Industry Mocking Gold

Last night, my friends over at RotoBaller hosted a 12-team industry draft. Nine major fantasy providers were represented including me, Paul Sporer, and Alex Chamberlain for RotoGraphs. Justin Mason provided the assist for Sporer who was also drafting his #BeatSporer league.

While we talked a big game about preferring auction drafts, we did a snake because they take half the time. And the league isn’t even real. As somebody said, it’s a fake fake baseball league. We picked 23 players – 2 C, MI, CI, 5 OF, and all the normal stuff. No bench. We didn’t use RTS so no pretty auto-generated table. Here is the team I drafted, and you should be able to view our league.

I’m really quite pleased with how this roster turned out. I’m again struck by the sheer quantity of top pitching depth. If you don’t have a stout top of the rotation like my Sale-Felix-Thor trio, then you’re apt to have a tough season ahead of you. Now is not the time to polish up your LIMA chops.

On the same day I subtly warned you to proceed carefully with Sano, I took him in the fourth round. I also considered Jason Heyward, Yasiel Puig, and a host of pitchers with that pick. The pitchers were at the top of my board, but I had something like eight of them within $1 of each other. I was up again in five picks so I went with a position player first. I opted for Sano to fill the thin third base spot.

Along with Sano, my roster of Harper, Springer, Thor, Odor, Suarez, Pillar, and Walker includes a lot of young, high variance picks. These guys could all produce a monster season, or they might disappoint. I tried to diversify with picks like Hernandez, Zobrist, and Gordon. These are guys who should be a little more reliable when healthy. Injury risks Ramirez and Gardner provide a different type of variance.

After the first few rounds, I paid especial attention to drafting steals. I could have had Anthony Rendon where I selected Odor, but I trust Odor’s legs more. While I didn’t pick any pure burners – they went too early in my opinion – I got good value on Gardner, Pillar, and Harrison later in the draft.

Previous mock drafts have taught me that the relief pool tends to stick around a long time in these industry leagues. I can’t speak to more casual leagues where reliever run panic may be more common. Here, I built an imposing four man save squad without using any premium picks. Granted, all four teams involved may not finish above .500, but I should still get plenty of saves and K/9. Several closers were not even selected like Brad Ziegler, Steve Cishek, J.J. Hoover, and David Hernandez. Not that I would have picked them.

I often fluff off the catching position, but I actually addressed it in this league. Somehow, I failed to notice Travis d’Arnaud on the board when I picked Grandal. I’m happy with either guy in the 11th round. They’re both risky in their own ways – mostly injury related. d’Arnaud should go first even though I have them as comparable in expected value.

This was a well-executed draft for me. If there’s anything to learn, it’s the value of participating in quality mocks. My past mocking had me well prepared for this league. The only thing I didn’t do was build starting pitching depth. That’s by design, it’s something I would have managed in-season had it been an option.

A few takeaways:

• The top end of the starting pitching pool is deep. Don’t sit it out.
• A catcher around the 10th and 20th rounds should see you through a two catcher draft.
• Elite closers are cool, but very good closers may still be a much better value.

And a few points of interest:

• Aroldis Chapman, pick #136
• Jose Reyes, pick #160
• Andrew Miller, pick #152
• Yu Darvish, pick #151