What a difference one season makes. 2006 was my first in the big-time NFBC after 20-or-so years in various local league formats. I wrote about my team many times last season, believing I had a sound strategy, sound draft, and sound free-agent philosophy. And while the first three rounds of the 2006 draft yielded Jose Reyes, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard it was clear that you don’t compete with the big boys of the NFBC with a three player team. And by Memorial Day 2006 my season was virtually over.

So here we are on Memorial Day 2007, a great time to honestly assess your teams and make decisions on moves. The work at hand is to evaluate the makeup of your team – what categories are you strong in, what categories are you weak in, why are you strong or weak in those categories. Do you have veterans under performing against recent history? Do you have youngsters that have come out of nowhere and might be over performing?

Be realistic about your team. The worst thing that an owner can do is to be lulled into a false sense of believing all of their players are all-stars. In the NFBC, your options for improvement are limited to free agent acquisitions as no trades are allowed.

After spending two high draft choices in 2006 on closers (Eric Gagne in the 5th round and Francisco Cordero in the 6th round) and having them both end up as complete busts, my philosophy on closers changed completely. In 2007, selecting 15th for the second straight season, I targeted Joe Nathan or Francisco Rodriguez as dependable closers that I would want in the 3rd/4th round turn. When they were both gone (Nathan went 3-2 and Rodriguez went 3-8) my choices fell to B.J. Ryan, Billy Wagner, Huston Street, Mariano Rivera, or go in another direction. My decision was to go in another direction. Select the best hitters I could find in the first ten rounds (with one spot for a starting pitcher), then speculate on set-up men hoping to hit on one or two of them early in the season. The spec setup men were Akinori Otsuka (14th round), Derrick Turnbow (20th round), Brian Wilson (23rd round), and Kerry Wood (26th round). Otsuka did spend some time at closer while Gagne was injured, but earned me only three saves. So in essence, on Memorial Day I have officially punted saves.

The question is – Can you win the NFBC playing only nine of the 10 categories. As of Sunday the CREATiVESPORTS Marc team is sitting second in Tampa League 2, 29th overall, and 366th in saves.

The honest answer is that I do not think so. The team is dependent on every offensive player maximizing their value and my strategy of maximizing starts (to score as high as possible in Wins and Strikeouts) without suffering in ERA and WHIP.

My under-performing veterans (Robinson Cano, Paul Konerko, and Greg Maddux) have to pick it up to support the inevitable leveling of my surprise performers (B.J. Upton, Geoff Jenkins, Josh Hamilton, and Braden Looper).

I am constantly monitoring the weekly free agent wire and trying to use my free agent money as wisely as possible to continue to improve my team. That leads me to Shaun Marcum, who I recently acquired for the second time this season. The first time was right after B.J. Ryan went down. While everyone zigged on Jason Frasor I chose to zag with Marcum looking for Frasor to fail. It took a little too long for Frasor to fail, while Marcum was also failing in a setup role. I cut Marcum several weeks ago to acquire another double-start starter, then recently re-acquired Marcum when it appears that he looks comfortable as a starter. The moral of the story is to look at every player on a week-by-week basis independently of what that player may have done with your team previously.

Good Luck the rest of the season!