Five players to build your next dynasty with

By Jim Higgins

As I have mentioned before, every keeper league and every manager’s experience is different. While many people join a keeper league during the league’s inaugural season, many of us also come in as a replacement for a dud owner who failed to pay attention to his team and just let it fall apart.

I fall into the latter category.

I have shared before how my team was built from the leftovers of two abandoned teams so I won’t rehash that again but it should be sufficient to say that there was not a lot to work with once I was finally in. So for those of you who are taking over an abandoned team, are in the middle of a major reconstruction project or just need ideas on how to build a long-term contender, here are some guys taken after pick 50 that should be considered worth building around (Note: ADP numbers are from Mock Draft Central and players listed are under the age of 28).

Andre Ethier – OF – Dodgers – 71 ADP: The window is closing fast on acquiring Ethier given his hot start but it may stay open a little longer given his recent trip to the DL. Ethier is one of the two players I have chosen to build my team around and I know the owner I got him from is kicking himself for letting him go. The power appears to be legit and growing and once the Dodgers lineup hits its stride, Ethier should be a good source of RBIs and Runs too.
Billy Butler – 1B – Royals – 77 ADP: If you’re looking for a young 1B to build your squad around, Butler is a great choice. Playing in the wasteland that is Kansas City should work to your advantage as Butler doesn’t get as many RBIs or Runs as some of the other young 1Bs. But looking past those numbers is the fact that Butler is still pretty young (just turned 24) and his power stroke is developing.
Matt Wieters – C – Orioles – 94 ADP: Wieters is the perfect example of why ranking players for a keeper league is so drastically different than ranking them for a one year league. If you play in a one year league, Wieters; ADP of 94 was way high for the player he is right now. But if you play in a keeper league and believe he has multiple 2009 Joe Mauer-type years in his bat, then he should have been drafted well before pick 94. This is probably the low point of Wieters bright future so if you covet this highly-touted C, now may be your only chance to lock him up for the long haul.
Ian Stewart – 3B – Rockies – 123 ADP: Now I’m sure that once you saw Stewart’s name the word strike out was probably one of your first thoughts, but hopefully home run was somewhere close to that too. Only 25 this year, Stewart seems to have reversed the K issues he had last year and gotten his K rate closer to his 2008 level, without sacrificing the power gains he made last year. Stewart is off to a solid start so it may require more to get him than other 3Bs, but if you can pay less for him than Evan Longoria or Ryan Zimmerman you will be a happy owner when he reaches that same level of production.
Brian Matusz – P – Orioles – 291 ADP: I hate having two Orioles on this list, especially given how 2010 is going for them so far but I wanted to include a young pitcher that projects as a future Hall-Of-Famer and while Tommy Hanson would be another great young arm to build a staff around, he is widely considered one of the best pitchers in baseball already and probably won’t come cheap. The thing I like about Matusz is that he has four pitches that can all be thrown for strikes and while he has limited pro ball experience, he is already having success at the MLB level. If you think being on the Orioles ends up hindering his production, other SPs in the same mold are Clayton Kershaw and David Price.