While pitchers and catchers have yet to report for spring training, the abundance of Mock Draft Army soldiers have all reported for immediate, active duty. That’s right! It’s time to kick your fantasy baseball prep into high gear and there’s no better way than to join the Mock Draft Army and put your knowledge and draft skills to the test against some of the finest experts in the industry.
For those new to the Army, allow me to explain what exactly it is. I organize a number of mock drafts each week and fill half the draft room with industry experts and the other half with readers, Twitter followers and listeners to the various shows on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio. Forgive the name-dropping but some of the experts who take part each year include Fantasy Alarm’s Jeff Mans and Ray Flowers, Steve Gardner (USA Today), Lawr Michaels (Mastersball.com), Kyle Elfrink (SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio ), Joe Pisapia (Fantasy Black Book), Adam Ronis (RotoExperts), Derek Van Riper (RotoWire), Zach Sanders (FanGraphs), Liz Loza (Yahoo Sports) and Ryan Bloomfield (BaseballHQ). And that’s just the tip of the iceberg as there are plenty more from the multitude of fantasy sites around the internet. The experts understand that, in addition to drafting, they are there to help answer draft questions and offer up any fantasy advice you may need so if you do take part, get ready for a very busy chat room. The Army has been going strong for five years and this year, our sixth, is expected to be one of our best.
After just the first week, we’re now six drafts into the season (four 12-team and two 15-team mixed) and already there are numerous discussions and debates taking place. Who’s the No. 1 overall? Which position is the thinnest? Which one is the deepest? And of course, there are major debates as to just how high certain players are going – Is Carlos Correa a first-rounder? When do you take Kyle Schwarber? What about Corey Seager?
Now obviously, it’s still only January, so the answers to these questions are far from settled. In fact, we should expect to see some serious shifts in ADP over the next two months. Injuries happen, spring training battles are won and lost, but most importantly, the public perception of a lot of these players is going to go through some serious highs and lows as the regular season approaches. Each week, the Mock Draft Army ADP will be tabulated in an effort to offer you another quality tool for your draft prep and with that comes a trend report so you’ll be able to see exactly which players are increasing in hype and which ones are falling out of favor.
So let’s get to it. I’ll do some quick thoughts on each of the first six drafts and from there, we’ll take a look at the ADP.
Mock Draft Army #1 (12-team mixed roto)
Draft Board: http://bit.ly/1lTQEo2
One of the most-common things you’ll hear both in these pages and on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio is that you don’t take starting pitching early. We even have a couple of articles in the 2016 MLB Draft Guide detailing the reasons as to why you don’t draft starting pitching early. So when you sit in a draft like this where half the room is filled with industry experts preaching the “no early pitching” and the other half, their disciples, you get what you see here – only eight starting pitchers taken in the first five rounds and half the teams didn’t dip their toe into the pitching pool until the sixth. Keep in mind that in the FSTA draft which is experts only, there were 24 starters gone inside the first 60 picks. One team here (NOLA YankeeFan28), took it even further and didn’t touch a starter until the ninth. He did grab a pair of elite closers in the seventh and eighth, but after 10 rounds, he had just one starter.
Given the FSTA draft and my experiences in a variety of leagues over the last two decades, to me, this was not the norm. Sure, the experts say don’t do it, but usually in your home leagues, there are a number of owners who make it a point to grab those elite starters. So for experimental purposes, something you should definitely do when you participate in a number of mock drafts, I decided to be that guy. I don’t know if I would have done this had I owned a pick in the middle of the round, but on the wheel, I thought it would be an interesting move to double-tap a pair of elite starters while everyone else seemed to be waiting.
In a 12-team roto league, in theory, having David Price and Chris Sale as your top two starters should give you a serious leg up in categories as wins and strikeouts while also offering over 400 innings of some killer ratios. I’m still of the mindset that you can wait on starting pitching, but in looking at the squad I’ve built here, I think that I’ve put myself in a great position to be one of the top teams in the league. I may be short on some power, but the possibility of trading one of my top two arms for a big bat is always there. Sometimes it pays to zig when everyone else chooses to zag.
Other notable picks to watch:
Carlos Correa (1.7) – Is everyone buying into the rookie season THIS much?
Lorenzo Cain (3.10) – One year of full health and suddenly he’s a third-rounder? Maybe he’s the Ryan Mathews of fantasy baseball?
Corey Seager (4.3) – Too high for a completely unproven rookie?
Kyle Schwarber (5.2) – A more sensible spot that the FSTA second-round selection.
Billy Hamilton (10.9) – Remember when people were reaching for this guy in the fourth round last year? A lesson to be learned in believing the hype.
Mock Draft Army #2 (12-team mixed)
Draft Board: http://bit.ly/1SkdBgZ
From the last pick to the first pick – I still love being on the turn. But what I did here was more to prove a point to my radio co-host Joe Pisapia than anything else. Last week on the show, Joe criticized Dr. Roto for his selection of Paul Goldschmidt at the No. 1 overall pick in the FSTA draft. It wasn’t that he was bashing Goldy. He loves what Goldschmidt brings to the table. But in a league where you need to start five outfielders, he believed that Mike Trout and/or Bryce Harper made better sense, given the depth at first base and the potential lack of a top tier outfielder coming back around for his second and third picks.
I understood exactly what Joe was saying, but to me, the issue wasn’t with taking Goldschmidt first overall. The issue was with the way he followed it up with his next three picks of Kyle Schwarber, Carlos Gomez and Jacob deGrom and left himself with a fairly weak outfield. He did manage to snag Adam Jones, who I really like, but Gomez has the injury issues and then he has serious question marks in Hyun-Soo Kim, Jackie Bradley, Jr., Marcell Ozuna and Odubel Herrera.
So what I wanted to do was show that you could take Goldschmidt first overall so long as you double-tapped the outfield in Rounds 2 and 3 and then built up the squad from there. With Starling Marte and yes a hopefully resurgent and healthy Ryan Braun, I feel like my first three picks give me both power and speed while filling up a pair of outfield spots. I like the way the rest of the team looks as my decision to wait on the middle infield seemed to pay off. Names like Jhonny Peralta, Starlin Castro and Neil Walker aren’t sext, but they get the job done and it enabled me to lock in a quality third-sacker in Kyle Seager, some strong pitching and even a nice 20-homer corner infielder. The team has good balance which is always a nice way to walk out of your draft.
The one thing I will say that I wasn’t a huge fan of is that, on the turn and with the lock of two outfielders in the second and third rounds, you become a bit of a slave to the round trends. If a bunch of closers come off the board, you have to decide whether to join the run or be willing to sacrifice the position. Same with starting pitching as you can see in Round 4. It’s not the worst thing in the world, but those middle rounds become a little too reactionary for the way I like to play out a draft.
Other notable picks to watch:
Manny Machado (2.1) – Most see him as a first-rounder and the slip to the first pick of the second doesn’t mean much. It’s going to be important to watch the top-4 third basemen as they could all be gone before you even have a chance to react.
Charlie Blackmon (2.10) – I wasn’t a big fan of the pick at the time of the draft, but now with Corey Dickerson in Tampa Bay, I am starting to turn around on Blackmon.
Billy Burns (15.5) – I’m a big fan of Burns and seeing him go in the 15th makes me feel comfortable about waiting a little for your burner. Most will loiok to Bill Hamilton a few rounds earlier, but Burns could be a solid 30-40 stolen base guy.
Kenta Maeda (20.11) – Most people forget about Maeda along with a few other Asian imports such as Hyun-Soo Kim and Byung-Ho Park, but Maeda is my favorite. He’s projected as a No. 3 or 4 starter, but he could become a decent No. 2 and I love the way most Japanese hurlers debut in MLB.
Mock Draft Army #3 (12-team mixed)
Draft Board: http://bit.ly/1NE5Tbh
For this draft, I wanted to see what the team would look like if I did actually wait on starting pitching. I said, no matter what, I wouldn’t draft my first starter until at least the sixth round. That’s usually the strategy I walk into most, if not all, 12-team leagues with, so this wasn’t exactly groundbreaking.
Unfortunately, I left this draft scratching my head a little bit. We hear the “wait on starting pitching” line all the time and so far, in the first couple of mocks, that’s what people have done. However, looking at the FSTA draft again and knowing that, when the real drafts start, you always have people jumping on the starters, I wonder just how accurate a representation these mocks will be. I say this only because I went with offense in the first five rounds and my next two picks I was still able to walk away with Felix Hernandez and Danny Salazar. Am I really going to be able to grab King Felix in the sixth round? Salazar in the seventh seems more than plausible, but I’m very skeptical about Hernandez dropping that far.
I’m sure others were doing a little head-scratching as well, especially reader Russ Breckenridge who so aptly said, “All this pitching available in Round 5 makes me regret taking Max Scherzer in the third.” This is definitely something to explore as we move forward. Are people really going to practice what they preach?
As for my team overall, I have to say that it totally kicks ass. There’s tremendous power, great speed, strong starting pitching and a pair of closers with good track records and strong job security. I think I would have preferred Prince Fielder in Round 8 than Freddie Freeman in the fourth, but I certainly can’t complain about this squad.
Other notable picks to watch:
Andrew McCutchen (2.1) – Seriously, how the hell does he fall into the second round. Technically we could say he was the last pick of the first round, but even so, I just don’t get it. He was banged-up last year. That’s why people are leaving him? If he falls that far to me in any draft, I’m grabbing him.
Wei-Yin Chen (18.6) – Highly underrated starter who looked more than solid for the Orioles over the past couple of seasons. Now put him in the National League and in Marlins Park and giddy up!
J.A. Happ (19.2) – Even this was too high. He’s going to get crushed in Toronto. Crushed.
Mock Draft Army #4 (15-team mixed)
Draft Board: http://bit.ly/1NEi9IE
With such an overwhelming response to a Thursday night draft, I ended up having to open up another draft room for a second 15-team mixed league mock draft. I did not take part in this one, though it was loaded with such amazing guests like Steve Gardener, Lawr Michaels, David Kerr, Dan Wade, Brad Jerde and Ryan Bloomfield. I checked in every so often to make sure everything was running smoothly and enjoyed the chatter in the draft room as the readers were doing some hardcore brain-picking of all our experts, which, of course, is what’s supposed to happen. But without a dog in this race, I don’t have a strategy write-up for you.
A few observations though…
They were a little more aggressive with the starting pitcher here as 18 went in the first five rounds. In a 15-teamer, it would appear you may need to jump at some starters a little earlier just to keep pace with the draft. Sure, you can always wait, but the pickin’s get a little slim when the majority of the teams opt not to wait.
King Felix in the fifth round of a 15-teamer where no one really waited on starting pitching makes me now think that maybe I was off-base in my thoughts in the last draft. If people are really leaving him to that, he makes for a killer No. 1 option for those who do choose to wait on the starters.
There was no fear that Corey Dickerson’s move to Tampa Bay as he was scooped up in the fifth round which is probably the earliest I’ve seen him go since the trade.
Usually I’m the first to grab the forgotten Asians, so it was good to see where Hyun-Soo Kim, Byung-Ho Park and Kenta Maeda went with a different crowd. Still after the 17th round, so that gives me a good understanding that, if they don’t start killing it during the spring, people will likely overlook them as few host sites will have past numbers or even projections for all of them.
Mock Draft Army #5 (15-team mixed)
Draft Board: http://bit.ly/1WQzUvs
So this was the 15-teamer in which I took part. Heading in, I wanted to see how long I could wait on starting pitching in a deep draft and once Paul Goldschmidt fell to me with the third pick, I opted to try and employ that strategy I used before when I was trying to show that Pisapia character that you can take Goldy and still have a strong outfield. I was also going to feast on power early and wait on speed.
This draft took place prior to the news that Ryan Braun was behind schedule in his return from back surgery, so I probably would have gone with Nelson Cruz second and then Carlos Gonzalez with my third pick, but what can you do? These things happen. I don’t see my team being short on power though with Fielder, Evan Longoria and Brian McCann joining Goldy and Cruz.
It looked like most were going to wait on starting pitching, but after two starters went in the first two rounds, there was a big rush and by the time my fifth pick was up, there were 13 starters off the board. Could I have waited another round? Perhaps, but when King Felix is again staring you in the face in the fifth round, you have to act. I waited on the majority of the rest of my rotation, though I did grab closers to appease the saves-lover in me.
As for speed, well, I saw this move much like I did with starting pitching. While I absolutely hate the fact that Billy Hamilton is a one-category guy and struggles, literally, everywhere else, 50-60 stolen bases in the eighth round seemed a little too tough to pass up. I probably could have waited and gone with Billy Burns in the 11th and kept the Ketel Marte supplement, but hey…this is why we mock.
Overall, I’m very happy with my offense. I’m lukewarm on my starting pitching. In the next 15-teamer I do, I am going to front-load on pitchers and see what kind of an offense I can build. I won’t go too extreme, but maybe two starters in my first four picks? Three in my first five or six? We’ll see.
With it being so early in the mock season, I think I’ve spent myself on “notable picks” for now. Nothing too surprising given the way the first four drafts went.
Mock Draft Army #6 (12-team mixed)
Draft Board: http://bit.ly/1ntAmDF
So when I saw I had the fifth pick in this draft I opted to just wing it, so to speak. I would have to wait to see who was available, but given the first three off the board, I figured I’d be deciding betwee, Clayton Kershaw, Andrew McCutchen or Anthony Rizzo. Yes, that’s right – Rizzo. I’m a believer. I said in the Alarm Draft Guide that I saw the ability to hit for a .300 average and come on…you know 35-120 is well within reach for him. So obviously, hearing that, you know I talked myself into grabbing him and see what happened from there.
I did the usual double-tap of outfielders afterwards and then opted to go for some starting pitching. And you know what? I loved my picks so much that I didn’t even need to take a shower after selecting Hamilton in the 11th round. And while that team from the first mock I did was projected to win the league, I think this might be my favorite team thus far. This waiting on the middle infield is looking pretty good and I’m not even doing my normal reach for closers.
So that’s the round-up for the first week of mock drafts. Below is a copy of the ADP from these drafts and, as always, if you would like to request a color-coded copy of the ADP on a sortable Excel spreadsheet, just email me – rotobuzzguy@gmail.com – and I will be happy to send you on. Also, if you’re reading about the Mock Draft Army for the first time and want to join in the fun, an email to me gets you on the distribution list for the schedule each week.
Good luck and I’ll see you all in the money this year!