Meet the 2011 Skiing Skwirls

My AL-only league is a highly competitive 12 team 5x5 roto now in its 20th year. I was invited to join 3 years ago. Both seasons I finished in the middle of the pack. This season I had a nice bunch of keepers (up to 10 + 2 rookies) and was looking forward to the auction. I installed myself at my brother's house in his home office -- as a stock analyst, he has a nice set-up with multiple monitors -- and entered the draft feeling confident.

I bode my time whilst others tripped over themselves to bid up the top unprotected players in the league. I would've loved to have Adrian Gonzalez, but the bidding topped out at a nose-bleed-inducing $47. Other stars went for similarly big bucks: $47 for Miggie, $45 for Dunn, $39 for Lester. By the time I started bidding, I was left with too much money in the bank and not enough good players to spend it on. To make matters worse, due to a typo on my spreadsheet, I had more money to spend than I realized; I was forced to abandon bidding wars I could've won. A recipe for disaster, right?

Well, you be the judge:

TM 9: SKWIRLS
Scott Campbell
Player TM Pos $Sal Con
*Joe Mauer MIN C 29 L3
Jake Fox BAL C 4 S2
*Daric Barton OAK 1B 6 L2
Adam Kennedy SEA 2B 3 S2
A. Cabrera CLE SS 23 S2
Danny Valencia MIN 3B 13 S2
Mark Trumbo ANA 1B/3B 6 S2
Yunel Escobar TOR 2B/SS 12 S1
F. Gutierrez SEA OF 9 S2
*J. Ellsbury BOS OF 20 L2
*J. Pierre CWS OF 35 S1
David DeJesus OAK OF 16 S2
*M. Ordonez DET OF 17 S1
*David Ortiz BOS UTIL 14 S1
Bobby Jenks BOS RP 3 S2
Darren O'Day TEX RP 1 S1
Ryan Perry DET RP 1 S2
Daniel Bard BOS RP 14 S2
Kevin Slowey MIN RP 3 S2
Jesse Litsch TOR SP 4 S2
*Clay Buchholz BOS SP 13 L2
Alexi Ogando TEX SP 2 S2
*Colby Lewis TEX SP 6 S1

*Scott Campbell TOR FARM (2B) 0
#1 J. Iglesias BOS FARM (SS) 0
*Michael Ynoa OAK FARM (SP) 0

*Keeper holdover from last season
#1 Farm player draft, first overall pick.

I kind of hated my team, I'll be honest. But when I put in my CBS projections and tabulated the results, I found I wasn't so badly off as I thought:

Skwirls 2011:

894 RUNS
150 HR
798 RBI
162 SB
.283 BA
Compare those projections to last year's winning team:

954 RUNS
191 HR
897 RBI
177 SB
.274 BA

Near as I can tell, I might only be one big bat away from contention. To that end, I'll be aggressive with FAAB early, and on the trade front. Maybe there's hope for the Skwirls yet.