Draft help

[Walden warriors]

In our league, any player that finished the 2003 season on the Tigers, Expos, A's, White Sox, or O's becomes a free agent. In addition to those "mandatory release" teams, each fantasy owner has to whittle their roster down additionally to bring their roster to no bigger than 13 players.

Bearing that in mind, I'm assuming that...

Mulder
Worrell
Mota
Hawkins
Leiter
Loiaza
Tejada
Lee
Magglio
Pierzynski
Hillenbrand
M. Young
Alex Gonzalez (Fla)
Varitek
Crawford
D. Weathers
Fultz
R. Sanders
Kendall
T. Lee
Bo Hart
Nixon
D. Roberts
Mondesi
Griffey
Shuey
Kim
Lima
J. Robertson
Damon
Clement
Hampton
M. Giles
Podsednik
Clemens
E. Martinez
Polanco
Cordero
Ibanez
Jose Guillen
Vazquez
Livan Hernandez
J. Julio
Huff
Geoff Jenkins
Angel Berroa
Hasegawa
Ponson
Vidro
Martin
Quantrill
Payton
Encarnacion
Maddux
Lieberthal
Gonzalez
D. Lee
Chavez
Colon
Zito
Foulke
Lilly
Redman
Guerrero
Nevin
Bernie Williams
Craig Wilson
Cintron
Ortiz
Larry Walker
Looper
Kolb
Riske
Cliff Lee
S. Stewart
Milton Bradley
and
Webb


are all draftable, in addition to any other players on the mandatory five teams not listed above.

So...how do you rank these guys? Our categories are R, RBI, BBs, SOs, Es, BA, SLG, TBs, SBs, W, L, HLD, SV, ERA, WHIP, BBs, Ks, and IP.

(Don't rank them all if you don't want to, I"m more looking for draft ideas and whatnot.)

Thanks.

[DK]

don't forget hudson

[Madison]

That's a lot of talent to choose from. Here's who I see as the cream of the crop in no particular order:

Hitting:

Tejada
Maggs
M. Giles
Podsednik
Huff
Vidro
Chavez
Vlad
Nevin

Pitching:

Mulder
Hudson
Vazquez
Maddux
Colon
Zito
Webb
Julio
Foulke
Cordero

Clemens--is retiring. Don't draft him unless you hear that he decided to change his mind and pitch one more season. Right now, he's retiring at the end of the year.

There are a lot of mid to late round picks in there as well, but those are the guys I'd be looking at. Don't forget that I didn't list them in order, I just listed them.

[wrveres]

A few strategy thoughts here ...

6 out your 9 pitching categories could be dominated by excellent relievers... stack up on offense... Then draft the likes of ..Mota , Dotel, Grab as many closers as nec. to win your league in saves. 3-4? I don't know..

But
ERA/Ratio/BB/SV/HLD and Losses could all be won by just using relievers. You would be at or near the bottom in Wins and IP. If you get the right relievers. You might even score in K's, not at the top but maybe around the middle. Maybe grab early, one... and only one .. Schilling/Wood/Prior/ RJ/Beckett for a few extra k's...

why do you guys blanket drop whole teams? and do those teams change from year to year? just curious ...

[Walden warriors]

You echo my sentiments beautifully. I won the league this year with 2 out of my 5 relievers being closers, the other 3 being middle relievers. Granted, they were Hawkins, Dotel, and Mota, but still, you hit the nail on the head. Closers are VERY overpriced in this league, as all but 2 or 3 owners have caught on that middle relievers are more effective for the price if you're willing to concede the saves category.

We randomly draw five teams at our winter owners' meeting. While we do this every year, any team that was drawn over the last two years cannot be drawn.