Sample Draft Prep – Results

Earlier in the week, I went over how I set up a for a draft (Part 1 and Part 2). Last night I participated in the draft set up by Howard Bender and his Mock Draft Army.  The pre-draft work I normally go through may seem a little tedious, but after the dust settled, I look to start the season in good shape.

The draft was fairly standard 5×5 league with 23 rounds and 15 teams. The draft participants consisted of nine industry experts and six non-experts. I will give some thoughts on my draft results (full results), my final roster and the projected finish.

Round #1 Giancarlo Stanton
Round #2 Carlos Santana
Round #3 Max Scherzer
Round #4 Jose Reyes
Round #5 Greg Holland
Round #6 Brian McCann
Round #7 Masahiro Tanaka
Round #8 Javier Baez
Round #9 Russell Martin
Round #10 Eric Hosmer
Round #11 Chris Carter
Round #12 Steve Pearce
Round #13 Joaquin Benoit
Round #14 Coco Crisp
Round #15 Michael Fiers
Round #16 Erick Aybar
Round #17 Danny Salazar
Round #18 Torii Hunter
Round #19 John Lackey
Round #20 Logan Morrison
Round #21 Jake Peavy
Round #22 Dustin Ackley
Round #23 Wade Miley

Thoughts

• From my prep, the first three picks were no surprise.
• Getting Reyes was a bit of a surprise in the 4th. With MI shallow, I went ahead and took him once he fell to me.
• On top starting pitching, this is the second draft where the Japanese born pitchers fell quite a bit lower than they should have. I can understand Tanaka and the injury risk, but Ryu and Iwakuma are good choices also. Looking back, I wished I would have taken one of those two instead of Tanaka because they have less injury risk.
• I used the website’s ADP to set up picks which I think would fall. The drafters were savvier than the general public and I had to pick up players two rounds earlier on average. I still ended up with some nice bargains. I had Torii Hunter valued as a 8th round selection and he ended up going to me in the 18th round.
• After taking Stanton, I just waited of outfielders and it worked great.
• Also, I got my #3 and #5 rated relief pitchers by knowing to wait on Benoit

Here is how my final roster ended up looking like

C McCann, Brian (NYY) (C,U)
C Martin, Russell (TOR) (C,U)
1B Hosmer, Eric (KC) (1B,CI,U)
2B Baez, Javier (CHC) (2B,SS,MI,U)
SS Reyes, Jose (TOR) (SS,MI,U)
3B Santana, Carlos (CLE) (1B,3B,CI,U)
MI Aybar, Erick (LAA) (SS,MI,U)
CI Morrison, Logan (SEA) (1B,CI,U)
U Carter, Chris (HOU) (U)
OF Stanton, Giancarlo (MIA) (U,OF)
OF Crisp, Coco (OAK) (U,OF)
OF Hunter, Torii (MIN) (U,OF)
OF Ackley, Dustin (SEA) (U,OF)
OF Pearce, Steve (BAL) (1B,CI,U,OF)
P Scherzer, Max (WSH) (SP)
P Holland, Greg (KC) (RP)
P Tanaka, Masahiro (NYY) (SP)
P Benoit, Joaquin (SD) (RP)
P Fiers, Mike (MIL) (SP)
P Salazar, Danny (CLE) (SP)
P Lackey, John (STL) (SP)
P Peavy, Jake (SF) (SP)
P Miley, Wade (BOS) (SP)

Thoughts:

• I like having the dual AL catchers. They may DH and don’t give me a complete zero at a position.
• I hate the age of my pitcher staff.  I usually never like to take a pitcher over 30 and ended up with Peavy and Lackey. I need to add age to the draft sheet along with a risk factor to help remind me.
• My 1B/CI/Util are a little weak. I normally try to get Ortiz for one spot. Also, held out too long in trying to Brandon Moss.

As a whole, I like it for a 15-team league. Teams are going to have to take some holes with 15 teams involved. Thanks to FantasyPros.com, there is a tool to analyzes how leagues are projected to finish. Here are the projected results for this mock:

I’ll take it. Even though I didn’t like my pitching staff, I may have actually had a little overkill with it. Also, I would like to give a nice shout out to fellow RotoGraphs writer Dan Swartz (RotoBanter) for a projected 3rd place finish.

Not everyone will spend as much time as I do setting up for a draft. People only get to draft once a year and they might as do as well as they can in my opinion. A top rated draft is no guarantee for a winning season, but I have had bad drafts put me so far behind there is little chance of making up ground. Hopefully this quick series has been of some help and let me know if you have any questions.