In This Year's Fantasy Baseball News You Can't Possibly Care About

There are things that you do, as a sports blogger, that just make you realize that you are writing about the same things that everyone else writes about. In those moments, you really hope that your skill, style, or backlog of patronage will carry you through the self-indulgence, or that there's something of value to similarly addled people. But yes, yes, I realize that this is the sports fan equivalent of telling people about your Dungeons & Dragons campaign, or your poker bad beat, or the cute thing your kid did. (None of which I'm totally immune to, of course.)

Anyway... you're still here. So here's the opening day roster. Asterisks have the protects.

Player TM 2012 $

C Josh Donaldson OAK 1
C Wilson Ramos WSH 1
1B Joey Votto CIN 26 *
2B Ben Zobrist TAM 19 *
3B David Wright NYM 27
SS E. Bonifacio MIA 11
CI Paul Konerko CWS 22
MI J.J. Hardy BAL 3
OF Justin Upton ARI 19 *
OF Corey Hart MIL 11 *
OF Alex Gordon KC 15 *
U Dexter Fowler COL 1
BN Manny Machado BAL 1

SP Dan Haren ANA 32 *
SP Yovani Gallardo MIL 20 *
SP David Price TAM 15 *
SP Adam Wainwright STL 8 *
RP Neftali Feliz TEX 7 *
RP Brandon League SEA 4 *
P Edison Volquez SD 1
P Adoris Chapman CIN 2
P Jim Johnson BAL 2
BN Vinnie Pestano CLE 1
BN Jake Peavy CWS 1

Putting that much into the David Wright basket is scary, but I have hopes that the Mets have reconfigured their park enough to suit him, and I think they have a sneaky good offense this year. Konerko was the last good corner on the board, and I got a little stubborn there, but it's not the worst price to pay for a bankable power bat. Bonifacio is also a little reach, but I can't imagine Jose Reyes and Hanley Ramirez staying off the DL all year, and he's just entering his prime; I'm hoping for another 40 SBs there. Hardy and Fowler came in the end-game for good prices. We'll score enough runs and get on base; whether we still enough bases is very dependent on Fowler and Bonifaco, which is a little scary, but at least speed is frequently available on the waiver wire, and I like the situations for both guys. Talking about catchers is beneath both of us, but the thought here is that Donaldson is actually a bad everyday 3B, which makes him a decent catcher. I also really didn't want to spend money at this point in the draft, so sneaking him through for a buck worked. Machado is a 19-year-old blue-chip prospect, and insurance in case Hardy craters. Worth a buck and a roster spot in the end game, I guess.

On the pitching side of the equation, I didn't get enough saves, but man alive, it's hard to when every time you blink, another team changes the role. If the Reds move Chapman back into the bullpen, or Chris Perez blows up in Cleveland, we might be OK there. The big thing is to be competitive in the three ratio categories (ERA, WHIP and K/BB), and the last category is what made me keep Haren for the big money. Every year, I think I've finally gotten this category taken care of, and every year, I'm wrong. Maybe this is finally the year? In terms of the rest, Volquez could be sneaky great in Petco, I'm in love with Chapman's talent for the second straight year, Peavy will either be OK or hurt, Pestano is behind a terrible closer in Chris Perez, and bad teams still get saves, because they never win by more than 3 runs. It's surprisingly easy to spend $7 on 5 pitchers and like it, mostly because I hate pitchers. They usually return the favor.

I don't think I've won the league on draft day, but I also don't think I've lost it, and that's all you can really ask for. And as for the overall experience, I was up until 5am last night doing draft prep, on my feet for 10 straight hours running errands, running the board, then doing the clean up. If I didn't love it... I'd be an obvious masochist. Or, of course, both.