First 2006 Fantasy Football Draft

Held my first Yahoo fantasy football draft yesterday. It was a public league, with standard Yahoo scoring configurations. My strategy going in are:

1) Won't draft a kicker or defense until the very end.
2) Focus on RBs and WRs in early rounds. Won't draft a QB until these are filled unless the QB is P Manning.
3) Won't draft a TE until all starting RB's, WR's and QB are chosen.

Below are my draft results with comments:

Round 1: Peyton Manning. I had the #5 draft in the first round, which meant I couldn't get the top 4 RB's. I really didn't want to draft any of the other RB's as my #1 pick. So, I decided to go with Manning.

Round 2: W. Dunn. With T J Duckett traded, Dunn will be the main man in the Atlanta backfield.

Round 3: W. McGahee. Now I have my two top RB's, although that's not a RB corp to get too excited abound. Will need some help later.

Roudn 4: S. Moss.

Round 5: D. Mason.

Round 6: L. Evans. Now my starting WR's are drafted.

Round 7: L. Smith. My TE.

Round 8: A. Green. He used to be Round 1 material.

Round 9: E. Wilford.

Round 10: J. Plummer.

Round 11: D. Rhodes.

Round 12: A. Bryant. Need a reason to watch 49ers on TV (I live in the Bay Area, but don't really follow the 49ers or the Raiders).

Round 13: K. Barlow.

Round 14: Tampa Bay.

Round 15: J. Kasey.

Recap: I went with 5 RB's, because I wasn't really confident with the two guys I have as my #1 and #2. Green used to be good, and Barlow used to be OK. Rhodes has potential. If one of the three pan out, and one of my top 2 RB's turn out okay, then I should be in good shape. I am not super confident with my WR corp, either, but I think this is a group that can contribute on a consistent basis. I am happy with my QB and TE positions.

TO, TO, TO...

With Terrell Owens again making news off the field (okay, this time it's different... it's his first season with a new team, and it's only the preseason), claiming that he is unable to practice because he reaggrevated an injury because he came back to the practice field too early, what does this mean for the Cowboys, and what does this mean for fantasy football owners who are thinking about drafting him?

I believe that for the Cowboys, this has to be detrimental. Owens is going into a new team, a new system, so he needs time to be on the field to get used to it. Also, this has to be a distraction to his teammates, as we have seen with the 49ers and the Eagles before. So this cannot bode well for the Cowboys.

As far as fantasy football is concerned, I had TO #1 on my chart for wide receivers before all this happened. When he felt like playing, he has always put up great numbers. However, that's a really big if. Right now, I wouldn't rely on him as my #1 WR. I'll only get him in Round 4 (say a 10-team league), and ONLY after I already have 2 RB's and 1 WR. The upside for Owens is substantial, but I wouldn't risk putting him as my #1 WR and then have him go AWOL for the majority of the season due to disciplinary reasons... like he did last season.

2006 AL Comeback Players of the Year

On the AL side, the Comeback Player of the Year candidates are:

Magglio Ordonez
Frank Thomas
Jim Thome
Curt Schilling
Corey Patterson
Rafael Soriano

Out of this group, I would rank Thome #1, and Ordonez #2. Ordonez has had two subpar years, and this year he is on track for 20+ HRs and 100+ RBIs, and he no doubt plays an important role in Tigers' revival. Having said that, it's hard top Thome's improvement over last year. Last year, he had 7 HRs, 30 RBIs, batted .207, and no doubt burned many fantasy owners, many of whom used a 2nd round pick to get him. This year, he is on track for about 50 HRs and 130 RBIs while batting over .300. This is just such a dramatic turnaround that it's hard to ignore.

Comback Player of the Year Voting Starts

Today MLB announced the nominees for Comeback Player of the Year:

NL
Nomar Garciaparra
Jonny Estrada
Carlos Beltran
Scott Rolen
Joe Borowski
Edgar Renteria

With still 7 weeks of the season to go, there are still plenty of time for a change. If I am to cast a vote today, it would be between Garciaparra and Beltran.

Garciaparra
He is one of the main reasons the Dodgers are still in the playoff chase. He changed positions, played excellent defense, while putting up very good offensive numbers. The argument against Garciaparra is that his stats this season, while excellent compared to the least 3 seasons, still isn't going to extrapolate out to his heyday numbers of 25-30 HRs and 100 RBIs.

Beltran
Beltran did not only have a comeback year, he is having a career year. If we extrapolate out his numbers today, he would have 48 HRs and 141 RBIs by the end of the season. This would be 32 HRs and 65 RBIs more than last year! It's truely difficult to not go with these numbers. Similar to Garciaparra, Beltran has had 3 subpar seasons.

Conclusion
The season is still far from over, and surprised can still happen. Having said that, based on the above, I'd vote for Beltran today.

I will post my thoughts on AL Comeback Player of the Year nominees tomorrow.