Today, I was fortunate enough to participate in an expert mock draft run by Howard Bender over at RealTime Fantasy Sports. Howard, from Fantasy Alarm and host on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio, wasn't the only well known expert in this draft. Kyle Elfrink, host of The Drive on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio, was also a participant in addition to a number of other great fantasy baseball players.
The mock was a 23 round standard 12 team draft (14 hitters / 9 pitchers). Now, I'm done my fair share of research already this preseason, but this was my first mock of the year. I take mock drafting very seriously. It's not only a tool to gauge where players come off the board, but an expert mock like this is published for the masses to see. I wanted to make sure I did everything I could to prepare in a short amount of time to draft the best team possible. When I entered the draft room right before everything got going, I was pleased to see I had the first pick. I'm comfortable drafting from anywhere, however this year if I had a choice to select my draft spot, I would prefer one of the top 3 slots. Going through all of my rankings and projections, I liked getting an one of the top 3 players, and then another 2 players close together at the turn for rounds 2 and 3. The talent that I project falling in those slots in most drafts would give a great foundation to a team, and I feel this draft absolutely started that way for me. Before I dive into my picks, you can go here to see the full grid results of every team's picks round by round. Now onto my pick by pick breakdown of the draft:
When everything was over, I took a step back and looked at my team as a whole. Just at first glance, my first thought wasn't great. I thought it was a boring squad with not a ton of upside. I didn't really take any of the big name prospects that everyone was tripping over themselves to get. But then I thought more about it, and I was really able to get some great values because of my patience. Let's take a deeper look at my projected stats:
Now, these are using my own projections and it's subjective, however if my squad performs close to what I project, I drafted fantastic overall power and average. Speed is a concern and would need to be addressed, but overall I'm happy with this group of hitters.
For a deeper look at my projected pitching stats:
My K/9 rate could be better that's for sure, but I have a great chance to get a ton of saves with 3 closers, and have an elite ERA and WHIP. Streaming some starters through the year should help to pad the K's and accumulate more wins, but overall, also very happy with this squad.
So very much different than first glance, I ended up quite happy with the team I drafted. Outside of the Gattis mistake, things went very well. Finally, and not something I put a ton of stock into, there was a link to the FantasyPros.com draft analyzer once the draft completed. I very much understand these analyzers don't always provide accurate projections, however if there is any one I would put some trust into, it's FantasyPros. Their logic using experts consensus rankings and projections is one of the best methods of draft research available in my opinion. That said, here are the results :) Thanks again to Howard Bender for hosting this mock draft and thanks to all that participated. It was very fun and I'm already looking forward to the next one.
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