To those in our audience who participate in Fanball’s Diamond Challenge game, I’m going to do a little preview as I did last year. For those of you who have not heard of the Diamond Challenge, it is a very exciting fantasy game that presents unique challenges to fantasy owners. It is a salary cap game, which means how you want your roster to look is ENITRELY up to you! For a quick overview of my thoughts on the game and its basic strategy, check out this post from last year: https://www.insiderbaseball.com/blog/2009/02/dc_preview_analyzing_the_outfield.html.
Okay, before I get started with previewing this year’s game, let’s take a quick recap of how I fared last season. I tried out three teams, and fielded three different rosters. My teams finished 1st, 7th, and 12th in their leagues, 9th, 41st, and 100th in their divisions, and 82nd, 606th, and 1362nd overall. All in all it was a fun year, but I essentially broke even after transaction costs throughout the year.
As you can tell, I played three pretty different teams, and that is something I’m seriously considering changing this year. With that said, let’s recap some of my hits and misses from last season’s DC preview. If you want to see what I said about particular players heading into the season, just check out the blog archives as all my DC Preview posts from last season are still available for viewing.
Outfield Hits
• Carl Crawford
• Jason Bay
• Matt Kemp
• Adam Lind
• Justin Upton OVER Jay Bruce
• Avoiding Vladimir Guerrero and Matt Holliday
Outfield Misses
• BJ Upton
• Nick Markakis
• Josh Hamilton
• Grady Sizemore
I actually hit the OF pretty solid, and I wish I would have stuck to my guns as I’m pretty sure I removed Adam Lind from my rosters just prior to the start of the season for fear he might platoon. Just goes to show you that you should trust your research and not let Spring Training news mess with your selections too much as a lot of that stuff is a bunch of junk.
SS Hits
• Hanley Ramirez OVER Jose Reyes
SS Misses
• Rafael Furcal
• Alexei Ramirez
• Jimmy Rollins
It was a rough year for me at the SS position, as the only player I got correct was a consensus top three pick.
2B Hits
• Aaron Hill
• Ian Kinsler
• Dustin Pedroia
• Avoiding Rickie Weeks and Howie Kendrick
2B Misses
• Avoiding Robinson Cano
The selection of Aaron Hill and having him in my lineup for all 26 weeks really boosted my team and made up for some errors elsewhere. This position was definitely a strength for me last season.
3B Hits
• Evan Longoria
• Ryan Zimmerman as possible breakout player
• Avoiding Garrett Atkins and Kevin Kouzmanoff
3B Misses
• David Wright
• Chipper Jones
• Alex Gordon and Edwin Encarnacion as possible breakout players
• Avoiding Chone Figgins
Third base absolutely killed me. I went with Longoria (such a high percentage play it didn’t really matter I got that one right) and Chipper Jones (instead of Ryan Zimmerman) and David Wright who were huge busts, and expensive busts at that.
Catcher Hits
• Matt Wieters
Catcher Misses
• Ryan Doumit
• Chris Iannetta OVER Mike Napoli
• Avoiding Victor Martinez
Wieters was definitely worth his salary once he got called up, but the rest of my thoughts on the position turned out to be a train wreck, particularly since I suggested going naked at this position.
1B Hits
• Regretting not rostering Mark Teixeira
• Ryan Howard
• Miguel Cabrera
• Avoiding Travis Hafner
1B Misses
• Chris Davis
• Not mentioning Prince Fielder
• Not making room for Albert Pujols
1B was a so-so spot for me. Howard provided the huge power numbers expected and Miguel Cabrera was consistent all year long, but Chris Davis absolutely killed me, and I probably could have had a Pujols/Fielder combo rather than Howard/Cabrera combo.
SP Hits
• Tim Lincecum
• Yovani Gallardo
• Felix Hernandez
• Javier Vazquez
• Zack Greinke
• Roy Halladay
SP Misses
• Francisco Liriano
• Chad Billingsley
• Edinson Volquez
• Scott Kazmir
SP was definitely a strength for me, as guys like Greinke, Vazquez, King Felix, and Gallardo provided amazing value and allowed me to spend more on hitting, which was important because I did not have a lot of consistent value plays there. I also ended up adding Clayton Kershaw to the mix, who was a definite help.
RP Hits
• Jonathan Broxton
• Jonathan Papelbon
• Heath Bell
• Frank Francisco
RP Misses
• Jason Motte
I ended up taking a risk by replacing Papelbon with Motte, which was a mini disaster since I had to find a replacement for him without changing the complexion of my whole team. A tough task considering Motte was just 670. Good thing I was on the ball with Heath Bell and Jonathan Broxton.
Challenges Ahead
What do I need to be a real competitor this season?
• Repeat success with OF and SP – picking great value guys along with the correct expensive guy allowed me to spend money elsewhere without falling behind at these positions
• Find another Aaron Hill – Having a dominant low percentage play at a cheap price gives you a huge advantage from the outset, especially if it’s a guy you can throw out there week after week
• Don’t make a mess of the catcher position – this problem was magnified by my reluctance to make the switch to Joe Mauer until too late
• Don’t go risky at closer to start – If you go cheap at closer to start and it backfires it can screw up the entire complexion of your roster; better to start out safe and then switch to the cheap plays once the successful ones are already established
• I cannot afford to butcher a position like I did at 3B – Chipper Jones and David Wright killed me and took up over 10% of my cap room in the process!
• Take Albert Pujols – He does EVERYTHING, and he does it consistently. Is he expensive? Yes, but I made room for a 1900 David Wright last season; I think I can make room for an 1890 Albert Pujols this year
Different Strategy Points:
• Make three teams very similar, maybe the exact same and the outset and just tweaking starting lineups
• Using by bench players more as specialty players as well as finding some good platoon players (i.e. guys like Kershaw, who is mentioned in the February 23rd edition of preseason prep, who I can play for his home starts)
