Last night, we held the draft for the 2008 edition of the Yankees Bloggers fantasy baseball league. We had a great turnout with 11 or 12 of the 14 managers attending the draft (at various points in time) and a lot of fun. Our lineup of bloggers is Steven from The Yankees: Minors to Majors, Dan from Pinstripes, Pa, Greg from Sliding Into Home, Emma from Eephus Pitch, Joseph, Ben and Mike from River Ave. Blues, Brent from The Bronx Block, Andrew from Scott Proctor's Arm, Dave and Aziz from Pride of the Yankees, Jason from My Baseball Bias and, finally, James and myself. So, 14 bloggers from 10 different blogs.

The draft was 21 rounds long and took about two and a half hours to complete. The draft order was (with first round pick in parentheses): Mike (Alex Rodriguez), Aziz (Hanley Ramirez), Jason (Ryan Howard), Patrick (David Wright), Emma (Miguel Cabrera), Ben (Chase Utley), Brent (Jose Reyes), James (Matt Holliday), Dan (Jimmy Rollins), Greg (Albert Pujols), Steven (Prince Fielder), Dave (Johan Santana), Andrew (Alfonso Soriano) and Joseph (C.C. Sabathia).

The Yankees (and, for fun, Red Sox) taken in the draft were as follows:

Steven: Mike Lowell, Josh Beckett, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Jon Lester.
Dan: Melky Cabrera and Phil Hughes.
Greg: Julio Lugo.
Emma: Dustin Pedroia, J.D. Drew and Ian Kennedy.
Joseph: Manny Ramirez and Joba Chamberlain.
Ben: Jason Giambi, Kevin Youkilis and Shelley Duncan.
Brent: David Ortiz and Curt Schilling.
James: None.
Andrew: Jason Varitek and Hideki Matsui.
Mike: Alex Rodriguez and Mike Mussina.
Dave: Hideki Okajima and Clay Buchholz.
Aziz: Jacoby Ellsbury and Jonathan Papelbon.
Jason: Johnny Damon.
Patrick: Jorge Posada, Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter, Bobby Abreu, Mariano Rivera, Chien-Ming Wang and Andy Pettitte.

The final round of the draft saw the following players taken: Pat Neshek (Mike), Carlos Gomez (Aziz), Brian Fuentes (Jason), Aubrey Huff (Patrick), Luis Castillo (Emma), Adam Jones (Ben), Chris Carpenter (Brent), Shaun Marcum (James), Yadier Molina (Dan), Daric Barton (Greg), Chase Headley (Steven), Hideki Okajima (Dave), Paul Lo Duca (Andrew) and Manny Parra (Joseph). Interestingly, Paul Lo Duca was also taken in the final round of last year's draft, but by Seamus.

I'm sure that I'll find a moment to write a bit about my team and maybe James will, too. We'll be talking about the league throughout the season, just as we did last year. Good luck to everyone!

Edit: Mike has an entry on the draft, too.