A fan of the Yankees, Red Sox, and large sample sizes.

 
PEORIA STRAT LEAGUE UPDATE

It's been a while since I've written about the Schuykill Kings in the Perioa Strat-o-Matic League - mostly because nothing much has happened recently. The draft ended about a month ago, with my final 15 picks being pure "prospect" picks. They aren't actual prospects (as in minor leaguers), because only players with 30 ABs or 30 IP in 2003 are eligible for the draft. We're more talking the Cliff Lee/Orlando Hudson/Ken Griffey Jr variety. Players with poor recent years and the potential to take it to the next level this year. Note that it's not a snake draft.

2004 Draft:
TR Adam Kennedy
2. Luis Matos
3. Jeremi Gonzalez
4. Kyle Farnsworth
4. Francisco Rodriguez
5. Jose Valentin
5. Craig Wilson
6. Jose Reyes
7. Randy Johnson
9. Victor Martinez
10 Scott Sullivan
11 Derek Lowe
12 Tony Armas Jr
13 Junior Spivey
14 Eric Dubose
15 Brett Myers
16 Adam Dunn
17 Jeff Weaver
18 Grant Balfour
19 Arthur Rhodes
20 Tomo Ohka
21 John Lackey
22 Darrin Erstad
[AJ Burnett]

I traded my first round pick (11th out of 12) for Adam Kennedy and a 4th and 5th round pick, which turned into Francisco Rodriguez and Craig Wilson. Kennedy was the last of the playable 2Bs for a twelve team league, and I like his chance to improve. Had I kept the pick, I would have drafted Matos, who I grabbed in the second round anyways. He hits righties pretty well for a CF and is a 2 fielder with a good arm. I don't really think he'll improve next year, but he's great his year. The same goes for Jeremi Gonzalez. DIPS says his skills represent an ERA about one full run higher than his 3.92 ERA last year . Oh well, maybe lightning will strike twice.

The rash of relievers taken was due to my lack of starting pitching. The plan is to limit all starters to 6 IP per start and fill in with mucho innings from relievers. Borowski, Guardado, Mota, Farnsworth, Rodriguez, and Sullivan should shut teams down the last three innings. If I'm still in the hunt after a couple months, I'll make a strong push to trade for a quality starter or two.

I'm really excited about my pitching prospects for next year. I should be able to pull a quality five from Millwood, Clemens, Beckett, Randy, Lowe, Myers, Weaver, Balfour, and Lackey. Plus, you can always get at least one more quality arm from the draft.

The hitting prospects don't intrigue me quite as much, but I foresee some big years down the road from Dunn, Reyes, and Martinez. The latter two should be more valuable a couple years from now. In general, hitting prospects are better bets than pitching prospects. But I tend to keep many hitters year to year due to this fact (BGiles, Guerrero, Blalock, DLee should be studs for a while), and thus I need to take chances on fewer hitters. Plus, other teams in my league don't seem to understand the value of platoons, so I'm able to draft lots of one-sided players, especially righties that can only hit righties.

Anyways, we just got the results for...

Month One
The Kings finished Month One a game under .500. We swept three games against the the worst team in the division, and then were four games under against the top two teams. Not a bad start, and I'm only a couple games out of first. In a month or two some teams will have given up, and the pitching acquisitions should begin.

I love baseball.

Posted by Sky at 6:19 PM | 0 comments