Every Team Draft

In this time of uncertainty, we have seen fantasy players do some unorthodox activities in order to scratch the itch of not having fantasy baseball in their lives. Whether it is KBO DFS, OOTP Baseball, Retro Drafts or MLB the Show, fantasy players are doing their best to fill time.

Last month I found myself in an unorthodox mock draft to help fill the time. The Great Tim McLeod put together a 15 team, 30-player mock draft with a huge twist, you had to draft a player from each MLB team. This meant you could not draft more than one player from each MLB team. There were some great industry analysts in the draft like Tim McLeod of Prospects 361, Rich Wilson of Prospects 361, Nathan Dokken of Fantrax, Eric Cross of Fantrax, Ray Kuhn of Friends with Fantasy Benefits, Gary Sonnenfeld of Friends with Fantasy Benefits, and Joel Henard of the Fantasy Insiders Show as well some astute non-industry players.

There were a lot of approaches one could take in this draft. Would you end up pushing up players on bad teams like the Giants and Orioles? Would you draft it straight? I decided to draft it straight for the most part. While I was worried about how bad the Royals or Mariners player I would end up might be, I also trust my knowledge of the player pool.

Drawing pick 10 was a pretty nice spot. I thought we might see some reaches in the first as teams grabbed guys on shallower MLB rosters and that could leave me with some value. While that didn’t happen, I like the idea of being somewhat in the middle, but not right in the middle of the order. My hope was that it would allow me to be able to wait on players on certain teams if I was able to notice that the majority of the back end of the draft had already drafted a player from that team.

Let’s look at the draft in three round increments:

I was very happy to grab DeGrom with my first pick. He is still my top pitcher in fantasy even with the proposed changes to MLB scheduling and the addition of the universal DH, though at the time of this draft, we did not have that information yet. I was very torn on my second pick. I love both Devers and Tatis, but I couldn’t pass on J.D. Martinez, who is quickly becoming one of my most drafted players this season. With my third pick, I faced a conundrum. I knew that I would likely not get another shot at Jonathan Villar or Adalberto Mondesi, but I love Meadows and while the Rays are deep, after their top few guys, a lot of them face playing time question marks.

With my fourth pick, I grabbed Yordan Alvarez. I am assuming he dropped because he is UT only in most leagues and because the Astros are loaded and people thought they’d use that team later. However, in the Couch Managers system which we were drafting on, he is OF eligible which definitely helps and I wasn’t as worried about using Houston this early. While I didn’t regret taking Alvarez, my queue got hit pretty hard in between my fourth and fifth picks. I was hoping Max Muncy would fall to me or I might be able to get Jorge Soler or Chris Paddack with my next pick. I ended up grabbing DJ LeMahieu with pick 70 largely because I felt that the positional flexibility would help me later on in filling positions. This feels like it was a reach, but I was still able to grab my second starter, who I was debating in the fifth, in the sixth round with Brandon Woodruff.

Here is where my strategy starts to come into play. I wanted one of Jesus Luzardo, Frankie Montas or Marcus Semien here in the seventh round. However, I also needed a bit of speed. Knowing that Todd couldn’t take another Athletic (having drafted Ramon Laureno in the fourth) and that teams couldn’t double tap on A’s players, I took the chance that one of the three would make it back to me and took Tim Anderson for the stolen bases. The gamble paid off well and I was able to grab Jesus Luzardo with my eighth pick. In the ninth round, I grabbed Lance Lynn, who I have gotten a lot of shares of this year. I was tempted to take a closer in Kenley Jansen or Hector Neris, but I thought I could take the chance that one would make it back to me or I could reach on Archie Bradley.

Once again, the gamble paid off. I was able to grab Kenley Jansen in the ninth round way below his ADP. The combination of people being afraid of what might be available for bad teams late in the draft along with teams having already been drafted allowed some players like Jansen to drop unnecessarily. In the 11th,  round I drafted Scott Kingery. I regretted the decision pretty instantly. Kingery is a nice glue guy, especially in this format because he was eligible in this format because he is eligible at 2B, SS, 3B, and OF, but I probably could have gotten him later.  In round 12, I jumped into another mini closer run and grabbed my boy Archie Bradley. I also noticed at this point, the entire back end of the draft had taken a Cardinal’s player. This meant I could wait

At this point, I am feeling pretty good about my pitching staff of DeGrom, Woodruff, Luzardo, Lynn, Jansen and Bradley. I also felt like my offense was pretty good outside of speed. However, I felt I still had good speed options. I grabbed my boy Garrett Hampson in Round 13. I also grabbed my first catcher in Tom Murphy and Mitch Keller, which solved the “what Mariner and Pirate would I draft now that Mallex Smith and Joe Musgrove are gone?” question. However, I regretted the Murphy pick. There are a few Mariners I like late and could have easily taken a different player there and still gotten a Shed Long, Yusei Kikuchi or Kyle Lewis later. The beauty of the Keller pick was that I had Kolten Wong ranked higher and a bigger area of need for my team, but because the entire back end of the draft had take a Cardinal’s player already I was able to snag Keller and wait on Wong for the 16th round. Here are the MLB teams that each participant had drafted through 15 rounds:

After grabbing Wong in the 16th, I was stoked to get another multi-positional speedster in Jon Berti. Now after grabbing Hampson, Wong and Berti, I don’t that light on speed anymore. Jonathan Schoop in the 18th was more defensive than offensive in this draft. There were not a ton of Tigers left I love and Schoop should play a fair amount in Detroit. However, I missed out on both Starlin Castro and MacKenzie Gore who I have gotten lots of shares of this year. Should have passed on Schoop and taken like a Christin Stewart later in the draft.

Entering Round 19, I started to really look at which teams had been drafted by most of the participants. I noticed that Cleveland players had been drafted by six of the nine of the participants in the front part of the draft. I chose to see if Domingo Santana would make it back to me and elected to Teoscar Hernandez instead. Santana would make it back to me in the 20th and since three of the five participants in the back part of the draft had not taken an Indian, I grabbed him. In the 21st Round, I grabbed my second catcher in Jason Castro. While I had first planned on punting catcher in this draft, I got both of my two catchers in decent spot way before I anticipated.

At this point in the draft I had Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago (Cubs), Cincinnati, Kansas City, Minnesota, San Diego, San Francisco, and Washington left to draft. I noticed a few teams of these teams had mostly been drafted by the other participants. Only two teams hadn’t drafted a Brave. Only two teams hadn’t drafted a Twin. Three teams hadn’t drafted a Padre. Over half the league hadn’t drafted a Giants. Welcome to the team Jeff Samardzija! By the time it got back to me, one of two remaining participants that still needed a Twin grabbed one. I made a decision that since there were multiple Twins, Nationals, and Padres left I liked, I would wait on them. On the other hand, the remaining talent in for the Orioles was pretty atrocious and while I could have taken a high upside prospect (like some participants were doing to skirt the rules in my opinion) I thought I would just wait on Ryan McKenna, who I think has a real shot to be on the MLB roster for the majority of the season. This meant I could focus on taking the highest rated Brave and Red on my roster in Austin Riley and Wade Miley.

In Round 25, I had to finally take a Royal. This is what everyone was trying to avoid when they were taking guys like Matt Boyd in the sixth round or Hunter Dozier in the seventh.  I closed my eyes and pinched my nose and took Danny Duffy. I wasn’t too disappointed in my 26th Round pick, David Bote. Bote should play a fair amount (especially with the DH coming to the NL) and he has multi-positional eligibility. At this point, only one team had a place for a Padre and no teams could draft a National or Twin, so I grabbed the aforementioned Ryan McKenna since a few teams still needed an Oriole.

With my pick in the 28th Round, I still needed a Padre, Twin, and National, but only one participant could draft a Padre at that point. So, I grabbed Emilio Pagan to finish out my pitching and set an auto-queue for Royce Lewis and Howie Kendrick.

 

Here is my final team:

You can see all teams here on this doc
How did I do? How would you have approached this draft differently?