How's your first round pick doing for your team?

[West Coast Fan]

We all have different strategies going into the draft, and our draft position will strongly influence what changes we have to make in order to field a competitive team.

Unless you were one or two in your draft (where ARod and Albert were the obvious choices), we had to make some strategic decision about who to draft with our first round pick, and how to fill out our team.

Yahoo had Gagne as a first round pick, but none of the teams who took him first are doing very well. Helton was taken around picks 9-12 and I don't know how that worked out for them. Lots of discussion around Bonds, who has high average and excellent HR totals, but walks don't count in the generic 5x5 leagues.

Did you go for ace pitcher? (Prior, Wood, Halladay, Gagne) or power (Bonds, Manny, Piazza, Shef) or best player available (Beltran, Helton)? Again, Albert and ARod were obvious and if you didn't take them if they were available, who did you take?

If I didn't get Albert or ARod, I went for Manny. His HR, Runs, RBI and Average are excellent and provide solid foundation to my teams. Hitting in Boston, with the Green Monster only helps Manny do better.

I usually went for ace pitcher in 2nd round. Schilling was my first choice. I also took Sosa early to solidify my power numbers.

Luckily, none of my first round picks are bombing out. I saw teams pick Nomar or other good, but injured players and they aren't dong well.

How about you?

[Nomar4prez]

My first two picks were Nomar and Prior...... <img src=/forums/images/smiles/kiss.gif>

BUT, I'm only 6 games back from the leader, so I hope they can start producing for me, and bring me into the lead.

[bibsybob]

Vlad and Manny were my first 2 picks, and they are both having MVP seasons so far, so im very happy with my picks. By the way, my picks came at #6 and #15.

[ocmusicjunkie]

In my primary league, I took Prior. However, I had the last pick in the draft... so I also had the first pick of the 2nd round. I don't regret Prior... I DO regret Billy Wagner with my second pick. I expected his numbers to actually improve with Phili. Yeah, I was wrong.

In my other leagues, it was pretty much always Vlad first. Needless to say, that worked out well.

[Pokey]

In 4 12-team H2H leagues, here are my 1st round picks and then my record and place.

1st round pick: Pedro Martinez 70-52-8 (3rd place)
1st round pick: Alex Rodriguez 51-61-18 (7th place)
1st round pick: Alfonso Soriano 75-47-8 (2nd place)
1st round pick: Vlad Guerrero 77-45-8 (1st place)

[West Coast Fan]

Vlad was an excellent first rounder. I was concerned about him switching leagues, but obviously I was wrong.

Why draft Nomar in first? Wasn't he hurt at beginning of year?

[kaz]

Soriano, 5th out of 10

[Rkiivs]

I went with Vlad and Prior as my 1-2 picks. I had fourth pick in the draft this season.

[CubsFan7724]

In the league that matters, I drafted Vlad in the first, and took Nomar in the second (this was when they thought he may miss opening day at the most. ya that was a great prediction) Doesn't matter, Im still in first by about 10 points .

[Nerfherders]

I took Helton and Smoltz first two picks. Ive been mostly pleased with both, though Smoltz needs more opps. The thing about Helton is you know what youre going to get every year. He's extremely consistent. So it was a no-brainer in the 8th spot for me.

In my keeper league I took Chipper 8th in 2002. That's turned into somewhat of a disaster, as he's not been nearly as good as he was from 98 to 01. But I got Abreu 3rd round, Nomar, 4th, Mags 5th, Wood 8th, and Sexson 9th in that draft, still have all of those players, and have never been lower than 2nd place since April of '02.