Once baseball announced it would return earlier this year, once they announced that the strike was over, I was happy… and then I remembered the Cubs roster… haha. But seriously, I was happy; I love baseball. One big part of the season, at least for the past 10-15 years, has been fantasy baseball. March 30th was our draft night.
Once you go auction, you never go back, at least that’s what I say. To NOT be at the mercy of your draft position, to be able to get anybody you want… not EVERYBODY you want, but any single player that you really want. If you want Juan Soto, like I did, you don’t have to get lucky and land in the top 3 draft positions; you just have to break out the dough. $54 was the price on this evening; I don’t regret spending a single dollar of that. I think he’s the best player in baseball right now, and he’s on my fantasy team; good start. Once this was done, I zeroed in on starting pitching. The #1 pitcher that I wanted was Walker Buehler. Yeah, I know… a Dodger; don’t typically get one of those guys, but in this case, yeah. $38 later and I snagged him too. I wanted to get Shane Bieber as my #2; that bidding went really high, so I let him go. I did get my next pitcher up though, and that was Aaron Nola, for a mere $18. My 3rd best starting pitcher wound up being Max Fried for $13.
Back to the position players; I would need more than just Soto. I ended up getting someone that I had last year for a huge discount. Fernando Tatis Jr… I believe I paid $60 for him last year. I paid $19 for possibly a little more than half a season, which makes pretty good sense to me. I always get somebody unexpected. This year was Matt Olson for $29; I wasn’t going to go over $30 for him, but under $30 seemed like a really good deal… I did need a first baseman… Atlanta is a better hitters’ park than Oakland… The only other player I paid over $20 was an ex-Cub. I know, plenty of them out there, but this was probably the highest on my list, plus the bidding on him didn’t get too ridiculous. Javy Baez, welcome home for $22. Alex Bregman for $16 was a pretty good value in my opinion. The one guy I am concerned about due to his injury history, that I paid $17 for, is Byron Buxton; I just can’t quit him. I did quit deGrom, after he missed months of last season for me. But Byron… he probably missed the same amount of time, but… man… I just think that guy could be an absolute stud, and plus it didn’t cost me THAT much… come on Buxton!
Rounding out my roster, as if you care, Mitch Haniger, Patrick Wisdom, Gleyber Torres, Daulton Varsho, Matt Chapman, Ryan McMahon, Austin Nola, Alex Kifilloff, Kike Hernandez, Joey Bart, and Anthony Santander on the offensive side of things. For the rest of my pitching staff, Kyle Hendricks, John Means, Alex Wood, Alex Cobb, Chris Paddack, Jameson Taillon, and for old time’s sake, Madison Bumgarner. My closers are Clase and Romano. So, if you are drafting in your fantasy baseball league, maybe you can grab some of these same guys. After all, the last three years I have finished in the top 3 of my league. I’ve won first place 3x since 2010 in total, finished 2nd 2x, and finished 3rd 3x. Only 4 times in the past 12 years have I finished outside of the top 3. Not to brag or anything… haha. We did raise the entry fee to $50 this year; watch, now I’ll suck… haha. Good luck!
Leave a Reply