My Yahoo Friends and Family Draft

Written by

Published on March 16, 2010

We had the 14-team mixed, 5 x 5 Yahoo Friends and Family League draft today. It's a 1 C, 4 OF, 2 U league with three reserves - otherwise the specs are standard. I had the sixth pick.

Here's my team:

Round	Pick	Player	Position
1	6	Ryan Braun	OF
2	23	Jimmy Rollins	SS
3	34	Justin Morneau	1B
4	51	Billy Butler	1B
5	62	Mariano Rivera	P
6	79	Carlos Pena	1B
7	90	Josh Beckett	P
8	107	Rickie Weeks	2B
9	118	Adrian Beltre	3B
10	135	Alfonso Soriano	OF
11	146	Francisco Liriano	P
12	163	Chad Qualls	P
13	174	Lastings Milledge	OF
14	191	Ervin Santana	P
15	202	David Price	P
16	219	Brandon Webb	P
17	230	Magglio Ordonez	OF
18	247	Brian Matusz	P
19	258	Delmon Young	OF
20	275	Cameron Maybin	OF
21	286	Russell Martin	C
22	303	Jermaine Dye	OF
23	314	Vicente Padilla	P
24	331	Chris Getz	2B
25	342	Scott Podsednik	OF

One wrinkle is a low innings cap (1250), so strikeouts - and to some extent wins - are at a premium. You simply cannot roster Mark Buehrle or Derek Lowe unless you want to tank the strikeout category because everyone's going to get to 1250 IP, so the category is really K/9, not total Ks. I suppose if you had Tom Glavine in his prime, you could use him for ERA, wins and WHIP and take the hit in Ks, like I'm doing with Carlos Pena in average for his power contributions. But getting a mediocre ERA/WHIP guy AND taking the K hit is hard to justify.

I also seriously thought about drafting Tim Lincecum at No. 6 overall for the K premium, but was concerned that I'd have to take hitters the next six rounds if I did that and miss out on potential pitching bargains. In retrospect, I wish I'd have been man enough to do that. Lincecum's 2009 numbers are FAR more valuable than Ryan Braun's.

Still, I like this team. I drafted pretty aggressively after the first seven rounds, and even pushed it with Billy Butler in Round 4.