Yesterday we performed our annual ritual of picking real baseball players to join fake teams. Last year was a disappointing year for me as I had a really good team, traded my 3rd-round pick in 2010 for Jason Bay, and then my whole team decided to take June and half of July off. I struggled my way back and finished in 4th place, which ain’t bad (the top 7 spots out of 16 teams pay), but I failed yet again to beat my 1999 performance, when I finished 3rd. Frustrating.
I headed into the draft with the best hitter in baseball, one of the 5 best pitchers, a top third baseman, and another good pitcher. But also down one pick, and with no true prospects in development. So here’s how the draft shook out for me:
Pos | Player | Team | Round/ Pick |
Age | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
C | Kurt Suzuki | OAK | 6/93 | 26 | Victor Martinez was the first pick in the league. Suzuki has a little upside and is sure to play every day. |
1B | Albert Pujols | SLN | Kept | 30 | |
2B | Scott Sizemore | DET | 7/109 | 25 | A bit of a risky pick, as it’s by no means clear the Tigers will stick with him, even though he should be a decent hitter. And unfortunately I have no backup plan at second base. |
3B | Ryan Zimmerman | WAS | Kept | 25 | |
SS | Yunel Escobar | ATL | 1/13 | 27 | |
OF | Josh Willingham | WAS | 5/77 | 31 | |
OF | Mike Cameron | BOS | 8/125 | 37 | |
OF | Conor Jackson | ARI | 10/157 | 27 | |
OF | Juan Rivera | LAA | 13/205 | 31 | |
C | Nick Hundley | SDN | 19/301 | 26 | |
C | Jonathan LuCroy | MIL | 20/317 | 24 | LuCroy and Exposito are both catching prospects. LuCroy is probably close, Exposito is at least a year away – assuming he keeps hitting. |
C | Luis Exposito | BOS | 26/405 | 23 | |
3B | Casey Blake | LAN | 16/253 | 36 | |
SS | Cliff Pennington | OAK | 23/363 | 25 | |
2B/SS/3B | Craig Counsell | MIL | 25/397 | 39 | My one multiposition backup – such as he is, at age 39. |
OF | Luke Scott | BAL | 12/189 | 21 | |
OF | Rick Ankiel | KCA | 28/418 | 20 | |
OF | Domonic Brown | PHI | 15/237 | 22 | A perhaps-slightly-overrated prospect for the Phillies. |
SP | Zack Greinke | KCA | Kept | 26 | |
SP | James Shields | TBA | Kept | 27 | |
SP | John Lackey | BOS | 2/29 | 31 | |
SP | Scott Baker | MIN | 4/61 | 28 | |
SP | Justin Masterson | CLE | Kept | 25 | |
SP | Charlie Morton | PIT | 14/221 | 26 | |
SP | Ross Ohlendorf | PIT | 18/281 | 27 | |
SP | Tom Gorzelanny | CHN | 22/349 | 27 | |
SP | Daniel McCutchen | PIT | 24/376 | 27 | Having 3/5ths of the Pirates rotation could be my key to victory! |
RP | Jose Valverde | DET | 11/173 | 30 | |
RP | Chris Perez | CLE | 17/267 | 24 | |
RP | Sergio Romo | SFN | 21/333 | 27 | |
RP | Hideki Okajima | BOS | 27/412 | 34 | |
SP | Jacob Turner | DET | 9/141 | 19 | This year’s “out on a limb” prospect pick, he was the Tigers’ first-round pick in 2009 and has yet to pitch in the minors, but is very highly regarded. |
SP | Julio Teheran | ATL | 29/422 | 19 | Another very young, highly-regarded pitcher, but he hasn’t yet shown his potential yet. |
SP | Cory Luebke | SDN | 30/425 | 25 | And another prospect, but this one may well be up this year. |
I hoped to go back to taking a big bopper with my first-round pick, but there weren’t many left when my 13th-overall pick came around, thanks to our deep keeper rules, so instead I took Yunel Escobar, who is a strong-hitting shortstop who has additional upside. I used my 4th round pick to take Josh Willingham, who can rake when he’s healthy. And I beefed up my rotation with John Lackey and Scott Baker, which should make it quite good.
The first ten rounds of my draft went pretty well, I thought. As I said, my main regret was not having a better plan in case Scott Sizemore doesn’t work out, and not having a quality multiposition backup. Otherwise I have a pretty balanced team, albeit with my usual less-than-dominating bullpen. And I’ve restocked with some high-upside prospects.
Our league continues to get more competitive, as once again I was scrounging for guys to pick with my last few picks. But my list of prospects was very deep this year.
And as always I have no idea whether I’ll truly compete. I have some injury risks here and there (Lackey, Willingham, a couple of old guys), but I’m by no means relying on everyone being completely healthy. I’m just hoping I can come out of the gate strong, since struggling to get back in the hunt after a slow start always sucks.