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Last week, I participated in the Yahoo! Friends & Family expert league which—after my move from Tout Wars Mixed to NL—happens to be my only mixed league this year.  This league offers some fierce competition, with 11 of the 13 participants also members of LABR or Tout Wars.  You can see the entire field and what they had to say about their drafts here.

Yahoo! F&F is a 13-team mixed league with daily roster moves, unlimited transactions, and a 1,250-innings cap. Take a look at my roster:

Pos

Player

Pick

C

Ryan Doumit

R23

1B

Carlos Pena

R16

2B

Brandon Phillips

R4

3B

Evan Longoria

R2

SS

J.J. Hardy

R8

CI

Mark Reynolds

R9

MI

Yunel Escobar

R17

OF

Jacoby Ellsbury

R1

OF

Matt Holliday

R3

OF

Michael Bourn

R6

OF

Brennan Boesch

R15

UT

Mitch Moreland

R18

UT

Josh Willingham

R19

P

Yovani Gallardo

R5

P

James Shields

R7

P

Brandon Morrow

R11

P

Ubaldo Jimenez

R13

P

Ryan Dempster

R20

P

Sergio Santos

R10

P

Rafael Betancourt

R12

P

Brett Myers

R14

P

Daniel Bard

R21

BN

Ben Revere

R22

BN

Joakim Soria

R24

BN

Grady Sizemore

R25

Overall, I’m very happy with my team.  I’m not quite as happy as I would be if Yahoo’s Scott Pianowski hadn’t taken the guy I wanted the pick before mine on seven separate occasions, but I like my chances.

My strategy going into the draft was to load up on hitting early while grabbing a couple near-elite guys in the round seven-to-10 area.  This top 10 plan played out very well, as I feel I acquired some excellent talent in the first four rounds (Ellsbury, Longoria, Holliday, and Phillips) that span a number of positions and categories.  To preempt the obvious question: No, I don’t buy into Ellsbury’s power last year, but with the No. 12 pick, even if he only hits 10 home runs, he should be worth it.

My offense may be lacking a bit in batting average, but it seems to be stocked well with power and speed.  That gives me the option of supplementing the team with average via the waiver wire (more on this in a minute) or via trade later in the year, after seeing how things play out.

As far as pitching goes, I was happy to get Gallardo and Shields to anchor the staff, and I was ecstatic to see Morrow fall to the 11th round.  Not only do I feel he could be in for a huge breakout year, but in a league with an innings cap, a pitcher with that kind of strikeout rate is immensely valuable.  This also puts a premium on elite relievers, since their lack of raw wins and strikeouts are unimportant; their per-inning ratio is key.  When your team is going to get only 1,250 innings, maximizing the quality of each of those innings is extremely important, and relievers are usually the best pitchers in baseball on a per-inning basis.  I know that Chris Liss, who often finishes near the top of this league, likes to draft four or five elite closers for this exact reason.  I debated going this direction, but I ultimately decided against it.

The other interesting strategic quirk that this league offers that isn’t found in Tout Wars or LABR is daily (and unlimited) transactions.  What I’d like to do in this league is keep my three bench spots as, essentially, revolving doors.  Soria and Revere have already been dropped in favor of Oakland hitters for today’s game in Japan, and Sizemore has been dropped in favor of Chris Carpenter, who I’ll stash on the DL when he becomes eligible in the hopes of giving my rotation a jolt in a couple months.

On Mondays and Thursdays (when most teams are off), I’d like to stream the best hitters to maximize my at-bats.  On the rest of the days, I’d like to stream elite middle relievers to help out with, well, everything except saves.  Since the per-inning ratios are what matters, one inning from an elite middle reliever is basically the same as one inning from a 15 W, 3.00 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 9.0 K/9 starter.

So what do you guys think?  How is my team?

Finally, as I discussed in my Tout Wars recap, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a new startup company that I work for called Fantasy Squared. Fantasy Squared is a market-style game where users can buy and sell shares of events that happen in an underlying fantasy league—which team will win, who got the better end of a trade, etc. Knowing how much you guys like to voice your opinion on my teams, I saw this as an exciting way to really quantify these opinions and a way for you to show just how much you really know, competing against others who also think they know as much (or more) than the experts do. You can head over to Fantasy Squared now for more information and to compete in the Yahoo! Friends & Family version on the game. We’re in our beta phase, so feedback is welcome!

Thank you for reading

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mhmosher
3/29
Solid roster. You have speed to burn. I think WHIP might be a category where you lag behind a bit, but you should still have plenty of Ks and saves.
grandslam28
3/29
I love Longo in the second round, hat Phillips 4th round, mixed on Ellsbury but his downside is probably limited. Overall I think you drafted a nice team.

P.S. Drop The old guy who has thrown 500 innings the past two years. Even if he comes back his arm is going to fall off.
APer930
3/29
love the Reynolds and Morrow pick, hoping as well Doumit has a comeback year. some middle relievers that may be worth picking up are Rex Brothers, Tom Wilhelmsen or Steve Cishek, may get occasional save chances and have good K rate and shouldn't have many bad outings.
HonusCobb
3/29
Hopefully Pena and Reynolds can make up for strikeouts and average (if those are your league stats) with their power numbers.
mtgannon
3/29
My 16-team mixed roto 5x5 (OBP) team has Longoria, Pena, Boesch, Moreland, Yunel Escobar and Dempster so I am hoping those guys have good seasons for you (and for me). I loved getting Pena and escobar when I did in my draft given its an OBP league.
pobothecat
3/29
Bethca Carlos Pena isn't this team's first-baseman by the end of the year.
vockins
3/29
Do I need the promo code for the Fantasy Squared Beta?
derekcarty
3/29
To play in an expert league, you need only create a username and you can begin playing immediately. If you'd like to create a FS league for your own private fantasy league, you need to submit a request for a Beta Invitation. If you enter the code "BPDC", you'll be assured of getting an invitation.
vockins
3/29
NICE
jjvedamuthu
3/29
Your 19th and 20th round picks are fantastic. 24th and 25th not so much.
derekcarty
3/29
Yup, as I said, they've since been dropped. They were selected for the sole reason of being placed on the DL, since those bench spots will be rotated anyway. And Soria was picked before his TJ was announced, so I figured there was a small amount of upside there.