The Mock Draft Army took the night off last week so that the staff at Fantasy Alarm could have their mock draft. The draft was a snake draft, 12 teams, roto 5x5 format and 23 player rosters with two catchers and a 5 player bench. The participants in draft order were Greg Jewett, Ryan Hallam, Jen Piancenti’s Banana B@$her$, Colby Conway, Adam Ronis, myself, Justin Vreeland, Jon Impemba, Matt Selz, Ivar Anderson, Howard Bender, and Michael Stein.
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In draft order I cover each person’s draft with some of their thoughts and some of my own.
Greg Jewett started off the draft and only found out he had the first pick two minutes before it started. Here are his thoughts on the first pick this year: “choosing between Ronald Acuna Jr. and Christian Yelich feels weird, but with the scarcity of stolen bases in the fantasy landscape, it's pushing Mike Trout to third in many formats.” Greg took Acuna who has become the consensus first pick over the last month. Here are his thoughts on picking at the wheel which as he describes, requires a little different strategy: “Working the wheel can be fun, but it also forces different construction of a roster. It means missing out on the top tier of pitching unless taking one of them first overall. With this in mind, my early focus centered on players who will contribute across all five categories allowing for flexibility in the middle-to-late rounds. Reaching a bit to make this happen, paired Acuna Jr. with Starling Marte and Ozzie Albies in the first three rounds” Drafting carefully due to position scarcity is another yearly dilemma and Greg touches on this regarding first and third base. “ Not wishing to fall too far in the first and third base tiers, took Justin Turner along with Josh Bell over their ADP's to avoid reaching for a flawed hitter with average issues.”
Ryan Hallam had the second pick and immediately pounced on Mike Trout . “With the second pick I knew I was going to get a total stud and a guy who can give me some speed and power. Trout might not be stealing as much lately, but the guy is capable of swiping 30 bags.” With Trout as a base, Ryan went on to pick three pitchers in the first seven rounds. “I feel good about the pitching staff as well with a bounceback season coming from Aaron Nola , a young flamethrower in Shane Bieber , and another 200 strikeout arm in Lucas Giolito .“ Ryan has a well balanced team but looks like he’ll have to work the waiver wire for saves as the Nationals have announced that they’ll probably go to a committee approach so Doolittle may not be in for the saves that Ryan was counting on.
Next up was Jen Piacenti. Jen was one of the few who waited on taking pitching early in the draft. She lined up Yelich, Freeman and JD Martinez for a solid base of power and average. Her first pitcher was Chris Sale , taken in the 4th round, but this could backfire if Sale’s injury concerns continue into 2020. Here are her thoughts about how she proceeded after the Sale pick. “I took my starting pitcher, Chris Sale , in the 4th round then continued to pick up more batting stats in the 5th. When the 6th came around and Hader was still there, I decided it was time to lock down a big reliever. When the 9th came around and Chapman was still there, I decided the strategy had to be to lock down the saves category and pick up late round value in the remaining starting pitchers rather than try to guess with a bunch of 9th round starters. I picked two relievers with good job security and elite K and ERA and then made up the rest in later rounds.” Jen’s team may be a bit short in starting pitching and this may keep it from contending, but she did steal Ryan Pressly from Bender who wanted him to handcuff his Roberto Osuna pick.
Colby Conway had the 4th pick and started off with Cody Bellinger . Bellinger with his dual position eligibility is a solid choice here but we have seen deGrom, Betts and Cole all get taken with this selection. Colby was the last one to take his first pitcher, which was Chris Paddack in the 5th round. It allowed Colby to start the draft off with a strong offensive base. “Starting Bellinger, Judge, Harper and Machado was pretty ideal for me. It gave my team a good offensive starting point” The power is there and Bellinger and Harper will provide some steals, but Colby knew he needed more. “I knew I needed to get some stolen bases. I was able to do that and then some with Bo Bichette , Mallex Smith and Byron Buxton .” His pitching staff is young and there is some concern with Tyler Glasnow ’s injury and surgery over the off-season but the Rays are claiming he’s healthy. He added solid closers in Jansen and Rogers and hopes Tony Watson and Ryne Stanek can add some saves as well. With bounce back candidates Matt Carpenter and Gregory Polanco , this team could be in the mix if they outperform their draft slots.
In the 5 hole was Adam Ronis and he talks about his overall strategy in this mock. “I didn't have a specific strategy going in. I always go for balance in roto and go with what the room gives me. I am used to doing 15-team leagues and it's way different in 12 teams. There's much more talent available.” He makes a good point here. In roto style scoring, a balanced approach is very important as it’s harder to punt a category than in a head to head format. His thoughts on his third pick provides us with another point that is worth mentioning. Always be prepared to pivot off your strategy if the room doesn’t give you value. “I did go a bit different from normal by taking two pitchers in the first three rounds. I wanted Bryce Harper in round 3 but he went one pick before me so I went with Blake Snell since I didn't see a bat that stood out.”
The biggest issue with Adam in this spot was he picked right before I did and in the odd numbered rounds continued to snipe me round after round. His favorite pick was one of them. “My best pick was Kyle Schwarber in round 13. I don't think many realize how good he was last season. He hit 38 home runs, but made big strides in the second half. He batted .280 in the second half as the strikeout rate went from 28.3 percent in the first half to 21.8 percent in the second half. He was near the top in hard hit rate and exit velocity and improved against lefties.”
Hopefully I returned the favor a few times. Adam’s team may be a little light on saves, but overall it’s a contender.
I was in the 6 slot, which is a spot that I’m not too keen on this year, but in this mock it turned out to be a good one as I was pleasantly surprised that Verlander slipped to me in the second round. If you look at most of my drafts over the years the one thing I do consistently is pick two starters in the first four rounds. The drop off after the 4th round is usually significant and I find that having two starters in this range allows me to concentrate on hitting for awhile. After taking the Clevinger discount in round 4 because I think he’ll only miss a few starts, my next four picks solidified my offense with Goldschmidt, Muncy, Rosario and Castellanos. I am not usually a big saves proponent and I don’t pay up for them but because there are so few “sure things” this year, I picked up Liam Hendricks and Alex Colomé . This will give me a solid base and then I’ll use FAAB to add saves throughout the season. I think I found value in several picks with Soler in the 11th, Khris Davis in the 15th and Daniel Hudson in the 21st. Despite losing out to Ronis on some of my targets, I believe this would be a solid team.
Justin Vreeland followed me and it was great to have 3 Mets fans drafting in a row, but Justin’s plan of drafting deGrom went awry because of it. His thoughts also show why I was able to snag Verlander in the second. “Picking out of the 7 slot, I usually look to go deGrom at that pick and that was my plan going in. Of course that changed when Ronis grabbed him at 5, but I got a nice value with Betts at 7. Going hitter first, I would usually look to grab Buehler in the second out of this slot, but again I had to change course after he was picked prior to my pick. I could have gone Verlander, but I’m not personally as high on him as most, so I went with Rendon.” One thing that comes up is when to take a catcher especially with the thoughts that there are only a few who make a difference. Here’s Justin’s thoughts on taking JT Realmuto. “So through two rounds, I wasn't overly digging how the draft started, but I was able to get who I wanted pretty much the rest of the way. It was a two-catcher format with 12-teams and I paid up at the position, but I feel good about the two guys I got and at the picks I was able to land them.” Justin was worried about one pick and we found out that his concern was justified. “Least favorite pick: Luis Severino in the 7th - I needed to grab an SP2 and even though I got great value on Sevy (according to his NFBC ADP), I still don't really like this pick. He had just 12 innings last year and he's far from a sure thing. Pretty risky for an SP2, but it could work and there's upside in him if he returns to form.” Team Vreeland appears balanced without any glaring holes.
The 8 hole was manned by Jon Impemba and apparently he got his man. Jon has a particular player he is targeting this year and he tells us why. “I am buying all the Juan Soto shares this year and therefore I've taken him above ADP in both mock drafts that I have done so far this year. At just 21 years old he filled the shoes of the departing Bryce Harper and did something that Harper could never do and that was bring a World Series to Washington DC. Now, Soto didn't turn 21 until late October which means for his age 20 MLB season he hit .282 with 110 runs, 34 home runs, 110 RBI, 12 stolen bases and an OPS of .949. I think he only gets better.” A player looking to bounce back after an injury last year is Corey Kluber who became one of Jon’s favorite picks as he fell to him in round 8. “Getting Corey Kluber in the 8th round is interesting. Just two years removed from a Cy Young and he led baseball in innings in 2018. Sure he turns 34 just as the season begins but if he bounces back from an injury riddled 2019 then I just got myself a major steal.” Jon could be a bit light in the saves category as he took Will Smith with the hope that he gets the majority of saves in Atlanta. There is work to be done on the waiver wire.
Pocket aces is a term you may have been hearing a bit on twitter as a draft strategy being touted by @batflipcrazy. Matt Selz employed this out of the 9 hole by taking Gerrit Cole and then had Max Scherzer come to him on the wrap around as Bender and Stein both passed on taking a pitcher in the first two rounds. “Picking out of the ninth spot I wasn’t in love with most of the hitters that were there, I did like Trevor Story who I could’ve taken but the chance to get the best pitcher on the board was too hard to pass up so the pick was Cole. When Buehler went with the pick before me in the second round, I knew pitching was going to go quickly so I grabbed a second ace in Max Scherzer at 2.4 giving me a nearly impossible to beat top two starting options.” It is definitely unusual to be able to get 2 pitchers of this caliber in a snake draft and Matt was able to take advantage of it. He wasn’t stuck on a particular strategy and came away with excellent value. He followed them up with four hitters to build an offensive base and then added a third starter in José Berríos . “Filling in with the best category or position player was the strategy after that point but the later rounds did provide quite a bit of value with pitchers, especially closers in Kela and Clase, but also with speed in Dee Gordon and Nick Madrigal and Domingo Santana .” Matt’s team will be hard to contend with as Cole and Scherzer could pile up over 600 strikeouts.
Batting 10th on the softball team was Ivar Anderson and he was very pleased with the way his draft started. “Favorite pick was getting an ace early in Walker Buehler . This season I want one ace early in the first two rounds, some arm to give me 200 Ks and close to or better than 200 IP. deGrom and Cole were already gone by my time on the clock in the first round, but seeing the young Dodger hurler there in round two was a bounty I could not pass up.” What we learned about Ivar is that he does not like two catcher leagues. I think if it were up to most of us, one catcher leagues would prevail. “Two of my worst pick(s) were the TWO catchers we were forced to select. I detest most catchers as a lineup drain, so double-dosing on the position is my personal bugaboo in fantasy. Sean Murphy and Francisco Mejía are perfectly acceptable backstops, just not where I want to invest my roster space.” Despite having to pick a pair of catchers, Ivar’s team was ranked first by the draft evaluator software and he earned being “draft champion”.
Howard Bender picked 11th and employed his saves and steals strategy in this mock. “Saves and steals were my focus, so Trea Turner and Jonathan Villar were prioritized once I saw my draft position. Later in the draft, I added Adam Eaton and Joe Berti, so I feel like the steals category belongs to me. For saves, I was able to land two strong closers who have solid job security and should see plenty of opportunities. Didn't need to reach at all as people were avoiding closers early. Could pick up some extra saves on the wire, but feel good about my saves.” As he mentions, closers didn’t go early, but they did start to fly off the board in round 9 which is where he took his first closer, Roberto Osuna . With his focus on steals early a need for power came into play when he took Gary Sánchez , which was his favorite pick. “Favorite Pick -- Gary Sánchez (round 6) -- steals early meant a need for power, so getting a leg up at the catcher position is huge in the grand scheme of things.” There were many Howard favorites taken in this mock including Berti, Cueto, Lindblom and Davies. One pick that you need to keep your eye on is Jo Adell . The expectation is that he starts in AAA, but will he contribute enough to warrant his price tag?
Our resident attorney and presider over all fantasy disputes, Michael Stein, had the 12th pick. Interestingly he did not pass judgement on a certain group of players and here are his thoughts about it. “Somehow I ended up with almost the entire Astros infield. I realize they are the villains and pitchers will be extra motivated to shut them down. However, Alex Bregman , Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa are all very talented players whether they hear banging garbage cans or not. I don’t think we will see much regression in their statistics regardless of what we think of them morally.” Something we haven’t touched upon so far is the drafting of players eligible at multiple positions. This can provide a level of flexibility that can be an advantage when, I mean if, the injury bug visits your team. “I focused on players who qualify at multiple positions such as Bregman, Bryant and LeMahieu to give me flexibility around the diamond.” Pitching is the major question mark of his team having to rely on the fragile Kershaw, a bounce back from Bauer, and a reappearance from the dead from Kimbrel and Archer.
This was a great exercise and it really highlighted a multitude of strategies and dilemmas that are prevalent in fantasy baseball this year. We had a great time in what Howard called a rather involved chat room during the draft. Take a look at the draft board and if you have any questions about any of our picks, reach out to us on twitter and we’ll do our best to answer your questions. Ivar was ranked first by the evaluator and here is the predicted order of finish for the rest of us using the Fantasy Alarm draft evaluator that is linked to every mock on RTSports:
Anderson
Spiteri
Conway
Piacenti
Selz
Vreeland
Impemba
Stein
Jewett
Hallam
Ronis
Bender