Oye...

Scott Baker... (snicker)

2009 Draft Results

Here it is! The culmination of 3.5 hours of blood, sweat and jeers... the CPL's 2009 draft results! Kudos to Snot for the Draft Board and for the attached. Blog will go into this draft with more detail at a later date, but here are 5 observations right off the bat:

- Bounty Hunters took 7 Cubbies. 7! Someone please trade him a few Cubbbie relievers. Let's try to make this a bakers dozen.

- Yovani Gallardo (73), Zack Greinke (74), Matt Cain (82) and Ryan Dempster (83) will have better seasons than Randy Johnson (71).

- Scotty Baker (39) over Burnett (46), Felix (47), Lester (49) and Joba (51) is a fairly big ouchie.

- Ben Sheets (153) is not currently employed by a major league team.

- Jason Motte (145) should not be on Snot's roster for reasons that Snot is quite aware of...

2009 CPL Keeper Selections

At last! We have the first semblance of our 2009 rosters, and thank goodness there is plenty of stuff for Blog to pick on. Let's break it down team by team:

Snot on the Ball: Utley, Wright, Reyes, Hamilton (to be Holliday), Lincecum. No complaints here. 5 top notch performers at their position, but most are putting Hamilton ahead of Holliday for OF. Snot hopes Holliday gets traded to a bandbox like Philly. Regs hopes Holliday signs an 8 year extension to hit in Oakland.

Legends: A-Fraud, Manny, Rollins, Bay, Ramirez... oh wait... they didn't keep Bay and Ramirez? They kept 2 pitchers? Beckett and Haren? oh... ok... um... sure... Legends is now really REALLY hoping A-Roid's back in May, and not out until the all-star break.

Regulators: Kinsler, Holliday (to be Hamilton), Soriano, Teixeira, Upton, Crawford. I like it. I better too, since I don't get to pick until the 4th round.

Ryan Howitzers: Howard, Cabrera, Uggla, Victorino, Hamels. Let's go Phillies!! Let's go Phillies! 2 locks, 3 reaches. Too bad one of these keeper slots couldn't have been moved for a first or 2nd round pick. Would Uggla or Victorino been avaiable in the 2nd or 3rd round? Quite possibly...

Papi's Space Cadets: Youk, Longoria, Ordonez, Markakis, Halladay. Blog agrees with this set, leaving Ortiz and Vlad to the draft. Of course, as Snot referenced, this group necessitates a name change: preferably something shorter.

Total Recallers: Prince, Pedroia, Hunter, Webb, Lee: Going into Sunday, Cliff Lee's Spring Training ERA was 18.90. Is Torii Hunter a keeper level player? Maybe... I guess... but is he more valuable than Nate McLouth? Blog says nope.

Bounty Hunters: Ichiro, Atkins, Peavy, Volquez, Papelbon. Look at all this power! Ouch. Here's hoping Peavy doesn't get bored playing for the worst offense this decade and shut it down by June.

Jobu's Hats for Bats: Pujols, Braun, Beltran, Roberts, Kemp, Sabathia (to be Kazmir). Very solid group. Power, speed, average... Blog thinks that Kazmir may be a touch over-valued here, but would Kazmir have been around in the 5th round? Unlikely...

Swine Nine: Hanley, Sizemore, Phillips, Lee, Santana. Does this look better than: Wright, Reyes, Phillips, Sizemore, Santana? I don't think so, but Swiney does. It's still an elite group that covers the MI nicely.

Bobz Boyz: Berkman, Quentin, Kazmir (to be Sabathia). CC and Berkman are automatics, and if Quentin can duplicate 2008 without any bone-breaking temper tantrums, than this is a nice trio... but it certainly is not Wright, Beltran, Phillips-esque... Lets hope (or not depending on your point of view) BB learned from that rough rookie campaign.

Snot on the Ball (Champ) Final Review

Well, sometime in the middle of 2007, Snot on the Ball decided to scrap the remainder of that season and focus all his efforts on a 2008 title. Here’s to having a plan and following through on it. Snot on the Ball was the 2008 Champion pretty much from week one. They sprinted out to a 9 week winning streak and never looked back. They were never really threatened for the #1 seed, and they rolled through the playoffs, but there was certainly a lot of work and sacrifice to get there. Not only did Snot sacrifice 2007 to win, but also sacrificed 2009. Snot moved a LOT of 09 picks to get what he needed. It worked, he won, and now the strategy is in full bloom. 2009 will be a rebuilding year for Snot. He’ll try to draft not to win, but to trade. He’ll grab solid players who he knows he can move for 2010 picks this year. It makes sense provided he wins in 2010, because if an even year comes around, and Snot doesn’t win, than that’s 2 years lost, not just one.

- Best Move: There were a few that fit here: Grabbing Hamilton late, Getting Wright and Reyes for Hanley and an injured Lee, Sizemore+ for Lincecum/McLouth+, Quentin on waivers in March… Blog really liked the Wright/Reyes move. 2 top 10 players at elite positions for 2 other players, but one who’s out for the year, was a steal.

- Worst Move: Cliff Lee, Huff and Ludwick were all cut before they began to post all-star numbers, but the worst move has to be the 7/29 trade with Bobz boyz. Snot gave up Kurt Suzuki, Erik Bedard (hurt), 3rd/4th round picks for Joe Mauer. This was by far BB’s best trade of the season, and Snot probably could have had Mauer for the 3rd straight up. The players were throw-ins, but Snot would really like that 4th rounder come next Saturday…

- Biggest Surprise: Hamilton becoming the drug-addicted, tattoo-covered, Jesus discovering Bambino was a pretty big surprise, but having Alexei Ramirez make 4 trips to Snot’s roster and then watching him become a top 5 second baseman was certainly not expected.

- Biggest Disappointment: Between the injuries and ineffectiveness, Erik Bedard was a huge bummer for Snot this year. Snot thought he had the top 2 lefties in the league to start the year.

- Blog Would Have…: Besides not over-pay for Mauer, Blog can’t find much to complain about with a title.

- Snot Should Keep: Nathan, Lidge, Mauer, Granderson, Alfredo Amezaga. Saves, Speed and average baby!!

- Final Draft Grade: B-. Hamilton, Harden and the closers all were big positives, but there were some real disappointments taken here. Swisher, Matsui, Posada, Cano, Snell, Young and Gallardo were all pretty much irrelevant to Snot’s successes.

- Final Season Grade: A. Blog just can’t give an A+ because of how Snot’s 09 was so severely hampered, but this is the only A of 2008. Crap.

- 2009 Outlook: Snot knows 2009 equals 2010 off-season. Snot doesn’t draft until round 8. He’ll have to really draft shrewdly if he expects to get the high 2010 picks that he’ll be targeting. 2009 will have many more obstacles to 2010 success than 2007 had to 2008’s success. Or something like that…

And that completes the 2008 season! From here on out, Blog is all 2009 all the time!

Snot on the Ball (Champ) 08 Final Draft Review

Here we see the benefits of having 10 of the first 67 picks. Well, ok, maybe not. Chris Young couldn't keep his face out of the way of Pujols ball, Cano was a major disappointment, Posada stunk, and Gallardo suffered a Brady early in the season. Nick Swisher? yuck. Matsui was awful. out of those 10 picks, Gonzalez, Hunter, Saito and Jenks were the only ones who came through, and even Saito was banged up late. The big winners here were late: Harden and Hamilton were top 25 talents taken well after 150 players were already assigned. That's value. Hoffman was lousy early, but he still put up saves, and so did Gregg and Wilson for crummy teams. Even Kouz ended up being considered a value pick! Not so much for Ian Snell.

Snot on the Ball (Champ) 08 Schedule

Here we find the only skunking of the season in week 15, but we also see that Snot had a losing record against Longball, Legends and Papi's Space Cadets. Of course, that meant nothing in week 24 and 25...

Snot on the Ball (Champ) 08 Weekly

15-5 in the playoffs is pretty darn solid, though as pointed out in Legends review, a little closer than it appeared. Remarkably, Snot did not have a losing record in any category for the season. No other team lost less than 4 categories. That's kind of impressive.

Snot on the Ball (Champ) 08 Pitching Tracker

Cliff Lee (10) was on this rotation back for one day back on 4/13... yikes. Santana (21) Lincecum (15) and Harden (23)all spent time here as well as pitchers ranked in the top 25. Snot was able to move closers when he needed other things, and then get elite closers back for the stretch run.

Snot on the Ball (Champ) 08 Offensive Tracker

Snot really did a solid job of plugging his holes. Once it became clear that The Kouz wasn't going to cut it, he cycled through 14 third basemen before getting luck with Cantu, and then upgraded even further to David Wright. When Posada proved that he was really a poor catcher, Snot went through 9 different catchers before landing Joe Mauer. Snot had some very solid players pass through early (Huff, Doumit, Ludwick, Votto, Werth, DeRosa, Bradley), but also really struck gold in other waiver fodder (Quentin, Alexei Ramirez, Cantu). The of course, there is drafting Josh Hamilton #107, right after such stalwarts as Cameron Maybin (100), Kaz Matsui (106), Ken Griffey (105) and Pudge Rodriguez (103). That always helps.

Legends 08 Review

All congratulations are due to our first loser, Legends! Legends is the inaugural winner of the ‘CAN’T’ Division. Blog’s not too sure that this honor is going to cause Legends to go out and get a trophy on his own dime for that accomplishment, but it is what it is. The fact of the matter is though, that Legends did not lose in the playoffs until the finals, taking down the defending champ Regulators on the way. Fine. Bra-friggin-vo.

A-Rod, Dodger-Manny, Rollins, Delgado, Bay, An-Ram, Dye. Rollins was ranked 88 as he missed some time and had a ‘down’ year, but the rest all finished ranked better than 43. Very solid; especially down the stretch as Manny, Delgado and Bay all had monster 2nd halves.

The final 2 week battle against Snot was closer than the final 7-3 score may indicate. 2 more saves and 3 more strikeouts would have given the title to Legends, 5-5. So close, yet so… well… Blog won’t rub #2’s nose in it anymore.

- Best Move: Legends only pulled off 2 trades during the season (one in pre-season), and both were pretty much even deals. (Getting Nady for Hardy: both solid, and getting Verlander for Sherrill, both stunk). Legends was able to grab a lot of the bottom tier closers who started picking up saves, and this really made up for their poor luck on closers in the draft, but there’s not one great closer that they were able to grab. Overall, the best move was probably grabbing Jason Bay (25) with the 96th pick in the draft.

- Worst Move: Legends dropped DeRosa (64) Votto (98) and Huff (26), but so did everybody else. Byrnes was taken with Legends 2nd pick, but was injured after he was drafted. Kelvim Escobar was taken 91st overall, but was injured before the draft. Kelvim wins.

- Biggest Surprise: In early June, Carlos Delgado looked to be done. He was awful, killing the average and not providing enough power to make up for it. But Legends was patient, and it really paid off. Delgado found the fountain of HGH and wound up ranked 39th overall by putting up an MVP type 2nd half.

- Biggest Disappointment: Besides all 4 closers that Legends took in the draft disappointing at one time or another (Sherrill, Soriano, Wilson, Borowski), the biggest disappointment was probably Josh Beckett. Legends traded a 4th round pick for Beckett and a 10th, then kept him expecting him to anchor the Legends rotation. Not so much. Beckett wasn’t awful (166), but he certainly wasn’t the ace Legend was hoping for and paid for.

- Blog Would Have: Besides not taking Escobar in the draft, you know, cause he was hurt, Blog would have sold some draft picks for help this year. There were some real solid closers out there down the stretch (K-Rod, Rivera, Nathan, Hanrahan and Marmol were all moved after 8/23. One or 2 of these guys may have given Legends the saves and K’s he needed to be champ…

- Legends Should Keep: Manny, Bay, Aramis Ramirez, Rollins, A-rod. Even though A-rod is hurt and, well, A-rod, the value is probably still there as a top 50 caliber player. The other 4 are pretty solid across the board, though not without questions. Will Manny want to play? Can Bay stay hot in Boston now that AL East pitching has a book on him?

- Final Draft Grade: B+. The Escobar pick keeps the draft from getting an A, because he was injured. Offensively though, there were very few misses in this draft. Byrnes got hurt, Varitek stunk, Griffey was a disappointment, and there wasn’t much speed taken. Those are really the only glaring negatives on offense in this draft. The closers Legends took were crappy, but they were still in line to get saves and weren’t taken earlier than they should have gone. Legends ended up usually getting their replacements anyway.

- Final Season Grade: B+. Only one team gets an A.

- 2009 Outlook: Legends still has all his picks, which is certainly NOT the case for the 1st and 3rd place teams from 2008, so that’s good. The keepers could be great if A-rod is A-rod by July 1. The keepers could also be huge disappointments if A-rod’s not A-rod by July 1, Manny stays Manny, and Bay replicates 07 instead of 08. Blog guesses that Legends should be in contention once again in 09.

Legends 08 Draft Review

If Legends had connected on that 2nd round pick (Eric Byrnes hardly saw the field), this could have been the #1 team. That's how strong the middle of this draft was.

Legends 08 Schedule

Legends had a losing record to 2 squads in 2008: BOB'Z BOYZ and Swine Nine. he he he...

Legends 08 Weekly

Legends owned the K/9 category, but got owned in the SB category. 281 HR and 1009 RBI is a lot, and owning the RBI record of 64 in one week not once but twice is all thanks the Mr. Manny.

Legends 08 Pitching Tracker

Not quite as solid as the offense. Legends had some rough times trying to shore up the bullpen, but there were some saves there late. Beckett and Felix were kind of disappointing, but Dice-K was maddeningly effective and Haren was solid (though he kind of faded again down the stretch). Legends will try this year to avoid drafting someone who's potentially out for the year like Escobar. Phil Hughes? ack. Dontrelle Willis? ack ack.

Legends 08 Offensive Tracker

Solid. The power generated by this lineup, especially the second halves of Manny and Delgado was top notch. Dye, Delgado and Bay were taken in the 12th, 13th, and 15th round respectively. That is elite value.

Regulators 08 Final Review

Regulators draft strategy was to go offense early, and load up on starting pitching late. Not a bad strategy, but the execution was terrible. Those are some bad SP’s sitting there on Reg’s draft board. McGowan and Bonderman couldn’t keep their arms attached to their bodies. Perez couldn’t find the strike zone. Miller and Bailey couldn’t find the Big Leauges. Sheets and Greinke were effective, but not enough to offset the struggles of the rest of the rotation. And Delmon Young? Alex Gordon? Ew.

Regs was very excited to get Ian Kinsler in the 3rd round last year. If Ian can ever stay healthy for a full season, he’ll give join Utley and Pedroia as the 2B equivalent of the 2000 SS class.

Regs flipped quite a few of his 09 draft picks to finish 3rd in 08. That could actually be an issue come 2009… we’ll see on the 28th.

- Best Move: Regs is pretty fond of sending David Bush and Rick Ankiel (both of whom had just been picked up off waivers) for Jose Valverde and Ricky Nolasco. That was a good one…

- Worst Move: The swap of Lester for Cordero ended up being terrible, but there’s no excuse for dropping Victorino over Delmon Young and Justin Upton. Ouch.


- Biggest Surprise: Chris Davis was a very nice surprise source of power at CI, but getting Nolasco, and then having him finish ranked 57th was the surprise of the year.

- Biggest Disappointment: For the 2nd year in a row, Alex ‘The Royal’ Gordon!


- Blog Would Have... Tried really hard to move Crawford for help that was actually playing down the stretch.

- Regulators Should Keep: Teixeira, Holliday (since traded for Hamilton), Kinsler, Soriano and then it’s pretty much a toss-up between Upton and Crawford. Probably leaning towards Upton due to his dynamic post season… Regs wishes he still had 2B eligibility…


- Final Draft Grade: D. Pretty darn weak. Gordon, J-Upton, Young, Furcal and most of the SP’s were disappointments. The solid picks (Kinsler, Atkins, Sheets, Greinke, Drew, Victorino, Lester) were nice, but not enough to make up for the stinkers.

- Final Season Grade: B-. A 3rd place finish is still a 3rd place finish. It came at a price though. Regs needs to have a much better draft this year because he has a lot of late picks coming up.

- 2009 Outlook: Regs has solid keepers down the line, but he’ll need some real waiver wire magic this year to fill a roster that can contend for a title. Does he look towards 2010 and giving Snot a run for his every-other-year money??

Regulators 08 Draft Review

Yikes. Victorino would have been a good pick had he played a game for Regs. Same for Lester and Drew. Andrew Miller and Homer Bailey didn't exacty take off as late round flyers. Delmon Young? ew. Sheets, Greinke and Lester were the only effective starters out of 10 drafted.

Regulators 08 Schedule

A losing record against direct family members... (BB and Papi)... ouch...

Regulators 08 Weekly

18-4 record in runs and 17-5 record in average in the regular season, but Regs couldn't get those 2 categories done when it mattered: Rd 2 of the playoffs. There's a direct link to the injuries sustained by Carl Crawford and Ian Kinsler. doh.

Regulators 08 Pitching Tracker

Terrible starting pitching in the beginning. Cain, Bonderman, McGowan, Perez, Weaver were all busts. Lester ended up being really solid, but good thing Regs flipped him for damaged Chad Cordero. Regs ended up with some elite closers and Ricky Nolasco was very solid down the stretch, but there was no anchor and this was clearly not a championship staff.

Regulators 08 Offensive Tracker

Blog has failed miserably and is devastated. The top 3 team (Regs, Legends, Snot) will have incomplete trackers. Yahoo pulled the 2008 player rankings before Blog could get them all, but that is completely Blog's fault and Blog begs the reader's forgiveness. If you really need to know Chris Coste's ranking, Blog gives you permission to make it up.

Anyway, if Rafael Furcal could have only stayed healthy and maintained his level of production from the first month of the season, Regs offense would have been dynamic. Of course, If Blog pooped gold, Blog would have a lot more time to write, so...

LL Longball 08 Review

Alas L.L. Longball… we hardly knew you. Longball is not allowed to play fantasy sports anymore, and the CPL will be a bit less without them. Longball has been responsible for some of the greatest moments of the brief CPL history, 3 of which we will briefly review:

‘Cole Hamels is a sleeper.’ Of course, Mr. Hamels is an elite starting pitcher now, but back in the 07 draft, the e-giggles were all over the draft board as Longball reached about 8 rounds early and took Hamels in the first round. His reasoning, as quoted above, was classic.
Twice in 2008, Longball lost all his pitching category stats due to the minimum innings rule. The wonderful moral to this story is ‘know your league rules’ because there was a rumored conversation at the end of the season that quoted Longball as saying, “There is a minimum innings rule?”
In the same conversation mentioned in #2, after Longball was informed he could track his IP on the stat tracker, the following question was asked: “There is a stat-tracker?”

Priceless. We are going to miss Longball. Hopefully his replacement plays fantasy baseball with the same flair.

- Best Move: Grabbing an injured Shane Victorino off waivers paid dividends down the road. Of course, SV is a Philly, so this was fairly automatic.

- Worst Move: Keeping Bret Myers was pretty bad at the time, and proved to be pretty bad by the end of the year, but looking at Longball’s 07 roster, there really weren’t a whole lot of other options. We’ll call cutting Carlos Quentin for Aaron Hill the day after the draft the worst move.

- Biggest Surprise: I guess this will go to Dan Uggla, who had a great first half, and the self-destructed in the All-Star game.

- Biggest Disappointment: The fall of Verlander from top 10 pitcher to really bad pitcher traded for George Sherrill has to be the biggest disappointment.

- Blog Would Have…: Tried to trade one of the 3 kept pitchers for offense all day every day once the draft was done.

- Longball’s new owner should keep: Howard and Miggy are no-brainers. I guess Hamels goes #3, and then I guess there’s Derrick Lee and, well, Uggla? Eeck.

- Final Draft Grade: C- Tough to grade based on drafted players remaining on the roster, because Brad Penny (1051) and Pudge (793) should not have been on this roster past June. Tom Gordon, set up man extraordinaire, was taken in the 15th round? Kenny Lofton still hasn’t played in 2008. Lee, Oswalt, Young, Uggla, Anderson and Quentin were all solid picks.

- Final Season Grade: C+ Somehow, this roster came in 4th. That just shows how important Ryan Howard and Miggy were to this team.

- 2009 Outlook: Two solid keepers, both at CI positions, but after that, there are a lot of questions. Good luck Matthew.