NFBC Draft Champions - RJ entry

[Ken]

Now as to overall power not that RotoWire projections should be some sort of lock, but they do have us with 191 HR's right now through 11 picks, 6 hitters which is good for 2nd overall at this point.

TheBat - 192
ATC - 184
Depthcharts - 175
Steamer - 175

[madducks]

He didn't make it back - we are looking at C-Mart this round.

Martinez has shoulder soreness - shut down for two weeks - be careful.

[Ken]

Martinez has shoulder soreness - shut down for two weeks - be careful.

Yeah that news came out a couple minutes after we picked. Great timing.

[cavebird]

Ouch, that was just absolutely brutal for ya'll.

[mjl]

Eovaldi, then Braun this time. Lengthy debate on Bader vs JBJ vs Braun, partially solved when Bader went the pick before us.

[mjl]

also, we had been hoping to take Andrus with 14.4 but he was taken by team 15, which now has three shortstops and a UT-only player, so Andrus is probably starting the season on the bench.

[Ken]

also, we had been hoping to take Andrus with 14.4 but he was taken by team 15, which now has three shortstops and a UT-only player, so Andrus is probably starting the season on the bench.

Yup, autodrafted by the crazy guy on the turn who has Charlie Morton as his ace.

[frae]

OK busy day for me so an update now of where we are...

So since Braun we have had some good and some bad. SS got thin fast and with Lindor as our top SS we took Adames in rd 15 and hoped JBJ would survive the turn for rd 16. It didn't work out as JBJ went so we pivoted to who we thought was the best OF hitter, Max Kepler. He didn't give us speed but we didn't want to force it here.

Next round needed to be a closer type, might have had some debate if more people fell but Colome and May both went so we decided to take Strickland here. We probably need to take a few more shots here, but we are also kind of hoping C-Mart might be a closer now if he isn't a SP.

For round 17 we addressed a little speed and took Kevin Pillar. We aren't going to be top 1/3 in speed but we are going to try to get close to mid-pack. So through 17 picks here is where we are...

1B Matt Olson
2B Cano
SS Lindor
3B Muncy
MI Adames
OF Yelich
OF Nimmo
OF Braun
OF Kepler
OF Pillar
UT K Davis

SP Thor
SP Berrios
SP Mikolas
SP Eovaldi
SP/CL C-Mart
CL Jansen
CL Strickland

Need to get back to SP and eventually will need to get a couple catchers and we need a CI.

[Ken]

We have added CI Yonder Alonso and P Michael Fulmer in 19/20

[joncarlos]

I like Fulmer too. Wins will be a problem but if he has his feel back for his pitches he could be a nice ratios guy.

[Ken]

We've added quite a bit since this has been updated:

R21: Isaih Kiner-Falefa

A lot of the catchers in this range are similar (in other words, bad). We know we are short on SB and any few marginal SB we can get are helpful at this point. We went into the draft knowing that we'd probably punt catcher to some extent but also targetting some catchers who might actually play other positions, and IKF, while scheduled to focus more on catching this year, fits that description. If he can get us 5-10 SB that helps us make up *some* for guys like Khris Davis and Cano who don't run much compared to typical picks at their position.

R22: Kyle Gibson

The first debate here was regarding Delino Deshields. Again with the lack of speed there was an argument made that we needed to take a rabbit. Oddly we talked about just waiting for Greg Allen, but he was off the board in round 18 so that wasn't a real option. We may have made a mistake here by not getting a burner, but maybe it's better to pick up several 15/15 or 10/10 guys? There's a philosophical draft argument somewhere in there.

Regardless, we switched to pitching as a target and the discussion focused first on Matt Strahm and Jake Junis. I was pushing for Junis and mjl liked Strahm. My argument was based on the uncertainty of Strahm, he wasn't guaranteed a rotation spot and he hasn't pitched much the last couple years so his innings may be limited. I'll say I'm reading more and more good notes on Strahm and I really liked him a couple years ago, so it's likely that I'm in the wrong here and we should have taken Strahm. And given that Junis fell to round 24, I was just flat out wrong in thinking we needed to take him here. But regardless, instead of pushing for those 2, we all agreed on a compromised which was Kyle Gibson who everyone had as a decent option for this slot. Not a sexy pick, but he'll give us some Ks/Ws and there's a little upside hiding in there if he can pitch like his 1st half last year for stretches.

R23: John Hicks

We had been talking about hicks since early in the draft as one of those late round catchers who may get extra time at other positions (like mentioned above), and this was around his ADP. The Josh Harrison signing did not help his cause, that could eat into some of those extra ABs (Goodrum shifting to 1B at times, Hicks losing out on 1B/DH ABs). But even still, with your 2nd catcher you can't worry TOO much about playing time.

We had lost Austin Barnes, a potential marginal SB catcher just 5 picks before. And Elias Diaz went off 1 pick prior. To our right, there had only been 1 catcher taken so we feared losing out on this tier of catchers.

We talked about potentially taking a MI to cover for Lindor the first month. But ultimately we went with Hicks.

R24: Jake Junis

This one was on me.

We talked about Peacock, Teoscar, and others. But I had been pining for Junis for a while and at this price he seems like a good deal. 72 Ks to just 15 BBs in the 2nd half is the kind of ratios I like to see. Pulled the trigger on some pitching depth that we'd been talking about for a few rounds

R25: Eric Thames

We feel like we need some flexibilty in this draft, expecially with some of our age and injuries. There's no argument here that Thames had a very rough 2018, but obviously the talent is there. And with Braun on our roster we figured Thames is a good hedge against some of that age/injury risk that we had accumulated.

At this point we started talking about handcuffing (and while it is an interesting discussion we have not really come to a consensus)

R26: Ian Kinsler

We had not addressed our Lindor problem, and while we dont trust Kinsler to last the year, he'll be a good fill in for April. Gives us a little speed (if those legs still work).

Eduardo Nunez, Swanson, Camargo were also discussed

R27: Seth Lugo

This morning we were up first thing.

We got into a long discussion about picking Swarzak as a handcuff to Strickland. Ultimately it was decided not to handcuff (at this point in the draft), but this was not a consensus decision.
Lugo was a name we could all agree on as a good ratio pitcher to fill in on weeks where we don't like a starter's matchups.

Other names that were mentioned:

Caleb Smith, Zobrist, Soroka (we know he's hurt but he's fallen 100 picks), Bour, Quinn, Duggar, Camargo, Roark, Kela, Crawford, Beckham, Harrison


Current roster:

C IKF
C Hicks
1B Matt Olson
2B Cano
SS Lindor
3B Muncy
MI Adames
CI Alonso
OF Yelich
OF Nimmo
OF Braun
OF Kepler
OF Pillar
UT K Davis

SP Thor
SP Berrios
SP Mikolas
SP Eovaldi
SP Fulmer
SP Gibson
SP/CL C-Mart
CL Jansen
CL Strickland


Bench:

2B Kinsler
OF/1B Thames
SP Junis
RP Lugo

[Ken]

We've talked about Camargo possibly for our next pick (pick 409). On the clock. Right now Muncy is our only 3B on the roster.

Bour may be a better pick in the abstract although we have 4 1B already and just 1 3B.

Here's those left in our ADP range currently

Mike Soroka ATL 296
Scott Schebler CIN 308
Johan Camargo ATL 313
Anthony DeSclafani CIN 364
Ben Zobrist CHC 383
Justus Sheffield SEA 387
Tanner Roark CIN 389
Brandon Crawford SF 391
Raimel Tapia COL 393
Justin Bour LAA 394
Yonny Chirinos TB 395
Trevor Rosenthal WAS 396
Chris Iannetta COL 397
CC Sabathia NYY 398
Yandy Diaz TB 399
Caleb Smith MIA 400
Brian McCann ATL 402
Gio Gonzalez MLW 404
Yoshihisa Hirano ARZ 405
Tyler Anderson COL 406
Jaime Barria LAA 407
Roman Quinn PHI 408
Sandy Alcantara MIA 410
Nick Ahmed ARZ 411
Nick Williams PHI 412
Danny Duffy KC 414

[joncarlos]

Don't wait too long without getting a decent backup for every position. I made that mistake. Up to you if you think Camargo is that much better than Yandy. I do like Bour a lot.

[cavebird]

Get Camargo. And who is John Hicks? Geez, I am getting old and forgetful.

[Ken]

Get Camargo. And who is John Hicks? Geez, I am getting old and forgetful.

Catcher/1B/DH for the Tigers.
We got Camargo and then CC Sabathia, now we're up again.

Possibly a Ben Zobrist pick?