Yesterday I discussed one possible outcome of going pitcher heavy early in your fantasy baseball draft, today will be focused on the contrary. Hitters will be taken early and often, and hopefully by the end of today's discussion a clear picture of the differences in the two strategies will be brought to light.
I assumed the same size draft and same drafting position as yesterday (6th spot in a 10 team draft).
1st Rd, 6th Pick (6th overall) - Matt Kemp (OF)
2nd Rd, 5th Pick (15th overall) - David Wright (3B)
3rd Rd, 6th Pick (26th overall)- Jimmy Rollins (SS)
4th Rd, (35th overall) - Brandon Phillips (2B)
5th Rd, (46th overall) - Justin Morneau (1B)
6th Rd, (55th overall) - Curtis Granderson (OF)
7th Rd, (66th overall) - Jon Lester (SP)
8th Rd, (75th overall) - Josh Beckett (SP)
9th Rd, (86th overall) - Cole Hamels (SP)
10th Rd, (95th overall) - Matt Cain (SP)
11th Rd, (106th overall) - Jair Jurrjens (SP)
12th Rd, (115th overall) - Carlos Gonzalez (OF)
13th Rd, (126th overall) - Francisco Cordero (CP)
14th Rd, (135th overall) - Kurt Suzuki (C)
15th Rd, (146th overall) - Alex Rios (OF)
16th Rd, (155th overall) - Ben Sheets (SP)
17th Rd, (166th overall) - David Aardsma (CP)
18th Rd, (175th overall) - Vladimir Guerrero (UTIL)
19th Rd, (186th overall) - Ted Lilly (SP)
20th Rd, (195th overall) - Trevor Hoffman (CP)
21st Rd, (206th overall) - David Price (SP)
22nd Rd, (215th overall) - J.A. Happ (SP)
23rd Rd, (226th overall) - Phil Hughes (SP)
As mentioned already, this is the heavy bats approach, so here I tried to avoid taking a pitcher for as long as possible while taking as many big bats as possible. I opted for Matt Kemp in the first round because of his potential. He spent most of the season last year being juggled around by Joe Torre batting in all spots in the lineup before finally winding up batting 3-4 for the last third of the season. If he managed to put up monster numbers while being jerked around like that, I am 100% positive that he can put up even bigger numbers while batting cleanup the entire season.
Given that I opted for an OF in the first round the next few rounds I planned on making up for it by drafting prime bats at "rare" positions; hence, David Wright, Jimmy Rollins and Brandon Phillips. So four rounds into the draft and I've got four guys capable of 25/25 or better and a nearly completed infield. Round 5 gave me my obligatory Twins player, Justin Morneau, who's got good power and he's an RBI machine while posting a good batting average.
After taking another 25/25 candidate in Granderson to fill another spot in the outfield I felt that it might be best to start drafting a pitcher. SO here we are 6 rounds into the draft and I have every position filled except for my catcher; I had originally thought about a catcher here but there wasn't anyone I was willing to take this early so it was finally time to start building my rotation. At this point every other team had already drafted a pitcher so I was definitely playing catchup, but with my next five picks I drafted SP/SP/SP/SP/SP. Now the nucleus of my rotation consisted of Lester/Beckett/Hamels/Cain/Jurrjens, considering I hadn't drafted a pitcher till the sixth round I'm pretty content with that as an initial base rotation.
I was now in a point where I no longer felt like I had to draft another pitcher, so I grabbed Carlos Gonzalez (a player I'm really big on coming into this year). I've got Gonzalez slated for a 25/25 type year with big AVG/R/RBI numbers. Why take him so late then? Because he's going to be available, so why would you overpay if you don't have to? The next few rounds I spent filling out roster needs, with CoCo (I've already established my feeling on him), Suzuki (very solid catcher for the 14th round), Alex Rios (a potential "bounce back" candidate on a better offensive team). So by the 15th round my roster was completed (save for an additional closer) and I got to spend the next 7 rounds drafting bench players (which consisted primarily of starting pitching).
I snaked a couple more closers later in the draft (Hoffman and Aardsma) mostly because neither of them are sure things, but they both could be big contributors to SV/ERA/WHIP, assuming years even similar to last year. The last few rounds were spent drafting the same sort of players I ended up drafting in the "Pitcher Heavy" draft yesterday.
All in all I'm pretty damn happy with the results of this draft. My primary aces would probably end up being Lester and Cain, since Beckett's likely due for a nasty case of the "blisters" again this year, but the supporting rotation I ended up being able to snag is pretty good. I was even able to snag a few high upside type pitchers in Sheets, Hughes, and Happ while drafting the ever sturdy but incredibly boring Ted Lilly.
I'll save my decision on which of these two drafts I actually prefer in my next Fantasy Baseball discussion, but I hope that this at least sparks some interest for those of you that are (possibly) reading this...although I'm guessing the ratio of people who started reading this versus the numbers of people who FINISHED reading this is pretty high...Oh well.
So, are Batters Better?
After taking another 25/25 candidate in Granderson to fill another spot in the outfield I felt that it might be best to start drafting a pitcher. SO here we are 6 rounds into the draft and I have every position filled except for my catcher; I had originally thought about a catcher here but there wasn't anyone I was willing to take this early so it was finally time to start building my rotation. At this point every other team had already drafted a pitcher so I was definitely playing catchup, but with my next five picks I drafted SP/SP/SP/SP/SP. Now the nucleus of my rotation consisted of Lester/Beckett/Hamels/Cain/Jurrjens, considering I hadn't drafted a pitcher till the sixth round I'm pretty content with that as an initial base rotation.
I was now in a point where I no longer felt like I had to draft another pitcher, so I grabbed Carlos Gonzalez (a player I'm really big on coming into this year). I've got Gonzalez slated for a 25/25 type year with big AVG/R/RBI numbers. Why take him so late then? Because he's going to be available, so why would you overpay if you don't have to? The next few rounds I spent filling out roster needs, with CoCo (I've already established my feeling on him), Suzuki (very solid catcher for the 14th round), Alex Rios (a potential "bounce back" candidate on a better offensive team). So by the 15th round my roster was completed (save for an additional closer) and I got to spend the next 7 rounds drafting bench players (which consisted primarily of starting pitching).
I snaked a couple more closers later in the draft (Hoffman and Aardsma) mostly because neither of them are sure things, but they both could be big contributors to SV/ERA/WHIP, assuming years even similar to last year. The last few rounds were spent drafting the same sort of players I ended up drafting in the "Pitcher Heavy" draft yesterday.
All in all I'm pretty damn happy with the results of this draft. My primary aces would probably end up being Lester and Cain, since Beckett's likely due for a nasty case of the "blisters" again this year, but the supporting rotation I ended up being able to snag is pretty good. I was even able to snag a few high upside type pitchers in Sheets, Hughes, and Happ while drafting the ever sturdy but incredibly boring Ted Lilly.
I'll save my decision on which of these two drafts I actually prefer in my next Fantasy Baseball discussion, but I hope that this at least sparks some interest for those of you that are (possibly) reading this...although I'm guessing the ratio of people who started reading this versus the numbers of people who FINISHED reading this is pretty high...Oh well.
So, are Batters Better?
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