NL-Only Fantasy Baseball

I have been in an NL-Only fantasy baseball league for around 5 years now. It is a pretty complex league. It is a keeper league where you have $26.00 to spend on 23 players. Typically auction leagues use a $260 cap space, but our league just uses $26. We have a standard auction draft where players contracts are labeled as 2plus, which means you can keep the player for 2 years at his current price, and if you want you can add $0.50 during the players third year. We also have a second draft which is called the "topper auction", during this auction an owner can enter players who either are ending their second year of their two year contract or were picked up on the waiver wire the previous year. In this auction you can sign a player for up to 5 years, but their is a catch. Players on long term topper contracts can only be in your reserves if they are in the minor leagues. If you decide to drop a player under a long term contract you have to buy his contract out. Our buyout rules are the salary x2 x(# of years remaining on contract). So if I had Albert Pujols for $5 on a three year contract his buyout would be $30 (5x2= 10x3= $30). This buyout money is paid out of the owners pocket and is put into a pot, which is divided accordingly between the 1st place through 4th place teams. You also can select minor league players and keep them as long as you want as long as you don't have them on your active roster. Once a minor leaguer is activated his contract automatically is $1 for 2plus years. Your minor league's also acts as your team's bench. We currently just had our topper auction and are allowed to protect up to 15 players from last years team. I will be doing weekly updates on all of Fantasy Baseball, not just the National League this year, including sleepers, waiver wire gems, and I am open to answering any questions a reader has, just comment on the column and I will answer your question. I decided to spend as little money as possible this year with my middle infield, considering it is a very weak position in terms of fantasy. I also am a heavy preacher on putting most of your money into offense. On the pitching side of things I am usually hesitant on spending big bucks on a player, and spend heavy into setup men who could potentially be closers. This worked out very well for me last year as I picked up Leo Nunez who ended the 2009 campaign with a nice amount of saves. During the topper auction this year I just couldn't resist taking George Sherrill for $0.20, he is behind Broxton in terms of getting saves but the thing that pops out at me is he is a left handed throwing set up man. In crucial games don't be surprised if manager Joe Torre brings in Sherrill against tough left handed hitters in the ninth. It is unlikely Sherrill will get a lot of saves but considering the fact pitchers have a fairly high injury rate, I like my twenty cent gamble on the left hander. Enough with the talking, here is what my NL-Only team looks like heading into Saturday's standard auction:

C	Miguel Montero	$1.00	1+	ARI
C
1B	Albert Pujols	$4.80	1	STL
2B	Ronnie Belliard	$0.10	LT4	LAD
3B	Mark Reynolds	$1.30	LT3	ARI
SS	Julio Lugo	$0.10	LT5	STL
CI	Prince Fielder	$4.90	1+	MIL
MI	Matt Antonelli	$0.10	LT5	SD
OF	Matt Kemp	$1.20	LT2	LAD
OF
OF
OF
OF
U
	8	$13.50	----
SP	Jonathan Sanchez	$0.20	LT2	SF
SP	Barry Zito	$0.20	1+	SF
SP	Randy Wolf	$0.50	LT2	MIL
RP	George Sherrill	$0.20	LT5	LAD
RP	Leo Nunez	$0.60	1+	FLA
RP
P
P
P
	5	$1.70	----
M	Blake Dewitt	LAD
M	Jason Heyward	ATL
M	Chris Marrero	WAS
M
M
M
M
M
M
M