Let's continue my "learn from my mistakes" tour. Take my NFBC Main Event team. Please. I finished in ninth place (of 15) in my league with 69 points, and never really challenged. That translated into 333/450 in the overall contest. Just terrible.

For those unfamiliar with the NFBC, the National Fantasy Baseball Championship is a series of high-stakes leagues run by Greg Ambrosius and Tom Kessenich. There are multiple live and online events, both with an individual league component as well as an overall contest. The Main Event is a series of 15-team mixed league teams where one can compete for the individual league title in addition to an overall grand prize of $125,000. Teams are selected via snake draft, and there's no trading allowed.

I agonized about how to tackle starting pitching from the 12th spot in the draft in my league, debating whether to leap early to take Max Scherzer in the first round, leap early to take Chris Sale, Jake Arrieta or Madison Bumgarner at 2.4 (19th spot), or take what came to me in the third round or later. The NFBC pushes starting pitching harder than any other format both because of the trading ban and because of the overall contest, so waiting much later really wasn't a viable option. I decided to open Door #3, and take what was given to me in the third round.

I chose ....... poorly.

Taking what was given me in the third round translated into the 16th starting pitcher drafted at 3.12 (pick 42), in the form of Chris Archer (you may remember him from my AL Tout Wars misadventure). I compounded the error by not immediately taking a second starter in the fourth round, thinking that it was foolish to dip into the next tier that early. Thus I missed out on Jon Lester, Johnny Cueto, Cole Hamels and Danny Salazar (to be fair, I also "missed out" on Sonny Gray). When it came to my next pick at 5.12, I settled for Adam Wainwright, which also blew up in my face. These two weren't my only pitching failures (ha - far from it!), but I started off poorly and never recovered. I finished last in ERA, 13th in WHIP, 11th in wins and ninth in strikeouts. You just can't win with such poor starting pitching. The worst part was that I'm a veteran of this format, know how important starting pitching is (and blabbed endlessly about the concept on-air), agonized over how to attack it ... and still fouled it up mightily.

So let's attack this systematically, starting with looking at the major premises of Scott Jenstad's excellent NFBC advice article, and see how my team measured up to his maxims. After that, we'll look at the individual picks and for fun (!) compare this year's ADP against where I took my players. Warning - the latter third picks might not be suitable for even the internet.

Scott's Lessons

1. Don't Draft Hyped Minor League Pitchers - Who has two thumbs and took Jose Berrios in the 19th round? This guy!!! In my defense ... nah, lesson heeded.

2. There is No One Way to Draft Saves - This isn't really a maxim, but the crux of this observation was that you need to compete in saves in the NFBC - the mantra "don't pay for saves, they come into the league" doesn't really apply. You'd better have a plan for closers. I've been hyper-aware of the need to get two solid closers in the NFBC, and even add a third if possible. I only got this half-right - nailing it with Zach Britton in the sixth round, and nailing the observation that it was my best pick! Alas, my second closer came too late, and came in the form of Huston Street. I *knew* my second closer was shaky, and I still didn't address the position with a third option in the draft, not even with a 'closer-in-waiting.' #FAIL.

3. Improve Your Strengths Too - Scott was referring to in-season management with this point - and how he needed to continue to shore up his then-excellent starting pitching on the waiver wire. But this also applies to the draft - you might think you have a given category nailed, or you're really strong at one position, and as a result you pass up a player that's sitting there as a good value. Don't be that player - take him anyhow. Injuries happen, performance variance happens, or maybe that value player turns out to be a breakout guy that's better than the two drafted before him. In my case, I hit on a handful of outfielders early and passed up endgame gems like Jackie Bradley Jr. (21st round), Michael Saunders (23), Tyler Naquin (24) and Adam Duvall (29). This wasn't my biggest leak, in part because I had so few strengths, but still worth noting.

4. Save $75 of FAAB for September - This was another colossal failure for my squad, but again less impactful for the wrong reason - my team wasn't competitive and I spent all season furtively trying to plug holes, the worst of which was at the second closer spot. I had a big purchase of Nomar Mazara for $383 early in the season, and while he was fine, he wasn't the big impact player I was hoping he'd be. I don't necessarily regret the aggressive bid there, but acknowledging that was in the books, I needed to be more circumspect with future bids.

Side-by-side Pick vs. 2017 ADP

(Player, 2016 pick, 2017 ADP) (running difference)

1. Miguel Cabrera (12, 14) (-2)
2. George Springer (19, 30) (-13)
3. Chris Archer (42, 54) (-25)
4. J.D. Martinez (49, 49) (-25)
5. Adam Wainwright (72, 222) (-175!!!)
6. Zach Britton (79, 58) (-154)
7. Adrian Beltre (102, 81) (-133)
8. Adam Eaton (109, 129) (-153)
9. Huston Street (132, 370) (-401!!!) - I'm surprised he's even this high.
10. Brett Gardner (139, 273) (-535) - Three triple-digit collapses among my top 10 picks. Clearly, structure with my starting pitchers was not my only flaw.
11. Yu Darvish (162, 36) (-409)
12. D.J. LeMahieu (169, 85) (-325) - We interrupt this self-flagellation session for a couple of good picks! Though Darvish's rise is strictly due to being farther removed from Tommy John surgery and not necessarily because he earned any sort of profit last year. Don't worry though - plenty of bad picks still to come.
13. Alex Gordon (192, 312) (-445) - Oh hey, here's one now! Favorite quote from my write-up last spring: "... always seems to be there for me, don't know why..."
14. John Lackey (199, 165) (-411)
15. Francisco Cervelli (222, 305) (-494)
16. Marcus Semien (229, 202) (-467)
17. Adam Lind (252, 489) (-704)
18. Eddie Rosario (259, 392) (-837)
19. Jose Berrios (282, 373) (-928)
20. Adam Conley (289, 313) (-952) - I surrender!!! Besides, it's about to get even worse somehow.

(Meal break - apparently followed by a food coma!)

21. Kris Medlen
22. Dioner Navarro
23. Cory Spangenberg
24. Kyle Gibson
25. Yangervis Solarte
26. Jon Niese
27. Eduardo Escobar
28. Rubby De La Rosa
29. Didi Gregorious - I made up for having a semi-good pick by not ever being able to spell his last name properly.
30. Adam Warren

If you look at the pitchers taken in that last third (don't stare too long, it'll sear your retinas), all but De La Rosa were low-upside soft-tossing starting pitchers, and were lousy returns on investment. So there's a trend I can work on trying to reversing. On top of that, I need to have more components of my rotation locked in earlier, so that I'm less-reliant on the latter third pitchers and free agents. I wasn't the only one who had latter-third whiffs:

First place team - Jimmy Nelson, Ervin Santana, Jhonny Peralta, Wade Miley, Josh Tomlin (ok, that worked for 3 months), Rajai Davis (ditto), Juan Uribe, Brock Holt, Wilmer Flores, Keone Kela.

Second place team - Micheal A. Taylor, Hunter Strickland, Carlos Beltran (ok, huge), Aaron Hicks, Chris Owings, Joe Kelly, James Paxton (who he cut), Angel Pagan (useful enough), Tyler Clippard, Chris Tillman.

Between the two teams, I see one huge win and maybe 3-4 other plus players. The endgame is important, but to say that leagues are won or lost there is overstating the case by a significant margin.

I identified three potential weaknesses in last year's post-draft review:

• Only two closers, with no closers in waiting. This was never adequately answered. I was right, however, that chasing the Angels closers in waiting would be a frustrating task.
• Stashing two pitchers - Darvish and Berrios, did limit my flexibility, even with Berrios getting the early call, as he obviously blew up and made matters worse.
• I was light on steals coming out of the draft, thinking that I might be able to address that on the waiver wire. Nope - I finished with 101 stolen bases, good for 12th place in my league.

Player selection remains a huge component for doing well in the NFBC, but it's also clear that I need to change the way I draft in this format. I need to really nail the starting pitching and dedicate earlier assets to do compete there.