RotoGraphs Mock Keeper Draft Rounds 1-3
Last night, the RotoGraphs crew got together and conducted our first mock draft of the season. The draft, held at Mock Draft Central, was a standard 5X5 keeper/dynasty league draft. Rosters requirements were as follows: C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, 5 OF, CI, MI, UTIL, 9 P, 5 BENCH. Throughout the week, we’ll have articles analyzing the draft. I’ll kick things off with my thoughts about the first couple of rounds.
Round 1
Best Pick: It’s tough to make a poor pick in the first round, but I will defend Paul’s pick of Troy Tulowitzki. Tulowitzki will likely produce as well as any other player taken around him, and he plays a premium position. With those considerations in mind, it’s tough to argue against Tulo as the first overall pick.
Riskiest Pick: Hanley Ramirez has a history of success in fantasy baseball — and plays a premium position — but he’s also coming off the worst performance of any player taken in the first round of this draft. If Hanley is able to produce like his old self, he’s a pretty good bet to outperform this draft slot.
My Pick: Although he was one of the older players selected in the first round, I was happy to get Jose Bautista with the sixth pick. He has eligibility at third base and in the outfield, so he also gives me some versatility with my lineup.
Round 2
Best Pick: With the last pick of the second round, Paul managed to grab Marlins’ slugger, Mike Stanton. Stanton is incredibly young — and still getting better — he’s a good bet to lead the league in home runs over the next decade.
Riskiest Pick: At the time of the draft, Ryan Braun’s status for next season was still undecided. Still, I kind of liked Braun in this slot. I typically try and stay away from pitchers early, so Justin Verlander was a bit of a reach for me. Especially considering Roy Halladay — who went later in the round — was just as good last season. In his defense — or not — Bradley Woodrum was not present at the draft for this selection, so Verlander was an auto-pick As many of you have pointed out, Roy Halladay was the auto-pick. Warne selected Justin Verlander with his second round pick.
My Pick: I like having Bautista and Jose Reyes as my first two picks, but I’m definitely worried about Reyes’ injury history. He plays a premium position, though, and it feels good to have third base and shortstop taken care of right off the bat.
Round 3
Best Pick: Although Eno already had an outfielder on his team, I liked his selection of Jay Bruce in the third. Bruce went after Carl Crawford, Josh Hamilton and Bryce Harper, and might be the best of that bunch.
Riskiest Pick: Mike Podhorzer is betting on a bounce back from Carl Crawford — and Erik Hahmann is taking a risk with Starlin Castro — but the riskiest pick in this round has to be Bryce Harper. We have no idea how soon Harper will make it to the big leagues, and that’s a big risk to take with your third round pick. At the same time, it’s a keeper league, and owning the best prospect in baseball for the next decade probably feels pretty good.
My Pick: Josh Hamilton is another injury risk, but I couldn’t pass up his upside in the third round. If he’s healthy, I think he has first round potential. With Hamilton and Reyes, I may be utilizing my DL slot quite a bit.
Those are my thoughts on the first three rounds of our mock draft. Who had the best start after three rounds?
Chris is a blogger for CBSSports.com. He has also contributed to Sports on Earth, the 2013 Hard Ball Times Baseball Annual, ESPN, FanGraphs and RotoGraphs. He tries to be funny on twitter @Chris_Cwik.
I like Wade’s three picks: Cano, Adrian, & Wright. All three are low risk, solid offensive guys. Not sure a pitcher in the first three rounds is necessary in a league with these settings.
How is Wright low risk? Do you remember last season?
I’m surprised Strasburg wasn’t picked yet seeing as this is a keeper. Would definitely take him over Harper in any draft.
I’m surprised Harper got picked over Trout… Trout is already in MLB and showing signs of producing immediately.
Bryce Harper in the 3rd round is straight up painful, especially with elite talents still on the board. What are the keeper requirements? If you get to keep him perpetually with no cost that could be a decent gamble, but I’d much rather have Lincecum than Harper for the next 3-5 yeas
Tried to make it a dynasty league, keep everyone.
i like noah isaacs’ trio of votto, kershaw and santana. pujols, kinsler and crawford is pretty good too.
You state that Bradley Woodrum wasn’t present, and that Verlander was an auto pick for him. But the list indicates Brandon Warne drafted Verlander?
Morse before Pence, Heyward, Bourn etc.?
Bourn…really?
I love this… I am in a keeper 3 league and my keepers are Tulo, Kemp, and Longoria. You can’t really get much better than this. I could keep Kershaw too but can’t fathom keeping him over any of those guys.
FUNNY STORY: Missed the first three rounds. Got the players I would’ve probably picked anyway. 🙂
(I went into the draft knowing I was thinking, thinking of Matt Kemp.)
*I was third
Though I would say no team is a clear winner, I thought Paul Swydan had the best 3 rounds. Mike Stanton is a dominant pick in the late 2nd round and Tulo is rock steady at 1A. Don’t really care for a pitcher in the first 3 rounds, but Felix is the first one I’d take (barely over Verlander/Kershaw).
With your indulgence, I’ll reprint a comment I made in a related Fangraphs piece:
Comments such as the following by Mike Podhorzer, beg for a retake:
“Oops. I messed up. Although I was aware that the FanGraphs mock draft on Sunday night used a keeper format, I missed the dynasty aspect. That’s what happens when you arrive just before your first round pick and can’t see the pre-draft banter. That makes quite a difference and would have dramatically changed my strategy.”
Then, we have Dan Wade in another Fangraphs piece, offering the following:
“This is the earliest mock I’ve ever done, typically I wait until at least Jan. 1 to start prepping, and it really showed, especially in the early/middle rounds. I just didn’t have a great list of players in my head, and wound up being somewhat beholden to the master list, which is never a great strategy. I ended up with a team I liked, but missed a lot of good values by about half a round.”
Chris Cwik writes above another expert’s auto-pick selections:
“Especially considering Roy Halladay — who went later in the round — was just as good last season. In his defense — or not — Bradley Woodrum was not present at the draft for this selection, so Verlander was an auto-pick As many of you have pointed out, Roy Halladay was the auto-pick. Warne selected Justin Verlander with his second round pick.”
And then this gem from Bradley Woodrum, in the comment section of this write-up:
“FUNNY STORY: Missed the first three rounds. Got the players I would’ve probably picked anyway. 🙂
(I went into the draft knowing I was thinking, thinking of Matt Kemp.)”
Also, MDC was not the appropriate forum for conducting a dynasty draft, as we’ve seen from Eno Sarris’ article:
“(Just remember that Brandon Wood is a placeholder for Nolan Arenado, Anthony Vasquez = Danny Hultzen, Hector Gomez = Jurickson Profar, and Anthony Slama = Trevor Bauer.)”
A lot of us value the opinion of “experts” that write on Fangraphs and as a matter of continued reliability and professionalism, we expect such experts to attend an expert draft with a certain level of preparedness.
A participant who drafts without knowing the league settings, another who relies on a failed cheat sheet and who promises he’ll only show his true drafting prowess after Jan. 1st, and yet another whose autodraft picks (critical picks from the first 3 rounds, to boot) are just brushed aside as if they were intended (even if he liked the auto-picks after the fact, that’s not the point).
Far too many things have gone wrong with this draft, which cause its results to be not only unreliable, but absolutely not worthy of all the self-basking articles by several of its participants who conveniently set aside all of the huge elephants they created in the room.
That MDC link or reference to your draft that all of you are using in your write-ups — it needs more asterisks than its page can handle. Please do the honorable thing and schedule a re-take.
If not, how about a 15-team draft for a one-year league, something that MDC should be able to handle. And with hopefully everyone on the same page, ready and on time.