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DownloadIn my last column we looked at the first round of two different real money leagues that were drafted in December and January to see the differences in early rankings/projections versus actual draft spots.
There was a thread started in the Strategy & Theory Discussion Forum of the message board about the drafting of pitchers.
My contention was that in NFBC drafts where your team is not only competing at the league level but also measured against the entire field in the overall ranking that the better drafters were taking the better pitchers fairly early – not in the first round and only the occasional stud in the second round but starting in earnest in the third round or bunching several picks later than that to likely have three pitchers – either two starters and a closer or three starters – in the first ten rounds. ). So let’s take a look at the two drafts I referenced last week and see how and when pitchers were drafted.
What the draft results tell us is that most teams drafted either three or four pitchers among their first ten picks. The actual draft for the two drafts is
December Draft January Draft
1 team took two pitchers 3 teams took two pitchers
8 teams took three pitchers 5 teams took three pitchers
4 teams took four pitchers 6 teams took four pitchers
2 teams took five pitchers 1 team took five pitchers
Throw out the two and five pitcher teams and you see how most drafters started out.
We can also get good information by looking at the pitchers drafted each round:
December January
Round |
#Pitchers |
Round |
#Pitchers |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
3 |
2 |
4 |
3 |
6 |
3 |
3 |
4 |
2 |
4 |
4 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
7 |
6 |
9 |
6 |
4 |
7 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
8 |
6 |
8 |
6 |
9 |
13 |
9 |
10 |
10 |
3 |
10 |
5 |
Note the similarities in the two drafts:
No pitchers taken in the first round.
Two to four pitchers taken (for the most part) in round two through four.
Then an increase to roughly four or five on the low end to seven or eight on the high end from round five through round eight and then a huge explosion with most teams drafting a pitcher in round nine. And no, that was not a round of closer runs in either draft.
Both drafts were very similar in the amount of pitchers drafted in the first five rounds – one had 16 while the other had 18 and in the next five rounds – the first having 37 and the other drafting 33. So both drafts saw 50 or 51 pitchers taken in the first ten rounds – slightly more than three per team.{jcomments on}
Having looked at all the positions for the projected top performers, let’s now take a look at round one of real money drafts to see where players actually put them on their rosters.
The two drafts are from fifteen team, 5X5, mixed leagues. One drafted in December and one this month.
Here is the earlier one
spot |
Player |
Pos |
tm |
1.01 |
Matt Kemp |
OF |
LAD |
1.02 |
Troy Tulowitzki |
SS |
COL |
1.03 |
Albert Pujols |
1B |
FA |
1.04 |
Adrian Gonzalez |
1B |
BOS |
1.05 |
Miguel Cabrera |
1B |
DET |
1.06 |
Jose Bautista |
3B |
TOR |
1.07 |
Joey Votto |
1B |
CIN |
1.08 |
Hanley Ramirez |
SS |
MIA |
1.09 |
Prince Fielder |
1B |
FA |
1.10 |
Jacoby Ellsbury |
OF |
BOS |
1.11 |
Robinson Cano |
2B |
NYY |
1.12 |
Carlos Gonzalez |
OF |
COL |
1.13 |
Curtis Granderson |
OF |
NYY |
1.14 |
Ian Kinsler |
2B |
TEX |
1.15 |
Dustin Pedroia |
2B |
BOS |
A few observations
Now let’s see the differences a month later with almost the same group:
spot |
Player |
Pos |
Tm |
1.01 |
Albert Pujols |
1B |
LAA |
1.02 |
Troy Tulowitzki |
SS |
COL |
1.03 |
Matt Kemp |
OF |
LAD |
1.04 |
Miguel Cabrera |
1B |
DET |
1.05 |
Adrian Gonzalez |
1B |
BOS |
1.06 |
Joey Votto |
1B |
CIN |
1.07 |
Robinson Cano |
2B |
NYY |
1.08 |
Prince Fielder |
1B |
FA |
1.09 |
Jacoby Ellsbury |
OF |
BOS |
1.10 |
Jose Bautista |
3B |
TOR |
1.11 |
Carlos Gonzalez |
OF |
COL |
1.12 |
Hanley Ramirez |
SS |
MIA |
1.13 |
Evan Longoria |
3B |
TB |
1.14 |
Justin Upton |
OF |
AZ |
1.15 |
Jose Reyes |
SS |
MIA |
Thoughts here and comparisons:
Questions?{jcomments on}
Actually, for fantasy players the question only begets more questions – How good is he? How good is the team he pitches for? And perhaps more importantly than those two, how secure is his job?
So even IF we found someone we thought was better than Mo, will they still be getting their team’s saves in August or September? That has to be factored in with some choices, not so much with others. So let’s look at the rankings for drafting a closer this year.
Top 12 Closers for 2012 (as of mid-January)
Well, we have covered all the positions so next week we will start to take a look at Round 1 of a current draft.{jcomments on}
Last in our preliminary look at position rankings for 2012 fantasy baseball drafts are the pitchers.
So a month before pitchers and catchers report to their respective spring training complexes, here is my view of the top-24 starting pitchers for the 2012 season.
Next week we will look at our last preliminary list – the closers.
{jcomments on}
Looking ahead at who I project to be the top outfielders in the 2012 season is somewhat obscured by Ryan Braun’s pending PED suspension and some health issues. But while I am not going to put Braun on the list below he would have been my number one outfielder over Matt Kemp and the Cardinal’s Allen Craig would have made the Top 25 if he were healthy.
So here is December’s view
Once you get to this spot there are several who could go a spot higher or lower. The one who could easily be listed in the twenties but just off my list would be Desmond Jennings of Tampa Bay. I would like to see the power show up again for him this year and then he will move up.{jcomments on}