Friday morning status update, using the “Status” post format type in my default WordPress theme. Going to try each of these formats over the next little while to see what works well for us.
1. Projections update posted again this morning. Since the last update, we updated Ryan Braun since he is now off the hook from being suspended to start the season. Good news there. Plus there was an error in Aaron Harang’s hits allowed projections, as posted last night on Facebook and Twitter.
2. As I’m browsing around the web finding what I consider to be good quality fantasy baseball articles, I’m starting to tag them to our player pages. Check the Braun page linked above, under the heading “Articles Found Elsewhere”. Here is another for Mike Minor. Right now you can find all linked articles at the bottom of this page. I’ll see if I can work up a spot on the home page so the newest links are more prominent.
3. If you are looking for a fantasy baseball draft guide, I recommend Ray Flowers’ guide available at Baseballguys.com for only $8. I used it last year and really liked the player capsules. Ray isn’t a fence-sitter when it comes to telling you whether he thinks a player is worth rostering or not. I’ve only just scratched the surface on the 2012 edition, but right off the top I enjoyed his bold predictions section. Check it out.
4. Last but not least, best of luck to Bryan Mazany, a.k.a. CC/DB user katanga, who won our DraftBuddy.com Whitey Herzog Fantasy Baseball league last year, just edging me out at the end. We awarded Bryan with a free entry in an NFBC satellite league this year. We got him signed up in a slow draft, draft masters format, and he started last night with the 13th pick. I’ll post periodic updates on how his draft is going.
Bryan sent me the first update from his draft. It is going pretty quick! Through five rounds at the 13th pick he grabbed Justin Verlander, Cliff Lee, Eric Hosmer and Alex Gordon, Michael Morse. So, stud pitcher from the get-go for him while the other guys are avoiding pitchers. We’ll see how the team continues to shape up.
Just checking in from my NFBC slow draft. We are through 12 rounds now and as usual, the manager before me consistently takes the guy I’ve been targeting. It’s a bit too slow at times, but fun to get an early start in fantasy baseball. As Mike said, I took 2 ace pitchers with my top 2 picks. 13th position kind of sucks, so I went with J. Verlander and C. Lee. Followed that up with 3 young, but well rounded hitters, in Hosmer 1B, Gordon OF and Morse OF/1B. The rest of my draft picks look like this:
Round 6: B. Posey C
Round 7: H. Bell RP
Round 8: G. Gonzalez SP
Round 9: B. Butler DH
Round 10: N. Walker 2B
Round 11: S Santos RP
Round 12: D. Freese 3B
At this point I have 3 high stikeout SPs, with good ERA and WHIP and 2 decent closers who also have good K/9 ratios. My batting average is really good across the board with some power, but lacking some speed. I will be targeting a few speedy OFs in the next few rounds. Maybe A. Pagan, J. Tabata, or A. Jackson. Then I will probably have to nail down a Shortstop, the only position that I have seriously neglected so far. Y. Escobar is still unspoken for , so maybe I have a chance at him. Going to be a long draft… 50 rounds! But have to plan ahead, because no in season roster adds or trades. Thanks again to Mike for hooking me up. I’ll keep you posted. -Bryan