It began as a promising 2007 season for our four CREATiVESPORTS entries in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship. After almost seven months, and close to 500 Major League games later, the campaign has come to a close.

Our results in the overall competition as well as in our individual leagues follow. Unfortunately, none of us placed among the winners in the overall competition, as the top ten won money. Marc Meltzer and Buster H, esq. were neck and neck in the combined standings, finishing 99^th and 103rd, respectively of the 375 teams.

Marc did cash in this season, finishing third in his Tampa League 2, in a battle that went to down to the final day. Buster H, esq. missed the money in his 15-team league by one point.

CREATiVESPORTS	Overall	League	League
Team	Standing		Standing
Marc Meltzer	103	Tampa 2	3
Buster H, esq.	99	Las Vegas 9	4
Brian Walton	213	New York 6	9
J.P. Kastner	291	Chicago 2	13
Lori Rubinson	324	New York 5	1

The overall NFBC winner this year is Terry Haney's "Fat Tub of Goo" team from Chicago League 1, amassing 3254 points and handily dispatching the competition in the process. Last year's champion, David DiDonato's "Vinny's Team", ended up 64th. The 2006-2007 NFFC winner, Jules McLean's “Pimpin’ Trigger, Jr.” finished a respectable 16^th overall, demonstrating impressive overall balance in the two major sports.

In this final installment of The NFBC Zone, all five CREATiVESPORTS writers discuss which of their draft moves worked well and poorly, which FAAB pickups during the season were most beneficial and costly and whether or not they plan to change their KDS (Kentucky Derby Style) of drafting preferences next season.

J.P. Kastner 

My best draft pick was Kevin Youkilis in the 19th round. My worst pick was Chris Carpenter #2.

I was under-aggressive to start the season and found myself in such a hole that is was difficult to get back on course. To compensate, I started to become too aggressive.

My best FAAB pickup was Casey Kotchman, who I got for $1. I dropped my last overall pick in the draft, Billy Butler, a week before he was called up.

I will keep the same KDS settings next season. I used the default.

Lori Rubinson 

Best draft pick – John Maine with the last pick in the 17th round. That’s good value for a 15-game winner with an ERA below four. Worst pick – Jason Schmidt in the 7th round when younger guys like Cole Hamels and Dan Haren were still on the board.

In hindsight, I had a weak draft but I always think you can save yourself in baseball if you’re diligent with free agency.  I just wasn’t diligent enough in consistently working the waiver wire and optimizing my lineup all season long.

Best FAABs – Carlos Pena was probably the best free agent pick up in the league this year.  And I also nabbed Brian Bannister.  I gave up on both Kaz Matsui and James Loney too soon.  I drafted both of them late and they would have been good value picks if I had held onto them.

It is too soon to decide on KDS strategies for next season.

Buster H, esq.

Bad draft moves: Panicking and taking two second basemen (Kent 9th round and Iguchi 10th round) too early; taking Johnny Gomes and expecting power; drafting BJ Ryan in the 5th (turned out bad, thought it was a steal back then); figuring I'd get some stolen bases out of Podsednik in the 11^th; Dontrelle Willis (12th) and Eric Chavez (13th).  Enough said.

Managing FAAB: Losing Ryan for the season made getting a second closer (along with Doug Jones) a priority. I wasted for too much on wannabe closers like Mike Gonzalez ($276), Jon Rauch, Ryan Madson ($46), and ultimately Matt Capps ($260). By spending so much, I didn't have the funds to pay for the likes of Ryan Braun and Hunter Pence, among others.

Key FAAB acquisitions: Dmitri Young in week 1 for $117 was a great pick up. Paul Byrd did well for $14 back in April. Juan Encarnacion in May for $37 also contributed. Scott Baker at $2 in June was a big boost to my poor pitching staff. Ubaldo Jimenez in July for a buck, before everyone else knew of him, was also very helpful.

I didn't release any quality players, other than Miguel Batista, if he counts.

KDS: I haven't considered where I want to draft next season, so I am not yet certain as to my preference. I finished fourth in my league this year, one point out of the money and only seven from first, after weathering more injuries than my other years combined. So, I am not exactly sure where to go from here. 

Brian Walton

I had a series of rough picks early-on, starting with Albert Pujols first overall, Rafael Furcal in the third and Huston Street in the fourth.

Dustin Pedroia in the 27^th would have been very fine had I not given up on him during his awful April.

As I have documented in previous columns, no Pujols owners this season won their league or finished anywhere near to being in the money in the overall standings. So, at least misery can love company.

Matt Capps, drafted in the 23^rd, was the best value pick that remained on my roster all season long. Aaron Rowand and Jamie Shields in the 16^th and 18^th worked out well, too.

During the season via FAAB, I scored a number of top-line injured pitchers inexpensively after they were dropped by other teams, including Chris Carpenter and Kenny Rogers. Though neither helped immensely this year, I will continue this strategy in future seasons. I screwed up and missed out on A.J. Burnett, however.

I dropped the most free agent money on Billy Butler ($334), but he didn’t provide a return at that level of spend. Alan Embree (at $2 in mid-May) was a nice bridge pick while my number four, Huston Street, missed large chunks of time. I deviated from previous plans by taking a quality closer that early, something I will not do again. I believe that finishing last in my league in RBI was in direct relation to taking Street so soon.

Based on the strong showing by mid-tier drafting teams this season, I will ensure I do not use the default KDS rankings next year. I will try to avoid selecting in the first six picks or so. I screwed up and missed the deadline by a few hours so used the default, hence my first overall pick.

Marc Meltzer

My top six draft picks all produced at or above their expected level for virtually the entire season.  Grady Sizemore, Derek Jeter, Robinson Cano, Paul Konerko, Gary Sheffield and C.C. Sabathia gave me a solid core to work with.  Nick Markakis in the 10^th round, B.J. Upton in the 15^th round, Noah Lowry in the 19^th round, and Josh Hamilton in the 25^th round were key in keeping my team in the top-three for the entire season.  Josh Barfield in round seven and Akinori Otsuka in the 14^th round, and Jeremy Sowers in round 18 were the only true busts that I had in the first 20 rounds.

FAAB money was managed well right down to the end game.  Billy Butler at $401 in early May and Shaun Marcum at $201 in mid-April (when I was still chasing saves) were my two big-money free agents.  Most of the other 36 free agent acquisitions were for $11 or less.  Jerry Owens provided some key steals when acquired in late July to pick up the slack for injured Chris Duffy.  I had $16 remaining for the final week of the season to jockey my roster.  That money allowed me to acquire Nyjer Morgan to make a last-week push in steals and six pitchers that were already on the disabled list.  The DL pitchers were acquired because the NFBC allows you to activate a player from your bench on Friday for anyone in your active lineup that is on the DL.

My team was in an interesting position entering the last week.  I was in third place with a chance for second, but also a chance to fall out of the money.  My ERA and WHIP had been bleeding for the past month, but I needed the starters to continue to accumulate wins and strikeouts.  I built up a six-win lead and a good hold on second in strikeouts entering the final week.  I decided to use six disabled list pitchers along with A.J. Burnett, C.C. Sabathia and Greg Maddux.  I would then be able to decide on Friday if I felt that I would need to activate any of my five other marginal starting pitchers that had starts between Friday and Sunday.

After the first month of the season, it became apparent that none of my “wanna-be closers” would end up closing and generating enough saves, I made a decision to use most of my free agent money to buy as many starts from pitchers as possible.  Through week 25, my team was among the highest in innings pitched.  Over the whole season, 23 different pitchers made starts for my team.  Early on, most were selected just to make their double starts and then to be cut the next.  Premature drops ended up to be a key lesson-learned from the 2007 season.  Among the successful pitchers that I owned for a short period of time and cut prematurely include Shaun Marcum (twice), Micah Owings, and Kyle Kendrick. 

I am not changing my KDS preferences.  There is success to be had by picking towards the end.  My draft-day plan at slot 15 was to take a combination of Grady Sizemore, Hanley Ramirez, and Derek Jeter (in that order). Much to my dismay, the team selecting 13^th took Hanley Ramirez, leaving me with Sizemore and Jeter.  While Jeter’s numbers were not terrible, Ramirez could have put me over the top.  A simple trade of Ramirez and Jeter would have given me enough points to go to the top of the standings in my league.