Now what MLB Fantasy Baseball Draft Guide would be complete without its very own mock draft? It wouldn’t, although you folks do get plenty of mock draft attention with the Mock Draft Army series we’ve got going here on Fantasy Alarm. Nonetheless, we gathered 12 of Alarm’s finest fantasy baseball contributors, plopped their asses down in a mock draft room and let them have at it.

12-team 5x5 standard roto

Participants (in order of draft)

23 rounds (no bench) – 2 C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CI, MI, 5 OF, UT, 9 P

DRAFT BOARD

If you’ve been following the Army and have been attentive to the ADP the Army has developed, you’ll find a few interesting things that occurred inside this particular draft. I’ll start out with those and from there, discuss my strategy going in and whether or not I was able to follow through with my game plan or how and where I was forced to deviate. Now I didn’t ask everyone for their written input as to their personal strategy and/or thoughts, as no one wants to handle a 10,000-word piece anymore, but there are some notes from a few of the participants, including the Oracle himself, you’ll also want to check out.

Mookie Betts Slides to Fifth Overall

In almost every mock draft we’ve seen this spring, Mike Trout and Betts have gone first and second. No one here was trying to make history by letting Betts fall, but the rationale is definitely worth noting. While Betts’ 2016 season was absolutely phenomenal from a fantasy standpoint, some of the enthusiasm and expectations should be reined in. The spike in his HR/FB rate wasn’t as huge as some of the other jumps we’ve seen, but he’s not a .200-plus ISO guy either. The last time he posted an ISO over the .200-mark was back in High-A ball. Now sure, he’s only 24 and maturing physically, but it’s also a matter of how pitchers throw to him. Granted he makes a ton of contact, but he swings at a lot of pitches and those pitches he was turning on and sending over the fence, he may not see as often this season. Remember when guys like Jacoby Ellsbury and Joe Mauer had their big power seasons? How’d that work out for people expecting duplicate production. While I probably wouldn’t have taken Jose Altuve over him, Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt are potentially safer picks given their statistical floor and track record.

Gary Sanchez’ ADP Continues to Drop

While Sanchez was being taken in the third round of a number of 12-team drafts, the fantasy community is finally wising up and letting him fall. Not to the point of where he should really go, but with Rick Wolf taking him with the 60th overall pick, you can see people’s jets starting to cool. You’ll still have someone in your league reaching too high for him, but we all know you’re not going to be THAT guy….or girl.

Very Little Rookie Love

The hype machine for rookies has been relatively quiet lately, though it is fully expected to kick into high gear once spring training games start and we see who is starting out hot. For now though, the ADP trends aren’t showing too much right now. In fact, the hype is so low-key right now that even with known Red Sox homer Jon Impemba in the draft, Anthony Benintendi fell roughly 20-40 picks further in this mock than his current ADP. In this draft, he went 153rd. In the Mock Draft Army, his ADP is currently 115.96 and in the NFBC, it’s 134.74 Perhaps Jon was just trying to see where he would fall to or maybe it was because he had most of his outfield stocked, but either way, that’s a significant drop.

Other notable rookies include:

Dansby Swanson, 177th pick – MDA ADP: 184.74  NFBC ADP: 187.04

Hunter Renfroe, 203rd pick – MDA ADP: 193.11  NFBC ADP: 234.78

Jharel Cotton, 238th pick – MDA ADP: 257.20  NFBC ADP: 257.64

Yoan Moncada, 255th pick – MDA ADP: 265.17  NFBC ADP: 234.71

Closer Watch

Obviously we’re dealing with a room of people who like to wait on closers as Aroldis Chapman, the first closer off the board, fell to the seventh round. Kenley Jansen and Zach Britton quickly followed suit and then we saw a slow stream of closers go off the board, roughly two per round until a rush in the 10th pulled another four closers off the board. Another four were gone in the 12th and then there was never really any kind of a run afterwards. I sincerely hope I take part in more drafts like this as yes, it was I who took the first closer in this draft. And you know what…? Chapman at the 75th pick is a fantastic value. I’ll take that all day long.

My Strategy Thoughts

As far as my strategy went, I was trying to look at this draft in a similar fashion to what I’ve been preaching here in the Guide – get those power/speed combo guys early, wait on pitching and augment steals late in the draft. When I drew the third pick, I was all primed to take Paul Goldschmidt and embark on my usual path, but I opted to take Nolan Arenado and see where that landed me. When I booted the speed again in the second with Corey Seager, I knew I was going to have to change some picks up and augment my speed a little earlier than usual. As a result, I figured I’d keep bulking up on power with George Springer, Jose Abreu and even Jonathan Lucroy before grabbing pitching or steals.

With a pretty heavy flow of starters off the board, I opted to grab Jose Quintana in the sixth as a starting point. Knowing I would likely wait even more for starters, I made the move to grab Chapman as my top closer. His ability to augment strikeouts and stabilize ratios will be much-needed. As you can see after that, save for Carlos Santana, I focused on the pitching and the steals. Guys like Byron Buxton and Carlos Gomez should help, though between the picks of Jay Bruce, Brandon Belt and Nomar Mazara, I should have probably found more of a Jarrod Dyson, Leonys Martin, Manuel Margot instead. This team will have to trade for speed during the season.

The pitching isn’t bad if Masahiro Tanaka stays healthy and both Marcus Stroman and Matt Moore take that next step forward. A tall order, probably, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. That’s why I grabbed the third closer to potentially have saves to deal or maybe get a little extra help in ratios. Of course, Fernando Rodney accomplishes one of those, but not the other. If this were being played out, I would have to find someone desperate for saves early on and not have too steep a price tag.

Overall, it was a decent pivot from my usual efforts, though when it comes down to the real thing, I’ll stick with my preferred strategy.

What Others Had to Say

Ray Flowers

Round 1Down to Rizzo and Harper again, which always seems to be my choice. No wrong answere there.
Round 2Votto or Correa? Went with the batting average greatness that is Votto.
Round 3Draft played out well as I was still able to get Xander, an elite SS, in the third.
Round 4A young vet with 20/20 upside who also happens to hit .300. Yes please on Yelich...
Round 5I never take catchers early, but when the best catcher in the game is there in the 5th round...
Round 6If you had to lay odds on the league leader in steals, it has to be Hamilton, right?
Round 7Upton simpy produces. It's as simple as that, even if folks never give him his due.
Round 8I wanted to go pitcher here, but couldn't turn down another young vet who is ascending in Rendon.
Round 9Melancon will love working in SF with Bochy. He has a great shot at yet another 30+ save effort.
Round 10I figured I would roll the dice. Since I don't have an SP, take two lock-down RPs, and then go starter diving.
Round 11Waiting so long on starters, why not take the most dominant RP left in Miller?
Round 12I won't be grabbing any other closers, but 100 strikeouts and 30 saves are doable with Giles.
Round 13Betances is a massive K arm. With all the elite ratios in my pen, I can add starters with middling ratios now.
Round 14Pence's last 158 games: 22 HR, 97 RBI, 88 runs, .807 OPS. Same as always.
Round 15Not many seem to have noticed that Odorizzi has a 1.17 WHIP the last two years.
Round 16Ray had one of the greatest K/9 seasons ever, and all those RP ratios allow me to take on Ray's ratio uncertainty.
Round 17Who noticed that Pineda was 11th in the majors in strikeouts last season?
Round 18It was Calhoun or Grichuk. I went with the slightly more stable option who should hit in front of Trout again.
Round 19Castro doesn't turn 27 until late March and is coming off a .270-21-70-63 effort.
Round 20Normally I wouldn't take Gray, but his arm is massive, the Ks will be huge, and I can take the ratio hit if there is one.
Round 21Even with his down '16, Panik's 162 avgerage effort is .280-10-63-85-4.
Round 22*NOTE: Norris was chosen a week before the Nationals signed Matt Wieters to be their main catcher. 
Round 23Moreland should love hitting at Fenway and is a sneaky play for power and a solid batting average.

Rick Wolf

This was one of those drafts that has too much risk.  Starting with the second pick, the draft began to have way more risk and break the rules of the SMART system.  There are three reasons for this: (1) in a 12-team mixed, the available players at replacement level are far better than in AL Only or NL Only leagues like the SMART System is designed for; (2) many of the risking picks, we got a discount on so they fit in the system; (3) playing the wheel means that you have a long time between players and have to reach.  That makes it harder to stay in the system and get upside.

 What Went Right

Built a solid young team with potential stars on it plus built a strong starting pitching staff.  I only have two players over 30 years old and both are starting pitchers.  Every player on the team has upside from last year’s performance.  Overall, the projected targets were exceeded in all areas except for saves, so really happy with the team and would be a fun team to manage because no WAY all these young players work out.

 What Went Wrong

Played the wheel wrong more than once.  Was trying to be cute taking Sanchez (Gary) and Sanchez (Aaron) and should have taken Matt Carpenter, who is multi positional and filled a need of mine.  Later grabbed Mikael Franco and Mike Moustakas to try to make up for the mistake.  Also, always like to come out of these drafts with three closers and came out with one (Kelvin Herrera) and a half (Jim Johnson) because the closer run happened in rounds 12 and 13 killing all the best closers and I waited too long for my man crush and ground ball superstar, Sam Dyson

Kenneth Le

My draft got out to an interesting start with my selection of Clayton Kershaw from the 6th position. In my eyes, I would have rather had any of the five players who were selected in front of me. Still, I can’t complain about drafting Kershaw. He is the anchor of a mostly veteran pitching staff that combined for a 2.95 ERA and .997 WHIP last season.

Yes, I am definitely interested in guys with upside like Jameson Taillon, but I don’t mind being patient and drafting a reliable arm like John Lackey five rounds later. Choosing the grizzled, old veteran isn’t going to make you the coolest person in the room, but it should provide you with a good amount of stability throughout the season.

For the most part, I focused on selecting the best available player throughout the draft. While it gave me a lot of talent throughout my roster, I do think I did a poor job of identifying the right situation to select speed players. I feel a lot of the 20+ speed guys were going a lot earlier than they probably should have, but regardless, it was supposed to be my job to spot that, and maybe jump on a Carlos Gomez in the 12th or Jacoby Ellsbury in the 14th. On the other hand, I do really like my selection of Keon Broxton in the 17th round, and I think he has a very good shot at getting 40+ steals this season.