A couple months ago, some professional poker players approached us to do a high-stakes expert league with part fantasy experts and part poker pros with some Wall Street guys thrown in as well. That draft took place tonight. It was sponsored by CardRunners.com which essentially is to poker what RotoWire is to fantasy sports.
The league is a 10-team AL-only with the standard lineups and five bench spots. One catch is that you can use your auction dollars to fill bench spots, and there's only a draft to fill the remaining spots once everyone runs out of money. Here are the results:
| Bill Phipps | Eric Kesselman | Chris Liss | Andrew Wiggins | Brian Hastings | ||||||
| CardRunners | $ | CardRunners | $ | RotoWire | $ | CardRunners | $ | CardRunners | $ | |
| C | Shoppach | 8 | J. Posada | 15 | Saltalamacchia | 7 | J. Mauer | 40 | M. Napoli | 18 |
| C | A. Avila | 2 | J. Kendall | 2 | D. Navarro | 3 | Tyler Flowers | 0 | K. Suzuki | 18 |
| 1B | Konerko | 13 | M. Kotsay | 1 | Justin Morneau | 26 | C. Pena | 17 | M. Carp | 0 |
| 2B | Cabrera | 15 | A. Hill | 19 | A. Callaspo | 3 | I. Kinsler | 34 | J. Lopez | 15 |
| 3B | A. Beltre | 17 | M. Young | 19 | Alex Rodriguez | 41 | Encarnacion | 8 | Youkilis | 27 |
| SS | Bartlett | 17 | M. Scutaro | 8 | Derek Jeter | 27 | A. Ramirez | 17 | Bloomquist | 0 |
| CI | N johnson | 7 | D. Barton | 2 | Evan Longoria | 34 | Wigginton | 1 | Kotchman | 3 |
| MI | M. Ellis | 3 | J. Wilson | 1 | Alex Gonzalez | 1 | Kendrick | 16 | W. Aybar | 1 |
| OF | Ellsbury | 31 | Hamilton | 20 | Rajai Davis | 14 | C. Quentin | 20 | A. Rios | 17 |
| OF | J. Damon | 16 | Ichiro | 22 | Reimold | 10 | M. Ordonez | 15 | C. Crawford | 33 |
| OF | J. Rivera | 12 | D. Span | 16 | Podsednik | 4 | J. Cust | 4 | Granderson | 26 |
| OF | Gutierrez | 14 | V. Wells | 13 | C. Guillen | 5 | R. Rayburn | 1 | M. Bradley | 9 |
| OF | J.D. Drew | 10 | B. Gardner | 4 | Hermida | 3 | E. Patterson | 1 | R. Ankiel | 3 |
| DH | H. Matsui | 8 | M. Aviles | 0 | Kouzmanoff | 6 | V. Guerrero | 16 | P. Burrell | 5 |
| P | J. Shields | 16 | B. Fuentes | 15 | M. Rivera | 25 | Verlander | 26 | A. Pettitte | 8 |
| P | Je. Weaver | 17 | J. Lackey | 17 | Bobby Jenks | 12 | M. Gonzalez | 11 | J. Frasor | 5 |
| P | A.J. Burnett | 14 | B. Sheets | 9 | Jake Westbrook | 3 | K. Slowey | 9 | J. Chamberlain | 6 |
| P | N. Feliz | 4 | F. Hernandez | 28 | Gavin Floyd | 10 | J. Masterson | 4 | Gio Gonzalez | 4 |
| P | Scherzer | 11 | Hochevar | 2 | Matsuzaka | 4 | C. Pavano | 2 | Cliff Lee | 25 |
| P | B. Matusz | 6 | J. Peavy | 18 | J. Niemann | 4 | R. Porcello | 9 | M. Guerrier | 3 |
| P | W. Davis | 5 | J. Danks | 12 | R. Romero | 3 | S. Downs | 3 | M. Garza | 14 |
| P | J. Guthrie | 2 | Rzepcynski | 5 | F. Liriano | 13 | J.J. Putz | 3 | C. Perez | 4 |
| P | Wakefield | 0 | Millwood | 2 | Hellickson | 0 | F. Rodney | 2 | J. Pineiro | 4 |
| R | C. Crisp | 6 | Duchscherer | 5 | J. Dye | 1 | R. Perry | 1 | S. Kazmir | 10 |
| R | L. Scott | 4 | S. Marcum | 5 | J. Fox | 1 | M. Lowell | 0 | D. Murphy | 2 |
| R | T. Hafner | 2 | D. Ackleu | 0 | Felix Pie | 0 | Okajima | 0 | Josh Fields | 0 |
| R | C. Carter | 0 | D. Hudson | 0 | P. Neshek | 0 | J. Washburn | 0 | K. Davies | 0 |
| R | B. Harris | 0 | Carmona | 0 | Tommy Hunter | 0 | Sonnenstine | 0 | V. Mazzaro | 0 |
| Peter Kreutzer | Chad Levine | Derek Carty | Erickson/Sheehan | Gonos/Dobish | ||||||
| Ask Rotoman | $ | CardRunners | $ | Hardball Times | $ | RotoWire | $ | Open Sports | $ | |
| C | Wieters | 21 | V. Martinez | 35 | J. Buck | 5 | Pierzynski | 14 | L. Marson | 3 |
| C | B Pena | 1 | Teagarden | 2 | G. Laird | 3 | L. Powell | 0 | Adam Moore | 5 |
| 1B | N. Swisher | 11 | K .Morales | 21 | C. Davis | 14 | M. Cabrera | 36 | Teixeira | 36 |
| 2B | C. Getz | 9 | Pedroia | 31 | B. Roberts | 18 | M. Izturis | 7 | R. Cano | 28 |
| 3B | Figgins | 23 | G. Atkins | 10 | B. Inge | 6 | A. Gordon | 9 | Jhonny Peralta | 11 |
| SS | Hardy | 11 | E. Andrus | 19 | Y. Betancourt | 1 | E. Aybar | 12 | Pennington | 5 |
| CI | Overbay | 3 | B. Wood | 6 | R. Branyan | 8 | B. Butler | 20 | Gordon Beckham | 18 |
| MI | Valbuena | 3 | M. Tejada | 12 | S. Sizemore | 8 | O. Hudson | 9 | Cesar Izturis | 0 |
| OF | R. Sweeney | 9 | Adam Jones | 21 | N. Cruz | 24 | G. Sizemore | 32 | B.J. Upton | 23 |
| OF | Markakis | 21 | B. Zobrist | 22 | J. Borbon | 14 | B. Abreu | 21 | M. Cuddyer | 13 |
| OF | Hunter | 20 | M. La Porta | 8 | A. Lind | 23 | S. Choo | 23 | Jose Bautista | 2 |
| OF | J. Kubel | 15 | A. Jackson | 6 | T. Snider | 7 | M. Teahen | 10 | M. Cameron | 6 |
| OF | M Saunders | 1 | D. Young | 8 | D. DeJesus | 6 | M. Joyce | 1 | Andruw Jones | 0 |
| DH | J. Thome | 3 | B. Wallace | 1 | D. Ortiz | 11 | R. Ruiz | 1 | J. Nix | 0 |
| P | Sabathia | 32 | C. Buchholz | 9 | J. Vazquez | 21 | J. Saunders | 4 | J. Papelbon | 21 |
| P | J. Lester | 24 | C. Tillman | 3 | J. Soria | 17 | A. Bailey | 17 | S. Feldman | 2 |
| P | Buehrle | 7 | B. Anderson | 16 | F. Francisco | 11 | B. Morrow | 4 | G. Meche | 7 |
| P | E. Santana | 10 | K. Gregg | 5 | R. Harden | 11 | I. Snell | 3 | R. Soriano | 17 |
| P | Bergesen | 1 | D. Price | 11 | S. Baker | 15 | D. Holland | 3 | Z. Greinke | 33 |
| P | Bonderman | 1 | P. Hughes | 7 | E. Bedard | 5 | K. Wood | 7 | D. Aardsma | 11 |
| P | Nathan | 2 | Rowland-Smith | 5 | M. Wuertz | 2 | J. Beckett | 22 | C.J. Wilson | 1 |
| P | J. Rauch | 5 | B. Ziegler | 1 | C. Lewis | 1 | D. Bard | 2 | N. Blackburn | 3 |
| P | Valverde | 18 | J. Zumaya | 1 | D. Braden | 3 | T. Cahill | 2 | M. Talbot | 1 |
| R | S Rodriguez | 2 | R. Winn | 0 | J. Pierre | 16 | J. Devine | 1 | B. McCarthy | 0 |
| R | J Guillen | 3 | K. Griffey | 0 | J.P. Howell | 3 | M. Brantley | 0 | Dontrelle Willis | 0 |
| R | J. Smoak | 2 | C. Delgado | 0 | M. Thornton | 2 | J. Johnson | 0 | Carlos Santana | 2 |
| R | Des. Jennings | 2 | K. Uehara | 0 | M. Lowe | 1 | H. Rondon | 0 | A. Gonzalez | 7 |
| R | A. Aceves | 0 | H. Blalock | 0 | B. League | 4 | J. Mijares | 0 | R. Nolasco | 5 |
A couple notes:
I like my team and accomplished mostly what I set out to, but I realized late in the auction that a league where you can bid on reserves changes the end-game dynamic. Normally my strategy of buying stars and then being patient to snap up bargains late has no downside, but in this case, I found myself waiting for that perfect $5 or $6 OF while good $3 ones were being snapped up by filled-up teams for their reserve. While I'd rather have better starters, in a league of this depth quality reserves matter a lot.
Another thing worth noting is the non-experts weren't fish by any means - the auction moved about as quickly as LABR - except for some hiccups due to being online and using a chatroom/skype - and everyone knew the player pool extremely well. I expect it to be a tough, competitive league.
Finally, if any of you are poker players, we're partnering with CardRunners and figuring out ways to get discounts on subscriptions there for RotoWire subscribers. (Terms are still being worked out).