Home Run Derby

For the past few years I've participated in a Home Run Derby competion. It is sort of like fantasy baseball without all the work. You basically pick 15 major league players and count up the homeruns that they accumulate during the year. Whoever's team hits the most wins. There were about 10,000 entries last year, with the top prize being about $10K. Of coarse I came no where near the top prize, or any prize for that matter. But I'm going to play again anyways. Here's a list of the players, and their homerun totals from last year.

Group A - Pick 1

• Adam Dunn, 40
• Ryan Howard, 48
• Alex Rodriguez, 35

Group B - Pick 1

• Carlos Delgado, 38
• Albert Pujols, 37
• Carlos Quentin, 36
• Alfonso Soriano, 29

Group C - Pick 3

• Ryan Braun, 37
• Miguel Cabrera, 37
• Jack Cust, 33
• Jermaine Dye, 34
• Prince Fielder, 34
• Adrian Gonzalez, 36
• Carlos Lee, 28
• Ryan Ludwick, 37
• Carlos Pena, 31
• Manny Ramirez, 37
• Jim Thome, 34

Group D - Select 3

• Pat Burrell, 33
• Jason Giambi, 32
• Mike Jacobs, 32
• Evan Longoria, 27
• David Ortiz, 23
• Hanley Ramirez, 33
• Grady Sizemore, 33
• Mark Teixeira, 33
• Dan Uggla, 32
• Chase Utley, 33
• David Wright, 33

Group E - Select 3

• Jason Bay, 31
• Carlos Beltran, 27
• Lance Berkman, 29
• Jorge Cantu, 29
• Troy Glaus, 27
• Vladimir Guerrero, 27
• Josh Hamilton, 32
• Aubrey Huff, 32
• Aramis Ramirez, 27
• Mark Reynolds, 28
• Kevin Youkillis, 29

Group F - Select 4

• Rick Ankiel, 24
• Adiran Beltre, 25
• Mike Cameron, 25
• Edwin Encarnacion, 26
• JJ Hardy, 24
• Brad Hawpe, 25
• Matt Holiday, 25
• Raul Ibanez, 23
• Kevin Kouzmanoff, 23
• Adam LaRoche, 25
• Brian McCann, 23
• Nate McLouth, 26
• Justin Morneau, 23
• Xavier Nady, 25
• Hunter Pence, 25
• Jhonny Peralta, 23
• Luke Scott, 23
• Geovany Soto, 23
• Nick Swisher, 24
• Marcus Thames, 25
• Joey Votto, 24
• Jayson Werth, 24
• Ty Wigginton, 23

And here are my entries. I'm trying to avoid Cubs players so as not to jinx them, but also because most of the people participating are from Chicago so Cubs and White Sox players get picked a lot more than they probably should. I'm also staying away from Manny, even though I have a feeling he is going to have a huge year. I don't like him, and there's also a good chance that he phones it in for half the season. Ohter that that, I tend to pick guys in the national league more than the American because I'm more familiar with them. The rest is just gut feeling. I tried to analyse everything last year and find people who were due for breakout years, or who had deciptivly bad years the year before. It didn't work out so well, so I just went for gut feelings this time.

Team 1

• Ryan Howard
• Albert Pujols
• Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez
• Evan Longoria, Pat Burrell, Dan Uggla
• Jason Bay, Josh Hamilton, Vladimir Guerrero
• JJ Hady, Brad Hawpe, Hunter Pence, Joe Votto

Team 2

• Adam Dunn
• Carlos Quentin
• Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, Carlos Lee
• Pat Burrell, Hanley Ramirez, Mark Teixeira
• Josh Hamilton, Carols Beltran, Troy Glaus Aramis Ramirez (Lucky for me I'm a procrastinator and didn't send in the form yet since Glaus got hurt)
• Matt Holiday, JJ Hardy, Mike Cameron, Adam LaRoche

Team 3

• Ryan Howard
• Albert Pujols
• Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun
• Evan Longoria, Mark Teixeira, Chase Utley
• Jason Bay, Josh Hamilton, Carlos Beltran
• Hunter Pence, Joey Votto, Justin Morneau, Xavier Nady

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com