NVABL
Newsletter
February 2014
Free Agent Draft
The draft was held on January 26th with 10 managers present
and 2 teams without managers. Heartfelt
appreciation goes out to those who helped draft for the manager-less
teams. Walt and Steve drafted for the
Vermont franchise. Walt’s brother Jerry
drafted for the Arlington franchise.
Unless Walt has another brother, this is the one we met on the NVABL
baseball trip that Walt, Jim Allen from the Kansas City Monarchs (now Columbia
Pike Cubs?), and myself took to see games in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and
Milwaukee, visiting Travis in Milwaukee to get some games in vs. the Homestead
Grays franchise which is now the Roswell Greys.
Excellent hamburgers were consumed with Jerry prior to the game at Frank
and Irma’s restaurant in downtown Pittsburgh.
Walt, please forward this email to Jerry so that he can know we
appreciated his help.
To see the major direction the teams went this year, let’s
look at the players chosen in the first two rounds.
Round 1
1)
Delphi passes on Jose Fernandez and uses their
Hamner pick to take Wil Myers, a 23 year old outfielder of the Tampa Bay
Rays. Wil posted a solid card this year
after his rookie season. He is an OF-2
with Arm 33, steal grade F-28, power numbers 1-0-0-0-7, with 14 on base
numbers, and 0/-2 splits. Wil has 59
games of availability. Wil played 4
years in the minor leagues, posting an OPS of 1.106 in the 2009 developmental
leagues, .934 in 2010 single A, and in 2011 double A slipped a bit with his
power but kept his OBP up at .353 for an OPS of .745. In 2012 he rebounded with OPS of 1.146 in
double A and .932 in AAA. In 2013 he had
OPS of .876 in AAA and .831 in the big show.
His minors totals show OBP of .389, Slugging of .522 and an average of
28 home runs, 115 RBIs, 102 runs, 13 stolen bases per 17 attempts, 85 walks,
and 149 strikeouts per 162 games played.
2)
Washington takes Jose Fernandez, the 21 year old
starting pitcher from Cuba who plays for the Florida Marlins. For this year, Jose has a 18xyg grade with 16
starts of availability. For the Marlins
he had an ERA of 2.19 in 28 games, with 3.0 walks and 9.7 strikeouts per 9
innings pitched. In the minors he was
developed in a hurry, pitching 1 game for 2 innings at the developmental league
level, then 1 game for 2.1 innings in single A at the age of 19. At the age of 20 he pitched 25 games at the
single A level with an ERA of 2.19 with 2.4 walks and 10.6 walks per 9
innings. This young guy is looking like he
could become a modern day version of Pedro Martinez, who had a career of 2.4
walks and 10 strikeouts per 9 innings.
With these first two choices we see
George and Bart being able to enjoy the luxury of those who can pick excellent
prospects who will be immediately productive their first year in the NVABL.
3)
Columbia Pike took Jurickson Profar, a 21 year
old second baseman from the Texas Rangers.
Profar’s card is not very usable after posting an OPS of .645 in his
first 94 MLB games over the last 2 years, but his minors totals show OBP of
.367 and slugging of .449 with OPS of .816 in 341 games. His stats in the minors average out to 16
home runs, 85 RBIs, 110 runs, 25 stolen bases per 33 attempts, 86 walks, and 70
strikeouts per 162 games played. In the
minors he did pretty well with fielding, with percentage of .987 with a range
factor of 4.78.
This pick signals Steve’s intent to
not attempt to make the playoffs in 2014, but rather pick the best prospects he
can get.
4)
Columbia Pike took Los Angeles Dodgers phenom
Yasiel Puig, the 23 year old outfielder from Cuba. In the minors he posted OPS of 1.016. His major league totals last year would
translate to 29 home runs, 65 RBIs, 102 runs, 17 stolen bases per 30 attempts,
56 walks, and 151 strikeouts per 162 games played. Odd the number of RBI’s. The Dodger’s need to figure out how to better
use this guy, or maybe he just strikes out too much with runners on base and
needs to hone his raw talents. He’s an
OF-2 with an arm of 38. That arm is
always going to be incredible, and if Steve keeps him an entire career it will
be a plus factor. I expect OF-3 with
double ones to be in his future as well.
While being fast and un-disciplined on the base paths and in his
Mercedes, he does have star power and potential. You’ve got to love the number 66 on the back
of his uniform.
5)
Sterling picked Garrit Cole, a 9yzg starting
pitcher this year. Walt’s sweet tooth
for all things Pittsburgh shows with this pick, as Gerrit is a 23 year old
prospect for the Pirates. He had 19
starts last year with an ERA of 3.22.
Prior to that he pitched basically a full season in the minors, with a
2.84 ERA and 183 strikeouts in 200 innings.
He is clearly improving in 3 important categories, posting better
numbers in the majors than the minors with 2.1 walks and 7.6 strikeouts per 9
innings pitched with 1.49 ground outs per 1 fly out posted.
Walt signals to us with this pick
that he doesn’t think he’ll be able to be in contention this year, and to hope
for the future.
6)
Jerry picked Shelby Miller for Arlington. He is a 13x right handed starting pitcher
with 17 starts available. A nice
complement to the 2 15z starters they already had. This was the first of many practical picks
for Arlington, filling holes with young players. Miller is a 23 year old from the St. Louis
Cardinals. This was his rookie year and
he finished 15-9 with an 3.06 ERA. The
61 walks and 185 strikeouts in 187 innings are strong numbers by an X pitcher
who is not in danger of a W. In the
minor leagues he pitched 3 full seasons and had similar numbers of walks but
more strikeouts. His ERA in the minors
was 3.73, so that kind of raises a flag that he was not missing a lot of bats
with raw stuff, but hopefully he is learning to be a smarter pitcher.
7)
Roswell picked Michael Wacha, wunderkind rookie
from the St. Louis Cardinals. He really
didn’t pitch much until August but had a special October in which he started
and won 5 consecutive playoff games until losing the final game of the world
series to Boston. Wacha is 22 years old
and has an 11X grade for Roswell. His
minors numbers were good, having only played 1 year and posting a 2.29 ERA with
23 walks and 113 strikeouts in 106 innings.
Those are XYZ level numbers so that is a very promising sign that the
youngster is able to control his pitches while possessing overpowering stuff. His batting average against in the minors was
.193 and in the majors was .219. With
this pick Bob gave up a little bit this year in hopes of landing a starter who
will help him for many years. Not a bad
pick, but not the kind of guy you are going to win a title with this year and
perhaps wisely so, given the early lead Oakton and Stonehenge seem to have
jumped out to.
8)
Now it was the tandem’s turn to pick for Vermont
and they took Julio Teheran, at 12xz with 17 starts a very good choice. The 23 year old brave from Atlanta was a
rookie this year. He pitched 211 2/3
innings and was 14-8 with a 3.20 ERA.
Prior to that as a 19 and 20 year old he pitched 183 innings at single A
level, 40 innings at double A, and 2 full seasons at the AAA level, and posted
a 3.50 ERA overall in the minors. His
153 walks and 462 strikeouts in 514 2/3 innings in the minors point to a young man who is getting a
lot of experience and has xz level power and control. It also raises a flag that the Braves are
bringing him along extremely quickly, and young arms usually do not hold up to
a heavy workload.
9)
With the 9th pick, Chris chose Mark
Melancon, a 28 year old reliever from the Pittsburgh Pirates, and the first
reliever taken in the draft. Melancon
brings a 22*xzh grade with 40 innings to the Springfield franchise which needed
a closer. Later on in the 3rd
round, Chris would stumble into an even better closer in 23*xyzh Louis Coleman,
who only has 20 innings of availability.
Around this time Chris began to make little comments that this was not
meant to be his year. Nice “psy-ops”,
but we all know Springfield is going to the playoffs and unless they trade one
or both of these guys, they will be a deadly team to have to face if you ever
get down.
10) With
this pick I took Yan Gomes, the 26 year old catcher from Cleveland who has an
OPS of .826 with a defensive rating of C-8 and arm of +5. In my opinion he was the best catcher
available in the draft. I was facing a
season with Saltalalmachia at C-6 Th-1 if I didn’t draft a catcher. Gomes was number 2 on my list behind Teheran,
who I projected to possibly fall to my pick, but I am very pleased to have
Gomes. In fact, when I possessed the #4
overall pick of the draft I felt that Gomes might be my choice there, but with
some of your advice I concluded it was a bit early for him which motivated me
to trade down and see if I could pick up an extra second round pick while still
drafting Gomes. It did work out that
way, luckily. Occoquan’s strategy in the
pre-season was to multiply who I could get for Hanley Ramirez and become a
stronger playoff team than if I kept Hanley.
Dwight got the best shortstop in the league this year, he had plenty of
other good players to complement him, as well as a lot of draft picks, so he
could afford it. In exchange for Hanley,
(who I picked up for a 5th round pick), I ended up with Gomes, 39
year old Joe Nathan with a 23*xyh rating and 40 innings, 25 year old Mike Leake
of Cincinnati with an 11z grade and 17 starts, and 23 year old lefty Patrick Corbin
of Arizona, who has a 12y grade and 18
starts. I would do it again, I think
Dwight has a chance for the plaque and a few more solid years with Hanley, but
I like the quality of the players I received in return. The owner who benefited last year with a
plaque but lost out the most this year was Chad, who lost Hanley and a 9th
for supplemental round sensation Eric
Chavez and Sterling 5th which he flipped to Springfield as a
throw in to the deal for Medlen and LaRoche which contributed greatly to him becoming
the league champion. Springfield flipped
STE #5 along with SPR #7 for Derek Jeter.
This made no sense at all for the youthful direction that Springfield
has been going, and indeed Jeter ended up being a cut in the draft this year,
while STE #5 was used by Washington to pick up Jhonny Peralta with his .815 ops
as a replacement shortstop .
11) Bob
used Oakton’s pick to draft Alex Cobb for Roswell. Cobb is a 26 year old starter for Tampa Bay
with a 14x grade and 12 starts of availability.
With this pick, Roswell gets a very good card to use in the playoffs as
his 3rd starter. Already
possessing an ace level starter in 16y Greinke, Bob now shifts away from
prospects to picking up the best starters available to complement him and make
a run for the playoffs. The trade of
closer Scott Atchinson last year to Oakton looms huge for Roswell and hurts
Oakton somewhat this year. From that
trade Roswell ended up using the OAK#1, OAK#4, and OAK#9 picks to nab Cobb, double one
outfielder Evan Gattis, and the useful J-1 card of Will Venable, OF 2,
1-0-0-0-11 numbers, with D-30 steal grade and 0/-2 splits, while Atchinson
ended up being a cut.
12) With
the last pick of the first round Springfield took 26 year old catcher Jason
Castro from Houston. Having seen the
departure of Yan Gomes two picks earlier Chris wasted no time in securing an
everyday catcher. Castro has slightly
better offensive numbers than Gomes, with 1-5-6-6 power compared with 1-0-0-0,
but Gomes has the better defensive arm as Castro has a throw rating of 0.
Round 2
In the second round the picks
were:
1)
Delphi taking 26 year old Hyun-Jin Ryu, a 12yz
lefty with 17 starts.
2)
Washington taking set up man Luke Hochevar, a
19*kz righty with 40 innings.
3)
Stonehenge taking Tanner Roark, and this was
huge for Dwight. He is a 16yzh righty
starter who is 27 years old and just coming up with the Nationals. He only has 3 starts of availability for
Dwight but he will be deadly in the playoffs.
In the minors he pitched 658 innings and has always had good control and
strikeout numbers.
4)
Columbia Pike picked up excellent prospect 23
year old Zach Wheeler of the Mets who was the reward for giving up Carlos
Beltran to the Giants in the middle of a playoff race. In our league Steve gave up Joe Nathan for
Wheeler. At the time Wheeler was
drafted, the best relievers Occoquan might have taken instead of Nathan were
Luis Avilan, 22*h lefty with 40 innings, Drew Smyly 16*xyzg lefty with 50
innings, the before mentioned 23*xyzh
righty Louis Coleman with 20 innings, Dan Otero, 19*zh righty with 30 innings,
etc. Those are pretty close in grade and
availability to what Nathan was, but more so I lost the opportunity to draft
Scooter Gennett, Josh Donaldson, or Jose Iglesias, all players I probably
needed more than Nathan. To me it was
really hard to pin down where Iglesias would fall, I was hoping he would be
around for me in the 4th round.
Now that Chad as spent a 2nd on him, there is really no hope
for anyone needing a shortstop to get him for anything less than a 1st,
and who would be crazy enough to do that?
Then again, his name did cross my mind when I was considering what to do
with OCC #1 so maybe some of us are crazy enough to do that if Chad continues
his mode of sell, sell, sell.
5)
Dwight decides to go the platoon route for his
2B needs, drafting Scooter Gennett a -22/4 2B-7 with OPS of .835, and later in
the 7th round taking Jordy Mercer, a 17/-4 2B-7 with OPS of
.771. Now those have to be the biggest
split differentials for a platoon that we have ever seen!
6)
Jerry takes 12y righty starter Andrew Cashner
for Arlington. There is no rest for
those desiring usable cards if Jerry is picking ahead of you.
7)
Roswell took Luis Avilan, a 22*h lefty mentioned
above. Again we see here that Bob is
making good choices for success in the playoffs with the rest of his picks.
8)
For Vermont, Steve and Walt choose Josh
Donaldson, an interesting card at J-0, 3B-4, .883 ops, and splits at 6/-4. This was a position I needed to fill to
replace A-Rod. This was a sad moment
when I heard Josh Donaldson’s name called in the second round. Donaldson is more than just the best 3B card
in the draft, he is a 28 year old rookie prospect from the Oakland
Athletics. In the end I had to use my 6th
round pick to settle for 34 year old Juan Uribe and his .769 OPS.
9)
Springfield took Drew Smyly, 16*xyzg lefty with
50 innings. I love this pick. Having lefties of that caliber in your
bullpen the whole season gives Chris a lot of flexibility to torment us with
the platoon matchups, and this is one of the techniques that has brought him so
much success over the years.
10) Seacoast
drafted Jose Iglesias, the only SS-9 in the draft who could hit a little
bit. Sigh. It’s going to be a long year for me going
with SS-8 Asdrubal Cabrera who carries an OPS of.701 compared to .735 for
Iglesias. The 9 makes the difference. It depresses me just thinking about
this. It’s what George calls having to
live with your choices from the past, and the reason he didn’t want us to be
able to trade entire franchises. I’m
reviewing what I’ve written so far and feeling very bad about the lambasting
I’m about to give Chad in the next paragraph, so I want to add a couple of
sentences and say Chad, I think Iglesias was a good pick for you at this point
in the draft. He can hit and run well using 0-0-7-7-7-7 numbers with 13 on base numbers
and that is a rare thing in a good defensive shortstop.
11) What? Seacoast drafts twice in the second round
after winning the championship? This is
really the pick he took from Larry in exchange for 29*kwg lefty Kevin
Siegrist. What Chad got for that is
Martin Perez, a 10 grade lefty with 11 starts.
He’s going to lose 10 of those starts in our league but who’s counting
when you are the favorite for winning the Hamner trophy? What matters most is the nice picks you are
going to be getting next year. Ok, I’m
no expert, really bad at prospect picking, I bow to Larry, Walt, and probably
everyone else in the league in that department, but let’s look at this pick and
ask ourselves, was there no better prospect?
Here are the attributes:
a.
22 years old.
NICE! A positive, he’s not all
negative.
b.
6’0” 190 lbs, hardly your prototypical starting
pitcher these days.
c.
Plays in the Texas ballpark. Red flag for a pitcher, but teams can change.
d.
Gave up a
.274 batting average in the majors and .271 in minors. Not something to be proud of.
e.
He’s already pitched 583 2/3 innings in the
minors. They started him young and
didn’t let up. Red flag.
f.
Strikeouts are not too bad in the minors, with
492. But in the majors he has 109 in 162
innings. This guy’s starting to look
like Barry Zito. Maybe he’ll win a Cy
Young.
g.
3.6 walks per 9 in the minors. 2.9 in the majors. You need to be down around 2.0 or below to
get a Z. Not impressive so far, but he’s
learning and headed in the right direction.
h.
He’s a ground ball pitcher. Check!
That’s a another positive. 1.46
and 1.22 ground ball outs to fly ball outs ratios in the minors and majors.
i.
In June he had 2 starts and an ERA of 1.32 with
batting average against of .229. In July
they figured him out and hit .281 against him, for an ERA of 4.81. In August he made adjustments and brought the
batting average and ERA back down. In
September they figured him out. He’s 22
and it’s an ongoing battle. Where it
will end I don’t know.
How’s this as an alternative? How about Jedd Gyorko? Snapped up by Jerry in the 3rd
round. Sorry Chad for giving so much
attention to this spot, but you are the plaque winner! You can smile all the way to the bank while
the rest of us take the few opportunities for pot shots that we get. If I’m wrong on this and Perez is a good
prospect you all can call me out on being a dummy.
12) Springfield
drafted Ervin Santana, a 12yz righty with 18 starts. Why he is available this late is he is 31 and
has a career ERA of 4.19. But a very
usable card that is going to help propel Springfield into the playoffs despite Chris’
worst protests to the contrary.
Post Draft Rankings and Predictions
I’ve run some new rankings of the teams.
I used the same method as last month’s newsletter, in which I picked the
best players for each position on each team and ranked them vs. the other
team’s players. The rankings were based
mostly on grades for pitchers and OPS for hitters. A lot of value was placed on Z’s, H’s and
strikeout letters. A lot subtracted for
W’s. Good defense was highly valued for
hitters. I ignored availability mostly,
other than disqualifying all J-4 xb hitters for consideration in the
rankings. Ignoring availability skews
the results. What you will see in the
regular season will be different from what you see here. These rankings are geared more towards what
chances people currently would have in the playoffs if we went through the
entire season with no trades. Also the
rankings are extremely close, highly subjective, and just one person’s
opinion. In many cases the ranking was
so close that the difference between the number 2 ranked player and the number
8th ranked player was miniscule.
With small differences enough of the final averages were changed that I
have to say I’m embarrassed that I’m ranking myself 3rd and really
the 6 active teams below me, Springfield, Roswell, Washington, Sterling, and
Delphi all might have better teams than Occoquan. We are bunched in the middle, while Oakton
and Stonehenge are on top and Columbia Pike and Seacoast appear to be preparing
their teams for next year.
Results of the Rankings
See the spreadsheet attached to the email for more details. This time, since it’s post draft, I’m
including all the raw numbers. I’m holding
off on talking about splits and strategy on teams, that’s for each of us to
figure out. Here are the rankings with
pre-draft rankings in parenthesis, so we can see who improved and digressed in
the draft.
Overall Rankings
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Pitching Rankings
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Hitter Rankings
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OAK 1 (1)
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OAK 1 (2)
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OAK 1 (1)
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STO 2 (3)
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OCC 2 (3)
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STO 2 (2)
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OCC 3 (7)
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STO 3 (5)
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STE 3
(3)
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SPR 4 (2)
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SPR 4 (1)
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VMT 4 (6)
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VMT 5 (5)
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ROS 5 (10)
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DEL 5 (4)
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ROS 6 (11)
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WAS 6 (9)
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SEA 6
(11)
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WAS 7 (8)
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VMT 7 (6)
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OCC 7 (9)
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STE 8
(4)
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ARL 8 (7)
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ARL tie
(5)
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ARL 9 (6)
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DEL 9
(11)
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SPR 9 (7)
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DEL 10
(9)
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STE 10
(4)
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ROS 10
(12)
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CPC 11
(10)
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CPC 11 (8)
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CPC tie
(10)
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SEA 12
(12)
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SEA 12
(12)
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WAS 12 (8)
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2014 Team
Scoops
1)
Oakton
Oakton is ranked first in pitching and first in
hitting. Larry has gone all in this year,
do or die. The last two or three years
of giving up future draft picks will eventually take it’s toll on this
dynasty and Larry will return to what he does best, building for the future. For now though, for one glorious season,
it’s going to be pedal to the metal.
If you want to keep up, you will need to do likewise. Oakton was able to move up from 2nd
in pitching to first in pitching by acquiring Siegrist and Jimenez in a
pre-draft trade, then nabbing Rex Brothers, a 22*xyw lefty with a huge 40 innings
in the 4th round. By
drafting a Ryan Raburn with the STO #5 pick in the 5th round,
Larry acquired his 4th player with OPS above .900 and prevented
Stonehenge from catching him in the hitting department. I expect the dice deities to make sure
Larry wins the plaque this year, as a make up for so many in the past they
did not allow him to win. But if it’s
not meant to be, then what are his weaknesses? His two weakest players in the field are
Brian McCann and Brandon Moss, but they are ranked 6th and 6th,
which is top half of the league.
McCann’s arm isn’t going to discourage base stealers, but the trade
for Ryan Hanigan, a C9 Th. 6 catcher will take care of them in late innings
when it matters most. The only real
weakness I see on this team is the decision to rely on pitchers with a
W. Five of Larry’s top ten pitchers
have W’s, and he leads the league in this category. In the playoffs those high graded W’s can
be deadly, and in either direction.
They can shut a team down with no harm done, or they can give up the
base runner who becomes the winning run in a close game. I think the most devastating effect of a
role of 35 with a W on the mound is allowing your opponent 4 or sometimes 5
outs, and against playoff level teams when dice can be fickle, this is not
something you would ordinarily want to take a chance on. I’m not sure why Larry did it, he must
think this is the last year he has a chance for a while.
2) Stonehenge
Dwight had a
brilliant draft with the picks he had and did everything in his power to
catch Oakton. The drafting of Tanner
Roark with the 15th overall pick was the right thing to do. It gives Stonehenge a 16yzh righty to fit
into the number two slot in the playoffs.
That and other picks elevated Dwight’s pitching staff from the number
3 ranking to 2nd, keeping pace with Larry’s improvements. This is a solid team that is worthy of
winning the plaque, without any more trades.
With trades, who knows, it can only get better. Where to improve? Well Carp helped improve the outfield but
having your third best OF with an OPS of only .748 is a weakness for a top
tier team. Dwight has unusable surplus
in the 1B and DH slots, 3 players above .900 and only two of them can play at
a time, so perhaps one of them will be moved at little cost to Dwight’s team
this year. Santana is a bigger
defensive liability for the Druids than McCann was for the Aviators, but here
again we see an answer in C-9 Th. 6 A.J. Ellis. Those B’s C’s and D’s people have will
prove valuable this year for early inning theft, as there are so many
catchers floating around with Arms of 5 and 6 that will be in for the late
innings. Dwight this year made a
strategic decision to rely on platoons to fill the second base position. That’s not so bad, but it’s a headache to manage
vs. teams that can bring 3 lefties and 4 righty relievers to the playoffs. Overall this team has a lot of flexibility
here to stagger the splits in the lineups to mitigate the problem.
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3) Occoquan
This team is only jumping up to third place in the
pre-season rankings due to the quirk in the rating system that favors high
graded pitching without as much regard to availability as should probably be
given. Specifically, it was the draft
pick ups of 14yh righty Tyler Thornburg in the 4th round and 16xz lefty James Paxton in the 7th
round that made this starting rotation in the playoffs viable at very little
cost. This coupled with already having a
strong bullpen helped Occoquan jump from 3rd to 2nd in
the pitching rankings. But this is
perhaps a mirage. The lack of
availability in the regular season will result in a poorer seeding in the
playoffs than the teams like Springfield, Roswell and Washington who are
currently ranked below them, and the Ospreys will by having to face the
toughest teams possible in every round. On
the bright side, Yan Gomes will be a solid addition for 59 games at catcher,
and possibly future years. A lot of the
draft picks were young players who hopefully will keep this team in the hunt
for years to come. The biggest weakness
is in the outfield, where no one is really very good, and there doesn’t seem to
be any way to fix it with trades, but we will see who becomes available.
4) Springfield
This team dropped from 2nd to 4th
after the draft but again it is a fluke due to tiny variations in the
comparisons. I really like the first 5
picks Chris made, not so much the picks of Cody Ross in the 6th and
Gaby Sanchez in the 8th.
These guys have proven to be replacement level players at best, and
there were people available at the positions that would help the team
more. Like Dwight, this was a clear play
at relying on the platoon, and I think we’ve learned over the years that a lot
of bullpen can carve to pieces a lot of platoon. You either have the choice of pinch hitting
now or later, you can’t cover every substitution and you can get burned in
extra innings games. But we’ll see,
Chris has the skill to pull it off.
5) Vermont
The solid drafting by Steve and Walt preserved this team’s
position in the 5th spot. I
have no desire to talk about Vermont and Arlington since they don’t appear to
be headed towards the playoffs, but I will say this: all 10 managers in this
league are really really good managers with a lot of experience. These franchises will be tough opponents no
matter who you need to face on the other side of the dice table. You will see a lot more split series with
them than anything else you see. No one
is going to cake walk over these teams.
6) Roswell
I liked Bob’s draft quite a bit for the way he improved his
team from 11th to 6th.
This is the most improved team after the draft. The one guy I felt was an under draft for
this year was Wacha in the first round, but this is how Larry built his
dynasty, settling for 5 years of drafting guys who would not contribute for a
few years. After Wacha, the rest of the
draft improved this team a lot. The
biggest room for improvement would be the outfield, so we’ll see what happens
if someone good becomes available for trade.
7) Washington
The Senators improved their position from 8th
place to 7th place from the draft.
This is what Bart does every year.
Washington is likely to be a playoff team but oh my, how sweet that
future could be if Fernandez proves to be as good as I think he will be. A place Washington could benefit to upgrade
would be to pick up another high grade starter, perhaps with a Z. Also the hitting is looking rather tepid in 2
of the 3 outfielders, but these guys are OF-3’s and that makes up for a
lot. As always, Bart will be one of the
tougher managers to face and will squeeze every last drop of success out of the
team.
8) Sterling
Sterling was in position to be a shoo-in for the playoffs
prior to the draft, but they tended to draft rather for future years than for
this year. See the picks he made of
Garrit Cole, Travis d’Arnaud, and Carlos Martinez and you see picks that will
not help at all this year. Sterling is
not strong in starting pitching, so so in the bullpen, and weak at Shortstop
and (dare we say it for this team), first base.
Walt holds a lot of key players that may become available throughout the
year. Mauer’s would be the first one
people could lust after. The pirates are
pretty strong in the outfield also. A
lot of teams need outfield help and Walt has already made overtures in that
direction, so perk your ears up guys and see if you can figure out what kind of
trade could be made. I don’t expect this
team to make the playoffs, I think they are packing it in this year. Delphi has a better chance. It’s just that Sterling had such a highly
ranked team during their last dynasty it has taken a long, long time for them
to drop from the top.
9) Arlington
I don’t want to talk about this team. Jerry’s drafting was brilliant, and
heartbreaking for the rest of us. They
have strengths. The number one ranked
first basemen in the league. Two 15z
right handed starters. But their
strengths and weaknesses have no bearing on this year since it will be a long,
long time before anyone can trade with them, and the team is good enough if you
take 5 of 8 from the substitute managers you are going to be doing well.
10) Delphi
George made wise draft choices that will build for the
future as well as being useful this year.
This team could easily make the playoffs. Their weakness is in pitching being less
strong than most teams, rather than hitting.
They are the 5th best team in the league in hitting. As usual George didn’t buy into a bullpen
very much. He doesn’t seem to care about
having a deep bullpen and often brings only 5 relievers to a series, giving up
a few extra runs per series by the starters.
If George’s team falters and he decides to pack it in, there is lots of
talent that may become available in July.
He has solid outfielders for one thing, and as I’ve said, many teams
need help there. If anything ever
happened to David Wright, watch out!
He’s the number 2 ranked 3B behind Cabrera, and he is 31 now. If a 3B of that caliber were suddenly thrust
onto the market, he could be an earthquake in the landscape, a game changer. He’s 3B-5, with 1-0-0-0-11 strength, 15 on
base numbers, and E-33 on the steal grade.
The 7/-5 splits are capable of carving up strong lefty starters, and
Larry is relying on 2 of them this year.
11) Columbia Pike
The Cubs are the first of the two teams that are not
seriously trying to make the playoffs this year. Steve and Walt were very good at drafting
guys for Vermont that would hurt the rest of us, and many of Steve’s picks for
his Cubs franchise were great cards, they were also more on the side of being
prospect cards than one year cards. The
dead giveaway is the drafting of Jurickson Profar with the #3 overall
pick. Look at his card, this is not the
stuff playoff teams are made of. Maybe
in the future. Not now. So what does Steve have that might be
plundered? Any older players with good
cards that might not fit into his future if they falter in the MLB? Well guys like Cliff Lee and Carlos Quentin
come to mind. Dustin Pedroia, will he
ever not be a Cub? 2B-9 with OPS of
.787, I would take that. He’s 30. He’ll probably be good about 3 more years,
he’s quick as a cat, but at some point that will begin to erode. The guy I’m intrigued with is Timmy
Lincecum. He’s 29 and at 5x not going to
help anyone. His arm speed has
disappeared. But he could have a nice
card next year. Word out on the left
coast is this is the year he has finally realized he is not going to ever
overpower anyone again, and he is working on finesse and reinventing himself as
a pitcher. Back off the speed from 92
down to 90, place the ball, avoid walks, and fool guys with location, it can go
a long way. Several years of 12-13
grades with Z’s might be in his future.
12) Seacoast
The Wayfarers signaled their intentions before a game was
even played, drafting guys they would immediately trade. I like this style over the long term dynasty
building techniques. It’s flashy. It’s exciting. These draft picks are precious currency, and
give Chad a lot of early ones in any given year and he’ll win another
plaque. His trading pedigree is right up
there now also. He becomes more and more
dangerous as an opponent each year we play.
I still have questions about his judgement in the players he kept, like
Keppinger, and Dickey. Both are well
over 30 and had careers with spotty cards.
The probability of getting future value out of those guys is low enough
that you wonder if their roster spots might be better used up on younger
prospects. Looking for someone from this
team who will be available and might help you?
Look at Eric Chavez. As well as
the 3 low grade Z relievers that are already on the trade block, if you don’t
already have enough of that type of card.
If anyone is able to pry one of the outfielders out of Chad’s hands that
would be something that turns this league upside down.
Summary
I see the three tiers of active teams being:
Oakton and Stonehenge are true contenders. Oakton’s average player ranking is 3rd
out of 12 and Stonhenge’s is 4 out of 12.
Occoquan, Springfield, Roswell, Washington, Sterling, and Delphi
all might make the playoffs. Their
average player rankings are around 6 out of 12.
Four of those six will go.
Probably not Sterling, he seems to be giving up on this year already,
with his draft picks. So 4 out of 5 have
a chance. Whoever else ends up not
winning many games early will pack it in and trade away all kinds of
talent. It could easily be Occoquan, you
have fair warning.
Columbia Pike and Seacoast are actively building for the
future. They each have a few players
left who might be plundered as the season goes on.
Looking at these rankings vs. pre-draft, I feel that
Springfield lost a tad to become a mid-tier team, and Roswell stormed back into
playoff position with a strong draft.
Good luck everyone, it’s nice competing with guys as knowledgeable
as you all.
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