Last week, I highlighted my 20 favorite mortal locks for 2020. Effectively, I compiled a list of 20 hitters and pitchers (primarily hitters) who have historically out-performed their current average draft position (ADP), such that, barring injury or unforeseen decline, they should do so again with ease.

Here, I will highlight one, and only one, player in each round (assuming a 12-team format) who (1) is not a mortal lock and (2) I found myself targeting frequently in drafts this year. Again, given draft season has mostly come and gone — and given that this season may never play out — I figure I could do this this one time. Granted, I still have two home leagues to draft, so it’s possible this could backfire. Oh well!

This doesn’t need a substantial prologue. Here are the first 15 of 30 players I have found myself strongly considering at their National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) average draft position (ADP) data from March 16 through April 9 (130 drafts).

Thirty of My Dudes (One for Every Round), Part 1

Round 1: Trevor Story, COL SS (ADP 10.15)

Only three players boast consecutive top-10 finishes, and the other two are named Mike Trout and Christian Yelich. Take a wild guess at who’s the third. Past performance does not guarantee future performance, but it is certainly a helpful indicator, and no one else in the first round provides as much of a sure thing as Story does.

(Although rumblings that an entire MLB season could take place in Arizona, as opposed to half in Denver, would change his outlook a little. Still, the base skills still warrant the early consideration, and any drafts happening today onward might present a buying opportunity should folks over-penalize Story, Nolan Arenado, Charlie Blackmon, and whomever else for the park factor adjustment.)

Round 2: J.D. Martinez, BOS OF (ADP 22.64)

Martinez is not the best pure hitter in the game behind Trout, but he may, in my opinion, be the best pure hitter when the bat meets the ball. That is, plate discipline outcomes aside, JDM is as good as they come.

He has four top-30 finishes the last five years, by the way, averaging 37 homers and a .305 average.

Round 3: Ozzie Albies, ATL 2B (ADP 32.22)

My least-favorite early round in 12-teamer drafts this year, I typically hope for someone with excess equity to fall to me. That said, in a vacuum, I like Albies a whole lot and have him as my #1 second baseman. It’s easy to forget he’s only entering his age-23 season and already has two top-40 finishes under his belt. That he might continue to improve on a solid foundation — which bears room for growth, by the way — suggests to me this pick, while being more of a high-floor play rather than a high-ceiling play, could veer more toward the latter this year.

Round 4: Adalberto Mondesi, KCR SS (ADP 39.73)

On a per-game basis, only four players were better than Mondesi last year. His speed is worth its weight in gold, and he’s not a Billy Hamilton-esque one-category bum, either. The power plays, and his speed and modest contact quality help the batting average play up enough that a full, healthy season would easily return first-round value.

The prospect of a shortened season presents an interesting quandary. Does fewer games mean less chance of getting injured? Yep. But would an injury consume an even greater share of the season? Almost certainly yep. I think from an expected value (EV) standpoint it comes out in the wash. It doesn’t change my attitude toward him; if I don’t pick up at least one five-category bat in the first three rounds, Mondesi is my guy.

Round 5: Charlie Morton, TBR SP (ADP 56.70)

Unlike Round 3, the fifth round is loaded.

Morton has been an ace on a per-inning basis and finally got that full season under his belt last year. He’s getting old, but he shows little sign of slowing down and, like Mondesi, could decimate his ADP if he stays healthy through a shortened season. Even with just 146 innings and change in 2017, Morton was a fringe top-100 guy. You can afford to take an injury hit here and still come out on top.

I love the idea of Yu Darvish (ADP 56.54) this year, but everyone else is bullish on him, too, sadly for me. He was a top-3 pitcher from mid-June onward last year. It’s legitimately plausible he’s a top-10 (or even top-5) arm at the end of the year. It’s also legitimately plausible he loses whatever magic touch he achieved last year when he rid himself of the yips.

Round 6: Giancarlo Stanton, NYY OF (ADP 72.30)

This feels cheap, but as the extended offseason wears on, allowing him more time to heal, there becomes less and less reason to keep fading Stanton. He doesn’t really fit the mold of this post, but, again, if I were to draft right now, I would tee him up for this round (or maybe one earlier) well in advance, even though I have owned virtually no shares of him the last half-decade.

Otherwise, Anthony Rizzo (ADP 65.08) and even Max Muncy (66.00) kept catching my eye around this time, as did Zack Greinke (62.02) when I went extremely hitting-heavy early on and missed on all the aces and second-tier arms.

Round 7: Gary Sánchez, NYY C (ADP 83.17)

This is where this list begins to overlap with my mortal locks. No Eugenio Suárez (ADP 75.24), Nelson Cruz (80.33), or Tommy Pham (83.72) allowed.

That leaves a couple of solid options. And while I love Jeff McNeil (80.84) — my love of him (and my prescient forecast of his power) is well-documented — and am intrigued by Ramon Laureano for the speed (80.96), I found myself eyeing Sánchez often. Dude swings it like a corner infielder or an outfielder, and I am firmly in the camp of “don’t enter your draft expecting to punt you catchers.” Especially this year, when they’re so heavily discounted. There’s no reason you shouldn’t leave a 2020 draft with at least one, if not two, moderately high-quality backstops.

Round 8: Mike Moustakas, CIN 2B/3B (ADP 90.79)

Lots of overlap with the mortal lock column here, too.

Moustakas narrowly missed the thresholds for being a mortal lock, only because this is the highest ADP of his career (his previous high was 135.35). That said, he boasts three consecutive top-100 finishes and four in his last five. We know what he is: a dude with huge power, good contact skills, but a fly ball tendency that turns into too many pop-ups, suppressing his batting average on balls in play (BABIP).

Take his skill set to the friendly confines of Great American Ball Park, though, and it’s hard not to dream about the possibility of a career year at an ADP that won’t break the bank. Plus, the multipositional eligibility is nice, too.

Round 9: Mitch Garver, MIN C (ADP 114.13)

This is another “round” in which you’ll likely find my reaching past everyone to make sure I get someone I want. That said, adhering to my catching advice: Garver’s 2019 performance is the kind that, to me, you can’t fake it. The peripherals and outcomes were both off the charts, and it’s wholly within reason he’s a J.T. Realmutoesque top-50 pick in 2021 (er, if we ever play the 2020 season, that is).

Round 10: Oscar Mercado, CLE OF (ADP 120.85)

There’s a nice pocket of value here. Early in the preseason, I convinced myself my gung-ho target here would be Lance Lynn (ADP 115.07). The way it shook out, though, I found myself needing speed by this juncture, having missed out on early five-tool guys and/or targeting aces and power.

Turns out I ended up with a lot of Mercado, who impressed me more than I expected him to in my deep dive on him this offseason. I always liked Mercado as a prospect, but at some point I became jaded with his ceiling. It’s not massive or anything, but his hit tool and speed make him one of 2020’s last bastions of stolen bases before things get dire.

Round 11: Ken Giles, TOR RP (ADP 123.85)

This is a real Jekyll and Hyde round for me. Madison Bumgarner, Julio Urías, Max Fried, and Eduardo Rodriguez consecutively? Yikes. (I like Urías a lot, by the way. This is an indictment of wanting to take any of those other three instead of Urías.)

Giles kept presenting himself as the first closer I felt comfortable taking without mortgaging other elements of my draft. When you reach that certain juncture of your draft where you really don’t like anyone available, and you know the guys you’d rather have will still be there in a round or two, it’s a great time to grab a closer or a catcher. Giles is that guy for me here. (Kirby Yates was that guy around this point last year; I hyped the hell out of him in my bold predictions linked above).

Round 12: Hyun-Jin Ryu, TOR SP (ADP 141.83)

I mean… Ryu has a 2.21 ERA over his last 265 innings and boasts a 2.98 ERA for his career (740+ innings). Talk of limiting him to 150 innings to keep him healthy and his inning high-quality scared some people off of Ryu, but given the best we’ll get this year is a shortened season, why the friggin’ heck are we not smashing Ryu at his ADP?

Round 13: Jorge Polanco, MIN SS (ADP 154.07)

This is another instance in which my mortal locks have gobbled up the available value here. Polanco is nice, having posted a top-75 season last year, and I found myself queueing him up frequently but never actually drafting him. Same with Robbie Ray (ADP 151.51) and Matthew Boyd (154.45), both of whom I tried desperately to pair up with Kyle Hendricks (154.99). Without Hendricks as a ratio-booster, Ray and Boyd feel significantly riskier. But, hey, check this out:

Hendricks + Ray the last four years: 3.50 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 25.9% K
(3.51 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 26.2% K the last three years)

… in other words, exactly what you want from your SP2/SP3 combination (honestly, more like an aggressive two-SP2 strategy) for the price of two SP4s.

Round 14: J.D. Davis, NYM 3B/OF (ADP 171.13)

In short: Davis looks like a budding juggernaut. His peripherals are off the chart, and the only thing holding him back is this nebulous (and perpetual) threat of the Mets not playing their best talent full-time. The cream rose to the top in the cases of Michael Conforto and Jeff McNeil; I eagerly anticipate the same will happen with Davis, too.

Round 15: Willie Calhoun, TEX OF (ADP 181.85)

A fractured jaw sent his ADP plummeting, but the threat of a shortened season has returned his ADP to its original level. Back where we started, Calhoun compares nearly perfectly to Moustakas (thanks to Scott White of CBS Sports, if I’m not mistaken) and also to Rhys Hoskins, both of whom are being drafted much earlier. Take the discount and cash in on the legitimate post-hype breakout.

(Glad to see Calhoun recapture his pre-2018 form, by the way. Scared me for a second, and also made me a little sad.)

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Rounds 16 through 30 tomorrow!