I’m in very good shape right now in my fantasy baseball league with about a 20 point cusion between my team and the team in second place. I’ve won the league the last few years and have a decent core of keepers, but the team I have now looks a lot different from the team I drafted. Over 40% of my team were picked up from the Free Agent pool:
Keepers
- A. Rodriguez (NYY – 3B,SS)
- R. Furcal (Atl – SS)
- B. Abreu (Phi – RF)
- V. Guerrero (Ana – RF)
- J. Bagwell (Hou – 1B)
- J. Santana (Min – SP,RP)
- T. Hudson (Oak – SP)
- P. Martinez (Bos – SP)
- B. Zito (Oak – SP)
- C. Schilling (Bos – SP)
Drafted
- C. Patterson (ChC – CF)
- F. Thomas DL (CWS – 1B,DH)
- J. Nathan (Min – RP)
- D. Baez (TB – RP)
Traded For
- J. Vidro DL (Mon – 2B)
- R. Baldelli DL (TB – CF)
- G. Mota (Fla – RP)
Free Agent Pickups
- B. Davis (CWS – C)
- J. Morneau (Min – 1B,DH)
- P. Polanco (Phi – 2B,3B)
- C. Crisp (Cle – LF,CF)
- J. Guillen (Ana – LF,RF)
- M. Kotsay (Oak – CF)
- M. Mora (Bal – 3B,LF)
- M. Sweeney DL (KC – 1B,DH)
- A. Burnett (Fla – SP)
- D. Hermanson (SF – SP,RP)
- B. Wickman (Cle – RP)
- S. Kazmir (TB – SP)
The core of my pitching is definitely in my keepers, but you can make a good argument that the hitters I got in the draft (Patterson, Thomas) and from the free agent pool (Melvin Mora, Jose Guillen, Justin Morneau) and as good as the hitters I kept.
When I played in the Yahoo winner’s league a few years back, I was amazed to see the team in first place adding no-name players and dropping mid-level proven players. He rode the hot hand all year and won the league handily. I’ve started treating about 40% of my team as interchangable parts and trying to ride the hot hand myself. The last two years at least, it’s payed off.
Dude, is there anyone else in your league? That’s the strongest list of keepers I have ever seen.
Keeper Acquisition
In response to Tom’s comment, here’s how I got everyone. Many of them I picked in the draft before they were superstars and kept them.
Alex Rodriguez: I took him with the third pick in the first round of our first keeper draft in 2001 (after P…
I’m not as huge a baseball fan as I could be but I find this whole fantasy sports process pretty fascinating. I’m hoping I can somehow get myself signed up for some fantasy NBA when the time comes. I think I’d have a better chance of picking good players in a fantasy NBA draft than in a baseball draft.