Meet Your 2008 Lugnuts: Fantasy Baseball

After finishing a spot above the cellar last season, the 2008 Lugnuts look dominant, on paper.

But the game isn't played on paper, yada yada, played on a field, yada, injuries, yada, man crush on Nick Swisher.

Determined to re-think our draft strategy, we focused on building a pitching staff with low WHIP and good strike out to walk ratios. Not overly concerned with wins, we even made a few stabs at guys who play for less than stellar teams, partially because of their ability to control their pitches.

Here's our current lineup, keepers from last season listed in red, picks we considered steals in green, re-drafts from last season in yellow, and sleepers in blue. Analysis to follow.

C: Joe Mauer
1B: Prince Fielder
2B: Chase Utley
SS: Miguel Tejada
3B: Garret Atkins
OF: Nick Swisher
OF: Chris Young (Arizona)
OF: Kosuke Fukudome
Utility: Ryan Garko
Bench: Justin Upton, Cameron Maybin

SPs: Jake Peavy, Justin Verlander, Dan Haren, Carlos Zambrano, Jeff Francis, James Shields, Jon Garland, Gil Meche, and Jake Westbrook
RPs: Bobby Jenks, Tony Pena, BJ Ryan, and Scott Shields

Here's What We Love:

Starting Pitching: This is as dominant a fantasy rotation as we've ever had. Haren will be nasty behind Webb, and we drool at the prospect of Haren facing 8 hitters, most of whom never batting against the former Athletic. Peavy, Verlander, and Zambrano will bring the K's and the W's, while Shields, Francis, and Garland provide a very strong back end of a rotation.

Keepers: Our three keepers built a foundation that allowed us to go pitcher heavy in the first five rounds. With Mauer working extra hard on offseason conditioning, he'll be way more productive this season. If Utley and Fielder produce half of what they did last year, it'll be more than the majority of the teams in our league.

What We're Excited About:

Tejada and Young: Tejada is moving to a ballpark that will fall in love with his swing. Young could possibly put up a 30-30 season this year, and fills a power slot in our lineup that was missing (after Fielder). They are major upgrades over JJ Hardy (SS, 2007) and Casey Blake (OF, 2007). We're not going to miss the morning sickness that came with checking Carlos Beltran's stats or the rapid increase of BJ Upton's strikeout total.

What We're Concerned About:

Bullpen: Drafting BJ Ryan late could pay off big time, or he could wind up being a left handed specialist with a sore pitching arm that throws once every five days. We were a little upset with ourselves for not knowing enough about Tony Pena (apparently not their heir apparent to the closer role in Arizona). If every goes wrong according to Murphy's Law, we have one decent closer and three guys who will dominate the ever important holds category.


Jury's Still Out On:

Fukudome, Upton, and Maybin: This could either be the biggest steal since the trade that landed the Padres Chris Young and Adrian Gonzalez, or the biggest bust since, well... last season's Lugnuts second to last place finish.