COAFA: Let the Games Begin

By Greg Wiley

Confessions of a Fantasy Addict is the Phanatic’s blog documenting the 2008 Fantasy Baseball season of an obsessed gamer with weekly, if not more often, updates. “Greg” doesn’t claim to be an expert. As a matter a fact, it’s advised that you do the complete opposite of him if you want to succeed. Basically, the idea of this blog is to let you inside the world of a fantasy addict.

Well I had three drafts this past week and I think all went fairly well.

First, we’ll start with my big money league. If you remember I was drafting first and picked Jake Peavy over the likes of Nick Markakis and Brandon Phillips. I was surprised that so many pitchers went in the first and second rounds of that draft. Most pitchers remaining were mediocre, but people put pitching at the top of their lists.

Here’s the rundown of my picks, remembering I went back-to-back and already had Chase Utley, Jacoby Ellsbury, Carlos Lee, Mark Teixeira and Dan Haren:

6. Jake Peavy

7. Stephen Drew

8. K-Rod

9. Edinson Volquez

10. Chone Figgins

11. Lastings Milledge

12. Kerry Wood

13. James Looney

14. Cameron Maybin

15. Mike Pelfrey (way early, but mantasy)

16. Howie Kendrick (thought there was some value so late, but when I got Matsui even later it made me wish I took someone else)

17. Trevor Hoffman (needed closer, most were off the board, and I’m willing to wait on injury)

18. Denard Span

19. Jered Weaver

20. Mike Cameron

21. Kaz Matsui

22. JD Drew (actually went to pick someone else here but was told they were already picked, so I just grabbed him after Stephen made the call to me to take his older brother)

23. Scott Downs (the guy in front of me took BJ Ryan so I grabbed Downs)

24. Randy Wolf (just wanted to get the draft over with and he was the best pitcher left)

25. Ramon Hernandez (needed a catcher I rarely take a catcher before my last pick)

If you can’t tell what my goals were, offensively I wanted to get younger players and guys who could produce in the power and speed categories. Pitching, I went for strikeouts and hope I got that in Volquez and Peavy.

Can I just vent for a moment by the way about drafts? Look, I’m all for rubbing guys for who they pick, the comments can be fun and I like to have fun just like the next guy. The comments are meant for trash talking and again, it’s fun. BUT there were two guys in our draft who just wouldn’t shut up the entire time. I mean, seriously ever freakin’ pick they had a comment. They were like those two Muppets who sat in the balcony and commented on every performance, only the Muppets were actually funny.

Anyway, point is, pick your spots. It’s much funnier that way.

This is the league I will focus my efforts on this season. The other two will also be fun, but for the sake of this blog, I will concentrate on this team.

OH YEAH…

My NCAA Tournament pools are in the crapper. They got there after the first Friday when West Virginia lost. I had WVU in the Elite Eight. Also, good call by me on UConn being the weakest one seed and Michigan State being the weakest two seed.

So let’s see if I can put the mush on UNC since I picked them to win it all. So, if you’re a betting man or woman, take Villanova.