Rounds 7 & 8

I'll be here forever if I keep doing one round at a time so it's time to take two at a time and later, if I keep this up, I'll do three at a time.  Not that these later rounds are for the scraps from the table, after all, I took Elsbury in the 7th round last year.  Who will be this years biggest surprise?

The Turtles picks - This is quite simple for me at this point.  I took a shot at bolstering my pitching staff with the selection of Hamels in the last round, but a lot of pitchers are still on the board and this draft my philosophy has been focused on offense.  I feel as though I have one of the top power teams and somewhere near the top in runs and middle of the pack for avg, that leaves steals.  Last year I think I won or tied steals every single week.  I don't think I'll repeat that feat this year, but if my plan works I should compete in the steals category 2/3rds of the time.  Simple plan, fill the rest of my roster with lead-off hitters while trying to focus on, in order of importance, steals (duh), runs, avg, hr/rbi would be icing on the cake.  5-tool players are pretty much gone.   This way in every match-up I should win a vast majority of the time the hr,rbi,and r categories, most of the time steals and avg.  I'll have to figure out pitching later, but like I said earlier, I could always be a waiver wire player and hope for wins and so.  We'll see.
In any case, so far so good, I got Bourn who is on a much better Atlanta team than last years' Houston, great runs and sb, decent avg.  And next was BJ Upton.  This kid has power and speed.  I had him last year and he finished with 23hr/88rbi/36sb/82runs.  His .243 avg is a pill that must be swallowed but I'll take it and hope he improves upon that.  If he does, look for two Uptons to be chosen in the first three rounds next year.

Stretch pick(s) - these will be harder and harder to single out as the rounds get later and later.  Only one really pops out for me here:  WWW's pick of Jesus Montero.  Yes he has a ton of upside, and yes he showed that at the end of last season while with the Yankees.  However, when you bat at the end of the Yankees lineup you tend to see better pitches than you will in the middle of the Mariners lineup.  Also, Safeco Park is a pitchers' park.  I can't remember the exact site, but there's one that analyzes how many hrs would still be hrs in other parks.  They particularly focus on players that are switching teams, like Montero.  The short of it is that Montero benefited greatly from hitting in Yankee stadium and would have had like half as many hr if he hit those same balls in Safeco.  Long pretty outs.

Other pick(s) - If Mauer returns to even close to his old self this is a steal for Hoppy.  Papelbon this late, not bad, but again taking relievers too early is not my bag of tea.  He could put up monster numbers playing for a better team and not facing the DH.  Baily, still faces DH but playing for a better team could result in a very successful campaign.  Morse is a free swinger who still makes good contact reminiscent of Vlad.  He's 30 and in his 2nd full season (expected 150+ games) so it took him a while to get here.  All those other relievers (Axford, Putz) go for it, see comments on relievers above.  Binge drinkers got a nice pitcher in Gallardo, he quietly improved on every category from a good '10.  He could easily be the best pick of the lot.

Best pick(s) - Don't think I picked Rock Vegas here because I was so harsh on his Yankee picks earlier.  Yu Darvish is currently a mystery.  Call it a gut feeling though that he will be better than Dice-K's rookie season in which he posted 200+ SO, 15W 4.40ERA and 1.32WHIP.  I think Yu will match wins and SO and have a mid-3ERA and respectable whip.  Jay Bruce by Conspiracy Theory is a good pick as well.