It’s the early offseason. Very few free agents have signed, and no trades have been completed. The GMs are in Milwaukee without internet and with wintry mix. The winter meetings are still a week or two away. Perfect time for a mock draft, or at least so thought Derek Van Riper at RotoWire. So he got us all together for a 15-team 30-round NFBC-style colossus of a mock draft last week — here are the results for your own perusal.

There are a million ways to break down a draft, so if you want more on this, let me know. to keep it simple at first, let’s just highlight some picks that seemed like the steals and reaches of the draft.

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Hot off the presses, White Sox GM Kenny Williams has announced that Chris Sale, who has not started a game since college, will be in their starting rotation next season. So what might we expect from the lanky (I believe this word was invented with Sale in mind) southpaw?

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Their 30-something middle infielder of choice snatched out from underneath them, the Dodgers signed Mark Ellis to a two-year deal worth just under $9 million with a club option for a third year. The deal slots Ellis, who will turn 35 next season, between Aaron Hill — whose two-year deal is rumored to be worth 10-11 million, and who will turn 30 before next season — and Jamey Carroll, the soon to be 38-year-old that played 146 games for the Dodgers last season and who signed his own two year deal worth about $7 million. If the trend holds, there’s a 28-year-old second baseman looking to sign for about $13 million over the course of two seasons.

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The word “strange” doesn’t quite cut it when speaking of the off-season the Arizona Diamondbacks have had. When you’ve cornered the market on scrappy infielders (John McDonald, Willie Bloomquist and Aaron Hill) with a combined lifetime on base percentage (OBP) below .320 you’re practically begging for cyber ridicule. The signings of McDonald and Bloomquist should be inconsequential, as they shouldn’t see major playing time barring injury. However, Hill is slotted as the starting second basemen and that’s where things get interesting.

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Yesterday, the Bill James’s Projections were added to all the player pages here at Fangraphs. Bill James’s numbers seem to be on the optimistic side and are probably not regressed as much as other projection systems. It is all we have to work with for now though. With the projection numbers, I ranked the players according to their value among other 2B using Zach Sander’s formula for finding fantasy above replacement values.

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I tend to get rather obsessed about starting pitchers, strikeouts, and predictability – three things that go together like Tracy Morgan, funny stuff, and sanity. What keeps me up at night, and what I find particularly unnerving are sizable, unexplained variations from year to year. Why did Jhoulys Chacin go from 9.04 strikeouts per nine innings pitched in 2010 to 6.96 in 2011? Why did Ricky Nolasco go from 8.39 K/9 to 6.47? Jered Weaver from 9.35 to 7.56? When obvious indicators of age or injury aren’t there, the resulting chaos has me reaching for torches and pitchforks.

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Tier 1
Dustin Pedroia
Ian Kinsler
Robinson Cano

Tier 2
Michael Young
Brandon Phillips
Rickie Weeks
Chase Utley

Tier 3 (Part 1)
Michael Cuddyer
Ben Zobrist
Dan Uggla

Tier 3 (Part 2)
Howie Kendrick
Kelly Johnson

Non Keepers
Neil Walker
Dustin Ackley
Jason Kipnis
Danny Espinosa (link)

Brian Roberts – Brian has probably the highest up and downside of any 2B going into the 2012 season. He missed most of 2011 with a concussion. If he is able to play full time and at full strength, he could put up 10+ HR and 25 SB. Also, he could barely play at all in 2012 (see Justin Morneau). There is no way he can be counted on for any production in 2012, so he should not be kept. I love him as a buy low candidate on draft/auction day though.

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With Matt Kemp’s $160 million extension in the news today, it’s time to take a closer look at what his 2012 will look like. After all, the near 40/40 man went sixth overall in last week’s RotoWire industry mock draft (which I will write up on Wednesday), so it’s highly relevant in more ways than one.

Thankfully, we roto-heads don’t have to worry about his defense. Or at least, most of us don’t. Some of us play in leagues with separated outfield positions, so his defense will be relevant. But, considering his value is highest to the team if he can remain a center fielder, let’s assume that he will be CF-eligible for the next three years or so.

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Inspired by Chris Cwik’s work this morning discussing some of the biggest busts of this past season, I will take a look at a couple more players mentioned in the first comment of that article. Assuming you did not own any of these busts and endured the heartache they gave their owners, a disappointing season is a welcome phenomenon that drives down the player’s cost in next season’s drafts. Of course, the question then becomes whether the player will rebound, which is precisely what we’ll try to figure out. We will assume the stud in question is owned by another team in a keeper league and you have the opportunity to make an offer for said player.

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While you never want to be cast aside by the only team you’ve ever called home for your entire professional career, the Pirates refusal to pick up Ryan Doumit’s $7.25M option may have been the best thing that could have happened to him as a baseball player.  It may have been nice to continue playing for a team whose amazing turnaround in 2011 caught the eyes of MLB and its fans, but in an effort to extend his playing career, Doumit needed to move on.  His time in Pittsburgh has run its course.  He needs to go somewhere that can showcase that offensive potential that has had us champing at the bit since he first showed up in 2005.  He needs to go somewhere where his defense behind the plate won’t be such a liability.  He needs to go to the American League.

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