The Fantasy Baseball Sherpa

Last Monday evening I participated in Mock Draft Central’s Expert Draft #3, hosted by Geoff Stein. This draft was for a mixed league using the standard 5 Hitting categories (HRs, RBIs, SBs, AVG, Runs Scored) and 5 Pitching categories (Wins, Saves, Ks, ERA, WHIP). Here’s a link to the results by team:

http://www.mockdraftcentral.com/2008_fantasy_baseball_expert_draft_3.jsp

Some quick thoughts on my draft:

1. I was shocked when SS Hanley Ramirez fell all the way to me with the 5th pick in the 1st round. Other than 3B Alex Rodriguez, there’s no one I’d rather have for 2008 to anchor a team using the usual 5×5 scoring criteria.
2. I caught some flak from Paul Greco (who was broadcasting our draft live on Blog Talk Radio) for my pick of Catcher Victor Martinez with the 8th pick in the 2nd round. There were definitely players still available at that point who will contribute more in the Hitting categories than Martinez (e.g. - OF Vladimir Guerrero, OF Ichiro Suzuki, and 1B Mark Teixeira). So, why would I choose Martinez at that point even though “better” players were still available? It all comes back to Position Scarcity, which is the key principle underlying my player projections and rankings. When I look at the drop-off between Martinez and the Catchers I have ranked below him, it’s far greater than the drop-off between Guerrero, Suzuki, and Teixeira and the players I have ranked below them at their respective positions. Thus, it makes more sense at that point to take an elite player at a thin position like Catcher rather than an elite player at a deeper position like Outfield or First Base. Using this particular league’s Hitting categories, if I combine Victor Martinez with a mediocre Outfielder or First Baseman, then I will have a better overall score in the Hitting categories than if I were to combine an elite Outfielder or First Baseman with a mediocre Catcher.
3. Paul also questioned my selections of Roy Oswalt over Justin Verlander in the 5th round and John Smoltz over Felix Hernandez in the 7th round. No doubt, Verlander and Hernandez have brighter futures/higher ceilings at this point in their careers than Oswalt and Smoltz. However, I’m leery of projecting fantasy stardom for players (especially Pitchers, whose results are harder to project) before they have a track record of several consistent years of great results to back it up. I’ll take the steady, relatively predictable results of Oswalt and Smoltz over the potential of Verlander and Hernandez to anchor my pitching staff. The latter offer potential higher rewards, but the accompanying higher risk causes me to look elsewhere at this point in a draft.
4. I received a question during the draft from a viewer who wondered why I hadn’t taken any Outfielders through the first 5 rounds (indeed, I didn’t pick my first Outfielder until the 10th round!). Again, it all comes down to Position Scarcity: while other teams were busy scooping up the elite Outfielders, I was able to land Hanley Ramirez as my Shortstop, Victor Martinez as my first Catcher, and Howie Kendrick as my Second Baseman. I was still able to piece together an outfield consisting of Johnny Damon (10th round), Pat Burrell (12th round), Raul Ibanez (14th round), Jose Guillen (18th round), and Mark Teahen (23rd round).
5. Paul also questioned my pick of Arizona reliever Tony Pena in the 19th round when the anointed Diamondbacks’ Closer, Brandon Lyon, was still available. Going strictly by their stats over the last few seasons, I project that Pena will spend more time as the Diamondbacks’ Closer this year than Lyon. Knowing the tenuous hold that many Closers have on their starring roles, I felt this was a risk worth taking in the 19th round when I already had one “definite” Closer on my roster (Atlanta’s Rafael Soriano).

Finally, Mock Draft Central uses projections from 3 different sources (Baseball HQ, FantasyBaseball.com, and Big Dawg Baseball) to predict the “results” of a draft. Just to give you an idea for how dependent these results are on the underlying projections, 10 of the 12 experts ranked in the Top 6 in at least one of the three sets of rankings. I was one of just two experts to finish in the Top 6 according to all 3 sources (ESPN’s Brendan Roberts was the other) - Big Dawg Baseball’s projections had me in 1st place, Baseball HQ’s had me in 3rd place, and FantasyBaseball.com’s had me in 6th place.

Until next time,

The Sherpa