In W9 I had six first round rookie picks and high hopes for acquiring the base for future Mulligan teams. I had picks # 2,7,13,14,17 and 20. While that’s a good position to be in actually executing the draft successfully is no small feat. I picked this team up just before last years drafts and added King Felix, Francisco Liriano, Brian McCann and Josh Johnson for a good start.
I was already set at catcher but every other position was wide open. I did have a good young pitching nucleus but you can never have too many good young pitchers (What’s the best way to develop 4 good young pitchers? Start with 12 good young pitchers and pray). There were 4 good secondbasemen(Kendrick, Uggla, Kinsler and Barfield), 2 good shortstops(Drew and Tulowitzki), 2 good catchers(Martin and Johjima), 4 superior outfielders(D.Young, Markakis, C.Young and Quentin) and the usual host of pitchers.
My goal was to acquire a new double play combo, at least 2 outfielders and draft pitching with the rest. A secondary part of the plan was to use my five second round picks (#2,3,5,7 and 20) to get another outfielder, a thirdbaseman and a catcher, with pitching being, as always, the overflow option. I wanted to avoid taking too many pitchers because that has a much higher chance of disaster. Two would be good, six would be a calamity.
I planned on taking Delmon Young if he was there and Steven Drew if D.Young was gone. This was the easy part to plan on and worked out as predicted, Drew was a Mulligan with the second pick. Next up was the #7 pick, with which I hoped to select Chris Young to play center field. I figured C.Young would last at least until #7 with the other outfielders, position players and pitchers available. Wrong. In W9 he goes the highest in all PB with the #3 pick, with an average selection of 13.67. The fallback outfielder was Markakis, PB average 7.22, but he is gone with the #6 pick.
Figuring the other outfielders would last until the 13-14 picks I set my list for my #1 secondbaseman, Howie Kendrick. I get him and am hopefully set in the middle infield for quite awhile. So far, so good. Overall in PB 4 of the top 12 picks were pitchers but W9 GM’s take only 2 in the top dozen (Weaver and Hamels), instead taking all four outfielders I coveted when Carlos Quentin (15.33 average) is gone at #9.
So, despite my best laid plans I wind up with pitchers with picks #13,14 and 17. While I like Pelfrey(22.41), Garza(22.85) and Billingsley(23.37) they’re all a bit overdrafted and I’m still left with an empty outfield. That problem gets rectified when I get Lastings Milledge(26.26) with #20. He would’ve been a drop for Quentin but I like him well enough.
Six first round picks, six players selected before their average slot. I like the talent but this a good example of the difficulty of managing a multi-pick rookie draft. It sounds good but the execution can be sticky.
The second round starts off with Chris Ianetta the catcher I had #1 on my new list going ahead of me at 21. However, things went well after that with Kevin Kouzmanoff(26.56) at 22, Andrew Miller(28.22) #23, Jeremy Sowers(17.41! Finally a bargain) #25 and Ryan Sweeney (53.5) with #27. Alberto Callaspo, Jason Hirsh, Joel Guzman and Ubaldo Jiminez were added later.
Bottom Line: Lots of talent, most of it overdrafted but, as always, if they can play it’s a good pick.