Imagine being halfway into the second round of your draft, whether or not you’re in a keeper league or not, how exciting is it to see Matt Holliday fall to the 16th pick? Well I was less than excited. I’m the type of fantasy player who doesn’t want to have to draft a player because they fall to them. Most fantasy players would be excited to get a first round player in the 2nd round of the draft (remember the draft was in a keeper league, but in fresh leagues Holliday is probably a late 1st/early 2nd player anyway).

Don’t get me wrong I like the fact that I’m getting a hitter who can reach a .400 wOBA, and is projected by 5 different projections to be above .390 for 150 games. So let us focus on Matt Holliday the player, not the fact that I “had” to draft him.

In 2004 Matt Holliday broke into the show with the Rockies and promptly played 121 games, hit 19 homers, and held his own with a .358 wOBA. As a rookie this is really good, but the Coors Field effect cast doubts on his actual ability.  In 2005, ‘06, and ‘07 he continued to get better as his wOBA increased every season as well as his playing time, with 2007 being the career year, 36 homers, and an amazing .428 wOBA.

2008 saw Matt Holliday going backwards some with 12 less balls leaving the stands as home runs, costing his wOBA to drop to .418, which was just the 6th best hitter in the league. Because of Holliday’s looming payday the Rockies decided to ship him off to the highest bidder who turned out to be Oakland, Oakland then turned him over to St. Louis mid-season.

Last season Matt Holliday played a full season and mashed the ball again. His counting stats matched 2008, however he played 20 more games, dropping his wOBA to .390. This drop could be from park effects, age, injury, or just general decline. However, the forecasters named Bill James, CHONE, Marcel, Zips, and the Fans of Fangraphs, all have Holliday matching last years effectiveness with a full season in St. Louis. His projected wOBA ranges from .390 to .399, and playing time they see him getting at least 597 or more plate appearances.

As a 30 year old Holliday still has some life to live in the major leagues. His game is based on power, speed, eye, and ability, and that’s why he got paid this last off season. As a fantasy owner, getting first round talent in the 2nd round, well I just made myself feel better. In your draft you may have to decide do you want Pedroia, Zimmerman, Sizemore, or Holliday… I had the choice made for me already, but it might not be a bad idea to just take Holliday as he has the ability to regress and be better than the others, while he also has a chance to get lucky (a few extra seeing-eye singles, a few cheap homers) and put up another .400+ wOBA year.

Tomorrow at 3 PM Central Time my home league  has its annual draft for the 7th year now. This league has seem many revisions, owners who have left and come back again. We’re now set at a 12 team, head to head points league using the same settings you see on our settings that we will be using for the official online Fantasy by the Book league, (still 3 openings available if you are interested email me!).

Our league is a keeper league that does things slightly different, Players drafted in rounds 1-5 cost $3 to keep, rounds 6-10 cost $2, 11 and on cost $1 to keep along with free agents. The 20th round is considered the prospect round and players drafted there are free to keep.  Each year a keeper gets a $1 raise if they are to be kept again, and each team gets to spend $5 on keepers.

My fiancee this year is keeping Prince Fielder ($3) and Zach Greinke ($2), while I had to pass on keeping better players as I felt I needed to make up for the fact that I dumped 5th and 10th round picks this year for Justin Verlander last year and pushing to win the league championship. Luckily it worked out, but trading two picks in the top half of the draft for a pitcher was  a risk and it really puts a strain on this years draft.

So I ended up keeping 5 guys at a dollar, Joey Votto, Billy Butler, Matt Wieters, Ubaldo Jiminez, and Jayson Werth, so I lose the headliner pick, but I get 5 top 100 guys and don’t have to wonder about drafting a catcher or 1B. But I feel like I really maximized my value for the keepers, Billy Butler is the only guy who might slip outside the first 10 rounds, and that is unlikely as there’s roughly 40 players being kept already.

I won’t go to far into my draft strategy tomorrow, but I could barely hold my excitement about writing about it so here is where I’m sitting.  I have the 8th pick in the draft and here’s my prediction for the first round with the players available:

1. Pujols (Kept Crawford and Ellsbury and let Pujols go only to redraft him)
2. Tim Lincecum (Kept Mauer and McCutchen, loves young players)
3. Ryan Braun (Kept Ryan Zimmerman, Cliff Lee, and Pablo Sandoval (yes holy crap) might as well get another hitter here)
4. Miguel Cabrera (Kept Hanley and Josh Johnson, I don’t see the Red Sox lover taking ARod here.)
5. Alex Rodriguez (Kept Tex, Hughes, and Wandy, I could see a Johan (favorite player) stab, but Arod is too good here)
6. Roy Halladay (Kept Ryan Howard and Ryan Dempster, the new guy likely takes best available.)
7. CC Sabathia (Kept Chris Carpenter, Derek Lee, oh and Evan Longoria, The pitchers will run)
8. Felix Hernandez (My pick, see keepers above, homer pick, arguably best pitcher available.)
9. Derek Jeter (Kept Kendry, Gavin Floyd, Cueto, and Cano, Yankees fan stays true to his heart)
10. Troy Tulowitski (Other hoarder of good talent, Tom Hansen, Kershaw, Mark Reynolds, Aaron Hill, Justin Upton, Tulo is too good to miss here.)
11. David Wright (Kept Andrus, Beckett, and Utley, best OF available, pitchers are gone)
12. Matt Kemp (7th slot traded for the pick, needs an OF)
13. Matt Holliday (being a Cards fan, I see Holliday going here after the run of OFs, keeping Prince and Greinke allows for the solid core anyway)

I’m going by gut feeling and experience here. Lots of great guys were kept, but I think this is close to how it will go. Everyone always throws curve balls, and people in our league have feelings for certain players positive or negative and that always changes thing. Last year I got “over” those feelings and took Mike Young and Brian Roberts two players I detested, but then I won, so hopefully this year I can go bipartisan again and win.

It will be an uphill battle this year as I’m short two picks in the first 10 rounds, but my keepers should patch up those holes pretty well. Hopefully Butler, Wieters, and Ubaldo all gett better, or at least hold their own.

Tomorrow night I’ll let you know how I did and feel about it, I couldn’t be more excited!