New league with lots of custom rules; new players with widely divergent ratings and even wackier contracts; a tough division with four different winners in the league’s first four years; and above all, no more Barry Bonds. So what’s a guy to do? Where to begin with team construction? Pitching and defense? Out-and-out mashing? Not that the two have to be mutually exclusive, but with limited resources (tight finances, and only so many spects to go around), you have to make some tough choices. Of course, everybody wants Minnesota’s starting staff (or Baltimore’s, or Tampa Bay’s), but acquiring and paying stud starters is tough, especially in an era where you need five starters. Much better then, at least given the team I started with, to build from the back of the staff and try to lock down games.

RATIONALE: Rather than the strong starting pitching teams, I chose the Red Sox as my template (to say nothing of CHA and ATL, both of which I think fit this mold)–that is, try to build a mashing offense to get ahead in games; have decent starters that could at least keep me in games (also easier when your lineup rakes); and a nasty bullpen that allows you to win games in which you’re ahead and keep close games in which you’re behind. It also tends to be much cheaper to acquire and pay relievers than it is to try to acquire quality SPs. I think of it kinda like the NFL, where it’s easier to build a competitive team around a sweet defense and a game-manager type at QB (more of them and they cost a lot less) than it is to keep trying to draft and develop (and pay) the next Peyton Manning or Tom Brady.

MINORS: I was gifted a minor league system that included Zach Greinke, one of the best SP spects in the game, as well as Ryan Ludwick, Luis Gonzalez, and MR Chad Gaudin. Ludwick and Gonzalez were key parts in 2004 and are likely to be central to the team’s effort going forward–they’re young, cheap, and rake at premium positions. Gonzalez put up .770 OPS and scored near 90 runs while playing strong defense at both 2B and 3B. Ludwick went for .870 OPS while spending most of his time in RF, but his real value is as a mashing CF, where he’s passable defensively. Greinke went for a 3.6 ERA and 4.4 FIP. He was fully cooked by the end of the season, so if I’m lucky, he’ll put up stats closer to the former rather than the latter for a number of seasons to come. Gaudin also enjoyed a strong rookie campaign (2.1 ERA, 2.7 FIP), and I see him and guys like Gavin Floyd and Chae-Sung Baek as key parts of my pen in future years.

TRADES: As a result of this decision to build from the back, I set out looking for relievers I could acquire on the cheap but that could be useful, even if in specialty roles. That explains the trades that brought in Gavin Floyd (part of a package deal) and CS Baek (for Cody Ransom). Similarly, the Floyd trade brought starter Tony Saunders, a guy who consistently puts up ERAs in the high 3s to low 4s. That’s the definition of “keeping you in games” and certainly serviceable for a guy at the back end of my rotation.

FREE AGENCY: I grabbed a bunch of relievers off the FA scrap heap, including Bobby Ayala, Graeme Lloyd, and some others. Other than Lloyd, which performed well in a lefty specialist role, none of the other guys did much and so will be jettisoned this offseason in search of more viable options. Another thing I learned about this league over the course of the season was how useful a recalc or two can be. With that in mind, I signed some oldsters with great past seasons in the form of Moises Alou and Rafael Palmiero. I signed them to cheap multi-year extensions, and one or both of them I’m likely to recalc based on their fully roided out past numbers just prior to the start of the 2005 season. Stay tuned to see how that goes.

EXTENSIONS: I really had no players of merit due for free agency, with the exception of the once-great Robb Nen. I signed him to a reasonable, but not real cheap, multi-year deal with the thought that if I decide not to recalc one of the hitters, then I may use that option on Nen, who was really and truly dominant in the late 90s and early 00s. That would give me the lock-down closer I covet.

DRAFT: I’ve covered it in detail elsewhere, but suffice to say, with starters hard to come by in trade and none of any value available in FA, drafting and developing can be a very good option. Here’s to hoping that Gallardo develops *and* gains some endurance (whether as a result of rules changes or use of participation points, I’ve gotta get this done to make the high first-round pick make sense). If everything goes according to Hoyle, he and Greinke give me a formidable duo at the top of the rotation in two or three seasons’ time.

In the final analysis, I guess it comes down to the fact that I’m just not that patient and want to win sooner rather than later. So instead of waiting for Gallardo to develop and using the ensuing seasons to, say, draft more quality starters, I think I can take a shortcut to competitiveness by acquiring relievers and hitters (and allowing for a recalc or two here and there) relatively cheaply. By the time the older recalced dudes are ready to retire or just collapse from old age, here’s to hoping that my young starters will be ready to go.