Our first 2007 build of the depth charts went up this morning, which means that our suite of fantasy products is ready to go, available to all yearly Premium and Fantasy subscribers. But that’s not why I’m writing. No, I’m writing about one of the most difficult fantasy league decisions that I’d faced in some time.
BP-Kings is a continuing league this year, and I’m on the American League side. The first three picks in an AL continuing league are, I think, pretty obvious: Joe Mauer, Johan Santana, and Grady Sizemore, in some order. I had them in exactly that order — Mauer-Santana-Sizemore — but I can see the arguments for the other permutations. The only thing I knew for certain is that, having drawn the #7 pick in the draft, I wasn’t going to get one of the Big Three without making a trade, and a trade was going to be damned near impossible to pull off given the caliber of owners in this league. Here, for example, was an approximate transcript of the conversation I had with Salon.com’s King Kaufman, who owned the #3 pick in the draft.
Nate: “Hi King, thanks for returning my call. Too bad that Santana and Sizemore are off the board. I’d be willing to give you my 4th round pick if you’re willing to move down just four slots. Unless there’s someone you really want with that pick, I figure–”
King: “You mean like Joe Mauer?”
[crickets chirping]
Nate: “Sooooooo… how’s the weather in St. Louis?”
Not that there weren’t a lot of good options available with the 7th pick — there just weren’t any great options. The idea of drafting an older player at a corner position didn’t thrill me, but this option was off the table anyway after Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz and Travis Hafner went with the 4-6 picks. I thought about taking Miguel Tejada or Mark Teixeira, but something about those picks felt too safe. I thought more seriously about taking a pitcher; the top two on my list (after Santana) were Daisuke Matsuzaka, and Felix Hernandez, or maybe C.C. Sabathia. And, after convincing myself that there there was no way the Royals would leave him in Triple-A this year, I thought a lot about Alex Gordon.
I got cold feet on Hernandez after seeing Will Carroll’s red light on him and PECOTA’s extremely high attrition rate, and Sabathia seemed like a guy who I might be able to snag in Round 2, so it came down to Gordon versus Matsuzaka. And it was a very close decision, so close that the fact that Scoresheet does not adjust for park effects came into play; Matsuzaka is harmed slightly by playing in Fenway Park, and Gordon is helped slightly by Kaufmann Stadium.
At the end of the day, I figured it couldn’t be too much of a mistake to draft the best prospect in baseball with my first pick in a continuing league. And Alex Gordon joined my roster.
Here are the rest of the Top 20 picks in the AL and NL, respectively. You can also follow along in real-time here.
National League
1. Albert Pujols (Sterger)
2. Miguel Cabrera (Ma)
3. Ryan Howard (Leitch)
4. Chase Utley (Sheehan)
5. Brandon Webb (Perrotto)
6. Carlos Zambrano (Ferrin/Kaplan)
7. Carlos Beltran (Passan)
8. Jose Reyes (Schwartz/Siano)
9. Chris Carpenter (Anonymous MLB Exec)
10. David Wright (Murphy)
11. Lance Berkman (Levin)
12. Andruw Jones (Jazayerli)
13. Brian McCann (Jazayerli)
14. Jason Bay (Levin)
15. Jake Peavy (Murphy)
16. Jimmy Rollins (Anonymous MLB Exec)
17. Alfonso Soriano (Passan)
18. Garrett Atkins (Schwartz/Siano)
19. Derrek Lee (Ferrin/Kaplan)
20. Derek Lowe (Perrotto)
American League
1. Johan Santana (Goldstein)
2. Grady Sizemore (Erickson)
3. Joe Mauer (Kaufman)
4. Alex Rodriguez (Goldman)
5. David Ortiz (Neyer)
6. Travis Hafner (Luft/Chen)
7. Alex Gordon (Silver)
8. Roy Halladay (Cokin)
9. Mark Teixeira (Brogna)
10. Felix Hernandez (Walker)
11. Ichiro Suzuki (King)
12. Miguel Tejada (Karabell)
13. Justin Morneau (Karabell)
14. Vladimir Guerrero (King)
15. Daisuke Matsuzaka (Walker)
16. Manny Ramirez (Brogna)
17. Derek Jeter (Cokin)
18. C.C. Sabathia (Silver)
19. Carl Crawford (Luft/Chen)
20. Jeremy Bonderman (Neyer)
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