First NFBC Mock Draft of 2010

In prep for the upcoming fantasy baseball season I completed my first NFBC mock draft yesterday. I'm very rusty and have spent very little time studying 2009 fantasy baseball player performance. The first 10 rounds went pretty well but this early in the year it's tough to draw many conclusions beyond the first several picks.

Here are my draft results for the first 10 rounds with the 14th overall pick:

1) Tim Lincecum, SP - as much of a lock as you'll ever find with a pitcher in fantasy and should make a run at his 3rd straight Cy Young
2) Carl Crawford, OF - love getting tons of speed and a quality OF this early
3) Brian McCann, C - the NFBC requires 2 starting catchers so I'm inclined to invest in at least 1 really solid one
4) Kendry Morales, 1B - I think he's a legit .290+, 30 HR+ 1B and can still be had at a bit of a discount
5) Carlos Lee, OF - still has enough left in the tank to excel in 4 categories and chip in 5-10 steals
6) Jonathan Broxton, RP - the best closer on the board, will cement himself as elite this season
7) Brian Fuentes, RP - 2 stable closers means 1 less major worry throughout the season
8) Stephen Drew, SS - took a step back last year but the upside is still there at age 27
9) Roy Oswalt, SP - if he can stay healthy a great 2nd fiddle to Lincecum
10) Russell Martin, C - young enough to have a few more great seasons in him, paired with McCann no one will touch me at catcher

Pick up a copy of 2010 Baseball Forecaster (Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster)

Fantasy Baseball Keeper List

Now that the Boston Red Sox have won the World Series it’s time to get serious about next year’s fantasy baseball team. I won one of my fantasy baseball leagues this year (got high of the week in NFBC but fell short otherwise) so I’m pretty well stacked.

Here are the 5 that I’m leaning toward:

Ryan Braun 3B $1
Hunter Pence OF $1
Jose Valverde RP $1
Tim Lincecum (“The Franchise”) SP $1
Yovani Gallardo SP $1

I also have Kelvin Escobar $1, BJ Upton $9, Oliver Perez $1, Joakim Soria $1, and Manny Corpas $1. The Fantasy 411 advised me to keep BJ Upton in lieu of Lincecum or Gallardo but I can’t bring myself to give one of them up and I like the extra $8 on draft day.

NFBC Fantasy Baseball Bump from Trade Deadline!

My NFBC fantasy baseball team just got a bump at the trade deadline. Nothing major but with 15 teams per league and 25 man rosters, the player pool in the NFBC is super thin - the cumulative effect should add up to something significant.

Morgan Ensberg – designated for assignment by Houston but reportedly will go to the Twins, he’s been killing us at third base all year and his best baseball is behind him but any increase in playing time will be huge
Luis Castillo – going to the Mets is great, might go from ~20 SB guy to 30-35 SB second baseman, for a 300 hitter that’s real solid
Jarrod Saltalamacchia – (longest last name in MLB history) supposed get a huge bump in playing time going to Texas, the NFBC requires 2 starting catchers so this is a big gain

Fantasy baseball is a total grind this time of year but the bumps in all 3 of these starters should make for a nice push toward the end. We’re definitely out of the $100,000 grand prize but we could score some cash by coming in second or third in our league.