Introduction: TCB Family Dynasty League

Every year, David sits us down in a dark and well-lit room to talk about the upcoming season.  He threatens us with broken knuckles if we don't churn out a high quantity of high quality blog content, and there is no escape.  A writer doesn't leave TCB.  TCB simply consumes them until they cease to exist.

Every year though, no amount of cajoling with promises of face melting a-la Raiders of the Lost Ark if we fail to deliver can gear anybody up for writing about fantasy content.  Particularly, it's been challenging to write Astros-centric fantasy articles when the Astros have had exactly one Fantasy-relevant player in the past five years (until last season, really).

So this year, instead of forcing ourselves to create non-specific but engaging fantasy content, or playing hot potato with the topic until somebody gets stuck with the task, we're doing something a little different.  We decided to write the fantasy content for OURSELVES, and to heck with you guys.

And so, with fanfare, I am more or less giddy to introduce:

THE TCB FAMILY DYNASTY FANTASY LEAGUE

Other sites do this, so we figured why not copy honor copy (I had it right the first time) them?  We will post our trash talk conversations, analysis of our own transactions, our thoughts on which players have surprised us, and so forth, and you, dear reader, can tell us how stupid we are in the comments section.  EVERYBODY WINS!

Without further dudes, here is the link to the newly-formed TCB Family Dynasty site, if you wish to mock our rosters:

http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/league/tcbdynastyleague

Bookmark it.  It is now your favorite website (after this one, anyway).

Here is the team breakdown:

Team	Manager
ADD	Idrees' handsomer brother
Canseco's Finger	Dave Spradley
Carlos' Caballos	pmattern77
Consummate V's	CRPerry13
Dunsmore's Team	Ryan Dunsmore
El Oso Y El Trogdor	David Coleman
Kohl Blooded Killers	illinibob
New Britain Napalm	Alex Goodwin
Oscar Gamble's Fro	erniebreakfast
Reese Is The Word	Anthony Boyer
The Blackbirds	Brian Stevenson
The Burninators	TRosser92
Tily's Terrific Team	Idrees Tily
VinceYoungSteakhouse	jamesvanawesome

Spoiler alert: David C. drafted Evan Gattis for $42.  There's not enough mocking in the world to cover the magnitude of that folly, so if you want to get started, go right ahead.

How it works

Look, I know most people aren't going to give a rip other than those of us in the league, but we're having fun with this, so bear with me while I explain.  Or skip ahead to the part where we mock each other, I don't care.

Well, it's a Dynasty League, meaning we can keep as many players as we can afford.  We'll have $260 to spend willy-nilly every season on both keepers and on an auction draft of major league players.  We have a complicated system of escalating value based on how many years we keep a guy.  And we have a farm system of 12 rookie-eligible players also.

The first thing we did was hold the minor league draft.  All rookie eligible professional and non-professional players were fair game.  We did it snake-style (that's "snake draft" style, not "snake diggity" style, though in retrospect, perhaps we could have asked SD to moderate the draft and it would have been even more awesome), and we did it via email, which was incredibly slow but fair.

I'll get into the major league draft with a future post, but here are the results of the minor league draft:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1si73YbsiqA93iEvYag1NbkC57E0Wd0mRC_iGLTcVtgg/edit?usp=sharing

Note that this roster includes the result of a trade that was made post-draft, and also I got lazy and didn't fill in the last five picks, which are now buried in my email somewhere where I won't retrieve them until it's time to talk about keepers at the end of the year.

With the business out of the way, the meat-and-potatos of these Fantasy posts will be more like what follows from here on down, where we basically trash each other's picks.  But first, on a more positive note, here are some comments on what we liked about the minor league draft results:

Post-Farm-Draft Discussion:

Note: If anybody is interested in perusing our draft and commenting on their favorite picks, be my guest, we'd love to hear it in the comments section.  If not, well, I already stated we're writing these articles for ourselves, so THHHBBBBBT.

At the least, hopefully our commentary might help you in your own long-term dynasty leagues in identifying intriguing players that may still be available in your league or trade targets.  It's a public service we provide here at TCB.

Question:  Which of your own draft picks did you like best?

Brian: Maeda Kenta. I got him fairly late. It's a risk, but if he's posted, I'll have gotten an immediate MLB #3 pitcher with a 7th round minor league pick.

David C: I got exactly one difference-maker in the minor league portion of the draft: Corey Seager. I'll happily plug him into the left side of my fake infield for years to come.

CRPerry13: MY FAVORITE PICK WAS PRESTON TUCKER.  Ok, not really, though getting an almost-certain major leaguer in Round 11 is a good pick.  I think I did good work in the international market, nabbing Hector Olivera in round 4 (likely to be a Zobrist-type swiss army knife) and Shohei Otani in round 9.  Otani will need to be posted, and he's probably a couple years away from that, but he has ace upside, will be in the majors as soon as he signs, and so he's comparable from a prospect standpoint to a recently-drafted potential top-of-rotation starter like Mark Appel, Jon Gray, or Carlos Rodon (sorry Aiken...).  If I wind up with a round 9 Yu Darvish, it will be the steal of the draft.

Ernie: How could I not be happy with my first overall pick.  Lady luck presented me with the first overall pick, so I repaid her favor by selecting Carlos Correa, and he shall lead Oscar Gamble's Fro to many fake championships.

TRosser:  I'm tempted to say Kris Bryant because he's going to hit infinity home runs when he eventually gets called up, but I'm really excited for Nick Banks. He's only a sophomore at Texas A&M, but I think he has all-star potential at the MLB in a few years. He's got a nice swing, was a freshman all-American last year, and is currently leading the SEC with a .425/.481/.583 slash line. I just like watching the kid play ball.

Jamesvanawesome: I had the 14th (read: last) pick of the first round, which also meant I had the first pick of the second round. I believe in TINSTAAPP as much as the next guy, but I also believe in drafting the best available player, especially in the early rounds, and a lot of the impact bats were already off the board by the time my first pick came around. So with my back-to-back 1st and 2nd round picks, I ended up with Noah Snydergaard and Lucas Giolito, arguably the top two RHPs in the minors. These picks also fit in nicely with my MLB drafting strategy, so I am quite pleased with them.

Bob:  I was happy to choose between Jorge Soler and Joc Pederson with my first pick  I took Soler, and am verrrrry happy!  Saw him play 3 games this past weekend in Denver, and from what I can remember of the weekend, he looked really good!  I also think my Jake Thompson pick in the 8th round will work out very well

Dave S: My favorite pick was Jake Lamb who is starting the season off nicely (check back with me in 2 weeks), and who I hope I won't jinx with this post. If you thought this was a league operated by mature adults then take note he's listed as playing for the Dbags on our draft spreadsheet.

Idrees: They are all winners in my book.  You think I am going to pick one and create an unnecessary rift?  Just think of the ramifications if I let C.J. Edwards throw a bullpen session with the big league club.  I am not falling for that trick Chris, nice try!  But seriously, I thought C.J. Edwards was pretty solid value that late in the draft.  I kept waiting for him to get drafted, and after a few rounds of telling myself that I would draft him if he was still there, I finally did it.

Perry: Waiting to answer these questions until after many already have has gotten me going quite a bit. Apparently, I struggle at evaluating minor league talent, which could be completely true. My favorite was going to be Jameson Taillon in the third because I believe he'll bounce back from Tommy John well. Instead, it's a tie between Francisco Lindor and Joey Gallo for the simple fact that everyone else has trashed them. In a league where batting average is not a category, I believe Gallo will fit in just fine. I also believe Lindor's high ceiling will provide consistent, above-average production at a middle infield position.

Idrees' handsomer brother: I was ecstatic with drafting DJ Peterson in the 4th round simply because that was the first pick I got to make.  Apparently word got around that I'm so good at fantasy (definitely not in real life with anything), that I was handicapped in the minor league draft.  Aside from that, I was pretty pleased that Baldoquin dropped to the 9th round.  He may or may not pan out with Angels (or Angles as my brother calls them), but the Angels apparently like him a lot and I thought that was good value for a middle infielder that late in the draft.

Anthony: I already had Urias in my system by the time Aaron Sanchez was magically available to me, through some heavenly aligning of the planets.

Question:  Which of your own draft picks would you take back?

Brian:  I guess I might take J.D. Davis back, just because he's semi-far away and has some legitimate warts, though at that point in the draft I was like "PLEASE BE OVER ALREADY I DON'T CARE" and just went with someone I knew.

David:  Marco Gonzales, just because having a vested interest in the Cardinals makes me feel gross inside.

Chris:  I like all my picks okay, but I'd probably take back Wilmer Difo.  In retrospect, my only SP drafted was Otani, though that was by design.  After drafting shortstops Ozhaino Albies and Alen Hanson earlier in the draft, not to mention Olivera, I didn't need another middle infielder with my 10th-round pick.  Some pretty good pitchers went after my Difo pick.  I'd be happier now with somebody like Alex Reyes, Brandon Finnegan, or Daniel Mengden.  Or even Aaron West, Joe Musgrove, or Brady Rodgers, all of whom I'm pretty high on.  I liked the picks of Garin Cecchini, Peter O'Brien, and Gary Sanchez also, all picked after Difo.  I think I was too focused on scarce positions and missed on some talent with that pick.  That said, if Difo's 14 HR, 49 SB season last year was "for real", perhaps I didn't do so badly after all.

Ernie: None of them.  Mostly because I don't know enough about prospects to know what bad decisions I made.  I am the Tim Purpura of TCB Fantasy Baseball.

TRosser: If I had to take one back it would probably be Rusney Castillo in the second round. I snagged him hoping he would be an impact player for the Red Sox on Opening Day. So much for that. I just think I should have waited a round or two on him. All my Aggie picks are perfect.

Awesome James:  Michael Taylor. This isn't so much about Michael Taylor specifically, but more what he represents in general. The way the prospect rules are constructed in our league really puts a premium on players that are going to produce immediately as rookies. I think Taylor is eventually going to be a great MLB player, but right now he's filling in for the injured Denard Span, and he ain't hitting. As soon as Span comes back, he goes to the bench, has burned his rookie eligibility, and I'll have to make a tough decision at the end of the year whether or not to keep him on my 25 man roster for actual draft dollars when he might not be better than the other $1 backup outfielder options available.

Bob:  I was really really mad at Anthony for taking Aaron Sanchez in the 2nd, I think he will be very good  (note: way to not answer the question, Bob!)

Dave: I feel like Nick Gordon was a wasted pick. I was trying to load up on talent down the middle, and though he will probably be a competent infielder down the road, I feel like his bat might not end up being fantasy worthy.

Idrees: Peter O'Brien.  I went for the HR and selected Mr. O'Brien with my last pick, hoping that he could miraculously stick at C, and who would provide nice power from a power-deprived position.  Unfortunately, he decided to go full Rube Baker from Major League II, and apparently can't even make regular throws.  Oh well, hopefully O'brien has the same positive outlook and energy about him as Rube Baker, because I learn valuable life lessons from him every time I watch the movie.

Perry: I'll admit I reached on Domingo Santana. I wanted him very much, but should have waited a couple more rounds. Many, especially Dave Spradley, were turned off by Santana's horrific showing in the big leagues last season. However, there aren't too many dudes who hit .296/.384/.476 with 16 home runs in their 21-year old season at AAA.

IHB: Out of the three autopicks, I like Gray the least.  I would've gone with either Swihart or Schwarber in the second round.  And fortunately for me, Bradley is off to a great start, but I would've drafted Pederson instead in the first round.  And by the third round, Stephenson may have been the best available player at that point, but I would've been really disappointed if I was actually partaking in the draft only to see Taillon go right before my pick.  From my actual picks, I like Spangenberg (11th round) the least.  My rationale was that I'd find out soon enough how good he is at the major league level, so then I can either drop him or add him to my majors roster, but I wasn't aware that we weren't allowed to add any minor leaguers to the minors system throughout the season.  Oh well, valuable life lesson learned.

Anthony: Getting Eddie Butler in the fifth round was a weird move for me. It took me off of my plan, and I never really got a chance to make a correction. But he was sitting there, and he's so good, and I couldn't help myself. For my trouble, I got a guy who's going to serve up meatballs in Colorado unless the gods smile on my and he gets traded to the San Diego Padres. The early returns aren't particularly enticing, except that he's managed an ERA nearly five runs lower than his FIP. If he can maintain that through his career, it'll be fine.