Mock Draft Army: Mixin' it Up

That’s right. It’s that time of the week again where I stand atop my soapbox and preach to the Fantasy Alarm congregation about the importance of doing mock drafts as part of your fantasy baseball draft prep. The value of doing several mock drafts can be immeasurable as you are not only ridiculously familiar with the player pool, but you have a fantastic idea as to where everyone is going to be drafted before the big day even arrives. Sure, some knucklehead in your league can try and throw you for a loop, but if you’ve done your drafts and studied your ADP numbers, then there’s very little left to surprise you.

But while doing a number of mock drafts is a huge help, very few people take full advantage of the ability to experiment. Most people head into a mock draft and simply try to assemble the best team they possibly can. Maybe they’ve got a strategy that consists of waiting on pitching. Maybe they’re looking at position scarcity. Maybe, they’re even taking a stab at my strategy outlined in last week’s column. But it’s the savvy fantasy baseballer who does them all.

There’s nothing wrong with picking a strategy you like and testing it a few times from a few different spots in the draft, but to truly take advantage of the resources at your disposal, you’ve got to mix it up. With so much information available to you, it is imperative that you try to look at a draft from as many different angles as possible. If you’re the type of person who likes to wait on starting pitching, try doing a pitching-heavy strategy. You like to ignore the catcher position? See what happens when you draft Buster Posey and Brian McCann. Do you always find yourself taking the same guys; the guys you covet the most? Try doing a draft where you ignore all of your favorites. The options are almost limitless.

When you mix up your strategies – whether you take it to an extreme or not – you open your eyes to a whole different way to look at both your favorite strategy as well as the player pool. There was one time where, in a 12-team league, I took five starters and two closers with my first seven picks just to see what kind of an offense I could build. What did I learn from that? Well, for one, you don’t take seven pitchers in your first seven rounds. But I also learned a lot about the hitters potentially available in the middle to late rounds -- a time where, usually, I’m fishing for pitchers to round out my staff. I was also able to see how some people react to someone hoarding all the starters. This year, pitching is consistently going a lot earlier (a major run usually develops in the third round), but back when I tried this strategy, many, including myself, were waiting on the arms and I was able to see just how many people in the room would bite on a run I was trying to start.

Another draft I did, I jumped on all the rookie hype to see how many veterans would get pushed down. To complement that, I did another where I ignored all the rookies and built a squad worthy of a Geritol ad. But again, my favorite is the mock draft where I ignored all of my top targets just to see how far they would fall. It’s an unbelievable perspective to have, actually, as sometimes you like a guy so much, you build up his value in your head and over-reach for him, only to find out that not everyone was as high on him as you were and you could have grabbed him a round or two later.

Just this past week, in a 15-team mixed mock draft, one of the Army’s participants brought a zero-outfielder strategy to the table just to see what would happen. ADP research shows that close to 30-percent of the first 100 picks are outfielders and with needing to start five in most leagues, the upper tiers become quite the commodity. But what happens if you ignore the position? What kind of a team can you build?

Here’s a link to the draft so you can see: http://bit.ly/1RTLu7h

Now obviously this is not even remotely a strategy I would employ, but I admire the attempt. JohnnyLymbo was drafting sixth out of 15 and while he could have gone to the extreme and taken 17 other players first and then sift through the remaining players eligible, he opted to grab his first outfielder in the 13^th round – Dexter Fowler. From there he went with Delino Deshields Jr., Yasmany Tomas and Jorge Soler with his next three picks and then capped it all off with a 22^nd round selection of Chris Colabello. Not the strongest group by any means, but he did manage to grab a number of elites such as Rizzo, Posey, Tulo, Kluber and even two of the best closers in Kimbrel and Jansen. The start to his draft was fantastic and his team was looking strong, but in the end, the weak outfield, the lack of a third baseman and the heavy dose of mid-tier starters all came back to bite him. He also ran into a little trouble as Mock Draft Army veteran Doug Moore of Razzball.com grabbed just one outfielder in the first 11 rounds and then started his run of outfield selections a round earlier. That forced some serious competition for the remaining quality at the position.

But while the zero-outfielder strategy seemed to fail, JohnnyLymbo probably walked away from the draft learning a number of different things. For one, he totally grasped the concept of “Am I Trippin’,” a segment I do on my Sirius show almost weekly. But he also saw a draft from a totally different perspective and probably learned things like the need to grab better starting pitching early if you’re going to slight yourself on a usually strong offensive position. Maybe a Johnny Cueto, Danny Salazar or even an Adam Wainwright to serve as a strong No. 2 hurler rather than Jansen in the fifth was the way to go. He was still able to nab Kimbrel in the seventh, so it’s not like closers were in high demand.

Again, it’s not just a matter of participating in a bunch of mock drafts. That can be great, no doubt. But if you’re not mixing it up and you’re not trying a number of different strategies, bizarre ones or not, then you’re not getting as much out of the experience as you possibly can. Do something crazy in your next mock draft. Try something you’ve never tried before. Zig when you usually zag. Ignore your instincts. Whatever you want to do. Just make sure you’re studying more than just your team. It’s amazing how much you can learn just by watching how the rest of the room reacts to you.

Now here’s the latest ADP numbers from the Mock Draft Army, including the draft trends from over the last two weeks. And as always, if you would like to join the Army or if you just want a copy of the ADP in the form of a color-coded, sortable Excel spread, you can hit me up at mockdraftarmy@yahoo.com.

2016 Mock Draft Army ADP