Did you know we had a mock draft?

As commissioner of your other snake draft keeper league, I’ve been waiting patiently for this article so that I can use it to my advantage on draft day.

While the two leagues are fairly dissimilar in structure and scoring, there were a few tidbits I may be able to use against you. Now if only I could get Jody to write an article.

I just looked at that roster for the first time since the end of the season. Jesus Christ. I forgot what a cluster that keeper situation is. How am I supposed to pick four of Verlander, Halladay, Lee, Moore, Ellsbury, and Lawrie? Not to mention several other names that other owners would consider like Pedroia, Wainwright, Gordon, Ackley, Montero, Trout, and Josh Johnson.

Says the guy with Bautista, Pujols, Hanley, Sandoval, CarGo, Hamels, and Pineda.

I think you’re doing alright with your keeper depth, although you have a tough decision to make on Hanley.

Interesting that you commented on the general patience with the catcher position, when you seemed to be the exception to that trend.  Napoli at the 37th pick I can see, but once you had him locked up, you could have waited later than the 10th round to pick your 2nd catcher.  Your team might have been better off with Ichiro/Beltran/Bourjos and Ramos rather than Montero and Joyce.

Dingbat,

That may be the case, and it’s something I would look into further if I had more leagues like this one. I actually had no intention of picking a 2nd catcher before the end game, but Montero was near the top of my list.

In my experience, finding outfielders can be done outside of the draft, so I tend to neglect the position a little bit aside from finding a couple anchors.

I didn’t even draft a full outfield in this draft. Joyce is a 70% start, Fowler and Tabata are probably 50-65% starts, who knows what I’m getting out of Reimold and Harper, and like I said, Morgan should be somebody else - let’s call him Mike Carp. That’s another platoon guy.

And if that’s sounding pretty awful, keep in mind I also have Morse and Zobrist available so I have the entire position player universe at my disposal to find an OF.

Thanks for your response.  That makes a lot of sense in terms of drafting OFs around your playing style.  I just think that after the elite catchers (and even with them), there’s just too much risk that a catcher is going to crash and burn to really invest much in them.  Of course, I’m speaking as someone who drafted Soto in 2011, Miguel Montero in 2010, and Ryan Doumit in 2009 (all in Rounds 9-11), so I’ve been burned plenty.

So at the game we went to you told me you didn’t share the Zim(nn) love… glad to see you took him way higher than I’m keeping him in Shane’s league!

Speaking of Nats, I guess I am the only one to fulfill your prediction of hate. Clearly you’re good at your “overreaches” in general, but A) despite their terrible outfield situation, I’d be shocked if Harper played more than 2/3 of a season, and B) I’d also be stunned if he adjusted soon enough to make the totality of the remaining games a valuable contribution (e.g. it took him awhile to adjust to AA, and he hasn’t even tried AAA, let along the Majors, yet). I know 15th round isn’t at all early, but it is still where you build your base, and few GP + marginal early production isn’t what I’d consider a base guy… (though I get the irony that I’m keeping him in the aforementioned league as a 16th pick, but that is a keeper league).

I totally get the Sandoval team.  The value of any player during a draft or auction is tied to several factors:  the remaining player pool, the composition of your roster, the composition of the other teams roster and the strategic plan you’ve formulated for how you’re going to design your team to win your particular league (using it’s particular rule set).  It’s pointless to talk about a player having a certain absolute value without that context.

Whoops, I meant to steal this link from Derek.

http://www.mockdraftcentral.com/draft_grid.jsp?id=187394