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??