Updated Standings ... AL Rosters ...NL Rosters ...AL Draft Recap ...NL Draft Recap
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16 OT'ers willing to call themselves "experts" in the realm of fantasy baseball have come together to take part in the inaugural season of what hopefully will become a MLB staple in the land of OT. We have 6 pairs of owners and 4 individuals that snake-drafted 10 teams in both an AL-Only (25 players) and a NL-Only (27 players) league. The format is 7x7 Rotisserie with daily lineup changes and the combined points totals from the two teams will determine the Champion and overall order of finish.

The roster of fake GM's includes several of the more prominent and well-respected OT sports minds as well as some pretty knowledgeable and active fantasy baseball guys with pretty decent past success both in and out of OT leagues. The deep rosters, narrow pitching windows, and ability to set lineups daily should make for a quite competitive league. The general sentiment during the drafts was that it was very tough to find values and I think it they were the best drafts I've been a part of so far.

Most, if not all of the owners, are big baseball fans in general and enjoy the link that fantasy provides to the real game. The baseball knowledge combined with the gambling, game theory and competition provided leads to a fun and interesting mix and as the season progresses, perhaps some good discussion and banter will come from this thread. Everyone is welcome to follow along, provide comments or critiques and possibly participate in future seasons.

Individual Owners
BubbaKGB, bluefront, MilBestDrnkr, 93-97

Partnerships
Futon & Blackout, DetUcf & RJA, BGX & PittProduct,
PGH & BigEarn, BirdWings & Gateman, Pker4Dummies & LarsonLarsen

The drafted rosters are listed below. Once again, 7x7 Roto format, lineups are daily (with a bi-weekly FAAB system for roster additions) and the limits in place are 1000 IP Min / 190 GS Max in the AL, 1150 IP Min / 215 GS Max in the NL and a 155 GP by position Max in both leagues. Players remain on teams even if they get traded out of their real league, and trades within the league are allowed to include players from both the AL/NL rosters.



American League Drafted Rosters





National League Drafted Rosters

Yeah, you are hypothetically correct. Probably be best just to make a post on one of the homepages or shoot me an email/PM anyways. I can always just manually make changes to rosters too.

American League Draft Recap (part II)

Rounds 13-25
13. (124) - J.Kubel: The last 1B I would have been happy with got snagged, I didn't realize I was up until I heard the 10-second warning beep, and was almost into panic mode, but luckily I had Kubel queued up and made the pick (was researching some power options while missing my turn). With more awareness, I might take a C here as I had a big drop-off to the next tier with Napoli and Posada still available.

14. (137) - M. Napoli: Luckily, one of my C was still there and with yet another 1B going, he makes for an emergency backup option there as well.

15. (144) - D. Holland: All starting pitching that I "like" is gone, and was admittedly a little flustered at this point, but I reminded myself that I waited on SP for a reason after my 1st two guys, and so I'll be alright with some back-end guys that have potential. If 1 of my bottom 3 can breakout a little and the other 2 don't completely suck, I still think I have a top 3-4 rotation.

16. (157) - J. Masterson: see Holland, D.

17. (164) - M. LaPorta: At least I have a starting 1B instead of having to roll with Napoli and then a real shitty catcher.

18. (177) - J. Rauch: Should open the season at closer and then hopefully pick up some vulture saves throughout the year along with regular hold numbers. Was getting killed at this point on MR being taken before I could pick, had 6 guys in my queue go before Rauch over the past 3 rounds or so.

19. (184) - J. Montero: Upside pick that isn't looking real great to pan out at this point. I'm hoping he gets some DH action along the way, but maybe could have picked up someone else here. This is the time to take some risks though.

20. (197) - L. Hochevar: see Holland, D. and Masterson, J.

21. (204) - J. Lowrie: Kind of like him as a last-round flyer in setup-friendly mixed leagues, so absolutely love him at this point in an AL-only. Should see plenty of PA to make him useful and some quality time from bench players could make a big difference in a tight league.

22. (217) - A. Russell: Seriously, the 2nd half of my pitching did not go according to plan and all the teams were well prepared in this aspect. Gonna have weaknesses somewhere in a deep league like this, but I didn't think it would be here for me.

23. (224) - J. Crain: see Russel, A.

24. (237) - M. Trumbo: Another pick I'm very happy with at this point. Should be a good fill-in for a few weeks, at least giving me some match-up options at 1B, and if Kendrys ends up being out for an extended period, this could be a steal.

25. (244) - R. Kalish: Had a few options here, maybe either someone that should get some PA or go the other route and take a prospect to stash for later on, but I decided on a 3rd route in a guy that probably won't get much PT, but is an injury away from stepping into a great situation. I also might change my mind by the 1st FAAB on Sunday too.

Hard to "dislike" anyone at this point since pickings are so slim, but is a "like" from each team...

MilBestDrnkr - J. Rivera, 23rd (225)
bluefront - D. Fister, 22nd (219)
Bubba - H. Matsui, 22nd (218)
BGX/PittProduct - B. Morel, 24th (236)
Larson/Pker4Dummies - B. Boesch, 25th (247)
DetUcf/RJA - K. Uehara, 18th (175)
Futon/Blackout - M. Capps 14th (133)
PGH/BigEarn - K. Kouzmanoff, 19th (189)
BirdWings/Gateman - B. Jenks, 16th (151)

Quick Overall Analysis: Think I have some great balance on offense. I'm slanted a little towards contact and speed, but I don't think my power sucks by any means. I also think I have a pretty good mix of steady, reliable guys and riskier upside. Pitching-wise, I'm counting on my loaded top 2 SP and RP to really provide a lot of IP with awesome ratios to offset the relatively weak back-end guys. Things started to go a little sideways about 60-70% through, but came away really feeling like I was at least in control of my draft the entire time and stuck to a very acceptable blueprint for success.

Haren>Lester would have been a pretty awful pick imo. Think you may be overvaluing Haren and Pedroia a little bit there... Looks like a fun league though, gl guys.

Love the write up matt. I'm working and on the phone now. Here are my quick thoughts:

At first me and Gateman didn't like how we chose NL #1 pick at first. But the more I looked into the format I didn't mind the AL #10 pick. We talked it over and decided we needed an Ace with one of those picks. We were gonna go Lester/verlander and Pedroia/mauer. We didn't expect Felix the fall so we snagged him then mauer who looks to be a beast in this format.

A part of me wanted to go Felix and Lester though.

Picks 30 and 31 we wanted another ace and were gonna reach a bit on Butler who I'm high on and he should be rock solid with his averages. Wanted weaver as the sp but happy with Liriano.

I agree that Haren has already reached his ceiling and Lester hasn't necessarily done so yet.

My fantasy perspective though (and the bolded is really my main focus)....

IP: Haren
W: Lester
K/BB: Haren
K/9: Lester
QS: tough to predict, but Haren
ERA: tough to predict, but Lester

So they are very close to begin with and even if Lester can maintain a significantly better K/9, here is the rub....due to the nature of the pitcher distribution I think I can I find a higher K/9 later in the draft easier than I can find a high K/BB guy, so I'd rather build off Haren than Lester. Call it category scarcity rather than positional scarcity.

Fair enough, I would have taken Lester just because of the potential that Lester has to improve and have an even bigger season than he has, compared to the potential that Haren has to go on the decline. I see your reasoning though.

Here is my wrap-up for the first 12 rounds:

Rounds 1/2
1/20 - C. Crawford / J. Verlander
2/19 - M. Cabrera / A. Rios
3/18 - E. Longoria / CC Sabathia
4/17 - D. Pedroia / J. Lester
5/16 - A. Gonzalez / J. Bautista
6/15 - A. Rodriguez / N. Cruz
7/14 - R. Cano / S. Choo
8/13 - J. Hamilton / A. Dunn
9/12 - K. Youkilis / M. Teixeira
10/11 - F. Hernandez / J. Mauer

My picks: I really wanted A-Rod/Pedroia, but I was relieved Youk was still available at 9. Aside from last year, Youk actually has been fairly durable, and last season he put up his best slashes of his career. I think it's safe to presume he is still in the prime of his career, and now he has a phenomenal lineup around him. Youk's move to third base makes him an easy pick over Teix. I thought Teix was a fairly easy pick as well. Even though the Yanks caught a lot of grief this off-season for not grabbing an elite starting pitcher, the top of the Yanks order is still pretty stacked, and Teix will continue to benefit from playing in a little league stadium in the Rocky Mountains.

Observations: Robinson Cano at #7 is great value. Even though HRs don't count in this league, he is an emerging superstar at a prime position. I was definitely surprised Pedroia went at #4, but I think Matt must value position scarcity even more than I do. I wouldn't touch Bautista in round 2. HRs don't count in this league and he has no history of elite production before last year. He's like Garrett Jones on steroids (figuratively speaking): he had a monstrous breakout season, but his weaknesses will likely be exploited this season.

Rounds 3/4
21/40 - I. Kinsler / C. Granderson
22/39 - V. Martinez / J. Soria
23/38 - D. Jeter / M. Scherzer
24/37 - D. Haren / M. Young
25/36 - A. Beltre / A. Ramirez
26/35 - E. Andrus / BJ Upton
27/34 - J. Weaver / K. Morales
28/33 - J. Ellsbury / J. Morneau
29/32 - I. Suzuki / D. Price
30/31 - B. Butler/F. Liriano

My Picks: Ichiro is a model of consistency. His BA fluctuations really just derive from luck, with different BABIPs (batting average for balls in play) but fairly consistent K rates. His fall to #29 was surprising to me. Did you guys check the settings in this league? Hits count, homers don't. I'll take the guy who has lead the league in hits the last five years straight. And with 42 steals last season, I think Ichiro has a lot of All-Star production left in him. He is a special player. I was content to take the best pitcher available in Round 4.

Observations: Jeter and Beltre both represent very interesting risk/reward picks. Jeter's risk is age, Beltre's is post-contract complacency. Out of the two, I like the gamble on Jeter more because of the extreme position scarcity at SS in the AL.

Rounds 5/6
41/60 - B. Zobrist / M. Rivera
42/59 - J. Pierre / A. Hill
43/58 - B. Morrow / B. Abreu
44/57 - N. Markakis / D. Span
45/56 - B. Anderson / T. Hunter
46/55 - P. Konerko / A. Lind
47/54 - B. Gardner / M. Reynolds
48/53 - G. Beckham / C. Buchholz
49/52 - C. Santana / B. Roberts
50/51 - D. Young / J. Danks

My Picks: I am usually hesitant to go after elite catchers, but Santana is a special case. He was an elite prospect and didn't disappoint last season in limited ABs in Cleveland. He's a STUD. He should DH on the days he isn't catching. I think of him as Brian McCann with more power. Brian Roberts is certainly a risk here with his back issues, but I feel that Round 6 was the time to take the risk at a think position. Sans the injury issues, he is a Round 3-4 pick. So I'll take him here for the discount.

Observations: Pierre is too one-dimensional to be picked this early. And it's not like he is some young kid with upside: you just hope he keeps stealing bases for you. Buchholz's peripherals were not impressive last season, but he does have a great lineup to help him get wins.

Rounds 7/8
61/80 - M. Moreland / J. Nathan
62/79 - N. Swisher / J. Shields
63/78 - A. Jones / J. Papelbon
64/77 - T. Snider / M. Thornton
65/76 - J. Hellickson / M. Wieters
66/75 - R. Davis / CJ Wilson
67/74 - R. Raburn / E. Aybar
68/73 - C. Quentin / C. Lewis
69/72 - N. Feliz / V. Wells
70/71 - H. Kendrick / C. Figgins

My Picks: I am surprised Matt didn't mention Feliz, who I think is the most intriguing pick in the draft. At the time of the draft, it was unclear whether Feliz would be a starter or a closer this season. Well apparently the Rangers decided that 70 innings at the end of close games are more important than 180 innings. Dumb. Still, the fact that Feliz wasn't the #1 closer taken was an absolute shock to me. I thought Wells was very good value here as well. He takes a lot of shit because he is overpaid, but I don't think I am overvaluing him in round 8.

Observations: Hellickson is that one sleeper who everyone knows is a sleeper and he then becomes overrated.

Rounds 9/10/11/12
81/100/101/120 - P. Hughes / Y. Escobar / D. Bard / R. Porcello
82/99/102/119 - J. Beckett / E. Encarnacion / C. Sale / S. Baker
83/98/103/118 - D. Lee / J. Valverde / M. Pineda / M. Aviles
84/97/104/117 - M. Ramirez / E. Jackson / R. Soriano / C. Crisp
85/96/105/116 - B. Matusz / T. Nishioka / M. Cuddyer / J. McGee
86/95/106/115 - G. Gonzalez / S. Rodriguez / B. League / J. Peavy
87/94/107/114 - K. Suzuki / T. Cahill / L. Scott / F. Gutierrez
88/93/108/113 - A. Escobar / V. Guerrero / A. Bailey / G. Floyd
89/92/109/112 - R. Romero / D. Ortiz / C. Perez / W. Davis
90/91/110/111 - G. Sizemore / A. Cabrera / A. Jackson / J. Lackey

My picks: I don't like my Wade Davis pick. I should have found someone with more upside in that spot. However, I LOVE David Ortiz in Round 10. He is my favorite pick that I made in both drafts. Francona has shown that he is willing to stick with Ortiz through his struggles, and boy did Big Papi deliver after a horrible April. With two UTIL spots this makes it a lot easier to feel fine about drafting a DH. Big Papi finished 8th in the AL in OPS last season, and the lineup will get even better ahead of him, providing plenty of RBI opportunities. I understand that people are concerned about aging superstars, but a healthy Ortiz would be one of the steals of this draft.

Good stuff guys.

I would love to hear the NL draft analysis as well. I'm still torn on taking the NL #1 pick as the first option. I've gone back and forth so many times.

Rounds 1/2
1/20 - C. Crawford / J. Verlander
2/19 - M. Cabrera / A. Rios
3/18 - E. Longoria / CC Sabathia
4/17 - D. Pedroia / J. Lester
5/16 - A. Gonzalez / J. Bautista
6/15 - A. Rodriguez / N. Cruz
7/14 - R. Cano / S. Choo
8/13 - J. Hamilton / A. Dunn
9/12 - K. Youkilis / M. Teixeira
10/11 - F. Hernandez / J. Mauer

My Picks: When choosing positions to draft from, we made a pretty important mistake. We opened up some sites ADP for it's mock drafts and chose accordingly. Recall this was a few weeks, maybe even a month ago. We chose AL 6 NL 5 because the two people in those spots on this ADP were the two people we were really thinking were going to be great for this league: Crawford and Troy Tulo. Needless to say, differing ESPN rankings + another few weeks of adjustments + drafting with people who actually have brains made our draft slot choice pretty horrible. In retrospect I would have went 3 NL and 8 AL (Taking Arod/Youk depending on who was available) We also went into this willing to pass on pitching early as we both believed pitching is a lot easier to find on the wire than hitting. .

As for these two picks, we were pretty over Cano as our rd 1 pick from day one. While 2b was rather thin up top, we believed there were enough value picks at the position later (S. Rodriguez, R. Rayburn, Aviles, Hill, Nishioka just to name a few) that we would be fine skipping 2b here. 3B on the other hand we felt was pretty thin later. There wasn't much that excited us after Encarnacion, so when we jumped into the draft room and saw Crawford at #1 overall we had to change the plan. We were debating between Youk and Arod, and when we factored in Youk's injury last year and Arods down year being a pretty good one we decided to roll with boatshoes.

As for round 2, we both had Cruz ranked pretty high going in. When he fell back to us we picked him up pretty quickly and were really happy about it.

Like/Dislike: Really like the Youk/Teix pairing. Can't say a dislike, as it's pretty damn hard to fuck up picks 1 or 2 lol


Rounds 3/4
21/40 - I. Kinsler / C. Granderson
22/39 - V. Martinez / J. Soria
23/38 - D. Jeter / M. Scherzer
24/37 - D. Haren / M. Young
25/36 - A. Beltre / A. Ramirez
26/35 - E. Andrus / BJ Upton
27/34 - J. Weaver / K. Morales
28/33 - J. Ellsbury / J. Morneau
29/32 - I. Suzuki / D. Price
30/31 - B. Butler/F. Liriano

My Picks: Andrus is my first SS on the AL board, and getting that in round 3 when the pickings get extremely slim quickly was something I was happy about. 150/90/50/35/.270/.342/.320 is a potential line, and I really dig it for how weak SS is overall in the AL. FTR, I have him as my #1 over Jeter due to Jeters age.

We debated between Upton and Scherzer here. Upton's been rumored to have worked on his swing a ton, and his 127/89/62/33/.237/.322/.424 line from last year feels like a floor more than a ceiling. CF is deeper than we first thought, but we ended up going with Upton for his upside + skipping on Scherzer due to our belief that we'd be fine with SP waiting more.

Like/Dislike: Digging the Beltre pick. That lineup + that park should result in a great offensive season from Beltre. Not thrilled about Butler over Morneau (or Morales or Price) but with Morales' DL stint to start + curiosity of the lingering effects of a concussion that left Morneau in the dugout for the second half of the year I can understand it.

Rounds 5/6
41/60 - B. Zobrist / M. Rivera
42/59 - J. Pierre / A. Hill
43/58 - B. Morrow / B. Abreu
44/57 - N. Markakis / D. Span
45/56 - B. Anderson / T. Hunter
46/55 - P. Konerko / A. Lind
47/54 - B. Gardner / M. Reynolds
48/53 - G. Beckham / C. Buchholz
49/52 - C. Santana / B. Roberts
50/51 - D. Young / J. Danks

My Picks: We got some power in some needed positions in Konerko and Lind. I like Gardner but we already had Upton + was targeting Davis. There were still a bunch of catching options I liked on the board, so that and the uncertainly regarding Santana's lack of a knee made us stray from him. Same concept went for Beckham. We really wanted more power, and with what we perceived to be a dropoff at 1b decided to go with Konerko over Reynolds.

Sadly for us, Reynolds didn't come back to us and we had to “settle” for Lind. His ESPN projection of 72/29 hr/88/.281 made us be over the Reynolds whiff pretty quickly.

Like/Dislike: I feel that there were plenty of solid 2b options to pass over Brian Roberts for, but I've also been down on Roberts for a long while. On the other hand, I love the Zobrist pick. He's kind of a personal favorite of mine and was really hoping we'd be able to snag him.

Rounds 7/8
61/80 - M. Moreland / J. Nathan
62/79 - N. Swisher / J. Shields
63/78 - A. Jones / J. Papelbon
64/77 - T. Snider / M. Thornton
65/76 - J. Hellickson / M. Wieters
66/75 - R. Davis / CJ Wilson
67/74 - R. Raburn / E. Aybar
68/73 - C. Quentin / C. Lewis
69/72 - N. Feliz / V. Wells
70/71 - H. Kendrick / C. Figgins

My Picks: We had been targeting Davis for a few rounds and were happy to scoop him up. We loved his positional eligibility and feel he'll be pretty good in this format now that he's moved to a better park + offense.

By round 8, we believed it was time to start our pitching rotation. Sadly, the guy we had been targeting since the start – Colby Lewis – got sniped from us two picks early. Can't bitch when you wait til round 8 though. We scooped up the other Texas SP with a good K rate and moved on.

Our SP strategy was simple: With us waiting so long and having to sift between some back end guys to anchor our squad, we focused heavily on K/9 as we're going to need some of them to hit a good stride and guys with good strikeout capability seem like the best candidates to do so.

Like/Dislike: Huge Raburn fan and was sad to see him go. It let us know that we were going to need to snag some 2b in the near future. Conversely, not a huge Nathan fan anymore. He's been shaky to say the least, is coming off of severe surgery, and we have no reason to believe he's the same RP. In a league with SV and HD being equal, I would have much preferred a potentially great MP there.

Rounds 9/10/11/12
81/100/101/120 - P. Hughes / Y. Escobar / D. Bard / R. Porcello
82/99/102/119 - J. Beckett / E. Encarnacion / C. Sale / S. Baker
83/98/103/118 - D. Lee / J. Valverde / M. Pineda / M. Aviles
84/97/104/117 - M. Ramirez / E. Jackson / R. Soriano / C. Crisp
85/96/105/116 - B. Matusz / T. Nishioka / M. Cuddyer / J. McGee
86/95/106/115 - G. Gonzalez / S. Rodriguez / B. League / J. Peavy
87/94/107/114 - K. Suzuki / T. Cahill / L. Scott / F. Gutierrez
88/93/108/113 - A. Escobar / V. Guerrero / A. Bailey / G. Floyd
89/92/109/112 - R. Romero / D. Ortiz / C. Perez / W. Davis
90/91/110/111 - G. Sizemore / A. Cabrera / A. Jackson / J. Lackey

My Picks: Still need SP going into this round. Gio has a great K rate, pitches in a pitcher's park, and had an acceptable year last year. He's a guy I've targeted a bunch, as a site or two I frequent have convinced me his walk rate (which is admittedly high) could drop this year bringing him into a good tier for SP. Projection seen: 12-8/3.60/1.28/195

We've waited as long as possible for 2b with only 2 guys from our initial list still available: S. Rodriguez and T. Nishioka. We chose Rodriguez due to his CF eligibility + having at least some basis for a projection which we don't have with Nishioka. Either one was fine I think. Looking back, I think passing on Cano for Arod didn't matter. We select Encarnacion here with Cano instead, and I'd be happy with him as well.

RP with a good chance of picking up some Sv early and holds late (or saves throughout) in a good park to pitch in and an acceptable K/9. In retrospect, I think Soriano + Pineda would have been better.

As for Peavy, I have no idea what to expect. We needed another SP, and took a shot. Sadly for us, the Peavy blurb in the draft room next to his name said he had mild discomfort but not to worry. When the league was done, the blurb by his name on our team page said expect him to miss half the season. Like, fuck you ESPN.


Like/Dislike: Love the Lackey pick this late as well as Sale. Dislike the Bailey pick solely because I've been hearing a lot of worrysome things from their camp.

just stopped by to LOL @ "experts" in the title

haha anytime someone seems to be on the same page as me it makes me feel better :)

Knowing we wound up with S. Rodriguez I think it worked out best this way for us, but man I love Raburn

haha I figured if I'm gonna have to dig deep for pitching, might as well dig deep in a great pitchers park. Oakland SPs have been pretty good for me in the past and Im hoping the trend continues.

I've liked LaPorta for a while despite his poor results thus far. The guy had such potential coming up, and I'm not going to write him off so quickly. There's a learning curve, and compared to the other guys at that spot he's got a pretty high ceiling.


Also, can't wait tilyou go over the NL one. We tried to draft SS aggressively to hurt everyone else by reaching a bit imo for Rollins and Furcal and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the result. We also took SP much earlier, which makes little sense considering NL should have more pitching and with the extra MI CI slots the hitting would be more important. Idk. Just curious on everyones thoughts on that one too

MilBest, who would you have taken #1 if you had been there?

Although Crawford was my gut a month ago, I would have taken Miggy if I had the #1 pick. I could've swore that at some point in the past, if you looked at the 'Draft/Auction' List (and hence the Draft Room) that you can set, it was arranged according to the league settings, but it isn't that way right now.

I swear, I had one - ONE - guy in my queue at one point in the NL league and it was Rafael Betancourt and he wasn't anywhere near the top. His K/9 and K:BB is just ridiculous. As I'm chatting to RJA while 93 is going in the tank I just sigh and tell him he's obv taking Betancourt here and poof. There he goes. Most of them didn't really bother me as they were near the top. That one irked me tho lol