Expert Draft Tonite

There is an expert draft tonite at mock draft central, it is definately worth checking out. You can watch the draft live via this link. It is a very impressive list of people including reps from Sports Illustrated and Yahoo!. I will not be participating in the draft but I will be there making comments and asking questions for the duration of the draft. You may here a plug or two for MLB Front Office in there so if you hear me, (I may be listed as MLB Front Office, Brad Stewart, or greenbaydude1232) make a shout out to the rest of the people about how great my blog is (just kidding...kind of). There will be analysis of the draft available on here sometime later this week. The draft starts at 7 CST.

Mock Talk 2.0

UPDATE: I was reviewing some of the notes managers left me on Mock Draft Central and one guy (I don't know who it was) had Mark Prior in the last round of the draft listed as my worst pick of the draft. I'm sorry but I needed to post this because to me a guy who has 3.00 ERA upside is hardly a bad pick with the last overall pick. If he is injured again, I drop him and move on, no loss to me. I think at the end of the draft MARK PRIOR is a fantastic pick. You heard it here first!

Ok, so maybe I'm a little obsessive but I wanted to solve the 3b mystery, so I did another mock draft Sunday morning. This time my strategy went awry a little bit but my team ended up pretty good. That just goes to show that if you really know what you're doing you'll end up ok. How do you learn to know what you're doing? Well by reading my blog of course! Anyway, I'm not going to go into as much detail as last time but I have some good insights.

I'm writing this as I'm drafting so we'll see what happens. Anyway, the first pick that shocked me was Howie Kendrick going in the 3rd round. The general consensus in the draft room was that it would have been a good pick, 10 rounds later! I agree.

Then Scott Rolen went in the 6th round which really scared me. But there wasn't a 3b run like last time which was reassuring. Zimmerman than went in the 9th round and I grabbed Chipper in the 10th. Remember that this is only a 10 team draft instead of a 12 team draft. So I'd say that if you wait til like the 7th or 8th round in a 12 team draft you should be ok for 3B.

A couple of quick hit notes on my team:

I grabbed Carlos Guillen after I missed out on both Hanley Ramirez and Michael Young. I passed on Hanley to take Holliday because I felt like I needed a top notch OF based on who was going.

I got a lot of my favorite sleepers in this draft: Rocco Baldelli, Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez and Rich Hill.

I snagged Chien-Ming Wang in the 13th which may have been a bit early but I had so many top strikeout guys already that I felt I could sacrifice the strikouts on him.

I stook with my strategy of draft Closers, Catchers, and Second Base late and it worked out well for me with Kinsler at 2nd, Russell Martin at Catcher and Bob Wickman and Jason Isringhausen closing for me.

The biggest flaw in my team is certainly my speed which I really didn't notice until it was too late. I wanted to grab Dave Roberts at the end to come off the bench and get a couple steals but I missed out on him.

It was a very shallow draft so a lot of the sleepers that I usually draft went undrafted but I was pretty happy with it over all, minus my glaring need for speed.

I was reviewing the draft results and honestly nothing really jumped off the page at me which is a little disapointing but I'd say the biggest thing I gained from this is a better feeling of the 3B position. Although Rolen went early again in this draft, the rest of the guys lasted a bit longer so that's reassuring. I'm now planning on taking 3B in the 8-10th round of a ten man league and the 7-9th round of a 12 man league.

Take a look at the draft results using the link at the top of the article and get back to me with any feedback! Thanks!

Mock Talk 1.0

Ok so as promised, I have the results from the mock draft that I did earlier today at MDC (Mock Draft Central). You can find the results here. Feel free to post any comments you would like in the comments section or via email at: stew0610@ameritech.net. I announced to everyone prior to the draft that I would be using the results for this purpose so there was no problems if anyone saw this. My team obviously is MLB Front Office. I'm not going to go over all of the picks but here are some of the highlights, surprises etc. etc.

First starting with my picks:

R1 P6 Johan Santana SP
This was my target pick all along. So I was happy to get him here.

R2 P7 Grady Sizemore OF

I wanted to get Carlos Lee here but settling for Sizemore doesn't upset me too much.
R3 P6 Hanley Ramirez SS
This was also my target pick so up to here the draft was going pretty well.
R4 P7 Carlos Zambrano SP

Having both Zambrano and Santana is lethal.
R5 P6 Jake Peavy SP

I wanted Johnny Damon here but he was taken and Peavy was the best overall player left in my opinion.
R6 P7 Prince Fielder 1B
I love this guy. 40 HR is not out of the question.
R7 P6 Joe Crede 3B

This was the pick that really screwed me up. I wanted Baldelli here but Zimmerman, Rolen and Jones went and I felt like I need to take a 3b.
R8 P7 Brett Myers SP

I actually didn't mean to take him here but I'm not too upset about it. Lots of very high K guys just like I like it.
R9 P6 Delmon Young OF

Probably wouldn't have taken him here if I had gotten Baldelli but he has a ton of upside.
R10 P7 Adrian Gonzalez 1B

I really like this guy too. Not quite the upside of Fielder but in one of my two UTIL spots he's money.
R11 P6 Nick Markakis OF
This may be a bit early but I was struggling for OF.
R12 P7 Michael Cuddyer 1B, OF

Kind of neutral on this pick. It is too early but he was the best available bat in my opinion.
R13 P6 Adam Wainwright SP

I've often seen Reyes projected above Wainwright but I think Wainwright has the better mentality to suceed.

Well those are the top 13 picks I made and you can see the rest via the link at the beginning of the article. Basically the trend for the rest of the draft was high upside players, especially pitchers. I totally believe that the draft is not made in the beginning of the draft but rather in the middle and the end. Anyone can pick pujols, santana, or any of the other top picks, but finding the hidden gem is the secret. If anyone has any questions about the end of the end of the draft feel free to email me (stew0610@ameritech.net) or comment and I'll respond.

Now onto some other picks I like and dislike from other managers:

One thing that really killed me was how early 3B went compared to when I thought they would go. I'm not sure if it is a shift in opinion of these players or if it was just this draft, I'll have to do a little more research but Scott Rolen going in the 6th round really hurt me.

Akinori Otsuka went really early, I think that he is still worth a pick but he isn't even the favorite for the closer role! We'll have to wait and see what Gagne does but I think this will be a waste of a pick. I just have a good feeling for Gagne.

Wolves took Chien-Ming Wang in the 11th round and I'm not against this pick if you have some other high strikeout guys to make up for it. I considered taking him as well but only because I had so many top strikeout guys. Wang's Wins are incredible but make sure you get some high strikeout guys like Aaron Harang or Brett Myers.

Tom Gordon in the 7th round? Are you kidding me? What do you think the difference between Solomon Torres and Tom Gordon is going to be...maybe 5-10 SV and half an ERA point? Well guess what, I nabed Solomon Torres in the 17th. 10 Rounds Later!

A couple of teams chose to go the route of waiting for starters and it worked out ok for them, not great. I still think it is necessary to grab atleast one guy you know you can count on for a great year so you can take a high risk, high reward pick later on.

One thing I didn't like from many of the teams was the idea of taking some of the veterans later on in the draft. I went the route of taking high reward guys and I think that's really the only way to go. If one of those guys makes it as big as his potential, it is going to be better than all of the other guys picks.

Paul Konerko in the 3rd round are you kidding me? It would not shock me if Adrian Gonzalez and Paul Konerko had similar numbers this year and Prince Fielder could easily have better numbers. I got Fielder in the 6th and Gonzalez in the 10th! Todd Helton in the 6th is also a waste of a pick. 1 Beast of a pick: Conor Jackson in the 22nd, Congrats Wookies! Conor Jackson could even outperform Helton...not likely but I wouldn't die of shock.

Ok well those are some of my quick hits on the mock draft I did earlier. A couple general things I noticed:

1. Closers are going way too early. Wait and grab them later, or even of the waiver wire.

2. 3B went a lot earlier than I expected, I'll look into that and get back to you.

3. Don't waste picks on 1b early in the draft, they'll be available later.

4. 2B will be available late.

5. Lots of C that offer minimal numbers. Don't waste a pick on one of the top 3, it doesn't give you that big an advantage.

Basically, a lot of the things I've noticed before but I might have to adjust my strategy if this 3B trend keeps up!