Saturday, March 22, 2008

National Fantasy Baseball Championship Draft Results – Part 3 of 4

11) Hank Blalock, 3B – Persistent injuries have robbed him of his production in recent years, the latest surgery was believed to be a permanent fix, he came back last year to absolutely crush the ball and will bat in the heart of the order

12) Oliver Perez, SP – Incredible #3 for our rotation, 170+ Ks, 15 Wins, contract year, should have good ERA and WHiP, really nice value for the production

13) J.R. Towels (featured in the Bowman Heritage baseball card), C – This is the time of the draft to start taking some calculated risks, I don’t like young bats but Towels speed mitigates a lot of risk, a downside of 260, 8 HRs and 7 SBs is actually OK in this slot, remember we have to start 2 catchers, his upside is Russell Martin

14) Brian Wilson, RP – a risky pick at closer? please… we had Brian Fuentes last year, he was an All Star closer and wasn’t even his team’s closer, Wilson pitched well in the role last year and the San Fran opportunities should be plentiful, that’s right – tons of save chances, most people think they’ll stink and therefore wont get save chances, KC led the league in save opportunities on 2006 and they were putrid, SF has great pitching and although they may struggle to win 70 games they’ll all be close

15) Josh Fields, 3B/OF – We needed home runs in our outfield and he fell a full round below is lowest pick in the latest round of ADP reports, he always showed 25 SB skills in the minors so despite only stealing one base last year I think he could bounce back, I think 25-35 HRs and 8-15 SBs are realistic, Crede may push Fields to the minors for a few weeks but he’ll be back

16) Akinori Iwamura, 2B/3B – This is one of my favorite picks in the whole draft, doesn’t qualify at 2B yet but give him 2 weeks and he’s our middle infielder, I think 285 BA, 15/15 is doable and he’s leading off for a pretty solid offense so 100+ runs is in reach, nice steady 4 category contribution from MI this late in the draft is great, Phillips/Young/Iwamura should be the best middle infield in the league

17) Jack Cust, OF – “poor man’s Adam Dunn” is another Matthew Berry special, exactly why we invested in Helton and Young in the first 10 rounds, Cust may only hit 240 but 30-35 HRs is possible

18) Mike Jacobs, 1B – We had 2 needs over the past several picks – 1) HRs, 2) a 1B to backup Helton – witness the Fields/Cust/Jacobs run, Jacobs could still live up to his 290 BA, 30+ HR potential

19) Kevin Slowey, SP – The only real knock on Slowey is his lack of Ks, personally I think he’ll be good for 6-7/9 and with Santana/Webb/Perez we frankly don’t need them, I expect very good ERA and WHIP and a reasonable win total, 12-15, great complimentary mid-rotation piece for us

20) Kurt Suzuki, C – I don’t think Suzuki is anything special but we need 2 catchers and he should have little competition for ABs, he could reach double digit home runs and a BA of 255-265 is reasonable for a #2 catcher in this format

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