C: Matt Wieters
1B: Prince Fielder
2B: Ian Kinsler
3B: Ryan Zimmerman
SS: Troy Tulowitzki
OF: Matt Kemp
OF: Justin Upton
OF: Shane Victorino
OF: Jayson Werth
UTIL: Derrek Lee
BENCH: Adam Laroche
SP: Zack Greinke
SP: Felix Hernandez
P: Josh Johnson
P: Wandy Rodriguez
P: Leo Nunez
RP: Huston Street
RP: Trevor Hoffman
BENCH: Ryan Madson
BENCH: Matt Thornton
BENCH: David Price
Obviously I'm not keeping any closers. Right now I'm leaning toward Fielder, Kemp, and Upton, but part of me is leaning towards keeping Kinsler over Fielder because of positions. (I'd then target Votto in the draft, because his owner has Hanley, Longoria, and Holliday as his keepers). If you had to keep any 3 of these players, who would you keep?
We'll start with a simple elimination of players and once we get them narrowed down, we'll weigh the pros and cons of both.
Firstly, in a 10 team league, you are correct to decide that there is zero reason to hold onto a closer. Unless your league tends to hoard keepers, or is so deep where most teams only need 2, they are definitely not worth rostering through the offseason.
Next, since most managers are keeping at least 2 hitters, your worst pitching scenario has the top 9 starters held over until next year. Knowing each of those managers would easily draft a hitter the first round, you'll still be able to get great value early if you desire. I'd cross off the rest of your pitchers, and possibly put an asterisk next to Grienke and the King.
Since your catcher is not Joe Mauer, we'll include Wieters in the next cut, along with LaRoche, Zimmerman, Derrek Lee, and Victorino as all of these players are replaceable in the first two rounds of your draft.
This leaves the following players, all whom in my opinion are Top 30 5x5 players.
Kemp
Upton
Fielder
Kinsler
Grienke
Werth
Tulowitzki
The thing about a "absolute keeper" format is that it's a little more difficult to work your draft around who you wish to select, as you have no return or strategy based on age or prior acquisitions. More times than not, the safest solution is to just keep the best players, and let the draft fall as it is. Other formats, like my local format that assigns pick values to keepers, leave more flexibility, and keeping the better player isn't always the best choice.
With that, I'd agree with you that Kemp and Upton are no-brainer picks. Two 5 category players within the Top 20 players are a huge boost, and may even allow you to pass on some of the outfielders some players are going to rush for early. I know here we had Kemp and Upton listed in our grab bag Top 100 as 9 and 17, respectively.
While I don't have quite the man-crush on Prince's 2010 another one of our writers does, I really do think Prince is gearing up for another huge season, and does have a real shot at being the next ranked first baseman after Pujols.
However, the 1A tier of first base is still pretty deep(Prince, Tex, Cabrera, Howard, Gonzales), so my gut tells me that you should have a much easier time redrafting Prince or a similar player regardless of where you are in the draft order. From my experiences, elite middle infielders go extremely early once at least two rounds of hitters are removed from play.
While I do think Prince ends up being the better selection in a vaccuum, Kinsler seems to be the smart play. If you really want to roll the dice, you could lean towards Tulo (SS is shallow again this year) or Grienke/King Felix.
If it was me, I lean towards Kinsler simply because regardless of where you pick round 1, you should be able to replace at least 90% of Fielder's production at 1B(especially if you can get your hands on Votto), and possibly have an easier time redrafting the player.
If Kinsler goes into the draft, I bet he's gone within 2-3 picks, as I doubt more than 2 players are kept at 2B already. Prince could stick around at least the first half of Round 1, especially if there are managers picking early that already have solutions at first base. Let us know how your selections break down once keepers are announced and a draft order set, Andrew, and we'll see if we can plan out your first 3 rounds of strategy as well!
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