Every Wednesday during Spring Training Kyle Elfrink and I host a mock draft during the SiriusXM Fantasy Drive (7-10 PM EDT). We put out a link midday on the channels twitter account (@SiriusXMFantasy) so look for it if you want to sign up for future mocks (they are first come, first serve). Wednesday March 25th we did an AL-only draft. Here are the results

FORMAT

10 Teams - AL-only
5x5 scoring
HITTERS: C, C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, MI, CI, 5 OF, UT (9 batters)
PITCHERS: nine pitchers

To make it easier on folks we went with 10 teams instead of the industry preferred 12.

GET YOUR COPY OF THE 2015 FANTASY ALARM BASEBALL DRAFT GUIDE NOW --- AND FOR FREE! REALLY, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? THERE'S STILL PLENTY OF TIME FOR YOU TO LEARN HOW TO DOMINATE THE COMPETITION IN 2015.

 

TEAM

* Number in parenthesis is round taken. 

C: Matt Wieters (8), Chris Iannetta (15)
1B: Chris Davis (4)
2B: Jose Altuve (1)
3B: David Freese (22)
SS: J.J. Hardy (11)
MI: Marcus Semien (19)
CI: Eric Hosmer (7)
OF: Kole Calhoun (3), Alex Rios (5), Leonys Martin (6), Steve Souza (12), Jake Marisnick (17)
UT: Josh Hamilton (18)

PITCHERS: David Price (2), Jose Quintana (9), Fernando Rodney (10), Kevin Gausman (13), Neftali Feliz (14), T.J. House (16), Brett Cecil (20), Kendall Graveman (21), Josh Fields (23)

REVIEW

OK, I had a bad day Wednesday. Not only was I late to the Mixed League Draft with Fox Sports, but I also couldn't get into the draft room for the start of this draft. I blamed our producer Drew Phelps on air. He's easy to blame. Not really fair though. When you're doing a national radio show it's not the easiest thing to also do a draft at the same time. So instead of showing up to the draft 20 minutes early and making sure all the tech worked, I tried to sign in like four minutes prior to first pitch. Didn't happen. Couldn't figure out the tech for a good 10 minutes. The result being I was auto-picked Jose Altuve in the first round. I would never take Altuve in the first round. Then, though I was in the room for Round 2, I had been defaulted to auto-pick without noticing so I ended up with David Price who I love, but likely wouldn't have taken in the second round. But hey, things happen. We've all been there with a tech glitch that caused problems for one of our clubs. So I adapted and tried to overcome. Let's see how I did. 

No one has a better catching duo. Period.

Since I was stuck with Altuve, I needed power. I got that with Chris Davis and my catching duo. Since I was also saddled with Altuve I couldn't take Elvis Andrus, so I added to the power base by selecting Hardy at short. Also up the middle was the steal of the draft in Semien. I can only assume he fell because RT Sports has him low in the rankings (if I wasn't doing the radio show at the same time I would have noticed his low rank much earlier taken Semien 5-6 rounds earlier). Hosmer as my corner infielder is great, and waiting until the 22nd round and still being able to take Freese at third worked out about as best as it could given how long I waited to fill my third base spot. Also have some nice flexibility as Davis (1B, 3B) and Semien (2B, 3B and will pick up SS soon) qualify at multiple spots. 

The outfield has a strong top-3. Will Souza go bonkers this season? Likely not. But his power/speed combo as my 4th outfielder - I'll take that. As for Marisnick, it certainly seems like he will be starting in the outfield for the Astros (Player Profile for Marisnick). Say what you want about Hamilton, but how many teams have a better UT play than him - if he isn't suspended all year? Even if he plays 2/3 the season 15 homers and 65 RBIs are easily doable. Don't forget, he hasn't been suspended yet.

On the bump I like what I see. Price is a star and Quintana a strong SP2. Gausman and Graveman are two young arms that look to have rotation spots locked down, and T.J. House is a solid lefty to round out the rotation. What I'm really excited about though is the bullpen. There are 15 teams in the AL, and 10 teams in this draft. That's 1.5 closers per team. I've got an ace closer in Rodney and then two options in Feliz and Cecil. I think I got two closers - I'll combine Cecil and Feliz - and if all three pan out I'll cruise in saves.

For a review of the draft results click on this link to AL-only Draft.