Fantasy Baseball Team #1

Did my first fantasy draft of the season on Friday night for a league in which I am the defending champion. (Last time I was defending champ in this league, I fell to dead last the next season. Here's hoping that doesn't happen this time around.) Ten team head-to-head league, with the following categories.

Batting:

• Runs
• RBIs
• Stolen bases
• Walks
• Strikeouts
• Total bases

Pitching:

• Wins
• Saves
• Walks
• Strikeouts
• ERA
• WHIP

By some miracle, I ended up with the first pick in the snake draft. (I shudder to think of what karma has in store for me in my next draft on Tuesday.) You know what that means. PUJOLS, BABY, PUJOLS.

This is my team:

Catcher: Carlos Santana (no, not that Carlos Santana, this Carlos Santana)
First base: Albert Pujols
Second base: Brandon Phillips
Third base: Casey McGehee
Shortstop: Starlin Castro
Outfielders (including a center fielder position): Nick Swisher, Josh Hamilton, Jason Heyward, Brett Gardner, Dexter Fowler, Vladimir Guerrero, and Angel Pagan.
Starting pitchers: Tim Lincecum, David Price, Jorge De la Rosa, Ian Kennedy, Mat Latos, Trevor Cahill, and Johan Santana (who will obviously be stashed on the DL until he comes back)
Relief pitchers: Brian Wilson, Jose Valverde, Matt Capps, and Brian Fuentes.

There's a total of five bench positions--in my case, two bench hitters and three bench pitchers--and two DL spots.

This is an interesting team that I think has a lot of upside, but also some risk. There are some young players on my team, some of whom are proven (Lincecum, Price) and some who are not (Castro, Santana). I have a bit of a hole when it comes to third base. I currently have my eye on Michael Moustaka, of the Royals, but he won't be up before June, due to arbitration, etc. I also have a problem at closer--right now, I own two and two-half closers. Andrew Bailey will probably be shelved for a couple of weeks at the start of the season, so Fuentes will probably get some saves (along with Grant Balfour), but if Bailey's healthy, he's the closer. Capps is, of course, backing up Joe Nathan in Minnesota. He'll get some saves while Nathan is getting back to form, but like the situation in Oakland, once Nathan's back, the job is his. I'll have to keep an eye on the closers thread at FBC, which is always annoying because you have to sift through stupid comments to get to things of substance. Sigh.

Overall, I like my team, but it's a different sort of team than I've owned in the past, so we'll see how it works out.