Fantasy Baseball: Drafting with Air

I had high hopes for my fantasy baseball league. I really did. I wanted to get involved in a 2011 league. The downside to it all was that I set up the league on Sunday night and set the draft for Wednesday. Another slight issue was that I only invited the folks in my local keeper fantasy football league. I got six guys and I was on the verge of eight. Talking my father-in-law through the pages to get him signed into Yahoo was tough enough. The ultimate frustration was when I found out that by the time he got accepted, it was six minutes past the deadline for him to join my league.

We were going to draft a fantasy baseball league, a head-to-head league, with six teams. I set the league up for eight playoff teams. I'm going to play each of my five opponents four times. It was too late to change and I was locked in.

The draft started at 7. It was over at 7:26. Two of the six drafters showed up and one was my dad who had another league to draft in starting at 7:30. My dad's in more fantasy baseball leagues then me. He'll be semi-retired in a few months so he has nothing but time. I picked my players but my heart wasn't quite in it. With a total draft load of 120 players, everyone's going to have an all-world squad and MVP candidates are going to be available on the waiver wire. I had the number one pick, and by the time the final choice came to me, I took the Flying Hawaiian in Shane Victorino. It was the 120th pick and I took the 73rd overall ranked player. In a normal 12-team league, he's an 8th rounder probably.

Here's my team, because I'm like that:

C: Matt Wieters (16.06, 96th pick)

1B: Albert Pujols (1.01)

2B: Chase Utley (11.01, 61st pick)

SS: Alexei Ramirez (12.06, 72nd pick)

3B: Alex Rodriguez (2.06, 12th pick)

OF: Matt Holliday (4.06, 24th pick)

Justin Upton (6.06, 36th pick)

Ichiro Suzuki (8.06, 48th pick)

Utilities: Billy Butler (13.01, 79th pick)

Shane Victorino, (20.06, 120th pick)

Starting pitchers:

Roy Halladay (3.01, 13th pick)

Tim Lincecum (5.01, 25th pick)

Clayton Kershaw (7.01, 37th pick)

Ubaldo Jimenez (9.01, 49th pick)

David Price (10.06, 60th pick)

Max Scherzer (14.06, 84th pick)

Chris Carpenter (15.01, 85th pick)

Relief pitchers:

Jonathan Broxton (17.01, 97th pick)

Brad Lidge (18.06, 108th pick, and we have DL slots)

Matt Thronton (19.01, 109th pick)

What a beaut. I hope DL spots get cleared up by tomorrow so I can make my update.

Zach on Fantasy: Dynasty trade offer featuring Crabtree

I only need a little bit of engagement. I had a trade offer in my dynasty league, and it got the fantasy juices flowing.

There was a problem with the trade right off. I have one owner in our league who is very keen on buying low. He also takes advantage of our emotions. When Sidney Rice was injured, he made a lowball offer (3rd round rookie pick and Jabar Gaffney). I wasn't offended. I respected him more for the offer. He got Vincent Jackson last year July for a pittance. The pittance was Arian Foster, Steve Slaton and a fourth round draft pick. Yeah, the trades don't always work out for him.

I had to think about the offer. It was Michael Crabtree for a two draft picks. It was pick 1.11 and 2.11 for the disappointing 49er. I took Crabtree two rookie drafts ago at 1.02. My RB options at that point were Donald Brown and Chris Wells. I can't say I made the wrong decision. Still, Hakeem Nicks at 1.08 has turned out to be the more valuable selection. It's hard to get value off the second overall pick.

Taking league scoring into effect, Crabtree finished 37th last year. I would have predicted lower. We can start up for four wideouts so Crabtree is a potential starter. I benched him a lot for the likes of Mike Thomas and later in the year, Sidney Rice. If you want a true measure of Crabtree's value last year, note that Anthony Armstrong, a guy I picked up off waivers, scored two fewer points than Crabtree last year.

I couldn't make the deal. It seems like a deep rookie draft, if not top-heavy. The 11th pick might net me a QB, the third or fourth WR, or the sixth or seventh RB. The second round pick would go to a high-rated IDPer or a shot-in-the-dark WR or RB who might not make a roster. Crabtree's still young, as he entered the draft as a redshirt sophomore. If he had exhausted his college eligibility, he'd be a rookie this year.

I thanked Tick for his interest and moved on.

With the 8th pick in the first round, the Tennessee Titans select...

The Titans have the eighth pick in the first round. As much as I want them to trade for Kevin Kolb with that pick, that's not going to happen. I could see them maybe trading their 2012 #1 for him in hopes of it being a pick later in the round.

Titan fans have to get nervous about the pick because of recent history in the top ten. We have the back-to-back whiffs of PacMan and Vince Young. Both players weren't complete busts, yet you have to expect a solid consistent starter if not All-Pro material out of such a pick. With those criteria, they did not hit.

The team's been great with picks later in the round. The four years since Vince have yielded Michael Griffin, Chris Johnson, Kenny Britt and Derrick Morgan. Albert Haynesworth was a mid first-round selection.

Naturally we want to know if this is going to be a bust pick or a boom pick. Ask me again in 2015. What I do know is this draft lacks a true obvious number one pick. In mock drafts I'm seeing the Titans end up with guys who in other mocks are the number one overall pick. Nick Fairley was once considered "fair game" as the number one pick. He's been slipping. The Titans have Auburn DL coach Tracy Rocker on board to assist with the transition. Defensive end Da'Quan Bowers is another potential number one overall pick who could slip. Missouri QB Blaine Gabbert is another possibility, although I'm pretty sure that he won't slip. If Julio Jones ends up taken ahead of A.J. Green, there's a chance Green would slip to eight. In short, the Titans are going to get a very good player at that pick.

One player I haven't seen dropping is Von Miller of Texas A&M. The Titans could use an outside linebacker but it's not going to happen in the first round.

The latest Scouts Inc. top 32 player list has an astounding 13 defensive linemen, and the Titans certainly could use help in that area. It also means that the position could be in play for the second round.

Losing my NFL and Draftmaster update

I'm going to make a quick and obvious statement about the lockout. It's a statement that the owners and the players don't want to hear, but they should. I can live without it.

There are a ton of elements to your life that you think essential that you can live without and you have. Remember life before the Internet? No, it wasn't in black and white. Remember having the standard definition boxy TV without 200 channels? You were fine. We can survive without the entertainment outlet. There are others.
The NFL wants us to believe that we can't live without them. The truth is it can't live without us.

Quickly, I'll cover my team in the Draftmasters 28 league. I don't know how the rosters are supposed to eventually shake out, and I'm not even sure how many rounds are in the draft. See, NFL, I'm starting to fall out of love. There better be a pot roast, some Fat Tire and peanut butter gooey cake for dinner when I get home.

My picks:

1.04: Chris Johnson (RB1)
2.09: Mike Vick (QB1)
3.04: Mike Wallace (WR1)
4.09: Marques Colston (WR2)
5.04: Dallas Clark (TE1)
6.09: Fred Jackson (RB2)
7.04: Pierre Garcon (WR3)
8.09: Mike Thomas (WR4)
9.04: Chris Ivory (RB3)
10.09: Sam Bradford (QB2)
11.04: Donald Brown (RB4)
12.09: Jason Hill (WR5)
13.04: Marion Barber (RB5)
14.09: Brent Celek (TE2)

I know you're jealous. How could I lock up the Jacksonville WR corps like that? It's almost unfair. The usual upside with taking a QB early is that you can wait on your backup. With Vick, it's smart to get reinforcements with the odds of injury at almost 100%. I feel good about my QB and TE, but I'm unsure about the WR group and the RBs seem really weak.

OK NFL, if I come home and you're wearing the Warren Moon Oilers throwback and nothing else, we'll forget that this ever happened.

Friday Night Lights Pilot: Great Show, Lousy Football Ending

OK, so let me see if I get this correctly. In the first game of the first season of Friday Night Lights, the following scenario happens. The team's superstar QB, on the verge of signing with Notre Dame, throws a duck of a pass. As he makes a very QB tackle on the defender, he gets paralyzed. He also causes a fumble while getting paralyzed that his team recovers. In with them so far. In comes the completely inexperienced backup. We'll let it pass that this team, supposedly ranked number one in Texas, does not have a touted backup. This is a drama and we need to beat some odds. This QB comes in and with three minutes to go manages to look like absolute ass throwing the ball but the team still scores on a shovel pass (actually a good play call) and a run.

The team gets the onside kick with less than a minute left. That's fine. Then with no time outs (more on that later), they run the ball and the guy dives out of bounds at the 30 of the opponent. Even though his body lands out of bounds, the clock starts again like in college when a team gets the first down and the chains are moved. There are seven seconds left, so if the team had a time out they would have called it. The QB calls a play and snaps the ball with one second left. Nobody from the defense is blocked. He has to avoid three rushers, runs backward a long way and launches the ball. The defense must have rushed most of their defenders, since a receiver runs past everyone and catches the ball around the 30-yard-line, which is where I thought the ball was snapped. He scores the winning touchdown.

The characters and the drama and the setting were nailed so well that I'm willing to overcome that crazy scenario. I still have 20 episodes left in season one. I bet die-hard fans who are watching the final season wish they were where I was.

Back in the fantasy game

I'm going to give some props to a wily fantasy football veteran known as Taz. I've relaxed my usual year-round grip on all things fantasy. With the potential lockout and the relative quiet leading up to the draft, I've enjoyed not paying close attention to the football goings-on. I couldn't help but notice that Taz kept tweeting about a series of drafts called the Draftmaster. Tons of people do mock drafts, although this is kind of early to start on 2011 leagues. He added a new draft seemingly every day. I sent him a message asking him to add me when he got to Draftmaster 46. Finally he asked me to join Draftmaster 28.

I signed up for this mock draft or draft-only league with the following personal rules. I was going to draft "from the hip". That meant that I would draft based on other lists that I could find instead of my own and more often than not, draft based on feel than need.

I got pick number four in this 12-team draft. The picks before me were Adrian Peterson, Arian Foster, and LeSean McCoy. I can still recall trying to sneak a pick of Foster in the last round of my in-person draft last August and watching the pick get ripped off the board due to positional limits. My how things change in a year. This is a PPR league and other than that, I'm blind to the actual rules of the league. I took Chris Johnson in round one without hesitation.

In the second round, I went with Vick. Last year when you took one of the "elite seven" quarterbacks, you felt like you could wait a long time to get your backup. With Vick and his high probability of injury, I can't really do that. I do have the fastest team in the league with the addition of Mike Wallace in the third. I think I have the fastest QB, WR, and RB in the National Football League.

The league is drawing me back into the fantasy football world, and the best thing about these Draftmaster leagues is that you draft with fellow fantasy football nerds who are also on Twitter. Fantasy nerds of the world, unite!