Mike Podhorzer’s 2026 LABR Mixed Draft Recap

On Feb 23, the competitors of the LABR Mixed draft virtually congregated for our annual February 15-team draft. Drafts this early are challenging. On the one hand, the early timing benefits the prepared and the more highly skilled. On the other hand, there remains a great many unknowns that we need to make educated guesses on at best, and complete shots in the dark on at worst. Position battles either haven’t begun or just began and all the excitement about pitchers throwing new pitches and the velocity spikes they are experiencing typically aren’t even known yet, taking away actionable information we would normally use in our player evaluations. In addition, the longer time between the draft and opening day means more opportunity for injuries to decimate your roster before the season even begins!

Before sharing my team, I’ll quickly remind you of my “strategy”. I put that word in quotes because even after more than 20 years of playing fantasy baseball, I’m still not sure I understand what it means to have a draft or auction strategy. Isn’t everyone trying to maximize the value of their team? The only way to do that is to buy as many players at a discount to their projected value, at as large a discount to that projected value, as possible, while keeping categorical balance in mind (you probably shouldn’t buy 300 steals and only 150 home runs, even if you think you can easily make trades).

Of course, trying to maximize the projected value of your drafted roster wouldn’t be successful if everyone valued players exactly the same way (or used the same projections). However, the good news is that we are unlikely to all use the same projections, and even if we did, we still wouldn’t calculate the same values given the same projections. It’s rare that everyone agrees on the value of a particular player, so those disagreements will allow you to buy the players you project to earn more than your leaguemates do. Then you just need to be right and the championship is all yours!

So that’s how I approach snake drafts (and auctions too). Now let’s get to the results. I’ll present my roster two ways — in pick order and then by position.

Gee golly, this was a weirda$$ draft experience. This was absolutely not the team I expected to depart with and served as yet another reminder of why I much, much, much prefer auctions. Trying to figure out how long I can wait for a player I have valued well above ADP is a challenge I prefer not to partake in! It’s difficult to predict and it often means watching as another team scoops up the potentially undervalued player first that you had your eyes on. Furthermore, as usual, there were many rounds in the draft where I felt like it was too early to select any of the top five names on my rankings sheet, as all had ADPs of later rounds, so I had to make quick decisions that I wasn’t always happy with. Now that the background is out of the way, let’s get to what happened!

I drafted out of the 10 hole this year. I don’t think I’ve ever had a top three pick, which is unfortunate because the largest value gaps from pick to pick occur in the first round and then get smaller and smaller the deeper into the draft you get. I’m never sure what the most engaging format for these draft/auction reviews is, so I’ll go with a bullet point quick hits kind of review, loosely following the “By Pick” table.

• Julio Rodríguez was my seventh ranked player, so I was thrilled to nab him at number ten. I’ve never owned him, but it’s always nice to start your roster with a perennial 30/30 threat, particularly one who’s only 25 years old.
• Francisco Lindor, who recently underwent hamate bone surgery to relieve a stress reaction, at 21 overall?! This was the point where I was already ready to throw in the towel…in the second round. And this happened even despite the fact that for the first time ever, I added various notes next to player’s names, with his in red font, reading “Stress reaction hamate bone”! I saw the red, read the note, and still drafted him. This pick was a perfect example of what I described above — no other real alternatives that didn’t feel too early, so I settled on a guy who, if fully healthy, would clearly earn that value. Aside from the injury recovery risk, that’s two 2025 30/30 guys in a row!
• For my next pick, I had Brent Rooker valued 25th overall (yes, that surprised me too), and was happy to request that he join my squad as another 30+ home run bat. His HR/FB rate should almost certainly rebound this year as his HardHit%, maxEV, and Barrel% all match with much higher than a teen mark. And hey, the Athletics will continue playing their home games in the park that ranked second in baseball in right-handed park factor.
• Yeahhhhhh, so, what happens when you decide pitching doesn’t exist for three rounds is your ace ends up being a guy who has recorded 100+ innings just once since 2019. Jacob deGrom clearly wasn’t his vintage self last year, but still plenty good and a seeming steal at 51st overall. Obviously, he’ll only be a steal if he stays relatively healthy, but so far, so good!
• The deGrom pick must have triggered something in me, because I decided to go on a little bit of a pitcher run after that. I think at that time, the hitters weren’t standing out and with any semblance of quality pitching drying up real quick, I had to close my eyes and just take the plunge. Jesús Luzardo posted significantly better SIERA and xERA marks last year, so if he could maintain his underlying skills, he could deliver some nice profit. For some reason, this league loves, nay, LOVES, closers. They consistently get drafted wayyyyyy before my ranking, which means I usually get left with the scraps, unless I totally overdraft someone myself to compete. And, that’s precisely what I did, because there’s little chance Raisel Iglesias actually earns 81st player overall value (I had him ranked 179th, LOL). But hey, he was one of the last remaining locked-in closers, so I managed to escape with some saves after all.
• I was quite shocked that Eugenio Suárez was left for the taking in the eighth round. He was also a slight overdraft to my own values, but I just assumed after a 49-homer season, he’d find a home on someone else’s team. While we all expect regression, don’t forget, he returns to Cinci and a home park that has ranked second in the last three years in right-handed home run park factor. That should really help stave off some natural regression.
• Ehhh, I need a second baseman and it’s fun owning young guys with upside, so I said hello to Luke Keaschall, who’s projected for double digit home runs and 20+ steals. The strong strikeout rate should guarantee he’s a neutral in batting average, at the very least.
• I don’t think I realized how gung-ho I went for power/speed combo meals. My next two picks were Brenton Doyle and Dylan Crews, both of whom should contribute across the board…well, except perhaps batting average. After a fantasy breakout in 2024, Doyle crashed last year, but his Statcast power metrics actually improved, while his BABIP dipped. His defense will keep him in the lineup, which means he’s a prime target at a discount. Crews was awful last year as well in half a season thanks to injury, but still paced for 20+ home runs and 30+ steals over a full season. Oh, and he’s only 24 years old and was formerly ranked as our third best prospect in baseball.
• Did I have enough power/speed mix packs? Obviously not, as I then grabbed Matt McLain, who was disappointing last year as well, in a Doyle-like way. Power, speed, still young, great home park. Yup, I’m buying.
• Yup, Shota Imanaga as my number three starter…weeeeee. What excited me here was I had read that he was apparently throwing harder, and sure enough, his velocity in his first start was significantly higher. We obviously need a more meaningful sample than just a pair of innings to learn if that increased velocity has any chance of sticking into the regular season, but I’m intrigued. Perhaps a velocity surge could bring back his 2024 strikeout rate.
• There were a number of catchers I was hoping to catch just before ADP, but alas, I missed out. Instead, I settled on Samuel Basallo, who I also love, but he was supposed to be my second catcher, not first. He’s going to be platooned, but still, he’s a catcher-eligible DH which should help his counting stats and keep him healthier.
• Yikes, I waited far too long to capture my first baseman, but it shouldn’t surprise anyone that his name is Sal Stewart. Heck, he’s the featured image on my first base rankings! I hate that once again the Reds have a logjam of hitters, but am hoping the skills win out here and the Reds make the right decision by giving Stewart regular PAs…in Cincinnati, not the minor leagues.
• Mike Trout at 231?!?! How the mighty have fallen. That was well past his ADP, so not sure how he slipped by the other teams. Obviously, his performance has declined, his strikeout rate spiked, he stopped running in 2019, and he’s only recorded 500 PAs once since that same year. But man, it’s MIKE FREAKIN’ TROUT! I couldn’t pass him up at this point, especially considering he’s healthy at the moment!
• I really like Caleb Durbin in Fenway Park. His biggest weakness last year was BABIP, and now he’ll get to play his home games in the second best park for right-handed singles in baseball. Perfect landing spot with potential production matching Luke Keaschall who I selected more than 100 picks earlier.
• So, if you’ve been following my teams for a while, you know that my valuation system seems to value one-dimensional speedsters higher than others. Perhaps a lot higher. So this season, I vowed to stay away from Chandler Simpson, Juan Pierre, Luis Castillo (the hitter), etc. Sadly, I ended up at a crossroad, because somehow, some way, Chandler Simpson was still laying around unrostered in round 18. This is a guy whose ADP was 172, so it wasn’t just me valuing him too high. Perhaps his hamstring issue scared everyone away, but at that price, I simply couldn’t pass him up. I actually filled a bench slot before the rest of my active pitcher spots just to fit him in because I thought the potential value was far greater than the risk that I miss out on some pitcher I wanted this late. My team certainly didn’t need the steals, but I was attempting to maximize the value of my team and I’ll worry about trading excess later.
• Finally, after pivoting to a bench bat, I returned to filling out my pitching staff by taking five in a row. Unfortunately, those five in a row were drafted as active pitchers to fill out my staff. That ain’t great! Grayson Rodriguez is quite the risk, but obviously has big upside given his former top prospect status. Cody Ponce, well, I’d prefer to keep him a secret. He was one of my favorite picks of the draft. Here’s to Kodai Senga bouncing back from that brutal second half. Roki Sasaki?! I thought enduring his poor performance in my local league last year was punishment enough. I have no idea what to expect here, I just went for a guy who at least could potentially, possibly, maybe be good. The alternatives were 20% strikeout blah. Jared Jones might return from elbow surgery in late May, possibly giving me four months of production. Whether it’s good production or bad, we’ll find out.
• You may have noticed that I failed to pair Raisel Iglesias with another closer. Yeah, I already overpaid for one, wasn’t going to overpay for another! So I speculated with my bench picks in Kevin Ginkel and Edwin Uceta, whose draft stock plunged due to shoulder inflammation.
• My third to last and last pick were more pitcher dart throws. I like Payton Tolle’s skills, but it might be a while before he gets a chance in the rotation. And is this finally the year that Dustin May stays healthy and breaks out?! Who knows, but again, with that pick, I just wanted any name with any semblance of upside.
• Finally, I did a rare thing, for me at least — waited until round 28 for my second catcher. He visited Driveline Baseball over the offseason so hope that he outperforms his cost.

So that’s it folks. I was so afraid to look at the draft evaluator because I completed the draft in a frustrated mood and figured the team was underwhelming. Turns out, it projected the offense to be the best in the league! Naturally, the pitching stinks, but that’s to be expected. From a projections standpoint, of course it won’t look good, because I’m speculating on breakouts and projections don’t typically forecast such things.

Anyway, I’m just crossing my fingers that my roster stays healthy until opening day. There have already been a couple of scares, and there will likely be more. Then I’ll need Chandler Simpson to prove his health, win a starting job, and earn the leadoff spot so I can pawn him off and fill a weakness. Easy peasy.