A.L.-Only Keeper Question

T.N. has a potential juggernaut on his hands, but wants to make sure he's keeping the best players he possibly can:

10 team AL-only keeper league, you can keep up to 10 players....I have the following players to choose from (prices in...parentheses): Chris Perez (1); David Price (13); Jeremy Hellickson (2); Colby Lewis (5); Nick Swisher (8); Mike Napoli (7); Frank Francisco (1); Kevin Gregg (3); Koji Uehara (1); Shin Soo Choo (23); Dustin Pedroia (25); Miguel Cabrera (41); Justin Smoak (2).

Perez, Price, Hellickson, and Lewis are no-brainers, as is Francisco if he's officially closing in Toronto. Gregg or Uehara would be fantastic if either had the Baltimore job locked up. My problem is this: do I keep Perez, Price, Hellickson, Lewis, Francisco, Uehara, and Gregg? That would be 7 pitchers, and only 3 hitters. Any input would be appreciated.

That's a nice problem T.N. has. Every one of those players is a possible freeze solely based on value with the possible exception of Cabrera. The question, then, is how can T.N. maximize his value going into his auction.

In a vacuum, I would rank the top 10 as Perez, Price, Francisco, Swisher, Smoak, Hellickson, Napoli, Lewis, Choo and the winner of the Uehara/Gregg battle. Breaking it down positionally, that would leave T.N. with:

C Napoli $7

1B Smoak $2

OF Choo $23

OF Swisher $8

P Francisco $1

P Hellickson $2

P Lewis $5

P Perez $1

P Price $13

P Uehara (let's assume) $1

$63 spent/10 players

The rub here is that keeping Uehara and throwing Gregg back is incredibly counterintuitive. Keeping Gregg over Choo would give T.N. his three-hitter/seven pitcher configuration he alluded to in his question.

I have nothing against keeping seven pitchers if those seven pitchers are the best freezes you can keep. Unless your league doesn't trade, you can always try to trade for hitting if you can't buy enough of it in the auction. Don't get hung up on how many hitters you have versus how many pitchers you have.

One thing that you should be concerned about is your league's inflation rate. The higher the inflation rate, the more inclined I'd be to keep Choo over Smoak. Smoak is probably going to be a better straight value play than Choo this year, but with 20% inflation, the extra $21 you have to spend if you keep Smoak losses some of its punch. If inflation is really high (30% or higher), you might even want to consider Pedroia and/or Cabrera so that inflation doesn't destroy your team in the auction.

I hope this helped, and good luck.