Early drafts are underway and while it is human nature, I see examples of personal bias altering people’s drafting. Certainly we all view players differently and maybe got burned too badly by Adam Dunn or Vernon Wells to even think about drafting them again.
But what are our draft picks? Pieces of a jigsaw puzzle we all hope get us first place in each of our league’s categories. So shouldn’t they be more about the numbers than about the face on those numbers?
Let’s look at Player X and Player Y and tell me which one you want to draft
| Player | R | HR | RBI | SB | BAvg |
| MI X | 121 | 32 | 77 | 30 | 0.255 |
| MI Y | 92 | 21 | 76 | 21 | 0.300 |
Yeah I know you could run over to Baseball-Reference.com and look them up – hell you might even remember X if you had him last year. And like any set I pulled out you could say I fudged this or that – hey it’s just an exercise. One is drafted half the time in the first round while the other people always say…well you can’t draft him in the first round. Pick yours
And then let’s look at closers. They are a unique brand of pitchers for sure. Ron Shandler's rule of TOG in full force, [that is Talent, Opportunity, and Guile if you haven’t heard it before – the reasons that pitchers get/keep the closer role].
But are we drafting a name or a face or are we drafting the projected number of the revered Saves we need from “our” closers? You may have seen Todd’s comments on this and I am pretty much in the same camp – save are saves. Ugly or clean they count the same in that category. Sure we would like our guy to have a nice ERA and WHIP, but that is not the reason we added them to our roster and if you drafted them late then presumably (hopefully?) your starting pitchers much better innings heavy ERA and WHIP can absorb a poor closer’s numbers pretty easily.
So take a look at these four pitching lines:
| Closer | W | Sv | ERA | WHIP | K | IP |
| A | 5 | 25 | 2.19 | 0.99 | 51 | 58 |
| B | 3 | 43 | 2.44 | 1.15 | 51 | 63 |
| C | 5 | 38 | 2.91 | 1.23 | 66 | 65 |
| D | 5 | 36 | 2.47 | 1.13 | 57 | 62 |
Okay if I follow my own arguments above, I want Closer B – more saves, MORE ratios. Well Closers A & B are from last year – one cost you a much higher draft pick or considerably more auction dollars. Now which would you choose for 2012? Two saves difference plus nine more strikeouts versus better ERA and WHIP. Pretty much the same guy, right? So why does Closer C get drafted several rounds ahead of Closer D?
Which MI would you draft? X or Y?
Which Closer would you draft? C or D?
I’ll hang up and listed now……………..I have to go draft one of the closers.
Okay just finished a fifty….yes 50 round draft in just over four hours. So here is the first round
| Pick | Player | Pos | Team |
| 1.01 | Matt Kemp | OF | LAD |
| 1.02 | Miguel Cabrera | 1B | DET |
| 1.03 | Albert Pujols | 1B | LAA |
| 1.04 | Troy Tulowitzki | SS | COL |
| 1.05 | Adrian Gonzalez | 1B | BOS |
| 1.06 | Jacoby Ellsbury | OF | BOS |
| 1.07 | Jose Bautista | 3B | TOR |
| 1.08 | Joey Votto | 1B | CIN |
| 1.09 | Robinson Cano | 2B | NYY |
| 1.1 | Justin Upton | OF | AZ |
| 1.11 | Carlos Gonzalez | OF | COL |
| 1.12 | Evan Longoria | 3B | TB |
| 1.13 | Prince Fielder | 1B | DET |
| 1.14 | Clayton Kershaw | P | LAD |
| 1.15 | Dustin Pedroia | 2B | BOS |
And Player X, Ian Kinsler went at 2.02 – four spots higher than Player Y, Hanley Ramirez…..someone must have read the article.
Pitcher A/C, Heath Bell went at 9.01. The Marlins won’t win as many games as the Tampa Bay Rays so pitcher B/D, Kyle Farnsworth should have more chances this year….but Farnsworth went at 12.05
The bottom line of course is you should draft the players on what you think they will do this year – last year’s numbers are gone. Still sometimes we need to look at the numbers and not the face.
{jcomments on}