The Ricci Roundup: Analyzing the Five "Good Picks" in his Fantasy Baseball Draft

According to Remember 51's resident Fantasy Baseball guru Luke Ricci, the Phillies' Raul Ibanez was the real winner of his fantasy draft.

All right. New part of the blog I'm introducing tonight. It's called the "Ricci Roundup" produced by my good friend and fantasy baseball enthusiast Luke Ricci. The guy is a big Seattle Mariners fan that resides in Seattle, but this guy's main repertoire is fantasy baseball. Every year he gets in a big money, fantasy baseball league with his family and friends and this guy is consistently competing at the top. He knows his baseball, he knows his players and in the words of the crappy movie Two for the Money my man Ricci "Picks Winners."

For this post, I asked Ricci to analyze five picks from his Fantasy draft earlier this year and which guys turned out to be his best ones. Here are the five Ricci wrote for me in this edition of the "Roundup"


5. Troy Tulowitzki, SS, Colorado- Rd 7

Tulow had a horrible start to the year, but has hit 309 with 18 Hrs since June 1st. He has definitely regained his rookie of the year form from 2007. He capped off this success on August 10th by hitting for the cycle.

4. Adam Wainwright, P, St. Louis- Rd 12

Wainwright is tied for the MLB lead with 14 wins, great output from a 12th round pick. He has outperformed Johan Santana in 4 out of 5 traditional 5x5 categories.


3. Jacoby Ellsbury, OF, Boston- Rd 5

Jacoby is probably the main reason that I am leading my league in steals and runs scored. His numbers actually are not too far off of Carl Crawford's, who is having an MVP caliber season. They actually might be even better, but Terry Francona idiotically put him in the 7th spot in the lineup for about a month. I still haven't forgiven Francona.

2. Albert Pujols, 1B, St. Louis- Rd 1 (pick 3)

Why why why did the first two managers in my draft pass on Albert? (For the record, the two managers ahead of him selected Jose Reyes and Hanley Ramirez in that order). I should send them a thank you. I was expecting to take David Wright here but when Pujols was still on the board I had to take him. His numbers are ridiculous and with another month and a half left in the season they could get even crazier.


1. Raul Ibanez, OF, Philadelphia- Rd 9

Raul was a guy that I targeted going into the draft as a major sleeper. I knew from watching him in Seattle that he was an extremely consistent hitter and I thought the move to hitter-friendly Citizens Bank and playing with a powerful Philly lineup would benefit him. However, I just didn't expect his numbers to be as strong as they were. When I traded Raul in June, he was the second rated player in all of baseball, behind only Pujols.