Living The Dream...Or Perhaps The Nightmare

Like most baseball fans, I have always dreamed of running my own team. I have, when given the option, turned on the "fantasy draft" option in pretty much any legitimate baseball game and went wild, drafting my dream team of young studs and some of my favorites, and leading them to the promised land, mostly by playing on a difficulty below my talent level and reassuring myself that I am good at this stuff.

However, the realist in me knows that even if I did get to such a level to run a team, it's almost never that easy. Unless I was Ned Coletti, I wouldn't be handed a playoff-level MLB team with a store of great prospects. If I ever got my pipe dream to become reality, I would be given a barren wasteland, or worse, an expansion team.

For this project, I lived out my pipe dream, just not with the ideal scenario. I gave myself the 31st MLB team, placed in the American League. I let myself build a team from scratch by creating what I figure would be a realistic expansion draft by following the rules laid out below. They eliminate pretty much any really nice player due to salary (even if the team left a highly overpriced superstar out there, I can't pick them, I have to make my team some money) and any really nice prospect since a team wouldn't give that player up. For the sake of my choices, the owner has told me that he doesn't expect to go the playoffs now, but that I should pick my best possible team at the major league level.

Rules:
A. The 25-man roster must, in real life, be able to play. So I can’t take four catchers if catchers are severely undervalued, or randomly turn RPs into SPs.
B. Players who have not played in three partial or full seasons are off-limits entirely
C. Players in their arbitration period are case-by-case: the basic rationale is that if they would make a notable amount over $1,000,000 on the open market, they are off limits. I am generally conservative with this idea, and am less likely to make a player with four years experience available, as compared to one with five.
D. Players who have had one FA cycle or more are free game as long as their salary is at or below 1,000,000 dollars.
E. The team has a DH spot in the lineup
F. There are rare “special cases”. Sammy Sosa is the main one. I decided against putting him in my pool of selectable players, mostly because there were other reasons for him not making over a million rather than his talent.

These six rules should force me, the GM of this fledgling franchise, to limit myself to players who have either hit the free agent market recently or will hit it soon, and have low salaries to keep costs low. I am trying to build the best team possible here, and this is the team that resulted from those filters.

Catcher

The depth of catcher in this project was respectable. This is not terribly surprising, since almost every team will carry a cheap, backup catcher whose job is to either tend to one pitcher’s games or to take up bench space. This particular job is not usually high paying, so there were plenty of choices for catchers, especially from AL teams.

To be completely honest, I was not terribly picky. You could take almost any of the backup catchers who qualify and place them on the team, and the quality would not shift greatly. I basically chose the two who looked the best and went from there.

Starting Catcher: Mike Redmond

Redmond was one of the few catchers who had significant starting or major part-time experience without completely bombing offensively. He is better against lefties than righties, and the backup could at least help against RHP if needed, but Redmond’s the best of a mediocre bunch.

First Base

The First Basemen present two real breeds. One group included two resurgent veterans who finally found, or re-found their swing and are benefiting their team significantly because of that. The other group included backup 1B/OF types who can do a solid job if called upon, but most teams do not want to do such a thing. I took my 1B and DH out of the first group. The second group contained a hitter or two who play well enough to make the team, but just don’t field well enough. Players like Josh Phelps, in other positions, would have made the cut. But considering the relative strength at first, he just wouldn't be good enough

Starting First Baseman: Carlos Pena
Starting Designated Hitter: Dmitri Young

Pena has been a monster this year, after floundering with numerous teams. The coaches in Tampa had to have found something in his swing, because he has been belting the ball for the entire year. I’d take a chance on someone of his age and ability. Young is very similar to Pena, with more of a track record and maybe less defensive ability, so I am putting him at DH, as the team needs his power.

Second Base

This is the point in our flight where we start to find some turbulence. After a solid catcher and a very impressive first basemen, the second base position is really in trouble talent wise. Most of the players are either backups, “utility” infielders, washed up veterans, or hitters who simply were not that good to begin with. There are plenty of good, cheap middle infielders that were filtered out due to age and salary, which leaves me with the choice of Ronnie Belliard.

Starting Second Baseman: Ronnie Belliard

Belliard is nothing amazing, but he shouldn’t be the dreaded offensive black hole that I want to avoid and he isn’t completely ancient. In this 2B field, that’s enough. Considering my other options were almost exclusively utility players better suited for the bench, and that none of them did anything better than Belliard, this was a pretty easy pick.

Shortstop

Did I say that second base was bad? Well, this is worst. It's so bad that, unless I wanted to take a complete offensive zero at SS, I needed to pick a guy who has barely played short in his entire MLB career. Simply put, I’m getting a net loss at this position anyway, so I picked the one guy with some offensive power who shouldn’t completely mess up the position…right?

Starting Shortstop: Esteban German

His very good offensive 2006 is tempered by this year, but he is still hitting well enough to play for most teams at an infield position and he’s shown versatility to play several positions in the infield and outfield, if needed. Considering the best of the other options included John McDonald, I don't feel that bad about playing German here. Good shortstops are hard to find on the cheap.

Third Base

This was probably one of the easiest choices in making this team. There is only one player who falls into all the classifications and actually has started before (and currently) with some ability, and that’s…

Starting Third Baseman: Aaron Boone

Yes, M’Fin Aaron Boone. I was a bit surprised at his low salary and that he was starting in Florida, but he isn’t a horrible player and he brings some experience, an acceptable glove, and a decent bat with him. There was little question here. The other two main options were Jason Smith, who had a handful of forgettable years north of the border, and Pablo Ozuna, who hasn't done much to distinguish himself. Boone can at least help out.

Left Field
This was a very easy choice. Considering that the pool of quality OF that fall under the qualifications was pretty shallow, that limited much of the choices right out of the gate. Once I took out the complete scrubs, like Greg Norton (who outside of last year, has been pretty bad) and the flexible but light hitting utility players and multi-positional outfielders, it left four OFs who could start for this team. My choice in LF is

Starting Left Fielder: Shannon Stewart

Out of my five outfielders on the team, all five could feasibly play left field well enough to start, at least defensively. Stewart probably has the most experience at that particular position and his bat holds up to the standards of even a real MLB team, never mind the fake one I am creating

Center Field

This was slightly more difficult than Left Field. Three of my OFs can play CF, so the defense was not a huge problem. Stewart, in an emergency, could too, but he is in LF already. Hairston simply does not hit well enough to warrant anything but a very valuable spot on the pine. That left me with two players, and I chose...

Starting Centerfielder: Jose Cruz Jr.

Cruz was the best choice for the position, even considering Darin Erstad's probable defensive advantage. He hits well, he fields acceptably, he has played all three OF positions extensively over his career, and he provides an overall solid player for this team, which with the infielders, this team could use

Right Field
I have already covered most of my OF arguments in the left field post, so I'll keep this brief. Basically, I have to choose between Jerry Hairston, whose bat I do not really like, Darin Erstad, who is injured too often and whose skills have declined, or my third choice. I thought my third choice was the best one, and it's...

Starting Right Fielder: Matthew Wade Stairs, Canada's greatest export evar.

Seriously though, he plays defense at a level where he doesn't kill the team. His offensive skills have not declined yet, as shown by his .931 OPS this year in part-time duty for Toronto, and he's one of the only few power options this team has outside of Pena and Dmitri Young, Against lefties, he is pretty bad, but I would give him a shot before platooning him with Hairston, Erstad, or Cairo, but I would hesitate to do so if needed.

Reserve Hitters

The way my roster is set-up, as an AL team with nine starting hitters and seven relievers, I only had room for four benchies.

Adam Melhuse is my backup catcher, he’s the best hitting out of the group of Paul Bako and Doug Mirabelli.

Miguel Cairo and Jerry Hairston Jr. fulfill similar roles on the team. Both play a slew of positions to cover for injury should any of my other guys get hurt, or cover for horrid play. Neither hit that well, but they can both play OF in a pinch and provide a safety net.

Darin Erstad, as mentioned before, is the backup OF/1B. He’s a great late-inning replacement for Stairs or Pena (or Young if he should play the field) as he is still a very nice defensive player. Plus, if he’s on the bench, he’ll probably avoid injury.

Starting Pitchers

Uh-oh…this is why expansion teams lose 100 games. The lesson here is that you won’t find good, cheap, veteran pitchers who will break out and be more than 5th starters on the FA market.

The Rotation: Victor Zambrano, John Thomson, Jason Davis, Brandon Duckworth, Chad Durbin

Yeah, that should speak for itself. But anyway.

Victor Zambrano has a lot of experience playing for a horrible team, and if my coaches (unseen) could get his control to acceptable level, he could be that one SP on the expansion team who stands out. He can be very good at times, a poor man’s Daniel Cabrera even.

John Thomson has a respectable MLB history, a good salary, and if he’s not injured, he actually pitches at a level where even a real team can use him. He was a steal to find on Kansas City and I'm actually surprised Kansas City got him on the cheap, I guess his injury history really deflated his value. An expansion team would take a shot on a guy like him.

Jason Davis was a liberty of mine, as he was never a free agent, but he’s close and on his second team. He’s never put it all together, but he is worth taking a shot on, to give him a real chance to be a very good pitcher. I'm optimistic that a guy of his size and skills can be a goo pitcher in this league.

Both Brandon Duckworth and Chad Durbin are SPs turned RPs who are used to fill up innings and nothing more for this team. All I am looking for out of these re-tread caliber pitchers is five innings a game and less than five runs allowed per game.

The Bullpen

If this team has one high point, it’s the bullpen. Not shockingly, a lot of MLB teams take cheap fliers on arms in hopes that they do well. Sometimes, the idea actually works out, where players finally find “it” on their fifth team or after another trade.

The Bullpen: Eddie Guardado, Al Reyes, Brian Bruney, Jesus Colome, Antonio Alfonseca, Kyle Snyder, and Javier Lopez

Eddie Guardado has closer experience, and although he’s hurt and pretty aged, he could at least be a good player-coach and provide some innings before retiring, preferably in the closer’s role.

Al Reyes has emerged this year, out of nowhere, to take the Rays closer job and has been nothing less than great. He has no other good track record and his history and even mini-track this year suggests regression, but there was not a huge snub on this team to kick Reyes off.

Brian Bruney was probably Brian Cashman’s best cheap pickup in a while, as he has provided a needed arm in their pen from the waiver wire. He has some wicked stuff and if he's used right, I think he'll be a great MR for this theoretical team.

Jesus Colome, a cheap pickup for the Nats, has looked good this year and has shown the stuff in the past to be a good closer, never mind middle man. He would be the proverbial "closer of the future", as the pitchers ahead of him are up there in age or ready to decline.

Antonio Alfonseca revived his six fingers from the dead and has served as Philly’s closer, but his age makes him a temporary fix for the team. Still, he has that veteran experience and never seems to die, so he is a solid pickup.

Kyle Snyder is in there as the long man, his one really good role. He can eat up 3-4 innings as a former SP and if he’s not asked to do anything else, that works. Plus, if needed, he can spot start.

Javier Lopez is the token LOOGY, but he can actually pitch an inning if need be. That put him over other similar pitchers, although this field was weak in those types of guys.

The Roster
C: Mike Redmond*, Adam Melhuse
1B: Carlos Pena*, Dmitri Young*
2B: Ronnie Belliard*, Cairo
SS: Esteban German*
3B: Aaron Boone*
OF: Matt Stairs*, Shannon Stewart*, Jose Cruz Jr.*, Jerry Hariston, Darin Erstad
SP: Victor Zambrano, John Thomson, Jason Davis, Brandon Duckworth, Chad Durbin
RP: Al Reyes, Antonio Alfonseca, Eddie Guardado, Brian Bruney, Jesus Colome, Kyle Snyder, Javier Lopez

This is my team, and I figure they'll win sixty games if they get lucky, but it shows not only the difficulty that fledgling GMs have, but how good, cheap help really is hard to find these days...