Automatic drafts are pretty terrible, but I was actually pretty happy with what I ended up with. The waiver process was even more tedious and that could have went a bit better. I’m fairly happy with my team, but I am a bit short on impact pitching and I have no one that is all that likely to get any saves.

I haven’t made any trades to date. Here’s my roster:

C: Chris Iannetta; Kelly Shoppach®; JR Towles®
1B: Adam Dunn
2B: Brandon Phillips
SS: Elvis Andrus
3B: Evan Longoria
MI: Alcides Escobar
CI: Alex Gordon (I); Ryan Garko
OF: Colby Rasmus; Jason Kubel; Cameron Maybin; Scott Hairston; Chris Dickerson; Fernando Martinez (M)

SP: Justin Verlander; Phil Hughes; Ricky Romero; Paul Maholm; Ian Kennedy; Luke Hochevar®; Kenshin Kawakami®; Charlie Morton®; Tim Wakefield®; Chien-Ming Wang (I); Derek Holland (M); Tyler Matzek (M); Andy Oliver (M)

RP: Neftali Feliz; Kris Medlen; Matt Daley; Brendan Donnelly; Ramon Ramirez; Brian Sanches; Koji Uehara (I); Scott Elbert (M)

As you can see I have a bit too many catchers and a glut of mid rotation ground ball pitchers. I have a good bit of young talent and I like my team going forward; I’m just not sure how well I’ll fare this year.

As Daveh, I really had no clue what to do for the automatic draft. Basically, I moved up players I liked and moved down players I didn’t like. My draft turned out very well, drafting Fielder and A-Gonzo (!!!), along with Stephen Drew, Ben Zobrist, Giovany Soto, Adam Lind, Chad Billingsley, Jonathan Sanchez, Max Scherzer, and Aroldis Chapman. I just happened to get Nathan, so that was a total waste of a pick. My waivers picks were mostly prospects, as I really had no clue how waivers would turn out. I got a couple marginal players plus prospects Arguilles, Crow, Drabek (Personal favorite), Colome, Mier, and Tony Sanchez. I then traded Colome straight up for Tyson Gillies (mancrush). Overall, my team seems top heavy with little depth. I’m hoping to get some good free agent acquisitions as the year goes on to strengthen my bench.

C: Soto,
1B: Fielder, A Gonzo, Brandon Allen
2B: Zobrist, Willy Aybar, Delwyn Young
3B: Troy Glaus
SS: Stephen Drew
OF: Adam Jones, Adam Lind, Podsednik, Seth Smith, Winn
SP: Billingsley, Matt Harrison, Jonathan Sanchez, Joe Saunders, Scherzer, Nippert
RP: Capps,Gregg, Howry, Joaquin, Putz, Santos,Romero

I think the two DL spots do take up part of the 35. I only have four bench players and it’s not allowing more.

I’m very pleased with the team so far. Sadly, my autodraft player list was lost and in an effort to scramble to correct CBS’ list, making the important corrections, the backend of my list suffered. However, I’ve made several trades to help rectify the problem:

I traded Desmond Jennings and Reid Brignac to JMac Attack for Derrek Lee, Huston Street and Scott Feldman.
          I love Jennings but I had a hole at 1B and Lee is a very underrated player that I like very much. Both Street and Feldman helped to bolter a pitching staff that was left weak after the draft.

I traded Drew Storen and Aaron Poreda to JMac Attack for Carlos Gomez, Kevin Millwood and Nick Masset.
          I don’t believe either Storen or Poreda will be keepable so this trade was made to give my team some needed pitching depth and speed.

I traded Starlin Castro, Dan Hudson and Casey Crosby to Veeck’s Wreck for Brian Wilson and Asdrubal Cabrera.
          I really like Cabrera for this league. He’s still quite young, hits in the middle of CLE’s lineup and fills a huge hole in my lineup at SS. I dealt a lot of stellar prospects but I’m clearly attempting to win now. Wilson was a huge addition for my bullpen.

CURRENT ROSTER FOR CRUMPTON ROCHES

C Mike Napoli
1B Derrek Lee
2B Chase Utley
SS Asdrubal Cabrera
3B Pablo Sandoval
MI Ian Stewart
CI Gordon Beckham
OF: Jason Bay, Hunter Pence, Carlos Gonzalez, Austin Jackson, Carlos Gomez, Jose Guillen (reserve)
SP: John Danks, Johnny Cueto, Rick Porcello, Scott Feldman, Brian Matusz, Kevin Millwood, Jon Niese, Doug Davis, David Hernandez, Ian Snell
RP: Brian Wilson, Huston Street, Takashi Saito, Todd Coffey, Mark Lowe, Nick Masset
INJ: Carlos Delgado, Kelvim Escobar
Minors: Logan Morrison, Chris Tillman, Travis Wood, Chris Heisey, Zach McAllister, Carlos Carrasco

The roster as it stands (created using default rankings, changed nothing)

C: Kurt Suzuki
1B: Mark Reynolds
2B: Ian Kinsler
SS: Nick Punto (sigh)
3B: Andy LaRoche
MI: Brian Roberts
CI: Ty Wigginton
OF: Michael Bourn, Brett Gardner, Milton Bradley, Corey Hart, Justin Maxwell

SP: Brandon Webb, Cliff Lee, Jair Jurrjens, Jeff Niemann
RP: Jeff Samardzija, Pat Neshek, Shawn Kelley, Ryota Igrashi, Peter Moylan, Kyle McClellan

Not a bad roster going into the reserve/minor league draft, but not one that put me in a good position to compete this year. My starting pitching is excellent but injury issues with Webb and Lee suggest that the staff should be even better next year. Relievers are mostly filler. A few interesting bats, but more injury woes early on this year with Kinsler and Roberts. I love Bradley as a rebound candidate. Having Bourn and Gardner is a bit weird as I have two token all speed guys, but I can work with it.

I figured I could be in a position to compete this year with some luck on the injury front, a small upgrade at shortstop, and the addition of a league-average 1B to push Reynolds over to 3B.

Unfortunately, none of that has happened. There’s been a little buzz over the players on my roster, but as far as I can tell nobody has actually looked at what I need. Kinsler in particular has been attracted a lot of attention, but I haven’t seen a deal yet that wouldn’t be grounds for kicking me out of the league were I to accept.

Given my situation, heading into the minor league/reserve draft, I decided to go aggressive and stockpile assets that could contribute to my team in the next year to a year and a half, along with a couple of upside guys who could jump into that range over the next year. I was helped a bit by having the second waiver priority in the second draft.

Now, the minor league draft wasn’t really so much that as picking over the remaining scraps . . .several owners decided that they were going to make no pretensions of competing this year, and aggressively drafted minor leaguers during the first draft. That was okay as that was totally within the rules, although were the draft to be done over again I think we probably should have covered that in greater detail, as I think there were some owners who had some misgivings over that. Notable highlights included the guy who gleefully posted to the league message board saying that while he had drafted Justin Upton, Jason Heyward, and Stephen Strasburg, none were for trade . . .why, I have no clue as there is a very high chance that the latter two will never be more valuable than they are right now, but to each their own.

Anyways, I’m digressing. I had the second pick in the minor league/reserve draft. As mentioned before, minor leaguers had been aggressively targeted by a few owners previously . . .out of my own top 10 prospects list (not optimized for fantasy purposes), the only remaining player was No. 10 Christian Friedrich, and obviously I wasn’t grabbing a Colorado pitcher there no matter how good he looks. Jeremy Hellickson, Starlin Castro . . .all these guys were gone. So I centered in on Jesus Montero and Dustin Ackley, figuring that the guy ahead of me would take one of those two and leave the other to me. I preferred Montero as if he moves off catcher he’s still a 1B, which would be very useful to my team anyways. While I really like Ackley, if he’s a second baseman, he’s probably a trade asset for me. On the other hand, I adore Brett Lawrie and had him right behind the other two . . .I had a sneaking suspicion that John (prospect hound who likes Lawrie almost as much as me) would grab him before the draft swung around to me again, but I wasn’t going to pass him up if I could get him.I also made sure to push a bunch of shortstops really high on my list, to try to deal with that weakness on my roster. Anyways, here’s how that part went:

C: Jesus Montero
2B: Brett Lawrie, Adrian Cardenas, Jemile Weeks
SS: Dee Gordon, Jose Iglesias
OF: Peter Bourjos, Jordan Danks, Brett Jackson, Daryl Jones
SP: Chris Withrow, Brandon Erbe

As you can see, the minor league draft turned out great for me, as I was able to acquire a bunch of personal favorites. Montero stands to be very valuable for me regardless of position, and Lawrie, Jackson and Bourjos are personal favorites. Cardenas and Weeks stand to be solid regulars in the middle infield. Iglesias seems like a sure bet to be a major league shortstop before long, and Dee Gordon is an upside guy there to balance Iglesias’ floor. Danks and Jones just kind of fell onto my roster but they’re still toolsy players who may or may not take a step forward over the next year. Finally, the pitchers. While I’m skeptical of WIthrow’s injury history, this is fantasy baseball, so Withrow’s No. 1 starter potential has a lot of appeal here. Erbe also just kind of fell onto my roster, but I could see him contributing as a decent major league starter or perhaps a late-inning guy before long.

All in all, I feel great about my team even if it doesn’t stack up well for this year. I have some terrific pieces that I can carry over to next year, and enough roster flexibility to hold all of my minor leaguers if I’m not inclined to transform them into major league assets (if they haven’t turned into major league assets themselves, for that matter). Tough to guarantee immediate success given the autodraft format, but I think I handled it well.
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