Mock with a Purpose

That headline is not the slogan for Twitter, but it could be!

I got home from softball last night and really wanted to draft a baseball team. I wasn’t sure if anyone else was feeling the same, but figured I’d see if Twitter could fill up a mock draft over at CouchManagers and I was surprised when it filled in minutes. I was just doing their default setup which I didn’t realize was a non-standard roster construction of 18 rounds: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, OF, OF, UT, P, P, P, P, P, and Bench x4. To be honest I was a little bummed by that because I don’t play in any leagues with that format making it tough to draw much from the exercise.

So I decided to set up a second draft to run concurrently that ran a standard 23 rounds with the usual C, C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CI, MI, OF, OF, OF, OF, OF, UT, P x9. I figured the first draft would be just a feeling out of where players are going very generally while the other draft would offer a better idea of team construction and give a bit more info about the market. By the way, I’ll be doing more evening (and even some midday) mocks over at CouchManagers during the winter so stay tuned on Twitter for info.

I also decided to do something a little different with this particular mock draft (and probably will do more of it in the future). I made a “players of interest” list that included some who I’d consider desirable targets, others who I believe are on the rise, and then just a couple “buzzy” players to get the list to 15. I took that list and made sure not to draft them.

I already know what I think of them and where I’d draft them so I wanted to see how the market at large is treating them. It’s only data point so it doesn’t tell me everything. After all, it’s just how these 11 folks happen to value the player in this specific draft setup (12-teams, btw… didn’t mention that earlier). We could run it back with the same 12 of us and get different outputs. But to me it is markedly more useful than just rostering them myself at a draft position I’m happy with already.

Since I only have ADP data for the NFBC right now, I’m using that while acknowledging it’s not a perfect translation for leagues that aren’t using the same setup (namely, 15 teams). The draft market is still very much in the feeling out stages and as I mentioned I’ll be doing more of these so we’ll soon have multiple drafts with this same setup to compare.

As you can see, I tried to have a mix of guys who are going throughout the draft. I didn’t want to just eliminate the sleeper-types or big risers only in the top-100. This group ranged from just outside the first round to six picks from the very end of the draft.

I had the ninth pick overall (I took Correa, btw) and that left with the 16th in the second round so I never really had a shot at Betts because I’m not ready to take him in the top 10. I do think he’s a first rounder on the elbow of 15-team leagues (even pick 13-14 if you’re worried he won’t get to 17-18). He did go higher than ADP, but it was a negligible jump.

He’s rarely even going to make it to pick 20 (his max pick is 21 so far) so if you have an early first round pick in 12-15 team leagues, you can basically cross him off your list. In a 10 league, you can pray he makes it back. Or maybe bribe your fellow leaguemates to leave him for you at 20 so you can pair him with Trout. That’s both collusion and likely a negative EV play, though, so maybe just pray really hard or find a backup plan.

Votto beating his ADP by about a round usually only happens when I do draft him. Of course the guy who took him is one of my best friends and we regularly discuss Votto’s greatness. That team started Trout, Votto, Posey… wow. Votto is acknowledged as being an OBP stud, but sometimes it’s discussed like an Adam Dunn thing where he almost needs the OBP format to excel. Votto has a .311 career batting average and has one full season under .300 (hit .297 in his rookie year of 2008). Standard 5×5 isn’t his best format, but he’s still a stud in it.

Lindor and Bogaerts are two big helium guys this winter and this draft followed that trend. I’ve seen them consistently going ahead of their ADP and I think they’ll both firmly be in the top-50 by March. It was really easy for me to lay off these two in this draft once I locked up Correa in the first round, but I was ready to explore the middle tiers of the position had he not fallen to pick #9 for me. In case you’ve missed it, I’m really keen on Bogaerts so soaring ADP isn’t a surprise.

Carrasco, Cain, and Rendon were all within normal ranges of their ADP with the first two going a little later while Rendon jumped up a smidge. It looks like the market isn’t afraid of Rendon even after an injury wash out in 2015. He played half the season, but it was really disjointed: didn’t debut until June, went back out with injury on June 24th costing him another month, and then played 62 games from late-July on with a sporadic day off here and there. I agree with buying back in, but the discount I was hoping for doesn’t look like it’ll be there at all.

Odor is another helium candidate. He’s another guy going well ahead of his ADP. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen him outside the top-100 yet. He went 95th in the NFBC draft I did in Arizona, he went 82nd in a 15-team NFBC-style mock, and now 80th here. Odor had a dreadful start to last year, but looked fantastic after returning from his demotion to Triple-A: .292/.334/.527 with 15 HR, 52 RBI, 46 R, and 5 SB in 367 PA.

He’s not going to do that for a full year, not yet at least, but that run shows why expectations were so high coming into the season. He’s been a terrible base-stealer as a big leaguer so far (10-for-24), but he was about break-even as a minor leaguer (70-for-98) including a 32-SB campaign in 2013. I think that’s where he can add value to his profile, something like a .278-77-18-69-14 line.

Samardzija and Iglesias were high on my list of leave-alones. I tabbed them both as wide-awake sleepers and while Samardzija played out that way jumping his ADP significantly, Iglesias very surprisingly went sharply the other way. Aberration or did I overstate the love for him out there? Honestly, I think it’s the former. I’d love to be wrong and see his ADP sink, but I just can’t envision that happening.

Pederson has bounced around some in my early drafts, but his general movement is on the rise. He went 229th in early-November, 245th in a 15-team mock, 185th in a 12-team mock, and then 144th last night. If we’d have been doing 2016 mocks in late-June, Pederson would’ve easily been a top-50 pick, even with a batting average deficiency. Through the first three months last year, he had 20 HR in 324 PA.

His .244/.384/.527 was reminiscent of the aforementioned Dunn, but he was doing it as a rookie centerfielder. The low AVG might’ve been a warning, but nothing could’ve prepared us for that second half: .170/.300/.284 with just 6 HR in 261 PA. Here’s the thing, if his two halves would’ve been reversed, he’d be going at least 25 picks higher. It was an odd season, but the bottom line was still positive.

Pillar was the source of some embarrassment for me in that November draft I keep mentioning. Listen to that story on our podcast live from Arizona. But it might’ve been a blessing in disguise because as a result I’ve looked further into his profile and now find him to be a viable target, especially at his current price point. I even recently wrote about him over at Rotowire. I wasn’t too surprised to see him last in this draft. I’m not sure his stock will ever get too high… except for the draft from which that story originates. That was still too high for me.

I feel like Rodon and Gausman could be risers as the winter progresses, but that didn’t play out in this draft. I’m still high on both for 2016. Schoop’s jump didn’t surprise me and he too could more as we get further into draft season. He’s another favorite of mine for sure.

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