Archive for Mock Draft Army

After how poorly my first mock draft went, I was more than a little excited to get back out there and try again. Howard Bender is kind enough to keep me in his Mock Draft Army and we held the first MDA mock of the year yesterday evening, with the tweets and hashtags to prove it. I outlined my “bats first, other than catchers” plan (side note: I’ve been tinkering with an acronym for this, calling it the EBEC plan: Early Bats, Except Catchers) on Wednesday and lets see how well I stuck to the plan, as well as what my team looks like.

Rather than split it up into a detailed breakdown of infield, outfield and pitchers like last time, I’ll display the mock in a different format today by highlighting certain picks and let the comment section decide which version they prefer. The full draft board can be found here with my team below.

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I want to start from the top
Maybe like a do over

Just like the song Re-do from Modern Baseball — topical band name, I know — I’m looking to get a complete re-do after my first mock draft. My rocky-at-best crack at the early off season mock draft is outlined in three parts, the infield, outfield and pitchers but I went away from my normal “Bats first, pitchers second” mantra. At the risk of having Howard Bender poach my players away from me, something he is wont to do, I’ll be outlining my strategy for my mock draft as part of Bender’s Mock Draft Army.
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After displaying my less-than-stellar infield in yesterday’s post, today we’ll be highlighting my outfielders and utility hitter. Given that my first two picks both went to outfielders, I like the offense my green field roaming players bring much more than the infield.

OF — Carlos Gomez, 12th
With my first round pick I took a power and speed option in Gomez. While Steamer doesn’t believe in him maintaining a .284 average — something he has done for the past two seasons — it does project him to crack 20 home runs and nab 30 steals for the third consecutive season. As Steamer projects a .261 average, both his runs and RBI projection seems light to me as well. I’d take the over on his offensive stats, easily making Gomez worth a first round pick.
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With early ADP data somewhat unreliable this early in the spring, most of us have been leaning on the numbers coming in from recent NFBC drafts, both real and mock. However, the draft value of certain players and positions in those leagues is often skewed due to the inability to make trades and the ADP numbers aren’t necessarily a true reflection of how drafts go in the “everyman’s” world.

That is why I have created something called the Mock Draft Army.

For those who haven’t heard of it, you can click the link for details, but the sum up is this — with a need for better ADP numbers and early mock drafts lacking in full, reliable participation, I have put together a series of mock drafts made up of a rotating group of 20-30 fantasy writers who participate alongside their readers, Twitter followers and fantasy radio audience. Each draft has anywhere from 6-10 writers and not only do they provide us with some new-look ADP data, but the chat rooms offer a nice, open forum for player discussions, debates, and a chance for readers to ask some of their favorite writers for some personal insight on both players and draft strategy. Thursday night was the Mock Draft Army’s second draft of the season, a 12-team mixed league for a standard 5×5 roto league, and here’s how it went down… Read the rest of this entry »