Weekly Draft: Einstein Observations. Discussions Go Here.

[Imran Siddiqui]

No, I don't engage in low blows, Slow . You have me confused with a gay Polytubbie

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Doing a CBS Sportsline Weekly Money League with a fellow real estate agent. He went to NYC yesterday to participate in the draft. 13 teams, 25 rounds, and 1st place takes $1500 apiece. Here's our team, as follows:

C - Bengie Molina
1B - Ryan Howard
2B - Freddie Sanchez
3B - Adrien Beltre
SS - Troy Turlowitzki
MI - Felipe Lopez
CI - Chone Figgins
OF - Carl Crawford
OF - Curtis Granderson
OF - Torii Hunter
OF - Matt Kemp
OF - Delmon Young
DH - Travis Haffner
UT - Kosuke Fukudome

P - Aaron Cook (SP)
P - Bobby Jenks (RP)
P - Carlos Marmol (RP)
P - Jonathan Papelbon (RP)
P - Mike Pelfrey (SP)
P - B.J. Ryan (RP)
P - C.C. Sabathia (SP)
P - Chein-Ming Wang (SP)
P - Carlos Zambrano (SP)

BN - Lyle Overbay (1B)
BN - David Price (SP)
DL - Dmitri Young (1B)
DL - Jeremy Bonderman (SP)

Comments much appreciated. Keep in mind, he was calling me up every round to discuss picks, so I wasn't live for the draft. Couple of mistakes were made - for instance, he took Chone Figgins in the 6th or 7th round, and decided against taking Joe Mauer because he'll be "out for like a month", so we ended up not taking a catcher until everyone else had chosen.

[SlowwHand]

Catcher. Bah, who cares? Good luck.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Molina isn't a bad catcher at all. And Mauer's injury problems sound a bit scary.

[snoopy369]

Pitching's fine. Your power is your big weakness, to be honest. You might see if someone like Jack Cust or Pat Burrell is on the waiver wire - someone with good power and not much else. Or perhaps see if you can flip Howard for a more balanced power hitter and a second mid-power hitter, like, say, Howard and Freddie Sanchez for Derrick Lee and Dan Uggla or something on that order.

Also, that league's lineups are really odd. 5 OF, a DH, and a UT? Is DH somehow different from UT (ie, do you actually have to play a real-life DH at it?) Too OF-heavy in my book.

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Scoring System

Batting Categories
BA - Batting Average
HR - Home Runs
OBP - On Base Pct
R - Runs
RBI - Runs Batted In
SB - Stolen Bases

Pitching Categories
ERA - Earned Run Average
K - Strikeouts (Pitcher)
QS - Quality Starts
S - Saves
W - Wins
WHIP - Walks + Hits / Inning

[Berzerker]

yup, gotta agree with Snoop - decent pitchers but suspect offense. I'd try to upgrade at 3B and 2B. Wieters gone? Keep an eye on the Fla C, if he shows any power I'd nab him (already did on 1 team). Fields and Getz of CWS are probably available

[Berzerker]

Look for Motte to replace Marmol, or a closer

[snoopy369]

Beltre's fine, and has some power. I am less worried now that I see the categories- OBP and BA both means HR/RBI is less important. Makes me want to dump Howard even more, actually, for two mid-range power with really good ba/obp.

[Berzerker]

trade bait ?

nah, those are good cats for Howard. No Ks at least

[The Emperor Fabulous]

The only possibility left is trading. There were 351 picks in the draft, so its best to wait and scout for a few weeks.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Let's do a more indepth evalution... in blocks.

C - Bengie Molina
1B - Ryan Howard
2B - Freddie Sanchez
3B - Adrien Beltre
SS - Troy Turlowitzki
MI - Felipe Lopez
CI - Chone Figgins
OF - Carl Crawford
OF - Curtis Granderson
OF - Torii Hunter
OF - Matt Kemp
OF - Delmon Young
DH - Travis Haffner
UT - Kosuke Fukudome

I am guessing that the DH position requires someone who is actually listed as DH? Otherwise, I'm not sure why you'd pick Hafner there. Anyway, like I said Molina is fine. Snoop is right that there is a very large lack of power here. Howard will get you your HRs and RBIs, but little else. Beltre is you only other real hope for power. After that, a lot of 20 HR guys (at best). Most of them will, however, make it up in speed and some in OBP. So you'll win that SB catagory . Delmon Young has a lot of upside, but likely won't ever develop the power that people thought he had (so perhaps 25-30 HRs is the best you can hope for from him, and probably less).

P - Aaron Cook (SP)
P - Bobby Jenks (RP)
P - Carlos Marmol (RP)
P - Jonathan Papelbon (RP)
P - Mike Pelfrey (SP)
P - B.J. Ryan (RP)
P - C.C. Sabathia (SP)
P - Chein-Ming Wang (SP)
P - Carlos Zambrano (SP)

Hmmm. Sabathia is a good ace. Zambrano can be good, but I'm concerned his arm will fall off due to the Dusty era work load. Wang will get you your wins. Pelfrey is an up and comer and lets hope this is his year. Cook? That's somewhat strange. Relievers are nice, but as said, Marmol is now set up man. You can hold him and hope for the best (a Gregg implosion), but may not happen. The rest of the bullpen is pretty solid, though some reports that B.J. Ryan isn't doing so well. Keep an eye open.

BN - Lyle Overbay (1B)
BN - David Price (SP)
DL - Dmitri Young (1B)
DL - Jeremy Bonderman (SP)

Price is a good person to have in your bench, but how freaking small is it? 2 people?! That's ridiculous. Anyway, when Bonderman gets healthy, toss Cook over for him.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Poly burp!

[OzzyKP]

So how does the whole waiver thing work?

I tried to add Jair Jurrjens yesterday and it didn't work somehow. I'm not sure what I did wrong. I hit the little green plus sign by the players name. Then I hit "add player" I got a note that said it would be reflected in my lineup today, so I figured it worked, but now it looks like Sloww took him.

[snoopy369]

Was he actually on the waiver wire or was he a free agent? Looks to me like he was a free agent. You must've done something wrong, or else Yahoo! screwed something up. Waiver wire is someone recently dropped, will be on waivers for 2 days; anyone can claim them, and one with the highest waiver wire priority gets him. But Jurrjens wasn't on waivers...