64/60 2012 Draft Recap

What better way to kickoff the 64/60 Fantasy Baseball season with a Draft Recap. Now typically this is where I would get on my high horse and praise each and every selection made by the BCFP. While I will no doubt praise my brilliance often, Chris Lee will offer his input in what should make for a rather extensive draft recap in a series of articles that will be released over the next week or so. We begin with.........

***** While I feel a teams first 5 picks won't win a title, failure in this area can certainly end a season. With that in mind what team had the best start to the draft?

JBC: No team is void of some potential concern but I'll go with the Rug Pissers. Tulo is the top option at a somewhat shallow SS pool. Teixeira is the last of the upper echelon 1B in my opinion. Pedroia is a top 5 option at another limited offensive position. Santana follows the same script for C and has enough production to warrant using his 1B/CI eligibility. ARod is the biggest question mark and while he isn't the MVP of his prime he is still a 25 HR threat who will bat in the middle of a loaded lineup making 90 RBI a lock if he can get over 500AB that is good enough to be included in the Top Heavy portion of 3B.


BOPP: It's hard to really fuck up the first 5 rounds of your draft. Some effort would be required as there is a pretty general consensus about the top 50 or so players regardless of where you look. Needless to say, everyone had a fairly solid "first five"(Well, not everyone...but we'll get to that)

While I can understand why Burt went with The Rug Pissers, I simply believe that Tex and A-Rod are two very big Question Marks heading into this season. While no team is void of a few "iffy" guys, the Argumentative 9-Irons had the "safest" , First 5. Pujols is the closest thing to a seasons ending Top 5 overall lock that can be had. Add in Kinsler at 2nd, the always consistent, Hunter Pence. As well as Cliff Lee who would surprise no one if he finished as the #1 pitcher. Buster Posey is the scariest pick of this group, but......(A) Has shown that he's capable of producing "Star" numbers (B) Even if he doesn't have the year that some expect of him...as a Catcher, even a little drop off would still place him near the top of a weak positions rankings by season end.


***** Staying on the same topic but flipping the script. The worst start to the draft?

JBC: There is always risk associated with players, typically health is the most frequent. With so much uncertainty in a draft of 360 players you can't afford to overpay for players to form your foundation. As much as it pains me to say this but The Militia was found guilty of just that on multiple occasions. Gonzalez at 7 and Holliday in the 3rd round are no brainers both can easily be Top 25 players at seasons end. Brett Lawrie in the 2nd round was at least three rounds to early even based on Ev's projections for 2012. To keep it simple Lawrie will have to produce a basic slash line of .280/25/90/90/20 just to make him worth his pick. In the 4th Round the Militia nabbed Freddie Freeman of the board with the 42nd overall selection. Freeman should have been targeted at least 3-4 rounds later and as a CI option rather than one's top 1B option. Finally Joe Mauer. While I may be in the minority thinking Mauer will have a fine bounce back season in 2012, even I was shocked by his selection at this point. Anything short of a AVG north of .320 will yield little return on investment.


BOPP: There is no way around this, and Josh covered it quite well.......Butch had the worst start to the 2012 Draft. But, I would preface that by saying that Ev's draft was the worst only by Value. In our league, I think the Colonels of Hendo had a rougher take off. Let's examine....Kershaw and Verlander are STUDS and probably the strongest 1-2 in the league as of now. Off to a good start. So where did things go wrong? That would be in Round 3 with the selection of Papelbon, a Closer who isn't even the consensus "Top" Closer, being selected about 6-8 rounds too early. By far the worst pick of the entire Draft. Following that up with David Wright, whom seems determined to never really become the Superstar that everyone thought he should be. This is a prime example of a guy who's name is worth more than his production, combine that with the fact that he's already dealing with back stiffness this spring and you see why he's not an ideal offensive building block....Mike Napoli finishes out this group and while he's capable of big numbers out of the Catcher spot, you simply can't have a guy who won't surpass 400-450 AB's as your safest offensive player in the first 5 rounds.