Fantasy Baseball Draft Analysis Cont.

As Tom stated in his last post, we had the fantasy draft for our league this past weekend. Keeper rule is anything later than a 5th round pick is keeper eligible. Some interesting picks by me and the rest of the field

14th Round (167)- Elvis Andrus

Elvis Andrus is a player that has been hyped now for several years. The first mention of him on the national stage, as many may remember, was as a piece of the trade that sent Mark Teixeira to the Braves from the Rangers. At the time, Andrus was the 2nd most well known prospect in the trade (Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s last name had already given him a big enough cult following to have him overshadow Andrus despite his mediocre abilities). However, now that Andrus is 20 years old and rapidly improving, many people are saying that he will be called up to the majors sometime relatively early this season. The first step to this claim becoming reality was when the Rangers decided to move Michael Young to 3rd base, causing much fervor throughout MLB. The Rangers insurance policy on Andrus, Omar Vizquel, will also help Andrus progress as a SS. On a related note, he is also literally double Andrus’ age. Overall, this pick was an attempt to combine keeper value with some reasonable production this season, and while I could have probably picked Andrus later in the draft, I’m not too disappointed with this pick.

17th Round (194)- Kenshin Kawakami

I generally know about Japanese pitchers coming to the major leagues, which is why this pick was reasonably interesting, as I had never heard of Kenshin Kawakami. Kawakami, from what I have gathered, has a repertoire similar to Mariano Rivera, with a mid 90’s fastball and a devastating cutter, as well as a slider he uses on occasion. As with most Japanese pitchers, he also probably has several other tricks up his sleeve, and should prove to be reasonably effective in the powerful NL east. Kawakami is a winner of Japan’s Cy Young Award, the Sawamura award, and won the 2006-2007 best 9 pitcher award, succeeding his countryman and fellow MLB player Hiroki Kuroda. Kawakami has been a consistent pitcher in Japan, avoiding a season with a 4+ ERA since 2000. Kawakami also has about an average strikeout rate for Japanese pitchers, approximately 7/9 IP. He also has a very low BB rate, walking only about 2 batters per 9 innings pitched. I figured in the 17th round, why not pick a pitcher who may prove to be more effective than most pitchers taken around this time, but who also may be in AAA by late April.

20th Round (239)-Yu Darvish

This pick is called, having a man-crush on a beastly pitcher. This pick really has very little risk involved. For as much of the year as I want, I need to deal with not having a roster spot, but if I ever really really need that extra pitcher/position player, I can just forfeit the rights to Yu Darvish and pick someone up. In the meantime, I have the rights to a really really good 22 year old pitcher who has dominated what is probably the 2nd best league in the world since he was 19, and I have those rights in the 20th round.

Other interesting picks that didn’t involve me

18th Round- Fausto Carmona-I really liked this pick, Fausto has already shown that he has potential to dominate, and in the 18th round, not only is this great keeper value, but it’s also just a good pick from a risk vs. reward standpoint. Worst case scenario, Fausto fails miserably and an 18th round pick is lost by Dave. In retrospect, I should have taken Fausto the pick before, when I took Brett Anderson, because while Anderson may have more long term potential, as I said, Fausto has proven himself once before.

20th Round-The Legend of Jack Cust- this was a magnificent pick by Steve. For some reason, no one was able to realize that Cust would be a beast in a league with OBP instead of AVG. Jack Cust hit 33 HR last year, had 77 RBI, and only a .231 BA. However, his OBP was .375. Three freaking seventy five. Another thing going for the Legend is that his lineup is adding Matt Holliday and Jason ‘Stash Giambi. That should at the very least increase Cust’s mediocre RBI total. Just a really freaking good pick by Steve here.

20th round- Kelly Shoppach- Shoppach is a really good pick here, as Victor Martinez may very well fail miserably, giving Shoppach the job. Even if Martinez doesn’t fail, Travis Hafner might, which might move either Shoppach or Martinez to 1B. In any case, this was a pretty damned good value pick for the very last pick in the draft.

What a coincidence, that’s the last pick I’ll be analyzing in this post.


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