Howard Bender’s Mock Draft Army is a series of mock drafts that assemble both fantasy baseball writers/analysts and fantasy baseball fans alike to draft with real people who know (are at least pretend to know) what they’re talking about.
For the second year in a row, I was fortunate to take part in one of these drafts. This past week, I was involved in a 12-team mixed league draft. The breakdown is as follows:
- Snake Draft
- Two-catcher league, normal positions with corner infield, middle infield, five outfielders, and nine pitcher slots.
- No bench (reserve) rounds.
My intention here is to not pick apart the teams chosen. Everyone has their own strategies, and people may be trying something new. I just want to take fantasy baseball owners through my draft and the thought process along the way. There will be three parts to this breakdown: the core players (rounds 1-9); the support players (rounds 10-17); rounding out the roster (18th round and later). The full draft grid can be seen here, through RealTime Sports. I was drafting out of the one-spot. I don’t need to tell you who I drafted there. Here’s where I went on the turn afterwards.
Picks 2-3: Freddie Freeman and Jose Reyes
Freddie Freeman: I’m as concerned as everyone else about that Braves lineup. With that said, after the top six first basemen go off the board, there are concerns everywhere: will Adrian Gonzalez continue breaking down? Can Albert Pujols not be a drag on batting average? Will either of Prince Fielder or Joey Votto stay healthy and be productive? Does Todd Frazier repeat 2014 or does he regress to 2013? First base is deep, but there are concerns abound outside of the top two tiers. I don’t want to take a big risk at a position that should be productive, so if I can get close to .290-20-90-90 from Freeman, I’ll be happy with that.
Jose Reyes: For those that did not look at the draft board, I took Reyes before Hanley Ramirez. One thing I’ve really started to adhere to over the years is to avoid taking hitters switching leagues. I know there are some that worry about Reyes’ injury history, but Ramirez has played 25 fewer games over the last three seasons than Reyes. They were also born in the same year, so there’s no age advantage. Given all these reasons, plus I wasn’t going to get a shortstop I liked if I passed on Reyes here, that’s why I added him to my team.
This is where I deviated from what I had normally done in years’ past.
Picks 4-5 – Aroldis Chapman and Craig Kimbrel
There is a lot of turnover at the closer position, but it seems the high-strikeout guys can hold their jobs year in and year out (assuming no injury). Also, with the abundance of pitching that should be available in a 12-team league later in drafts, I felt that this would give me a huge safety net to target starters later on that might not be so kind to my WHIP or strikeout totals. This strategy probably works better in a 15-team league where closers are even scarcer, but I wanted to try this just to see what it might do to my roster.
Picks 6-7 – Jon Lester and Matt Holliday
I’m not keen on drafting Jon Lester, this year or any year, but being able to take him with the last pick of the 6th round seems like decent value, so I did. Even with those two stud closers, I wanted one starter I could anchor. If I passed on Lester, the top of my pitching staff would be, at best, something like Julio Teheran and Jeff Samardzija (or similar pitchers). I don’t like not having an anchor, so I was fine with Lester here.
Run production is at a premium these days: only 24 players drove in at least 90 runs last year. That total is down over 30-percent since just 2012. Matt Holliday is one of those guys where, as long as he’s healthy and doesn’t fall off the map, you should be able to pencil in for 20 home runs and 90 RBIs. There aren’t a lot of run producers to be had later in drafts for outfielders, so after Holliday, there were only maybe two or three reliable run producers I could draft. I didn’t want him to be on someone else’s team.
Picks 8-9 – Ryan Zimmerman and Jay Bruce
I had to draft Zimmerman a bit earlier than I wanted to because of where I happened to be drafting, but he’s a target of mine at third base. Sure, there are health concerns, but once you approach the 100th pick of a fantasy draft, there are problems with everyone. If Zimmerman can play 140 games, he’s as good a bet as any to crack 20 home runs at third base with a helping batting average, not something that can be said for a lot of guys at that position at this point of the draft.
Jay Bruce is being devalued because of his injuries last season, and that’s fair. It’s also important to remember that before his injury-plagued 2014 season, he was one of just three players to hit at least 30 home runs and drive in 90 each of the previous three years (with Miguel Cabrera and Adrian Beltre). With a healthy Joey Votto ahead of him, and a healthy bottom half under him, it seems like Bruce is poised to get back to the 30-90 plateau this year. That’s good production as a ninth round pick.
Other notes to this point of the draft:
- Miguel Cabrera went 8th I get the injury concerns with him, but I think he should be taken ahead of both Carlos Gomez and Jose Abreu. What Abreu did last year (in his first year) is what Cabrera does every year, so I’m not sure why the market seems so sure that Abreu will repeat his 2014 season while Cabrera is a question mark.
- Three second basemen went in the first 16 picks. The trio of Altuve/Cano/Rendon are certainly the top at the position, but there are other options later in the draft that fantasy baseball owners should be fine with. I will get to those in a later post.
- It seems like Chris Davis’ ADP is creeping up. A month ago, he would be going somewhere around pick 75 in drafts. In this one, he was pick 54, taken ahead of guys like Matt Kemp, Adrian Gonzalez, and Albert Pujols. The value is being taken out of his ADP.
- Catchers were not going off quickly. Buster Posey lasted until pick 36; Jonathan Lucroy was pick 59; Yan Gomes was taken outside the top-100. It’s a two-catcher league, but it’s also a 12-team league, which means starting catchers aren’t as scarce. If this were a 15-team league, I assume the catchers would go off quicker.
Those are some thoughts on the early part of this Mock Draft Army #20. I’ll have more thoughts on this mock in the coming days. Comments or questions? Let us know below!
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