Fantasy Hockey musings - Rays Demolish Rangers

I've been busy ranking hockey players in time for a draft I can't make this weekend.  Probably annoying for most, but I find just ranking the players ahead of time saves me in-draft stress.  I mean this is not REAL stress. This is a game we're playing here.

If you're reading this I assume you've been in a live draft before. I find I can sit back and relax during the draft since I'm not digging up stats and injury lists like other guys I'm assuming are. There are always guys that take the entire allotted time to make a pick.  You can bet after all that time the player they draft is lousy too, especially the deeper the draft goes. Those I think are the guys that don't take time to pre-rank.

During this process, I don't do anything remarkable.  I just rank the total number players that are to be drafted. As it gets deeper I end up selecting players that I can tolerate, as opposed to players I actually would like.  In hockey that 'tolerate list' is pretty large as once your outside of the top 150 players it becomes a crap shoot.  I think this is similar in any fantasy sports game.  More about hockey later... let's shift gears...

About the Rays:

Well is it too early to call Tampa the favorite?  They're definitely the hottest team coming in to the post season (other than the Cardinals).  It kind of scares me that they tossed out a rookie, Matt Moore today who ended up shutting out one of the best hitting ball clubs in the league.  The Rays just have insane minor league depth.  Hats off to their management, coaching and scouting staff.  The Rays might not be the better team but I don't think the Rangers have the pitching depth to get past the Rays.  To be honest, I'm not certain any AL team has better pitching than the Rays.  James Shields is an ace, David Price is not far off and Jeff Niemann might have been the best pitcher in the major leagues down the stretch.

Detroit and New York will have to rely on aces Justin Verlander and CC Sabathia respectively.  Can they really get to the World Series with one ace?  Time will tell..

Thanks for reading...