Edmond Fitzgerald Review - in my own words

Draft: With the luxury of the first pick, I broke it down to only a few guys fairly quickly, and wound up deciding on Jose Bautista - for his speed, power, walks, games and multiple position flexibility. The choice of Bautista led to a plan of finding several high quality, shorter game guys to cover single spots and filling in with longer game guys around them. That plan did not work quite how I had hoped, beyond the 1B/LF platoon of Youkilis/Joyce. I wound up selecting a couple of CFs, Posey, who I thought was the best overall catcher, and some longer game solid guys. My starting pitching selections were pretty much guys I could grab at the time. I wound up with 4 lefties in my rotation due to that. I spent little time focusing on the pen or defense. My bench is somewhat limited.

Offense: Bautista in the middle of the lineup meant I needed "on base" guys ahead of him. I never really did pick a specific guy for that purpose beyond Youkilis. Well, I guess Abreu is a poor example of that type. Instead I wound up picking a bunch of guys that all seem that they should wind up with around a .300 OBP and have first column ones. 10 guys, not all of whom will play together, have first column ones, so hopefully in a year with very good pitching throughout the league, I can score some runs via the longball. A good sign is I kept picking hitters, and then kept hearing from others that is whom they wanted. I should be solid throughout the lineup, with Neil Walker 8th and AlGonz as a 1566 hitting 9th. I have some speed; Yuke/Swisher are the only sub 10s. Ken says I will be top 3 in runs scored, so I would be happy with that. It is a different type of offense than I have been drafting of late; more emphasis on XBH and less on H&R.

Starting Pitching: I kept picking likely guys out of groups as I went. Price was the bottom of that top tier, I thought. Cliff Lee was probably a reach, but with the ZZZ, and as a 10 who performed well in my preplays, I had to try him. Verlander was a reaction to my first two lefties and Romero was just the next guy on my list at that point. Sanchez was a late round, high grade guy who may supply some innings. 4 lefties, 3 Gs, a multiple Z and a W. 16,14,13,12,10. Middle of the pack unless the league hits better against lefties this year, then it may be lower.

Bullpen: Did not draft a reliever until the 14th round, so then picked 4 straight. Wound up with 3 high grade shorter games guys and 3 lower grade guys with both home run and walk control grades. 2 lefties, 4 Zs, 1 H, 4 Gs and 2 Ws. 21,20,18,16,14,13. Not a bulk of games nor innings out of the group, so may need to ride the starters a bit or outscore people.

Defense: Really only made 2 deliberately defensive picks - Posey, for his arm in combination with offense & good catcher speed, and AlGonz for 157 games of a SS9 with power. Beyond that, no real defensive picks; I guess one could argue the D of all of my bench guys was part of the thought process of picking them. X number of partial games with a 7 -1 behind the plate will not be good. Solid arms without the stellar ones from around the league in the OF.

Team Name: Named after one of the initial microbrews that Chris got me to try and possibly the first I liked. Still consider it to be one of the very best. Hopefully my season will reflect that and not anything to do with either the wreck of the ship, the song about it, or the dust bowl town.

Overall: Tough division. Recently Greg & I have played strongly one team wins a lot or the other does. I have had solid records against Graham without great teams. I think I will have a good offense with power, speed and depth. My pitching may need me to score some, and my defense will not help much. Let us see if 1st pick Bautista has an MVP-type season and carries the club.