Nobody Cares About Your Scoresheet Team

It’s that great time of year again: Scoresheet draft review! And while I won’t make my last pick until Sunday at 15:51:46 — love that military time — that means I only have three more roster spots to fill after this is published.

After reading, you’ll know where I’ll be attacking to fill those last three spots.

So for those unaware, Scoresheet is in essence a baseball simulation fantasy league. It’s based on real-life stats. For instance, last season I thought Carl Pavano might be a good back-end rotation guy. Well, he missed almost the entire season, and my Triple-A replacement — whom shall remain nameless because the game dictates so — went something like 7-35. So while my team went 76-86 if I’m recalling correctly, I’d have done a lot better than Pavano and Felipe Paulino taking up 40% of my rotation.

Have a look at our league transactions and banter. Also, here is the league homepage.

So with Scoresheet, you basically get to keep (up to) 10 major leaguers and as many minor leaguers as you want. Big league keepers cost you front-end picks; minor leaguers the opposite. The original draft for us this year started about three weeks ago, with picks reeling off about every 40 minutes from about 7:00 am Central time to about midnight. With 35 rounds, you can pretty easily build your 25 man roster and have some decent minors depths if you’re paying attention.

But what can be difficult are some of the shallower positions. First base was extremely shallow, and Bradley Woodrum grabbed Brandon Belt with one of his first picks, turning this wading pool into a bathtub. So I had to get creative. Here’s my starting lineup (subject to discussion/change):

Batting Order v. RHP
1. Denard Span CF
2. Jose Altuve 2B
3. Jason Heyward RF
4. Yoenis Cespedes DH
5. Garrett Jones 1B
6. Chris Johnson 3B
7. Salvador Perez C
8. Alexei Ramirez SS
9. Drew Stubbs LF

I managed to get Span from Sky Kalkman for Kevin Youkilis early in the draft, as well as a round 24 pick which I turned into Jesse Crain. Altuve, Cespedes, and Heyward are all keepers from the past few seasons. I felt Jones was a pretty good pick because he was 8th among first baseman in wOBA versus RHP last year. He has no pulse versus lefties, so I did end up platooning him. Johnson also is better against righties than lefties, and I like his platoon mate at third enough to start him over Johnson if the Braves go with Juan Francisco at third more often than not. I think the bottom three is so-so, and I grabbed Stubbs when it looked like I wasn’t going to get a passable DH, since moving Cespedes out of the outfield for Stubbs is a huge defensive upgrade. In the nine-spot, I don’t think Stubbs will hurt.

Batting Order v. LHP
1. Denard Span CF
2. Jose Altuve 2B
3. Jason Heyward RF
4. Yoenis Cespedes DH
5. Jeff Keppinger 3B
6. Gaby Sanchez 1B
7. Salvador Perez C
8. Alexei Ramirez SS
9. Drew Stubbs LF

I sort of played the Joe Maddon bit with Keppinger a bit higher in the order than he might merit, but I’m sure hoping he pings lefties like he has in recent years. Sanchez is Jones’ platoon mate in real life too, and even if there isn’t any more projection in his bat, platooning a high-.800s OPS lefty with a high-.700s OPS righty is still a lot better than letting Jones face lefties. I won’t say this lineup will score a ton of runs, but I think it should be stout from top to bottom.

Bench:
C/1B/OF Ryan Doumit
SS Dee Gordon
Other half of Keppinger/Johnson platoon.
Other half of Jones/Sanchez platoon.

I don’t have an ideal CF backup on the bench, but I think Stubbs and Cespedes could both easily step in, and save me from drafting someone like Vernon Wells. A backup catcher is huge in Scoresheet, and Doumit carries a pretty good bat and can be moved around a bit. In that way I felt he merited a round 11 selection. I only brought along Gordon because I felt he had a *chance* to make the team and that was before Hanley Ramirez got injured. Shortstop is pretty slim picking this year, as Elliot Johnson and Cody Ransom are presently the best options available.

Rotation:
1. Yu Darvish
2. Chris Sale
3. Mark Buehrle
4. Ubaldo Jimenez
5. Barry Zito
Stealth Options: Randall Delgado and Daniel Hudson

I actually truly lucked out in 2012, when I threw back almost all of my keepers and was able to have three of the first four picks. I used them to select Darvish, Cespedes, and Altuve, all of whom look to be possible building blocks into the future. I’m delighted with the top three of my rotation, and felt as though the back two were worth the risk given who was coming off the board at the time. Delgado was drafted in front of Kevin Frandsen, Juan Pierre, and Brian Matusz, while Zito was plucked in front of Jhoulys Chacin and Fausto Carmona/Roberto Hernandez in round 18. For me, Jimenez is the wildcard. If he stinks it up, I either hope Delgado wins the fifth starter job, or Hudson is healthy enough to pitch around midseason. It may not be a bad idea to try nab a Kevin Correia–Bruce Chen type with my last pick, but I think I may abstain.

Bullpen:
1. Jared Burton
2. Joel Hanrahan
3. Octavio Dotel
4. Jesse Crain
5. Matt Lindstrom

So obviously I’m a bit shorthanded in the bullpen. This was actually a calculated move for me, however. While I liked some of the very early reliever selections, I felt as though I could build a pretty good bullpen late. And I feel I have, as these are my four most recent selections as we creep along round 26 today. I like high-strikeout relievers, but also feel I’ve just gotten good overall value, as these are guys I’d build a bullpen with from the ground up if given the chance.

I’ll obviously target relief help with my last three selections — thanks in large part to a Crain groin injury — but I still may dip into the prospect pool once more or grab another starter.

Minor Leaguers:
OF Gary Brown
OF Michael Choice
OF Max Kepler
OF Joe Benson
IF Xander Bogaerts
IF Anthony Rendon
SP Kevin Gausman
SP Jose Berrios
SP Andrew Heaney

I don’t have a ton to say about the minor leaguers. Basically just some depth and possible high-ceiling guys, and a homer pick in Benson.

So what do you think overall? Please, again, keep in mind this isn’t a typical fantasy league. You have to build an entire team in a 24-team league of smart guys (Paul Swydan, Kalkman, Jason Collette, to name-drop a bit). So bring on the constructive criticism!