Solid team (scoring is 5x5 I assume?). I like what you did with 3B. Alex Gordon is a nice upside pick, but with Davis and Michael Young you're very well protected, not to mention A-Rod stashed on the DL. You have lots of AVG and lots of power. You may even have a surplus of power. Overall its a solid team, but I see two potential issues:
1. Speed. You really don't have much of it. Unless you can swing a trade for an upgrade or find a nice sleeper on the waiver wire, you may find yourself scrapping the category with this roster as it stands, and that's never something you want to be considering before opening day with any category (assuming this is 5x5). Aside from just waiting on the waiver wire, I see three possible options:
A. Try to move Adam Dunn for an outfield burner early on. You have plenty of power without Dunn, especially if Davis is as good as everyone thinks. You have lots of big power bats, and you're average or better in that category at every position. Maybe you can swing him for someone like Curtis Granderson, or maybe you can move Dunn and Wilson for something like Shane Victorino and a better closer.
B. Wait until A-Rod comes off the DL and then use Davis or Morneau to get some speed, either in the outfield or at SS. Maybe you can even swing a package of Davis or Morneau and Jeter for one of the big three SSes if someone is desperate for power. I'd try to hold onto Young due to his versatility. He's a nice insurance policy for your star-studded infield. If you go the outfield route for speed here, you'll have a nice surplus out there, and you can afford to move Ethier or Dunn for something more useful to your roster. I'd try to hold onto McClouth unless he really tanks, even with an upgrade you'll still be no better than average in SBs.
C. The only other possibility might be looking to swap Pedroia for a speedier second baseman. I'd exhaust the other two possibilities before trying to go this route unless you get bowled over with an offer for Pedroia. Maybe if you could get Brian Roberts, I'd consider moving Pedroia, but otherwise, its going to be tough to really reinforce your speed at second base without a big dropoff from the overall production you'll get with Pedroia. I do not, however, see Pedroia stealing 20 bases again. That strikes me as the equivalent of David Wright stealing 30 in 2007: He caught lots of pitchers napping and in all likelihood you can cut that total in half and get a more reasonable projection.
2. Pitching, mostly RP, which isn't really a problem IMO. Its easy to turn RP from a weakness to a strength in-season. But as it stands, you have an undeclared closer (Marmol, who I also drafted in my league btw), an injury risk (Ryan), a mid-level closer on a mediocre team (Wilson), and a guy whose not going to even be an RP (Joba). I don't mind what you've done here at all, but you will have to be careful monitoring the situation as the season gets under way.
I like your risk/reward scheme with your SP. You've got a legit super reliable #1 and #2 in Santana and Haren, and then three risky guys with loads of upside in Liriano, Burnett, and Bedard. Sneaking Joba into your pen as a fourth high risk high reward SP was a savvy move. If not for that, I'd say you should have looked for one more low risk arm. Maybe Matt Cain or Javier Vazquez instead of Burnett, or someone like Ted Lilly or Kevin Slowey instead of Bedard. But having the fourth high upside guy in Joba really offsets your risk nicely. I would have liked a little bit more stability here overall, especially if you were using one of your first two picks on Santana, but that's really just nitpicking.
If I were you, my strategy would be to keep the pitching as is for the first month, but be waiting for the perfect moment to pick up an middling closer on a good team off waivers or Free Agency. Someone like Troy Percival, maybe Jason Motte/Chris Perez, Kevin Gregg if he wins the Cubs job, maybe Fernando Rodney. The key will be to make a decision on which SP you can drop. If Joba's pitching well and Burnett and Liriano seem 100%, you can drop Bedard. If someone gets hurt early, you can easily stash them on the DL (assuming you have another DL spot after A-Rod), but if not, its going to be all about timing this right. You'll need to wait long enough so you have enough info where you know which starter to drop and which closer to pick up, but not waiting too long and keeping a busted arm on your staff or missing out on all the available closers.
Tough to put a number value on this team out of 10, because its sort of an odd mix. It wouldn't take a whole lot going right for it to be very, very good, but a lot of that will come down to how well you manage your roster in season, more than with most teams I feel like, because of the risk in your pitching staff and almost complete lack of speed. But the opportunity is definitely there.
Overall rating: 7.75
With the big weakness in speed, I can't quite go to "8" but you're definitely better than a "7". If you manage to remedy the speed issue without hurting any other part of your roster significantly, I could easily jump to a "9".
Then again, I'm pretty new to roto, I've studied the strategy but this is my first year really getting into it. What do you think of my team?
http://www.fantasybaseballcafe.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=374249
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by davdav » Fri Mar 27, 2009 11:01 pm 
