This article is part of our The Z Files series.
One down, far too many to go. Earlier this week, we put the raps on the Premature Edraftulation draft, the first official National Fantasy Baseball Championship league of the 2021 season. Knock on wood, we'll play this one out, as last season's edition was put to pasture by the pandemic.
Premature Edraftulation is an NFBC satellite, commencing the final week of the previous season. It's a standard 15-team league with seven reserves and FAAB. For the past several years, I've partnered with the smoothest voice in fantasy podcasting, Derek VanRiper. This season, DVR and I drew the eighth pick – more on that in a moment.
While I will be reviewing the squad, it won't be in the standard boilerplate manner. Instead, I'll share my mindset at the time of some of the selections.
By means of a setup, I don't usually team up in drafts. Other than this annual pairing with Derek, I fly solo. There have been a handful of exceptions over the years, including a couple of high-profile victories, but my preference is to go it alone.
Other than it's fun to cyber-hang with DVR for a couple of weeks and I respect his fantasy baseball acumen, there's a selfish reason to get the "Industry Scum" together each September. While DVR and I have some overlap in terms of player analysis and game theory approach, there are differences which I find enlightening.
If co-managers contend each would have drafted the exact same team without the other's input,