The AL-Only Experts League

Adam has a quick recap of his AL-Only Experts League draft last night.  It looks like finding an edge on the competition isn't so easy!  We'll see how the league plays out, though...  The Brainiacs have faith in you, Adam!

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Yesterday was the second and final experts league draft and it was a 12 team AL only auction draft. I decided going into this draft that my strategy would be a little different from what I had planned heading into my NL only draft. My NL only draft I decided early on that I would spend big money for big name players and that's exactly what I did. I always thought that the AL pool was deeper than the NL and I wanted to make sure I got bonafide stars on my NL squad. I was content letting the first handful of nominated AL stars get away and spend more of my budget on players I considered close to or a tier below thus giving me a well rounded team.

My greatest preparation was again to list 10-12 players from each position into tiers so I didn't have to scramble come draft time. When I felt a player's asking price became too high, I'd wait until another player at that same position would come around and based on my tiers and rankings, buy that player. Similar to the strategy I employed when drafting in my NL only league.

The biggest difference between the AL only and NL only drafts were owners were a lot more free with their spending in the AL only than they were in the NL only. That part of the draft threw me a bit but I managed to get back on track pretty quick. I wasn't expecting owners to shell out big bucks for players so quickly since they were a little more reluctant to spend early on in the NL only draft. That ended up working out for me though since I had planned on waiting a little while before making a big splash. I made aggressive bids on (and won) David Price and Felix Hernandez. With two frontline starters on my team, I made sure I got some bats with my next few buys.

Looking back on my draft, I feel like I missed out on more power bats and in hindsight probably should've taken a little more power in the draft. I also overpaid (in my opinion) for a player or two but when you really want a player in these experts leagues drafts, like I said in my last column, you are going to have to pay for them. Nobody is letting you walk away with a player without paying for them. This was especially true regarding the AL only draft more so than the NL only draft.

I've reviewed both my NL and AL teams and I like my NL team a little more. I like the strategy I employed for the NL draft a little more than how I approached the AL draft. Regardless of how I feel about either team, I had a blast drafting with fantasy baseball experts and cannot wait to get the fantasy baseball season underway.