Bernie's Bomber's Roster (head-to-head points)

In case you all were wondering how I did in my draft using the system I laid out for you in the last post, here's how my draft went. My team name is Waveland and Clark, the intersection of the vaunted Addison El stop outside Wrigley Field. We used a snake draft, with me picking 4th overall in the first round:

Round 1 (4): Robinson Cano, NYY 2B

Round 2 (17): Ryan Zimmerman Was 3B

Round 3 (24) Andrew McCutchen Pit OF

Round 4 (37): Adrian Beltre Tex 3B

Round 5 (44): Victor Martinez, Det C

Round 6 (57): Jered Weaver, LAA SP

Round 7 (64): Shane Victorino, Phi OF

Round 8 (77): Billy Butler, KC 1B

Round 9 (84): Francisco Liriano, Min SP

Round 10 (97): Stephen Drew, Ari SS

Round 11 (104): Jonathan Paplebon, Bos RP

Round 12 (117): Tim Hudson, Atl SP

Round 13 (124): Nick Markakis, Bal OF

Round 14 (137): Daniel Hudson, Ari SP

Round 15 (144): Chris Perez, Cle RP

Round 16 (157): Jhoulys Chacin, Col SP

Round 17 (164): Brian Roberts, Bal 2B

Round 18 (177): Denard Span, Min OF

Round 19 (184): Jason Bay, NYM OF

Round 20 (197): Garret Jones, Pit 1B/OF

Round 21 (204): Jake Peavy, CWS SP

Round 22 (217): Logan Morrison, Fla OF

Round 23 (224): Carlos Zambrano, ChC SP/RP

A few notes about this. First and foremost, I had a complete brain fart about relievers during the draft. Since in a h2h points league I devalue pitching, I only left up my notes for hitters. As such, I forgot that I didn't need any sort of investment in relievers. With only 20 available slots, you can wait until the end of the draft to pick up a closer. You can take one earlier if you want some certainty, because it's nice to get saves (and the 5 points they bring). But picking Paplebon in the 11th round wasn't nearly as cost-effective as taking a starter or another bat there and taking Leo Nunez/Joel Hanrahan/Kevin Gregg, all of whom are on the waiver wire, whenever I wanted to. It's nice to get the guaranteed 40 saves, but I could have gotten 30 guaranteed saves much later.

You may laugh at taking Billy Butler, but he's great in points leagues. He's only the #8 first baseman, but his projected 627 points are a mere 30 less than Prince Fielder, who went in the first round. In the meantime, I got to stock up on shallow positions.

I actually took Adrian Beltre by mistake. He was at the top of the draft window, and I thought I clicked to select another player before hitting the "draft" button. However, that first click only changed windows, and didn't select the other player. It's a happy accident, though, because now I've got two of the top five 3B. I can slot one in my Utility spot for now, and later on trade one if I need to.

Round five may seem a bit on the high end for V-Mart, but catcher falls off a cliff after the top-6. On top of that, V-Mart a) projects to an awesome number of points (590) in his own right, and b) won't catch most of the time, which will help him stay productive. I can't think of another catcher I'd want in an ideal world- not even Mauer (the wear and tear scares me).

My starting outfield has three (McCutchen, Victorino, Markakis) of the top-10 and four (Span) of the top-25 projected point scorers at OF, with my fifth/reserve outfielder (Morrison) coming in at 27. Another position of strength for an in-season trade.

Starting Pitching is a small weakness, since I'm counting on Weaver and Liriano being close to last season and hitting on at least one of Daniel Hudson/Chacin/Peavy in terms of value. But I can always stream the two-start pitcher of the week in a league like this, so I'm not overly concerned. Taking Tim Hudson was probably a misfire for this league. I like him more for roto leagues, but he's not going to do too much for me unless I can include him in a trade and/or the Braves win a lot of games. He's more non-negative (won't give up hits/walks/runs) than positive (strikeouts/wins). But basically, since we set lineups weekly and the week-to-week value of a pitcher changes so much depending on number of starts, I wanted to wait on SP unless there wasn't a hitter I particularly wanted. I mean, it's nice to get Roy Halladay and his projected-average 20ish points per start. I'm not going to do that in the 2nd round though, because I can get 20 points from two projected-average starts from Nelson Figueroa or Dice-K, both of whom are on the waiver wire with good reason. It's not an efficient use of a pick to go pitching early.

Brian Roberts didn't need an MRI when I drafted him, but I should have known better anyway. He was just sitting there, though, and seemed like a potential value pick. Ah well.

I lost my internet connection to the draft room in round 19, so Bay got auto-picked for me. I don't hate the pick, since maybe he has an up year after down like Wright did when he first started playing in Citi Field. That's probably not the case, and if I need to drop he and/or Jones are first on my list. I would've rather taken another upside pitcher like Matusz to increase my odds on hitting big late (see pitching above).

I used my last pick on Zambrano, and here's why. It's not because I'm a Cubs fan (as you probably can tell from the team name). I've seen him pitch enough for that to be a reason NOT to take him. It's because, due to the failed Zambrano-as-reliever experiment last year, he qualifies at RP this year. Relievers don't get many points, so Zambrano projects to be roughly the fifth or sixth best RP in the league. I can put him in one of my RP spots if need be and have an extra start or two during a matchup. Starters generally get more points per week than relievers, especially closers on a 90-loss team like the Indians. It's not something to do every week- sometimes he's generally bad (or eye-gougingly awful) for a stretch, and sometimes he's going to face a team that owns him- but as an occasional strategy it's a gem.

So that's that. I'm going to spend the next few posts evaluating good and bad hitters to target in points leagues as compared to roto, and try to figure out some good roto league analysis.