and 10 minor leaguers) in one league, three of 21 in another, and seven of 27 in the other.  You usually pay some kind of penalty for keeping a player, lose the pick that player was drafted in, or in an auction his salary comes off your cap.

1-20 team league, 2-15 team leagues, 1-14 team league, 4-12 team leagues, 1-11 team league, 3-10 team leagues, 2-9 team leagues, 1-6 team league.

Quite a disparity there.  The 2-9 team leagues are both NL only, probably why they are so small.  The six team league was for a live on air draft for Seamheads.com but they had quite a few cancellations at the last minute, not much you can do about that, besides, it feels good to have a superstar team.  My favorite are 12 team leagues, not to shallow, not to deep, right there in the middle.

1-$300 league, 1-$200 league, 1-$50 league, 1-$40 league, and 1-$20 league.

Most of the leagues I play in are just for bragging rights.  Money is a great way to keep people interested, but it also brings out the worst in people.  My favorite league is actually the $200 league.  That’s a mixed 12 team league where playoffs actually count.  Monetary prizes are given not only to the top three finishers, but also to whichever team scores the most points each week.  My least favorite league is the $300 league, not because of the fee, but because the rules are so complex I feel that I need a law degree in order to fully understand them.  Only reason I played this season was because I finished in the money last season, but wasn’t paid because apparently the commissioner ran off with the cash.  It happens.  The new commish offered to let me play for free this season, so I had little choice but to play once again if I wanted to get my money’s worth.  The league fee and the money I was owed happened to be the same.  I won’t miss this league.

I play in 11 rotisserie leagues, 3 head to head rotisseries leagues, and a total point league.

Don’t really care about whichever league I play in, but I do believe the total point league rewards the best actual team.  I like H2H, but there is plenty of luck involved.  Doesn’t matter if you have a good team, just if you’re good that week.

Player Totals

180, 230, 252 (2), 270, 280, 300, 308, 336, 360, 378, 405, 420, 600 (2)

Doesn’t really matter to me how many players are in a league, as long as it’s a mixed league.

For our last look at my drafts we are going to go position by position and look at the player I drafted most, and the top rated player that I don’t have in any league.

Catcher

Geovany Soto, Cubs (8):  that is certainly to many, but I don’t like catchers and he just kept falling to me.

Carlos Santana, Cleveland Indians; Mike Napoli, Texas Rangers; Brian McCann, Atlanta Braves, Matt Wieters, Baltimore Orioles:  I stayed true to my beliefs about not taking a catcher early, they just get hurt to often and don’t play enough games.

1st Base

Mark Teixeira, Yankees (5):  I didn’t take a 1B in the 1st round all that much so that left Tex for me in the 2nd round if I wanted a top 1B.

Paul Konerko, White Sox:  Nothing against Konerko, just never got the value I was looking for in drafting him.

2nd Base

Dan Uggla, Atlanta (6):  I don’t think anyone has any doubt about his power capability, I also believe the average will rebound.

Ben Zobrist, Tampa Bay:  I’m just not sold on him, when I had a chance to take either Brandon Phillips or Zobrist, I always went Phillips.

3rd Base

Alex Rodriguez, Yankees (5); Mat Gamel, Milwaukee:  I’m certainly not totally sold about ARod, but the value was just to good to pass up, especially in drafts that took place in early March.  Gamel was just a sleeper that I believe in.

Ryan Zimmerman, Washington:  I just don’t think he can stay healthy.

Shortstop

Starlin Castro, Cubs (7):  After the top three are gone, I was looking to grab Starlin.  If he can hit 15+ HRs, I’m going to be a happy man.

Hanley Ramirez, Miami:  Two straight down seasons, new ballpark looks like a pitchers haven, and he burned me last season, enough said.

Outfield

Yonder Alonso, San Diego (8); Carlos Beltran, St. Louis (6); Carlos Lee, Houston (5); Colby Rasmus, Toronto (5); Nick Swisher, Yankees (5):  Alonso was just a player I took for my bench, can never have enough OF/1B types.  Beltran is someone I’m high on and he fell to me quite often.  Lee I was able to get for my bench in several leagues, and like Alonso love the dual eligibility.  I believed in Rasmus more in February and early March than I do now, perhaps Tony LaRussa was right.  Hard to pass up on Swisher in that offense and in a contract year.

Curtis Granderson, Yankees:  Had him in my queue in several leagues, he just went before I could grab him.

Designated Hitter

David Ortiz, Boston (5):  Hard to pass up the value in the 8th and 9th rounds and that’s where it seemed I was able to get him.  I’m a believer that owners tend to forget about DHs because most fantasy draft software doesn’t have a category for them and everyone qualifies under Utility.

Billy Butler, Kansas City:  Wanted the power of Ortiz and the catching possibility of Jesus Montero more than the average of Butler.

Starting Pitcher

Jordan Zimmerman, Washington (7); Clay Buchholz, Boston (6); Jeremy Hellickson, Tampa Bay (5);  James Shields, Tampa Bay (5):  I love Zimmerman, think he’s going to have a breakout season and I was able to get him late.  Buchholz is someone I’m curious about, but I wish I didn’t take him in so many leagues.  Hellickson does scare me a little bit, but the value was just to good, seems everyone believes he is in for quite a regression this season because of his BABIP.  I love that I was able to get Shields after the 5th round to anchor so many staffs.

Roy Halladay, Philadelphia:  I just don’t spend early picks on pitching.

Closer

Jose Valverde, Detroit (8):  The Tigers are going to win that division by 20 games and he’s going to have a boatload of saves.

Mariano Rivera, Yankees:  He is 42 years old, the Yankees will win by blowout quite often, the Yanks may take it easy on Rivera, and in his Hall of Fame career, Rivera has only led the AL in saves three times.

You may think I’m tired of drafting, but truth is, I’ll miss it, can’t wait until August for football.

Remember, you can ask me any fantasy questions you like on Twitter, @GeorgeKurtz