I am writing from the AFL, and Ron Shandler's annual First Pitch Soiree, always a great deal of fun. In fact this Monday, The Hotpage returns with my November look at who and what I saw during the three games I attended.

However, I as always was happy to be one of the contributors to the program, and what I was asked to do this year was debate my mate Steve Moyer, with me taking the position that in a keeper league, one can be competitive every year.

Now, to start I guess we have to delineate between a Dynasty League, which allows the perennial freeze potential of a large core of players, from a keeper league that with maybe 8-10 freezes, with escalating salaries over specific time period.

In making my case, I used non-auctioned free agents from the XFL, a 15-team league that allows up to 15 keepers, including minor leaguers at graduating salaries. The XFL drafts as part of the First Pitch fesitivies, in fact we held our auction yesterday. The set-up is a mixed 5X5, that does use OBP in lieu of and in addition to the $260, 23-man salary structure, we draft a 17-man reserve squad each March, and can swap out three players during monthly drafts from then on out.

Well, in making my case that one can actually compete each year, I looked at the the leftovers: those players not auctioned, who are subject the March free agent draft. For each season from 2005-09, I tried to pull the best roster of 23 and crunched the numbers to see both how those teams would fare in both the XFL each year, and also as NFBC teams. In truth none of these teams was even close to championship (well, the 2008 team would have finished in sixth place in the XFL with around 80 points), but, my point was were one to draft the right collection of $1 players from those leftovers that there were enough bargains that just about any keeper list could be made competitive.

Of course drafts and auctions always are always about picking the right combination of players, which is often why it is so frustrating. We study probabilities and injury reports and transactions. We trek out to the desert in the off-season to watch prospects and re-arrange vacations so happen to be in San Diego just when Stephen Strasburg happens to be pitching.

And still it is hard to pick the right guys.

As I was researching the stats from those left-over players over that five-year period I put Barry Zito, a freebie in the 2009 March free agent draft into the search window at the great Baseball Reference site, I expected the site to default to his page so I could pull Zito's numbers for the year, but that did not happen, as in 1946, a player named Zito Condes played in Havana, and had an entry.

So, I decided to call these unselected players who contribute, the Zito Condes of which Barry Zito was one last season. In looking at those years though, nearly every player probably logged major roster time on one of the active rosters (I actually had Zito on my XFL team last year, and he was in the rotation for around four months which proved to be a pretty good value) I found there were a handful of players who, never seemed to get any respect in the XFL.

For example, Casey Blake made it to three of the rosters, as did Mark Ellis, and Adam LaRoche made the list two of the years and Paul Maholm.

So, in trying to pick those "right guys" I thought I would see if I could grab any of these Zito Condes towards the end of my draft this time (none of the four above was frozen this year, either) and see how the season goes, knowing I could parcel my money out saving a little bit for late in the draft. In truth I did not get Maholm, who actually went for around $8, and I spent a little more than I expected for LaRoche ($16) and Blake ($9), but each has pretty much averaged that value over the past few years, and I expect both will be pretty consistent.

I had a chance to get Ellis, but I opted for a cheap $4 Orlando Hudson (I am not totally willing to sacrifice the season for science, and though Ellis is pretty consistent, Hudson is a better player).

But, in general I tried to control the costs and get players at value or hopefully undervalued. The most I spent on anyone was $29: the least was $1 for Justin Masterson.

Here are the results (freezes in Italics):

1. C-AJ Pierzinski ($11)
2. C-Carlos Ruiz ($6)
3. 1B-Lance Berkman ($29)
4. 2B-Orlando Cabrera ($10)
5. 3B-Casey Blake ($9)
6. SS-Stephen Drew ($13)
7. MI-Orlando Hudson ($4)
8. CI-Adam LaRoche ($16)
9. O-Vernon Wells ($7)
10. O-Bob Abreu ($29)
11. O-Luke Scott ($6)
12. O-Rajai Davis ($6)
13. O-Kyle Blanks ($4)
14. D-Hideki Matsui ($14)
15. P-Scott Baker ($15)
16. P-Matt Garza ($16)
17. P-James Shields ($16)
18. P-Mark Buehrle ($11)
19. P-Carlos Zambrano ($8)
20. P-Kevin Slowey ($8)
21. P-Andrew Bailey ($12)
22. P-Ryan Franklin ($9)
23. P-Justin Masterson ($1)