The Pre-Mid-Post-Winter Meeting Mock Draft That Was

When Grey contacted me in mid-October about a mock draft, I thought perhaps an email that got caught up in his iPhone draft folder had finally wiggled it’s way out of technological purgatory.  Yo Grey, I fire back, I think you got hacked and the worst part is even your spam is about fantasy baseball.  After some clarification via emails and iPhone emojis, it was clear it was indeed a mock draft for the 2015 season being offered up by Bryan Curley of Baseballprof.com.  And look at that site bio pic…who could say no to that, right?  So I started the long and winding trek that was this pre-pre-pre-season mock draft.  Since we’re nowhere near the start of the season, there was a 24 hour clock for each pick.  All that to say, since the start of this mock draft, the Padres have traded for every player in the league at least once, the football season basically came and went, and we’ve found out that we side with North Korea in the matters of Seth Rogen/James Franco movies.  But after three months’ worth of setup and drafting, 12 teams were made and now we get to talk about them so here it goes.  Let’s take a look at a way too early mock for the 2015 Fantasy Baseball season…

The Preface

I know y’all love a bit of a breakdance before we get rolling so here’s me sliding on my leather, fingerless gloves and pulling out some cardboard on the sidewalk with a boombox in hand..oops, meant breakdown.  Silly autocorrect!  Now could someone please turn off World Class Wreckin’ Crew?  Thanks…as stated previously, we had a 24 hour clock from which to draft so this was not a stresser.  Also of note, there were no bench positions so if you’re wondering why so and so and such and such weren’t drafted, number one those aren’t real people and number two, this just wasn’t a deep draft so there was no need to do so.  It’s important to keep that in mind when viewing any of the teams.  There’s just no reason to view this all as ‘real’ teams in that light, just more of a dry run before rankings get going.  For obvious reasons, I’ll be talking about my team and not anyone else’s here but if you’d like to see how teams turned out, you can view them here on Couchmanagers.  Fair warning: it might hurt your eyes.  Let’s just say they might not have talked to a web designer since Geocities was popular.  But the site works so who’s complaining, right?  On there, you can also see the list of people who were a part of the mock.  Some you’ll recognize (Mike Podhorzer), some you’ll just have to google (me) but overall, it was a good gaggle of fantasy peeps.  Now that we’ve held off long enough, let’s get to my team and how it shaped up:

I still believe in CarGo, I’m in love with Nolan Arenado, and the Mets will win the World Series

I think that blurb gives you all the info you need, honestly.  But for real, there were some things that jumped out at me as the draft went along.  One, I hate first base worse than I did last year and I, like, hated it a lot in 2014.  For that reason, I was happy to get the basher Abreu in the 1st.  It was totally my inclination to double down on 1B and go Rizzo in the 2nd but he didn’t fall to me so I decided to give CarGo one last try.  Given the shakeout of the rest of round 2, it was clearly a trap round for a lot of teams.  In hindsight, it could’ve been Rendon but Carlos just suffered through the worst year of his career since joining the Rockies.  Value pick?  No.  Insane to look at him in the 2nd rather than just playing it safe?  No again.  Arenado has been ‘my guy’ for a little while so it’s not surprise to see him on my team before the top 50 picks were done.  I think he could be in for a monster year.  At 23, Nolan just had a prorated 25 HR, 90 RBI campaign.  If he’s a top 20 pick in 2016 drafts, I won’t be surprised but he’ll be on any/every team of mine in 2015 with how aggressively I’ve ranked him.  As for the Mets pitching?  I’m only half joking.  I do think they’ll be a good team this year but it wasn’t my intention to draft three of their pitchers.  That said, it’s hard to argue that I have in them three pitchers who could have 200Ks apiece.  Hard to hate on that.

Overall, I feel this team was a good mix.  There are bounceback candidates in Jay Bruce, Brian McCann, and Elvis Andrus, buoyed by nice 2014 surprises in J.D. Martinez and A.J. Pollock while also not neglecting upside with players like Kolten Wong and Drew Hutchison.  Much like what Fox News claims to be, I feel this team is fair and balanced and could contend if it were a real one in 2015…or as real as a fantasy team can be I guess.  But what say you?  Like, click, subscribe and all that jazz below.  I’m out!