2009 Louisville Sluggers

I know readers have been eager to learn the lineup of my fantasy baseball teams for 2009. When last in action, the Louisville Sluggers of the Original Bitnet Fantasy Baseball League won the 2008 season B World Series. The league crowns champions for both the "A" first half (pre-All Star game) and "B" second half of the baseball season.

The OBFLB is a 24 team head-to-head fantasy baseball league using 10 categories: HR, SB, batting average, runs produced average, plate appearances, innings pitched, wins, saves, ERA and "ratio."

Here are the 2009 Sluggers (players in red were retained from 2008). Since I retained 13 players, I started the draft in round 14:

Starters
C: Kurt Suzuki (OAK) (16th round)
1B: Joey Votto (CIN)
2B: Aaron Hill (TOR) (14th round)
3B: Edwin Encarnacion (CIN)
SS: Troy Tulowitzki (COL)
OF: Carlos Beltran (NYM)
OF: Adam Jones (BAL)
OF: Carlos Gomez (MIN)
DH: Billy Butler (KC)

SP: Tim Lincecum (SF)
SP: Josh Beckett (BOS)
SP: Rich Harden (CHC)
SP: Ricky Nolasco (FLA)
SP: Fausto Carmona (CLE)
RP: Chris Perez (STL) (AAA)
RP: Rafael Soriano (ATL) (15th round)
RP: Carlos Villanueva (MIL) (19th round)
RP: Josh Kinney (STL) (21st round)

Bench
C: George Kottaras (BOS) (27th round)
1B: Kevin Millar (TOR) (28th round)
IF: Alberto Callaspo (KC) (20th round)
IF: Gordon Beckham (CHX) (17th round)
IF: Willy Aybar (TB) (23rd round)
OF: Ben Francisco (CLE) (18th round)
OF: Gabe Gross (TB) (24th round)

SP: Wade Davis (TB) (26th round)
SP: Jason Hammel (COL) (22nd round)
RP: Damasco Marte (NYY) (25th round)

The Beckham pick indicates the premium my league puts on talented young prospects, especially at skill positions (SS in this case). In other words, I was drafting for the future -- or perhaps for a mid-year trade in case I have an injury.

I made one pre-season trade that may prove disastrous, dealing SP Josh Johnson (FLA) for RP Chris Perez. When I made the deal, most analysts thought Perez was going to be the closer in St. Louis. Instead, he's pitching in Memphis. I had a lot of depth at starting pitcher and couldn't get any value in trade for Carmona.


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