Fantasy Focus: 2015 Savvy Vets Season Review

My fantasy baseball team, the Savvy Vets, is part of a 10 team H2H Yahoo league with an auction draft.  After finishing a dismal 8'th out of 10 teams in 2014, the Vets improved significantly this year to finish in second place in the fantasy regular season and in 3'rd place in the fantasy playoffs.  Just for review, here is the Savvy Vets that started the season after our auction draft:

Catcher:  Evan Gattis  $4
1B  Albert Pujols  $26
2B  Dee Gordon  $29
3B  Evan Longoria  $17
SS  Troy Tulowitzki  $35
IF   David Wright  $6
OF Jorge Soler  $19
OF Billy Hamilton $16
OF Matt Kemp  $14
UT Matt Holliday $12
UT Brandon Belt  $2
SP  Johnny Cueto  $22
SP  Hisashi Iwakuma $7
SP  Jake DeGrom  $8
SP  Michael Wacha $6
SP  Ian Kennedy $2
RP  Jenrry Mejia  $5
RP  Johnathan Papelbon $5
RP  Hector Rondon $5
P  Joe Nathan $2
P  Neftali Feliz $2
B  Matt Garza $2
B  Brandon McCarthy $2
B  Carlos Carrasco $4
B  Doug Fister $3
B  Carlos Rodon $5

Now, here is my final Savvy Vets Roster.  We were allowed 40 moves in the regular season and 2 in the playoffs, all fantasy, of course:

Catcher  Wilson Ramos
1B  Albert Pujols
2B  Dee Gordon
3B  Evan Longoria
SS Eugenio Suarez
IF  Kendrys Morales
OF Matt Kemp
OF Jackie Bradley
OF Adam Eaton
UT  Anthony Rendon
UT  Domingo Santana
SP  Johnny Cueto
SP  Hisashi Iwakuma
SP  Jake DeGrom
SP  Michael Wacha
SP  Marcus Stroman
RP  Jonathan Papelbon
RP  Hector Rondon
RP  Jeurys Familia
P  Shawn Tolleson
P  Ken Giles
B  Noah Syndergaard
B  Lance McCullers
B  Mike Leake
B  Kevin Gausman
B  Brandon Finnegan

Comments:

1.  After punting Saves for the past 2 seasons, I wanted to maintain 5 closers, but at the cheapest possible price.  I bid up to $5 on every closer that was nominated in the draft and ended up with 5.  3 of those did not work out, but I was able to replace them once the season started as new closers came available.  Jumping on Familia was the big pickup, but Tolleson and Giles helped a lot too.  I picked up Giles when it became clear that Phils were going to trade Papelbon.  After the trade, I had an extra closer.  I ended up winning Saves all but 1 or 2 weeks all season.

2.  Evan Gattis got off to a horrible start and Travis D'Arnaud, who I really liked too, got off to a hot start.  Unfortunately, D'Arnaud went down with a prolonged injury right after I dumped Gattis for him. Gattis go picked up by another team, so I went with Ramos.  He did not have a great season, but it wasn't terrible either.  He gave me fairly steady production all season.  I will probably target D'Arnaud in next year's draft.

3.  Tulo was my most expensive draftee.  He was good all season, but not spectacular.  I had to dump him just before the fantasy playoffs due to the injury and Suarez was the best available out of slim pickings.

4.  David Wright looked like a bargain for about 2 weeks then went down for the season with his perennial injury.  Talk about Injury Central!  Kendrys Morales was a terrific pick up to replace him.

5. Bradley and Eaton performed very well after I picked them up.  Rendon and Santana were very late pickups to replace injured players.

6.  My goal in drafting both Billy Hamilton and Dee Gordon was to lock up the Steals category with just 2 players to free me up from having to worry about SB's in my other picks and moves.  The did that very well most of the season until Hamilton got injured late.  I thought I had overpaid for Gordon by a lot, but he turned out to be one of the most valuable fantasy players in all of MLB.

7.  I ended up with an inexpensive Starting Rotation. It was weak on the back end. I spent most of my early moves shoring it up and ended up with one that dominated most of the pitching categories most weeks.

8.  BTW, I beat the team that finished first in the regular season 9-1 in the 3'rd place playoff round.  The team that finished 6'th in the regular season won the Champiohship round over the team that finished 4'th, so you can see how competitive the league was and how much of a crapshoot any given H2H matchup is.

9.  I don't anticipate changing much in my draft approach next year although some of the other managers may have gotten wise to my SB strategy.