As we mentioned earlier this month, we created an ‘expert’ league that follows the same rules as the Razzball Commenter League and will be included in the master standings. Will the Expert League reign supreme (Iron ChefTM) in competitive index or will several RCL leagues put the experts in their place? We shall see…
Here are the participants in the first annual Razzball ‘Expert’ League (links if they posted a draft review):
Razzball – Grey Albright
Razzball – Rudy Gamble
Yahoo! – Brandon Funston
Yahoo! – Scott Pianowski
Yahoo! – Andy Behrens
FanGraphs – Eno Sarris
Hardball Times – Jonathan Halket
MLBTradeRumors.com/RotoAuthority – Tim Dierkes
Mastersball – Ryan Carey
Rotowire – Dalton Del Don
SI.com – Eric Mack
Steamer Projections – Dash Davidson
Here’s a link to the entire Draft Recap:
Grey:
As mentioned in our 2nd podcast, ESPN screwed me for messing with them for the last five years. Right before my 1st pick, my computer crashed. Here’s me during the draft. “Hey, I have the 7th pick. Awesome. I’m gonna have a 1st baseman. I might even get Votto. I wonder who that lady is watering her lawn across the street. Maybe I’ll stand up carefully to make sure I don’t knock over my coffee and get a better look–NOOOOOO! Crap, mother-effin’, son-of-a-motherless-goat! Reboot! Reboot! Reboot! Okay, it’s rebooting… I have a minute and thirty seconds… Reboot! DAH! I drafted Robinson Cano!” And then that dictated just about all my other hitter picks. Since I had Cano, I couldn’t grab Kinsler, didn’t want a shortstop and the only 1st baseman or 3rd baseman within the vicinity was Tex and I wasn’t drafting him with my 18th pick. So I took Giancarlo. Then I really felt like I needed to make sure I had some sorta corner man so I reached for Zimmerman. Not feeling totally comfortable with Zimmerman as my 3rd baseman, I reached for Hosmer for my other corner. Then I felt like if Zimmerman got hurt again, I should have another 3rd baseman, so I grabbed Aramis, then I realized later on that Aramis wasn’t a clean bill of health either so I grabbed Chisenhall. Then I dropped Chisenhall when he was demoted and grabbed Smoak for the two game Japaning Day, then, when those games ended, I grabbed Eric Thames.
I may have 5 aces when it’s all said and done. I wouldn’t even need Gio on this staff, but he fell so far down that I wasn’t going to let him go. I’m not worried about saves, even if my closers are little iffy. SAGNOF! Since I had Cano and Hosmer, I took some guys that may be average drains, but should give steals and power. Though, I do think average will be one of my biggest concerns. In true Grey fashion (I love to pick up and drop players and talk about myself in third person), I’ve already made a few moves on pitching too. Dropped Fuentes (right after Balfour became the closer) and grabbed Bourgeois. Bourgeois is the kinda of guy that if he sneaks into a large playing role or if I switch him in only when he plays, he could get me 30 cheap steals. SAGNOF! I dropped Stauffer and grabbed Lidge when Storen was hurting (Clippard was drafted) and dropped Crain for Henry Rodriguez. It’s a bit of a shizzshow, but, in some ways, I like to be able to juggle my last roster spots so I don’t care I wasted a pick on Chisenhall, Fuentes, etc. Rudy gets a lot more tied to his drafts than I do. In the end, I think I still have a solid team. By the time you read this, I may have made three more pick-ups and drops.
Grey’s RCL Draft | ||
Position | Player | Round/Pick |
C | Geovany Soto | R23 Pick 271 |
1B | Eric Hosmer | R4 Pick 42 |
2B | Robinson Cano | R1 Pick 7 |
SS | Zack Cozart | R17 Pick 199 |
3B | Ryan Zimmerman | R3 Pick 31 |
OF | Giancarlo Stanton | R2 Pick 18 |
OF | Brett Gardner | R6 Pick 66 |
OF | Krispie Young | R7 Pick 79 |
OF | Alex Rios | R14 Pick 162 |
OF | Peter Bourjos | R19 Pick 223 |
1B/3B | Aramis Ramirez | R8 Pick 90 |
2B/SS | Aaron Hill | R16 Pick 186 |
UTIL | Lonnie Chisenhall | R24 Pick 282 |
SP | Madison Bumgarner | R5 Pick 55 |
SP | Mat Latos | R9 Pick 103 |
SP | Anibal Sanchez | R11 Pick 127 |
SP | Gio Gonzalez | R12 Pick 138 |
SP | Mike Minor | R15 Pick 175 |
SP | Jake Peavy | R20 Pick 234 |
RP | Jose Valverde | R10 Pick 114 |
RP | Huston Street | R13 Pick 151 |
RP | Matt Capps | R18 Pick 210 |
Bench RP | Brian Fuentes | R21 Pick 247 |
Bench RP | Jesse Crain | R22 Pick 258 |
Bench SP | Tim Stauffer | R25 Pick 295 |
Rudy:
At this point in the draft season, I’m starting to get predictable in my early round draft behavior. I was really happy picking 10th with the confidence that either Joey Votto or (more likely) Adrian Gonzalez would fall to me and I wouldn’t have to worry about overpaying for a 1B later in the draft. As luck should have it, Grey’s computer crashed and he auto-picked Robinson Cano vs. his preferred Joey Votto pick who came gift-wrapped to me at #10. Longoria was an easy choice at #15 as I figured there would still be top SPs on the board by the time I picked next at #34. The experts were more aggressive than I figured at drafting SPs however as Halladay, Kershaw, Verlander, Lee, F-Her, and Lincecum were all off the board. Luckily, I liked Greinke slightly more than F-Her and Lincecum. But I also liked Jay Bruce for this pick and, in retrospect, probably should’ve gamed Greinke was the more likely of the two to make it me at pick #39. Hunter Pence was the consolation prize.
I spread out my SP selections and seemed to have a lot of success nabbing K-friendly pitchers (Lester, Beachy, Morrow). I specifically drafted Lewis and Nolasco in later rounds because of their solid WHIPs (which help balance out Morrow). For the first time in years, I drafted the first closer off the board (Kimbrel – 6th round/63rd pick) as the value was too great given his obscene K-rate. Marmol and Putz came at decent values at Rounds 11/12 and I was glad to be done with closers before a closer run occurred (10 closers went in the next 33 picks after Putz).
As for offense, I just drafted for value and was able to avoid inadvertently punting AVG or SBs. I reached for Jose Altuve whom I think has 30 SB upside with solid AVG and, like several of my teams this year, got solid R/RBI value out of my other MI spots (Alexei Ramirez, Neil Walker).
All in all, this was about as good of a draft as I could’ve hoped for. I don’t think my team has any major weaknesses and hopefully my team has good injury karma. It’ll be interesting to see how well I do in this type of format (12 team, daily changes) – especially without Grey as co-manager
Rudy’s RCL Draft | ||
Position | Player | Round/Pick |
C | J.P. Arencibia | R23 Pick 274 |
1B | Joey Votto | R1 Pick 10 |
2B | Jose Altuve | R13 Pick 154 |
SS | Alexei Ramirez | R10 Pick 111 |
3B | Evan Longoria | R2 Pick 15 |
OF | Hunter Pence | R4 Pick 39 |
OF | Shin-Soo Choo | R7 Pick 82 |
OF | Drew Stubbs | R8 Pick 87 |
OF | Jeff Francoeur | R16 Pick 183 |
OF | Colby Rasmus | R18 Pick 207 |
1B/3B | Gaby Sanchez | R17 Pick 202 |
2B/SS | Neil Walker | R14 Pick 159 |
UTIL | J.D. Martinez | R20 Pick 231 |
SP | Zack Greinke | R3 Pick 34 |
SP | Jon Lester | R5 Pick 58 |
SP | Brandon Beachy | R9 Pick 106 |
SP | Brandon Morrow | R15 Pick 178 |
SP | Colby Lewis | R20 Pick 226 |
SP | Ricky Nolasco | R21 Pick 250 |
RP | Craig Kimbrel | R6 Pick 63 |
RP | Carlos Marmol | R11 Pick 130 |
RP | J.J. Putz | R12 Pick 135 |
Bench RP | Mike Adams | R22 Pick 255 |
Bench RP | David Hernandez | R24 Pick 279 |
Bench OF | Denard Span | R25 Pick 298 |