The Blogger Fish roster is set

I just got back from my fantasy baseball draft and I wanted to share some quick thoughts on how things went and also reveal the roster of the 2010 Tiffany Lakes Blogger Fish.  For those of you who don’t care about fantasy sports, you might want to stop reading.  For those of you who do care, or are just curious by nature, please read on.

Our league is a 14 team weekly head-to-head keeper league and each year heading into the draft we protect five players.  I went into the draft with a roster that consisted of:

SS-Hanley Ramirez (FLA)
3B-Evan Longoria (TB)
OF-Adam Lind (TOR)
SP-Matt Cain (SF)
SP-Matt Garza (TB)

I had the 10th pick in each round, based on finishing with the 5th best record last season, and my goal was to draft young players with a decent amount of upside.  My picks went as follows.

1st:  C-Matt Wieters (BAL)
2nd:  SP-Brett Anderson (OAK)
3rd:  OF-Adam Jones (BAL)
4th: 2B/SS-Asdrubal Cabrera (CLE)
5th: 1B-James Loney (LA)
6th:  RP-Joakim Soria (KC)
7th: OF-Nate McLouth (ATL)
8th: SP-Mark Buehrle (CWS)
9th: OF-Colby Rasmus (STL)
10th: RP-Jason Frasor (TOR)
11th: SP-Randy Wells (CHC)
12th: 2B-Alberto Callaspo (KC)
13th: 1B-Adam Laroche (ARI)
14th: C-Carlos Santana (CLE)
15th: OF/3B-Chase Headley (SD)
16th: OF-Lastings Milledge (PIT)
17th: SP-Chris R. Young (SD)
18th: SP-Kenshin Kawakami (ATL)
19th: OF-Travis Snider (TOR)

All in all I stuck to my plan of drafting mostly young upside guys, but I am not enamored with my final roster.

In retrospect, selecting Wieters in the 1st round may not have been the best way to go, but my team lacked a legitimate catcher last season thanks to the struggles of Chris Ianetta.  If Wieters lives up to the hype, then I landed myself a catcher worth protecting next season.  Beyond Wieters, I was very happy with my choices of Anderson and Jones in rounds 2 and 3.  The selection of Soria in the 6th round was the highest I have ever taken a closer in the 12 years that I have been running this league but I think it was one of my best picks on the night.  I’m not so sure about picks 7 through 11, but I was very pleased to get Alberto Callaspo in the 12th.  His selection was partially predicated on the assumption that he will earn enough time at 3B to gain eligibility there during the season.  Picks 13, 14, and 15 I’m not so sure about, but in the case of LaRoche I needed some HR power for my bench and also quality backup at 1B.  I wind up with Lastings Milledge pretty much every year.  If I don’t draft him, I wind up trading for him or claiming him off waivers.  He’s the player I can’t resist so I am hopeful that this is the year he rewards my “loyalty” with a breakout season.  I was very pleased to close the draft with an apparently healthy Chris R. Young in the 17th and Travis Snider in the 19th.

I know a couple of things for sure heading into my first match-up this week.

1) 20% or more of my initial roster will change by way of trades.  I love to trade.  I can’t help myself.  In hindsight this probably cost me at the end of last season but trading is fun so I’m not going to stop.  Incidentally, all five of my keepers this season were acquired via trade in past seasons.  Longoria and Hanley were acquired in 2008 while  Garza, Cain, and Lind joined the Blogger Fish during the 2009 season.

2) Another 20% of my roster will change due to waiver wire transactions.

3) This is the “slowest” team I have ever assembled.  Team speed has been one of the trademarks of my teams in seasons past but this year’s roster is lacking.

I’d love to write more but you probably don’t care all that much.  Also I consumed a fair number of adult beverages and need to get some sleep.  For what it is worth, this will probably be the only post I publish this year about fantasy baseball.