League of Ordinary Gentlemen: Mock Draft pt1

The very act of estimating keepers and organizing the various sheets of paper and checklists and rankings required to accomplish a mock draft without the use of a spreadsheet makes me suddenly respect the commissioners of pre-internet rotisserie.  Though I will admit I spent less time meticulously measuring and drawing columns than agonizing over keeper predictions.

For example: Ryan has to choose between A-Rod, Pedroia, Ryan Howard, Jose Bautista, and Felix Hernandez.  I happen to know who he's picking today, but I didn't yesterday when I started putting ideas to paper, and this was surprisingly tough.  You have to consider that A-Rod is 35 and clearly in his declining years, whereas Bautista is rather unproven but younger.  Which is a better keeper?  A-Rod has more common-wisdom draft value, but in the calculations for keepers, he has to take a hit, no?  Similarly, Ryan Howard is the poster child for fantasy-consensus decline, and he plays a rather deep position (1B is stacked, though most will end up keepers).  He's ahead of Felix Hernandez in all available fantasy rankings and mock drafts, but this league sees elite pitching go very early.  Are you willing to risk not having a AAA+++ young ace SP so that you can keep a 32-year-old first baseman ranked 5th by Yahoo and 8th by ESPN?

Stew has to choose between Matt Kemp and Zack Greinke.  Consider that Greinke is the carry-over keeper, is in the NL now, and this league sees starting pitching deplete way before other leagues.  Despite this, Kemp has a sizable lead on Greinke in all available preseason rankings, mocks, and ADPs.

Paul has to pick Shin-Soo Choo or Josh Johnson.  Between Adrian Beltre, Brian McCann, Justin Morneau, Jose Reyes, and Ubaldo Jimenez, Shawn has to choose three.  Morneau still isn't 100% and just this week started baseball activities, who knows which Reyes shows up this year (and will Bay/Beltran rebound to help the Mets offense?), pitchers tend to have less value on ADP charts but there's no way Ubaldo survives the turn.  Joe has to decide whether he wants the potentially awesome or potentially injured Nelson Cruz, or roll the dice on a much younger and promising (but largely unproven) pitcher in Mat Latos.

Further complicating my preparation was my inability to access the final joined roto-H2H standings, so I'm forced to set the draft order as the final H2H rankings if I wanted to start this project at work, which I do.  Anyway, here were the final estimated keeper decisions, and draft order.

Chris J: Miguel Cabrera, Ian Kinsler, Clayton Kershaw
Stew: Joey Votto, Matt Holliday, Matt Kemp
Kyle: Rickie Weeks, Ryan Zimmerman, Carlos Gonzalez
Austin: Adrian Gonzales, Hanley Ramirez, Dan Haren
Owen: Joe Mauer, Jason Heyward, Tim Lincecum
Fabian: Evan Longoria, CC Sabathia, Jon Lester
Paul: Robinson Cano, Kevin Youkilis, Shin-Soo Choo
Shawn: Justin Morneau, Jose Reyes, Ubaldo Jimenez
Ryan: Dustin Pedroia, Ryan Howard, A-Rod
Chris T: Mark Teixeira, Ryan Braun, Carl Crawford
James: Albert Pujols, Chase Utley, Adam Wainwright
Joe: Prince Fielder, Roy Halladay, Mat Latos
Mike: David Wright, Troy Tulowitzki, Justin Upton
Tom: Josh Hamilton, Cliff Lee, Justin Verlander

For the purposes of this mock draft, while I may be aware of certain other team owners' draft tendencies (I know Mike sorts by OBP, Owen isn't afraid of prospects or injury risks) I won't pretend to get into their heads to make decisions.  All selections would be as if I was the team owner picking at that point in time.

Round 1

This is always the most predictable round in terms of structure.  The first 4-5 picks will take the best-of-the-board players who probably would have been keepers on other rosters.  The next 3-4 will take the remainder of the ace-potential pitchers.  The rest of the round will soak up the best players at scarce positions.  It's worth noting here that eight teams are keeping first basemen (I'm not including Youkilis, who will quickly qualify at 3B) and I'd be pretty happy sitting a while to gamble on Morales or Konerko.  You probably wouldn't want to sink much lower though.

I'd also say 2B and 3B are deep positions.  After Uggla, can you really notice a huge difference between Brandon Phillips and Gordon Beckham?  Once Beltre and Bautista are picked, you still have a variety of prospects and projects at 3B all the way down to Mark Reynolds, Pablo Sandoval, and Ian Stewart.  Those aren't bad gambles at the bottom.

SS is the shallow spot this year.  Best on the board is Derek Jeter, whose rate stats declined severely last season, and isn't getting any younger.  The falloff from there is also pretty severe.  Do you really want Jimmy Rollins in round 2 (effectively round 5)?  He's 33.  Here are his last two seasons:  .250/.296/.423 and .243/.320/.374.  Is he going to steal 47 bases again like in 2008?  He stole 48 in 2009-10 combined.  Is he going to score as many runs without Werth around?   I'd go deeper but I can't open Fangraphs at work anymore.  The point is this:  Yahoo's preseason top 100 ranks Rollins between Clayton Kershaw, Buster Posey, Jon Lester, and Zack Greinke.  Which of the five would you choose last?

1.  Chris J:  Felix Hernandez (SP).  For the record, this will be the second straight year King Felix will have been dropped into the draft pool and selected first.  It seems like an obvious choice, with the highest "value" of all remaining players, keeper potential (not keeping Kinsler forever), and the next value pick has too many injury concerns.

2.  Stew:  Adrian Beltre (3B).  This was a tough decision between Beltre and Bautista.  I'm going 3B here instead of Nelson Cruz (value pick) because Stew already has Holliday and Kemp in the outfield, and I learned last year that filling your OF quickly leaves you strategically capped in later rounds when there are valuable OF still remaining.  And I know I said 3B is a deep position, but I think Beltre's move to Texas, sandwiched between Hamilton and Cruz, can only help his offensive numbers.  This could be his career year.  I also think that there'll be plenty of good pitchers on the turnaround, whereas Bautista and Beltre will be gone well before Stew picks again.

3.  Kyle:  Nelson Cruz (OF).  Going value here, as there aren't many more guys in the draft pool who will slug something in the .575 range.  There are ample injury concerns here, but the upside + Texas + the stolen bases can't be passed up.

4.  Austin:  Andrew McCutchen (OF).  McCutchen is technically the value pick (a dollar above Bautista, two yahoo ranks above Uggla) but I think it's also the right call after recognizing that I probably don't want Dan Haren to be my keeper next year.  He's six years younger than Bautista, and is effectively the poor man's Carl Crawford.  Combined with Hanley, this also puts me in an extremely good position for stolen bases, without having to (yet) sacrifice an OF or middle-infield spot to someone who'll slug .350.

5.  Owen:  Dan Uggla (2B).  If I'm Owen I'm not necessarily thrilled about this pick, but it makes the most sense strategically.  I really want Adam Dunn here, who is worth more than his 5x5 rankings since we play OBP. But, position scarcity being what it is, Uggla + Konerko/Morales is probably better than Phillips + Dunn.

6.  Fabian:  Adam Dunn (1B).  I already have 3B locked up, so Bautista means nothing to me.  I also have two stud pitchers.  When reviewing the best remaining hitters for C/1B/OF, the choice is clear.

7.  Paul:  Zack Greinke (SP).  Paul also has a third baseman already, so the choice is between Werth ($17) or Greinke ($17), and knowing how this league operates, grabbing the pitcher.

8.  Shawn:  Jose Bautista (3B).  I'd consider myself lucky to see him drop this far.  He's also coincidentally the consensus value pick here, but I'd want to lock in the (potentially) elite power now.  He does have a certain one-year-wonder quality to him, given he has some track record of failure before 2010, but Fangraphs and other fantasy sources seem pretty sure that his power stems from a change in batting stance and swing.

9.  Ryan:  Victor Martinez (C).  Looking ahead through the next ten picks (five teams each way) only Mike and Chris T seem likely to take a pitcher, so I'm pretty sure I can exit round 2 with a good strikeout arm.  None of those teams has a catcher, however.  While I consider catcher relatively deep this year, if I don't take one here, I'm positive Martinez/McCann/Posey will be long gone when I'm up again in round 3, and I'm pretty sure those guys will put up counting stats the other catchers can't match.

10.  Chris T:  Josh Johnson (SP).  I have something of a soft spot for ace pitchers coming off arm injuries.  I also desperately want to avoid last year's draft situation of perpetually waiting on pitching until I was stuck with Lackey as my #2.  I'd also consider 2B and 3B rather mined out by this point, and I don't want to fill my OF just yet.  It's worth noting that ESPN feels JJ is a major injury concern, but Yahoo doesn't share those complaints, so there's a rather large gap between their respective valuations on the two sites.

11.  James:  Jayson Werth (OF).  Absent a more obvious choice, I went value here (by ESPN, they have a nicer cheat sheet), but I could justify going Posey or any number of pitchers here.  Only Mike ahead of me could possibly go pitcher, so I feel ok holding off (and I already have one stud SP).   Also worth noting that Yahoo disagrees with ESPN and they've buried Werth in the rankings.  Since we're an OBP league, I'm leaning with the higher estimation.

12.  Joe:  Buster Posey (C).  Not thrilled with this choice.  I'd have liked to go OF here, but the next tier of outfielders (Rios, Pence, Ethier, BJ Upton, Ellsbury) feel like unsure things, given injuries from last year, or valuations based on 1-year breakouts immediately after mediocrity.  Ichiro is up there on the value charts, but that's because of his BA, and we're an OBP league, so there's no reason Ichiro should be taken ahead of Brett Gardner.  The other positional options are Jeter (ugh), Michael Young (ugh), Brandon Phillips (ugh from experience), or another pitcher...and I don't need to go SP3 so early.

13.  Mike:  Andre Ethier (OF).  Too early for the remaining 1B.  Too early for McCann.  Don't like 2B offerings.  Tom's not taking pitchers so I can wait for next round.  Of the available outfielders in this tier, Ethier has the highest OBP and slugging potential.

14.  Tom:   Derek Jeter (SS).  Have to buy in now, otherwise I'll be closely following Starlin Castro at-bats throughout the season.  I'll also have to think about whether I want a Rios/Upton/Ellsbury to pair this pick, go catcher, reach for 1B (will Konerko last 26 picks?), settle for a 2B/3B (Young/Ramirez/Phillips?), or just say fuck the whole goddamn thing and take a third pitcher (Hanson, Carpenter, Weaver, Hamels, Price...).

The quality of my analysis certainly declined late in the round, after the easy picks, and also once I transitioned home from work and had to contend with Dora & Diego and spilled food and other assorted distractions.