For the last four years, I have run the 2 Early Mock Drafts with industry analysts. They were a way of getting the initial thoughts on where they would take players for the next season. This year I decided to compare those results versus the first ADP from Draft Champions drafts on NFBC. A few things to consider:

1. We run the 2 Early Mocks in Early September and they take about 2-3 weeks. So, some players late-season numbers and playoff numbers or late-season injuries or suspensions aren’t considered into those drafts (i.e. Keone Kela, Daniel Hudson, Domingo German, Jon Berti, etc.)
2. The 2 Early Mocks were 1-catcher formats. So, the catcher ADPs aren’t very useful. I will change that in the future.
3. If a player was auto-drafted in one of the 2 Early Mocks, that isn’t factored into the ADP. There were a couple of cases of players being auto-drafted in all six of the drafts, which means his ADP is not registered (i.e. Joey Votto.) These players and players not drafted at all in the 2 Early Mocks have been given an ADP of 544 for this table.
4. The player pool’s ranks for the 2 Early Mocks on the site drafted was put in order of 2019 preseason ranks. So, sometimes players get forgotten about and rookie players or 2019 breakouts can have their values depressed in the 2 Early Mocks as opposed to NFBC.

Here are the results for the top 450 players according to NFBC ADP: Read the rest of this entry »

For the second year in a row, I was asked to participate in the Pitcher List’s early mock draft. It’s not a 2 Early Mock , but just early enough. This year had a great group of participants in three drafts. You can find all the draft boards here:

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The past three years, our Justin Mason has organized too-early mock (#2EarlyMock) drafts ahead of the next fantasy baseball season. The 15-team snake drafts have taken place each September, which means I’m recounting this about two months too late. However, with some early offseason developments and the release of Steamer’s 2020 projections, the wait at least offers the benefits of both hindsight and foresight.

There’s no such thing as average draft position (ADP) data in September, so we rolled into these drafts blind to everything but our own recency biases. The dynamic is compelling, if frequently odd, and can be difficult, frustrating, but ultimately enthralling to endure. Ideally, my commentary here will not painfully boring and might provide insight into my “process” on a microcosmic level.

My draft was not without fault, but I do feel good about it. I’d like to think that means something, as someone highly critical of his drafts and rarely feels truly “good” about a roster I’ve compiled. I don’t play in many deep leagues, so 15-team drafts routinely jack me up. Somehow, I feel like not having ADP information actually benefited me; I feel like I scripted my draft more cogently than usual. But also, it’s fairly clear where I made suboptimal decisions. Overall, I don’t think it turned out half-bad, especially for a 15-teamer.

The results of my draft follow, and the minimum (“Min”) and maximum (“Max”) pick information comes from Smada’s ADP information compiled from all six #2EarlyMock drafts.

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Every year, as the season comes to a close, I put together a series of mock draft with industry analysts to start getting first thoughts on where people might end up in drafts for the next season. This year I ran six mocks during the month of September with interesting results. All drafts were 15-team leagues with one catcher standard formats. Read the rest of this entry »

As Justin’s six Too Early Mock drafts wind down, we have some excellent ADP data to look digest and it’s been brilliantly put together by the wonderful Smada. It will obviously morph over the next 6+ months with risers and fallers at every level.

Today I’m identifying 20 players going pick-200 or later that I like for next year and while some may ascend into the top 200, it’s unlikely that any will become cost prohibitive by draft season. The league setup was 15-team with the standard NFBC lineup except for just one catcher instead of two: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CI, MI, OFx5, UT, Px9.

Julio Urías, SP ARI | ADP 208 – High 171 – Low 272

The Dodgers will be using Urias as a starter next year and while his workload will no doubt be managed, I like him in this pick range. He will likely get somewhere around 120-140 innings which is enough to be a high impact arm. Look at what Chris Paddack was able to do with 135.7 innings. The Padres got him to the finish line and he’s been a Top 30 SP according to the Razzball Player Rater. Urias could definitely match or best the 3.38 ERA/1.00 WHIP with 144 Ks we’ve seen from Paddack this year.

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The NFBC kicked off their Memorial Day 2nd Chance leagues last night with three drafts completed and we now have some average draft position (ADP) data to digest. I have my 2CL (is that a cool abbreviation for “2nd Chance League”?) this Friday evening and I’ll be streaming it live on Twitch if you have any interest in watching it. I want to dive in on the biggest fallers here today with some caveats. Or at least one major caveat: my cutoff is the first 15 rounds.

I want to see who is still be taken with some expectation of performance while sustaining a major fall in their cost. The actual biggest droppers without limits are the obvious injury guys. The single biggest fall from the spring Rotowire Online Championship leagues (12-team format to stay consistent with the 2CLs) is Travis Shaw who has the double whammy of injury and severe underperformance. He’s gone from the 95th player chosen on average to the 362nd last night, a colossal 267-pick drop. Miguel Andujar (347th), Jameson Taillon (312th), Luis Severino (280th), and Nathan Eovaldi (390th) are also unsurprisingly amongst the nine players with a 200+ pick dip.

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For the fourth consecutive year, my friends at RotoBaller invited me to participate in the RotoBaller Friends and Family mock draft. The draft room was, in a word, terrifying:

1. Vlad Sedler, Guru Elite
2. Nick Mariano, RotoBaller
3. Pierre Camus, RotoBaller
4. Todd Zola, Mastersball
5. Tim Heaney, RotoWire
6. Heath Cummings, CBS Sports
7. Howard Bender, Fantasy Alarm
8. Nando Di Fino, The Athletic
9. Scott Engel, RotoExperts
10. Alex Chamberlain, RotoGraphs
11. Ray Flowers, Guru Elite
12. Real Talk Raph, RotoBaller

I drew the #10 pick (as shown in the draft order above), immediately understanding I might have a difficult decision to make very early in the draft.

This doesn’t need much preamble, but I do want to say one thing: I maintain that a good way to improve as a drafter (for lack of a better word) is to try something you might not ordinarily try or force yourself into an uncomfortable position you might not normally get into. I embraced this discomfort with my first two picks, assembling a base from building blocks I might not normally use given the options available to me. As you’ll see in my concluding remarks, I think I did pretty well.

Also: we were all on a 30-second clock. I don’t know about everyone else, but I was stressed. My internal monologue was utter chaos.

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Soon enough, we will be mocking liked we’ve never mocked before, practicing for our real drafts that are now a mere three months away. Like many in the industry, I embarked on my mock drafting almost immediately after the season. I was fortunate to have taken part in Justin Mason’s 2 Early Mocks, and since then I have participated in a mock draft for Lindy’s and the ongoing Pitcher List Experts slow mock (I have made 18 picks out of 23 as of this writing).

Already, it is becoming apparent that I have a few favorites who I am targeting. There are 10 players who I have picked in at least two of the three drafts, and five in particular strike me as good values if their early mock draft positions hold steady into the real drafts come March.
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11/16/18

The latest episode of “The Sleeper and the Bust” is brought to you by Out of the Park Baseball 19, the best baseball strategy game ever made – available NOW on PC, Mac, and Linux platforms! Go to ootpdevelopments.com to order now and save 10% with the code SLEEPER19!

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PitcherList Mock Draft (#PLExpertsMock) – (2:30)

• Draft Board

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Last week I wrote up the first 8 rounds of my NFBC draft from the Arizona Fall League and I did say rounds 9-23 would come on Wednesday… it is technically Wednesday so even though I clearly meant last Wednesday, let’s count it. It’s not like I didn’t write in the meantime, I did profiles on David Dahl (here), Harrison Bader (here), and Ronald Acuña Jr. (here), so feel free to check those out, too. At any rate, it’s time to finish up this draft recap so let’s roll!

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