The Satanists would look a lot different with Smoltz, Vazquez and
Penny instead of Tim Hudson, John Patterson and, gulp, Matt Morris.
The Expansion Draft Revisited, Part 2
The Satanists' Greg Heck and Gun Show's John Breig
look back on the shaping of two young franchises. By Greg Heck.
AC’s Strategy
"Besides the Phillies, I hadn’t really followed baseball since the strike. When inquiring about the league months before I was accepted, I had never heard of a lot of the top players unless they were on NL East teams. Johan Santana sounded like a phony name to me when Scott told me he was the cornerstone of his franchise.
Since I was not in the know and wasn’t even familiar with any real baseball websites, I put a lot of trust into the CBS projections. That led me to players like Aubrey Huff, Clint Barmes, and was the deciding factor in drafting Jenks #1 overall. I really had no idea the revolving value of RPs.
I did have some assistance from Scott with player analysis. He was kind enough to scratch off the players who were not eligible to be drafted due to minor league status. This lead me to believe that Cole Hamels was not eligible for the expansion draft. That one hurt. He was a lock to be drafted by me since I was going young at every chance I could.
So my basic strategy was to use the CBS projections as the main guide of skill and then manipulate them based on ages. The younger a player was, the more I forgave him for a bad projection.
My regrets are many, but the main one is just not being prepared. I should have looked at more websites and some keeper specific player lists. I should have been a BP member and known about PECOTA and other forecasting formulas. I should have known the value of RPs and how highly this league values SPs. There were a lot of shoulda's."
Satanist Strategy
"I was willing to take a mix of young players and older veterans in the hope that we could be competitive in short order. I could see how important starting pitching was in the league, but there just weren’t any aces available so I probably reached early for some fairly mediocre guys. I was completely blowing off the relief pitcher category, a strategy that I have used to great success in rotisserie formats. To this day I’ve been scrambling for closers because of that decision.
Just like any other draft, some of my picks were genius and others were complete stinkers. All in all I’m happy with the results and the Satanists look forward to competing for a playoff spot in 2008."
1st Pick – Satanists select SS Jimmy Rollins from the MattroStars.
MattroStars protect SS Jhonny Peralta and OF Ichiro Suzuki.
This pick has worked out well for the Satanists – Rollins has scored 1,380 points over the past two years, tops among all shortstops (Reyes is 2nd with 1,328). Rollins has been the linchpin of a steady offense and Mattro has been trying to get him back ever since. Peralta turned around and had a disastrous 2006 campaign, leading Mattro to deal for Miggy Tejada and send Peralta to the scrap heap.
Heck – “I really wavered for a while on this one, as Peralta was coming off a big year and is a few years younger than Jimmy. But J-Roll had more of a track record, wasn’t exactly an old man, and he’s a Phillie. Made it a pretty easy choice in the end, and he’s had an amazing 2 years for us, capped off by the 2007 NL MVP. Now we just need to surround him with enough talent to get him into the playoffs.”
Breig – “My reaction to the Rollins pick was pretty much that Heck was drafting his Phillies heart. I expected Don Carmen or Bruce Ruffin to be his next two picks. I didn’t see the value in picking Rollins that high. He was coming off a so-so year where he stole a lot of bases, but that was about it. He had only 54 RBIs in 2006 and I didn’t really see the Phillies lineup being built into some kind of powerhouse that they are now.
So my real thoughts on it were simply, 'thank god he didn’t take Jenks.' In hindsight this is such folly it makes me cringe.”
2nd Pick – Gun Show selects RP Bobby Jenks from the Herzogs.
Herzogs protect 2B Jeff Kent and RP Armando Benitez
Jenks has put up two solid seasons as the Gun Show’s top reliever, finishing 7th overall among RPs in 2006 and 9th in 2007. That said, GM Heck was positively ecstatic when he saw the Gun Show’s first overall pick.
Heck – “I couldn’t believe it – my strategy was to completely avoid RPs as so many closers change hands during the season and can be had on the waiver wire – when Breig used his first pick on a reliever, I figured I wouldn’t even have to worry about who he was going to take and could just focus on our squad.”
Breig – “I still have mixed feelings about this pick. My logic for making it wasn’t very sound. I used the cbs fantasy point projections and his age as my only guide. I didn’t consider the volatility of RPs in the MLB. I didn’t realize that Jenks had never really proven himself in the majors. I didn’t consider the value of starting pitching in the CWFLB.
That being said, it has worked out pretty well. The starting pitchers that were unprotected, save current Gun Show stud Tim Hudson, are all scrubs and there were no big bats besides Konerko who I got a few picks later.
So when looking to build a team I figured why not get one player who has a chance to be a top 5 player at his position for 10 years? Granted it is a weak and ever changing position, but still one we must field.
Jenks has been my top scorer the last two years and will probably be my highest scoring pitcher this year. If he doesn’t eat his way out of the majors, he’ll be around for a long time to come.”
3rd Pick – Satanists select 3B Morgan Ensberg from the Isotopes.
Isotopes protect SP Mark Mulder and 1B Chad Tracy
Ensberg was 30 years old, and had just come off a season where he hit 36 homers, knocked in 101 and put up an OPS of .945. Heck jumped all over him with the 3rd overall pick in the expansion draft. He started out 2006 like gangbusters, putting up monster numbers through the first 2 months. Next thing you know, the Satanists’ franchise third sacker fell off the face of the planet, and is now a 25th man on the Yankees.
Heck – “We were ecstatic to grab Morgan with the 3rd pick, but he just never meshed with Coach K and lost all of his confidence. I hope for his sake that Joe Girardi can get him going, but I have my doubts.”
4th Pick – Gun Show selects 2B Chone Figgins from Daddy’s Little Boys.
DLB protects RP Joe Nathan and RP Ryan Dempster
The Gun Show were lured by Figgins’ versatility and 2B eligibility in particular. His 2005 fantasy point total of 586 eclipsed even Chase Utley, making Figgins arguably the best 2B in fantasy at that time. Figgins regressed to become a league average performer after his selection by the Gun Show, and Mike Scoscia reduced his super-utility role to the point that Figgins lost his 2B eligibility. AC traded Chone to the Herzogs in July of 2007 for prospect Lastings Milledge.
5th Pick – Satanists select SP John Patterson from MattroStars.
MattroStars protect SP Javier Vazquez
John Patterson was coming off a season in which he threw 198 innings with 185 strikeouts, a 3.13 ERA and a 1.20 WHIP. And he was 28 years old. What’s not to like? Perhaps the fact that he had never before thrown 100 innings in an MLB season? And hasn’t since? After a good first few weeks with the Satanists, Patterson’s arm went dead and hasn’t come back to life since. It looked like he would be the Nationals’ opening day starter in 2008…before they outright released him. Meh. Meanwhile, Javy Vazquez was a top-50 SP in 2006 and a top-10 SP in 2007. Chalk that one up as a “Whoops” for the Satanists.
6th Pick – Gun Show selects 1B Paul Konerko from MattroStars.
MattroStars protect OF Austin Kearns
AC and Breig raided Matt’s team once again for Konerko, the stud first sacker that had put up monster numbers in 2005. He was to be the franchise’s “cleanup” guy – to provide power numbers at a power position. In July of 2006, AC turned around and swapped him for Nick Markakis, Kendry Morales and Jeremy Sowers. I’ll defer to Daddy on this one, but this was probably a pretty good deal for The Show. Of course, none of those guys are still on the team, so it’s kind of hard to tell…
7th Pick – Satanists select SP Matt Morris from Daddy’s Little Boys.
DLB protects SP Brad Penny
Not a whole lot to way about this pick besides the following – the Satanists would look a lot tougher with Brad Penny and Javy Vazquez right now than John Patterson and Matt Morris, no? Both of those scrubs are now on the waiver wire…Satanists owner Greg Heck was looking for veteran stability, and instead found over-the-hill mediocrity with this pick. The only thing worse than this pick would be if some idiot small-market GM would trade for this overpaid, underperforming waste of a rotation space at the trade deadline with his team going nowhere in REAL LIFE…wait, that actually happened?
8th Pick – Gun Show selects SP Chris Capuano from Limerick Lynchmob.
Lynchmob protects OF Brian Giles and SP Jeff Weaver
Talk about your Pu-Pu Platter. Actually, Capuano was the 21st ranked SP in 2006. AC was clever enough to swap him to the Herzogs in the 2007 preseason for Boof Bonser, which at the time seemed like a terrible trade for The Show. Since then, Capuano has completely fallen off the map while Bonser…well, he’s still got that peculiar first name, Boof. The Show is counting on Bonser to be one of the anchors of their staff, but it’s hard to say whether or not he’ll deliver.
9th Pick – Satanists select SP Tim Hudson from MattroStars.
MattroStars protect SP John Smoltz
A fourth pick from the MattroStars out of the first nine yielded Tim Hudson for the Satanists. This was their 3rd straight SP as GM Heck hoped that Hudson would re-discover his glory days with the Oakland Athletics. The two-time All-Star had posted solid if unspectacular numbers in his first year in the National League, and Heck was banking that his relative youth would make him a smarter pick-up than John Smoltz. Instead, Hudson delivered a rather mediocre 2006 (13 Wins, 4.86 ERA, 1.43 WHIP, 50th among SPs) before rediscovering that nasty sinker in time to produce solid numbers in 2007. The Satanists sent him to the DLB in a deadline deal for Ryan Dempster and Jake McGee in ’07, and Hudson now finds himself toiling for Breig ‘n’ AC’s Gun Show.
10th Pick – Gun Show selects OF Aubrey Huff from Norris Slum Lords.
Slum Lords protect OF Wily Mo Pena and RP Trevor Hoffman
The trend among these first 10 expansion picks is that, for the most part, they really sucked. Huff was on a run of 3 straight seasons with 90+ RBIs, and likely had multiple position eligibility (a real selling point for the Show), but was also seeing two straight years of declining OPS. Huff survived 2006 with the Show despite another disappointing season, but was released in May of 2007 in favor of Cleveland’s Ryan Garko. Huff has bounced around the league since then and now finds himself back on the waiver wire.
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