It is that time of year again! The annual Strat-O-Matic draft by a panel of experts. This is the sixth year of SOMBOE (Strat-O-Matic Baseball Online Experts). The cast of characters remains strong. Lawr Michaels, Trace Wood, Eric Karabell, Joe Sheehan, Jeff Erickson, Rob Hurtt, JP Kastner, Will Kimmey, Brendan Roberts among others. Right now we are in the stage of setting your draft lists. But I thought I would take a look back on last year to see if I can remember the lessons learned.
Last year was the best year ever for me. My Toronto Kimosabees lost in the World Series to JP Kastner's Rustbuckle Bohemians in four games. Yes, I was swept, despite having the best record in the league.
Each year we draft a new stadium first and have to come up with a catchy name to match the city. I picked Toronto last year, and it was a nice hitters park. Ryan Howard (69 home runs!), Brian McCann (45 home runs), Chase Utley (37 home runs) and Torii Hunter (38 home runs) led the way. My pitching also gave up quite a few runs. Two of the strategies I used were to use a four-man rotation and to stay away from any players with a salary over $9 million. Grabbing Utley gave me an advantage at a position that was scarce (2B).
This year I am in Houston. I had to pay homage to Roger Clemens and his erudite testimony earlier this year. So my team is the Houston Misremembers, named in his honor. Minute Maid Park is not quite the hitters park that it is reputed to be. 1-12 HR's vs. both left and right is good. But the singles are only 1-2 vs. left and 1-8 vs. right. So I am debating on whether to follow a similar strategy or try going with a strong pithing staff with low ballpark homers to see if a strong pitching staff might serve me better in the playoffs.
I will have a post-mortem as soon as the draft is complete. So stay tuned to see how my team comes out. Now back to sorting my priority list.
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