It was another strong week for the Mock Draft Army as the group completed another three drafts – one 12-team and a pair of 15-team mocks – with an extremely strong group of both writers and readers. It’s always nice to see the game level stepped up when you have a strong draft room. And not only has the level of play raised, but the chatter in the draft rooms continues to increase with discussions of ADP, rankings and analytics. Everyone is learning more and more about the player pool and draft strategies. And I mean everyone.
For today, we’ll touch on a few points in each of the three drafts, but most importantly, the ADP for the first five drafts of the Mock Draft Army has been compiled. Obviously, we’re all well aware that the sample size is very small, but it’s a great starting point as there is no concern regarding auto-picks or a heavy influence of site rankings. By the time we hit the end of February, this will be the only ADP I use when setting up for my drafts. Few ADP rankings can boast 100-percent participation in each of their mock drafts.
So let’s get the ball rolling with the first draft of this past week – a 12-team nooner from last Tuesday.
Mock Draft Army #3
Complete draft board (courtesy of Real Time Fantasy Sports)
With the east coast dealing with Snowmageddon ’15, we managed to squeeze in a nice afternoon draft without any real interruptions. There were a few disconnections, but nothing we couldn’t easily overcome within moments. There were definitely a few things in the draft that did grab some attention, though.
Mastersball’s Pasko Varnica grabbed Buster Posey in the first round with the 10th overall pick. This is the highest I’ve seen Posey go and while he’s clearly the No. 1 catcher in fantasy, spending a pick that high on a backstop is not something I like to do. Maybe there’s the position scarcity argument, but for me, that’s still a little high.
This was also the first time we’ve seen Jose Altuve go in the first round, another move I do not endorse. He’s definitely got speed, but I don’t see the power ever reaching double-digit homers nor do I see him able to maintain a .341 average. Again, I get the whole position scarcity card being pulled, but even if Altuve hits .300 for the season and steals another 50 bases, it hardly seems worth such a high pick when you can pick up plenty of speed later in the draft.
Another first: Miguel Cabrera drops to the second round. The ankle is extremely worrisome, but even if he starts the season late, he is still capable of some big numbers. Dropping to 14th overall seems a bit extreme.
Only seven starting pitchers were taken in the first four rounds, down five from each of the previous two drafts. Are people finally coming around? With names such as Dallas Keuchel, Wily Peralta, James Paxton, Michael Pineda and Shelby Miller all going in the 17th round or later, it should be evident to you that pitching is and always will be the deepest position out there.
Twenty-one of the first 60 picks were outfielders. Yes, there’s a fair amount of depth at the position this year, a dramatic turn from last season, but the drop-off in talent after you get through those first two tiers is still pretty significant. One reader, Maine Event, didn’t take his first outfielder, Billy Hamilton, until the sixth round and the crew he ended up building with Marlon Byrd, Torii Hunter, Steve Pearce and Desmond Jennings doesn’t really look all that good. I do not recommend waiting on the position like that if you see outfielders coming off the board at a rapid rate.
Seeing Pedro Alvarez fall to the 21st round, the lowest I’ve seen him go so far, mkes me wonder if he’s going to surprise a lot of people with a potential rebound season. Even if he continues to hit for a lousy average, if his power production stays up, he’s definitely a bargain that late.
And finally, we got our first Dalton Pompey sighting with a selection in the 18th round. With Colby Rasmus gone, Pompey is expected to compete for the starting job in center field. He’s got real nice speed potential, but he’s going to have to keep that plate discipline up in the majors or he’ll be back on the farm in no time. He’s going to be one of those trendy picks this season, so watch that you don’t reach for him too high as the hype machine starts.
Mock Draft Army #4
Complete draft board (courtesy of Real Time Fantasy Sports)
This was our first 15-team draft of the season so we got to dive into the player pool a little deeper this time around. Because of that, again, for me it was more about building up the ADP properly rather than worry about the actual construct of my team. I did not walk in with a strategy beyond best player available.
Percentage-wise, fewer pitchers went in the first four rounds. Ten starters and two closers went, and while that shouldn’t be surprising, I think the order in which the pitchers went is pretty telling. Kershaw is obviously the first guy off the board and I went and took Scherzer because….well, I’m a total believer in that this move to the NL is going to be huge for him. But then Madison Bumgarner came off the board a few picks later while usual stalwarts like Felix Hernandez, David Price, Chris Sale, Stephen Strasburg and Adam Wainwright all went later. I love a nice changing of the guard. Four-straight season with 200-plus innings, strong strikeout numbers and rock solid ratios vaults MadBum to a ranking that is much-deserved.
Similar trends with the closers as the top six come off the board between rounds four and six with a rush of the next tier coming in rounds seven and eight. There’s a slow trickle of closers over the next few rounds, but we don’t really see much more until Round 15 when people rush to get a closer while those who already locked down an elite start to pick up their second ninth-inning guy.
Some names to start watching when we start looking at ADP trends:
Potential Risers: Carlos Carrasco, Steven Souza, Evan Gattis, Zack Wheeler, Kolten Wong
Potential Fallers: Yu Darvish, Dustin Pedroia, Eric Hosmer, Jered Weaver, Mike Napoli
Keep an eye on some of the names you’ll start seeing in these 15-team drafts over the final few rounds. Quite a number of players who didn’t get taken in the three 12-team draft are starting to appear and could very well see their ADP climb as more people start paying attention.
Mock Draft #5
Complete draft board (courtesy of Real Time Fantasy Sports)
A personal commitment kept me from participating in this draft so I want to give a big shout out to Fantasy Alarm staff writer David Kerr who did a tremendous job of keeping the ball rolling for me.
In looking at the draft from an outsider’s perspective, I like the fact that there were no big runs that we usually see. Everyone in the draft seemed to have a specific game plan and no one threw any real curveballs that caused the draft room to panic. No big closer runs and no big catcher runs. Everything seemed to be fairly well-spread out. Except maybe the final round when everyone was grabbing that beloved second catcher that few people really care about. I like a nice calm and collected draft room like this.
However, without getting a chance to talk in the draft room like I usually do, it’s tough for me to assess what was going through people’s minds. I usually get a chance to ask the crew as to why they made a particular pick, so I’m going to let you look at the draft board for yourself and see who you thought had the best draft or at least used a strategy you seemed to like. For me, I will chalk it up to a good way to build up the Mock Draft Army ADP.
Speaking of which…
Below is a look at the complete ADP for the first five drafts. TO create the numbers and make them as accurate as possible, ADP was put together for the three 12-team drafts and then separately, another set of numbers was created for the two 15-team drafts. From there, the numbers were combined. With the help of Mock Draft Army favorite, Jeff Zimmerman (FanGraphs), the numbers were carefully constructed to reflect the instances where players were taken in one draft but not the other. We could go into the math behind it, but I don’t want to put you to sleep before you look at the wonderfully sculpted list in which each position is assigned a nice pretty color.
Remember, this is just the starting point. With more drafts under our collective belts and more time passing between now and the start of the season, we’ll have enough data to start tracking the number of draft trends to which you should be paying attention throughout the spring.
Mock Draft Army ADP
