The Wreck Room in San Francisco hosted the first Bay Area Fantasy Industry Draft (thanks Tod) this past weekend. Yes, that leads to the league being called BARF.which stands for Bay Area Roto Fantasy League. We had our own little spot in the corner of the bar, and we went old school. No computer setup for this draft… we merely had a draft board with stickers. Big fan of that. Here are the particulars of the draft, and the league, that we will play out this season. I’ll follow things up with my commentary on the club I put together. Not my best group, not the worst either. Great group of folks there though, I can say that with certainty.

12 team mixed league, 28 rounds

Offense: OBP, HR, RBI, RUNS, SB

Pitching: QS, ERA, WHIP, K, SV
* QS = quality starts

Here’s the team I rostered out of the 9th hole. Round in Parenthesis.

C: Matt Wieters (13), Blake Swihart (22)

1B: Miguel Cabrera (1), Mark Trumbo (14)

2B: Robinson Cano (3), Daniel Murphy (21)

3B: Todd Frazier (6), Josh Harrison (23), Pablo Sandoval (28)

SS: Brad Miller (19), Asdrubal Cabrera (25)

OF: Mookie Betts (2), Ryan Braun (4), Christian Yelich (8), Adam Eaton (9), Hanley Ramirez (12), Jayson Werth (24)

SP: Johnny Cueto (5), Tyson Ross (7), Jordan Zimmermann (10), James Shields (15), Yordano Ventura (17), Anibal Sanchez (27)

RP: Dellin Betances (11), Hector Rondon (16), Francisco Rodriguez (18), Carter Capps (20), Joaquin Benoit (26)

Don’t forget to pick up your copy of the 2016 MLB Draft Guide which includes more than 600 Players Ranked, auction values, rookie reports, hitting and pitching targets as well as all the info you need if you’re ready to start playing DFS.

I took Miggy first. Yes, it’s an OBP league and I probably should have taken Joey Votto first and hoped that Cabrera fell back to me in the second round, but all I hear from all of my followers – you all – is that pitching is going off the board super early in every league, so I was confident I could get back one of the bats I was targeting in the 2nd round. However, pitching just didn’t go off the board early in this one. In fact, the only starting pitcher taken in the first two rounds was Clayton Kershaw. I figured at least one, if not two, arms would go from picks 10-12 and then 1-3 in the second round. It didn’t happen. Not that Betts is a bad fall back of course in the second round.

Cano in the third round. I don’t know why folks think that isn’t a good play.

Braun has risks, he’s dealing with recovery from back surgery right now, but he nearly went 25/25 last season. If he approaches 20/20 this season, as a 4th rounder, how could I complain about that?

Cueto was my first arm, perhaps a bit early in the 5th round, but after a slow start with arms being drafted they started to go hot and heavy. I took Ross in the 7th round, and that was likely the only mistake I made in the draft. Not that Ross at that point isn’t worth a look, it’s just that I almost certainly could have waited until the 8th to grab him. So it ended up Cueto, Ross, Zimmermann, Shields and Ventura. All the guys are solid options, even if there is no elite play amongst them. I realized that during the draft, so what did I do? I piled up some strong bullpen arms to compensate. Betances leads all relievers in strikeouts the last three seasons, by more than 40. He’s an elite arm. Rodon/K-Rod are a solid 1-2 punch, and whether or not Capps is the Marlins closer or their 8th inning arm… he’s the Betances of the National League. Funky delivery, fantastic arm. Benoit could end up leading the Mariners in saves this season as well with only Steve Cishek in the way at the moment.

You might be concerned about my shortstops. I’m not. Cabrera always does his boring, place holder thing, and at the cost of a 25th round selection I will totally take that (see Cabrera's Player Profile). As for Miller, you know I’m a fan, right? Check out Miller’s Player Profile.

Really like my catching duo too.

As for the outfield, a nice mixture of power/speed, vet and youth there. At the point I nabbed HanRam there’s not much risk, and I took a shot on Werth late given that he owns a career .365 OBP and was at .394 as recently as 2014.

This is a rather boring team. Perhaps it was the massive head cold was dealing with during the draft, perhaps it was because I had an Irish Coffee despite taking drugs for my cold. I don’t know the reason, but in the end this is your basic, kinda just there squad. Sometimes though, the teams you don’t expect much from are the ones that perform the best.

Lawr Michaels of Mastersball also wrote about his team here.

HERE ARE THE RESULTS OF THE ENTIRE DRAFT.

 

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).