In the past 2 weeks, I drafted 5 Teams that are competing for cash prizes.  In each draft, I used an approach of drafting the best available player on the fantasy baseball board.  After the first 3 picks, I’d usually determine what my plan would be for the remainder of the draft.  The following is the draft information from each of the leagues, plus a little snippet of my thoughts on the team and league.

I drafted this team on 3/28/2011 at 7pm.  This is a 6x5 (AVG, OPS, R, RBI, HR, SB, W, W-L, K, ERA, SV) fantasy baseball league, and it is the format that first pushed me to develop RotoRank, since you couldn’t find a fantasy baseball draft guide that catered to these scoring categories.  This may have been the most competitive league that I drafted in this year.  Most of the owners in this league have been playing fantasy baseball since the 1990’s, and very few players slipped beyond their projected ADP.  In order for me to squeeze out some extra value from my picks, I attempted to make calculated chances on selecting certain players.  In a 12-Team draft, I determined that Starting Pitching was going to be a low priority for me, especially since my other 12 team leagues.  I attempted to get one star player at each position, and then fill in the other slot with a younger player with potential.  I missed the mark at SS, when Troy Tulowitzki didn’t slide to my #4 pick in round 1, and I didn’t draft SS Elvis Andrus in Round 5, so I ended up with two average SS.  I chose Longoria over Carlos Gonzalez in Round 1, since there is way more chance to hit a sleeper pick in the OF than at 3B.  Overall, I like this team, but I need to make sure I keep a close eye on my starting pitching stats.

I drafted my NFBC team on 3/27/2011 at 9pm.  This was a long draft done via an internet draft room.  The draft room was very nice and easy to use, but it was hard for each owner’s sleeper picks to stay off the radar, since it had an updated ADP draft list available for everyone to see.  That dynamically updated ADP list forced me to make some picks that I wouldn’t have made in some rounds, but overall, I think I drafted a great team.  I was planning to let pitching slide in this league, but when Tim Lincecum was available to me on the 24^th pick overall, I had to take that value pick.  Once I took BJ Upton in Round 5, I decided that I would sacrifice Batting Average for key stats like Home Runs and Stolen Bases.  I probably have no shot winning the $25,000 Grand Prize, but I should have a chance at the $1500 League Prize.

This was my worst draft of the year.  I haven’t played in a small league for a while, so I didn’t have a good strategy going into the draft.  I had the second pick in this draft, and I decided to take Hanley Ramirez over Tulowitzki with the second pick overall.  I took this team down the pitching heavy strategy, when Roy Halladay slipped to me in Round 2.  Since this is a 6x5 (AVG, OPS, R, RBI, HR, SB, W, W-L, K, ERA, SV) fantasy baseball league, the decision to go pitching heavy may come back to haunt me.  Any team who was able to execute their strategy of going hitting heavy, already has a 9 point advantage over my pitching heavy team.  This team projects out better than I thought it would, but I think it is going to need a lot of help to finish in the money.  Luckily, BoxscoreBaseball.com offers monthly prizes for the team that wins the monthly stat period for a league.  A few of those monthly wins, and I won’t be sad if my team falls short at the end of the year.

I drafted this team on 3/19/2011 at 4pm PST.  I was drafting for an owner who had to make an unexpected trip to the hospital, and he wanted to make sure that his team would be fully balanced using the ratio of 2 pitchers to every 3 hitters drafted during each 5 round block of the draft.  During this draft, I did my best to avoid players with poor batting averages, but at a certain point, it is hard to leave Mark Reynolds and his 35+ homeruns on the board.  If some of the bench players turn out to be legitimate sleepers, then this team should be in the running for a money finish this year.

This was my first draft big money draft of 2011, drafted live in Las Vegas on 3/19/2011.  This team belongs to the same owner who ended up in the hospital on 3/17/2011, so I did my best to follow his overall strategy of having a very good pitching staff.  This team is balanced on offense, and it may be a little above average on the starting pitching front.  If this team can stay healthy 9do you hear me Chipper Jones and Rickie Weeks), then it has a good chance to finish in the money slots for the league; however, it may need some unexpected output from Willy Taveras, Mark Trumbo, and Mike Moustakas to have any chance at competing for the $100,000 overall NFBC Classic prize.. 

Well, hopefully you feel as good about your fantasy baseball drafts as I do.  We won’t know how any of these teams will turn out after the 162 game MLB season, but it will sure be fun to watch the season unfold!  All I need to do is win one of my money leagues, and I’ll make a little profit on my hobby in 2011…

Good Luck and enjoy the rest of 2011!