If you’ve been following the site over the past few weeks, you’ll know that the RotoGraphs team got together and held a “ridiculously early mock draft.” Our fearless leader, Eno Sarris, published the results of the full 23 round draft each week (1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-23). This was the first time I had ever done a draft without the benefit of a fantasy rankings guide or a custom list of rankings, so it was a brand new experience for me. I’ve compiled some of my thoughts below, in hopes that they might create discussion among the commenters, or just bring about some debates.

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The ridiculously long Rotographs staff mock draft has finally concluded. As usual, the first mock of the season featured some interesting choices, some great values, and plenty of lessons. Here’s the last set of National League starting pitchers – the first two break downs can be found here: rounds 1-10 and rounds 11-15 – complete with a lot of players who will be on sleeper lists in the coming weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

Here are the first five rounds, here are another five rounds, here are the last five rounds, and now here are the final rounds of the draft. It took us six weeks, across the holidays, to do this draft. Slow drafts suck. Your RotoGraphs writers are dedicated men.

But the final rounds are my favorite. You’ll never find me groaning about them — the cost is so low here that you can finally take shots on random guys you like, and those guys are always the most fun.

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This week we finish our recounting and analysis of the RotoGraphs early mock draft. We now head toward the end game where owners are either just grabbing what’s left to fill an open positional slot or taking on starting pitcher gambles. This is my favorite point of drafts. I no longer have to worry about whether I should select a player immediately or if I can wait to grab him the following round. In these last set of rounds, I usually have a bunch of pitching spots left and have fun drafting a whole bunch of flyers I think have decent breakout potential. Let’s take a look now at which American League starting pitchers were taken, compared to where they went in last year’s RotoGraphs mock.

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Many times I hear one of the popular fantasy mantras (“always start your studs!”) I can’t help but roll my eyes. I’m just not a fan of trying to wedge advice into a one-size-fits-all framework. However, there is one overly-used cliché I actually follow. Believe it’s validity deep in my brain and deeper in the heart. “Never pay for saves on draft day.”

Of course, for those guys that love them some elite closers, the easy retort to this is “but… but… Mariano Rivera!” They’re right, I can’t deny Mariano Rivera has provided excellent return on investment for his drafters over the last decade or so. But that specific example doesn’t mean the closer position isn’t horrendously volatile and subject to the whims of finicky managers around the league.

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Edit: It should be noted that several players listed below were not drafted with the intention of making them primary third basemen. Mike Petriello grabbed both Headley and Trumbo, and I took Ryan Zimmerman early, then both Freese and Scutaro later on as my CI/MI players. Machado was picked up by Jeff Zimmerman, who already had Hanley who could play either SS or 3B. 

Even after the decline of two staples at third base in Kevin Youkilis and Alex Rodriguez, the position is stronger — not to mention deeper — than I would have imagined. After 15 rounds, there has been a total of 16 third base eligible players taken in The RotoGraphs Ridiculously Early Mock Draft. For the 2013 season, it appears as though the third base position will be offer a wide range of choices for fantasy managers. There are plenty of early round/big money picks as well as more than a few mid and late round options. Read the rest of this entry »

Through the first 10 rounds of the RotoGraphs Ridiculously Early Mock Draft, a draft for a single-catcher league, we saw a total of eight backstops come off the board. In an effort to see how our picks matched up with public opinion, we’ve been comparing the results to ADP found on both Mock Draft Central (MDC) and the National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC). However, given how unreliable MDC data is right now due to small sample sizes and the fact that they don’t differentiate between one and two-catcher league mocks, we’re basically casting that ADP data aside and just matching up with that from the NFBC, a two-catcher league draft. With the current depth at the position, it should have been safe to assume that the top backstops would go a bit earlier in our draft than in the NFBC, however, in looking back at the comparisons, that was not the case. In fact, save for everyone agreeing that Buster Posey was a consensus late-first round pick, nothing went as expected. Read the rest of this entry »

Last time around, I recapped all the National League starting pitchers that had been taken so far in our Rotographs staff mock draft. The biggest names, Clayton Kershaw, Stephen Strasburg, Zack Greinke, Gio Gonzalez, et c. are all unsurprisingly already off the board, but the names that come in this set and next week’s are perhaps a bit more interesting. At the very least, this is surely a more volatile group! Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, Eno Sarris posted another installment of the RotoGraphs Ridiculously Early Mock Draft — Rounds 11 through 15. You had the usual opportunity to comment on picks that you liked or didn’t like and while your silence with regard to my selections tells me that no one thought any of mine were either reaches or wasted picks, I would still like to do a little crowdsourcing here and find out where everyone stands on particular players and where they are going in drafts from now through the start of the 2013 season. Welcome to Bargain or Bust. Read the rest of this entry »

Today we take a look at the next five rounds of the early RotoGraphs mock draft. As usual, I have pulled out the American League starting pitchers selected in these rounds and compared their spots with where each was taken during last year’s mock. This is easily the largest group yet, are you as excited as I am? Let’s take a gander.

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