Feeling Drafty

Since our newest contributor of the UPL Blog has posted his take on the 2011 UPL Baseball Draft, I feel compelled to do the same. Although, I have to be honest, my levels of preparation for these things are really dropping.

Basically, I like my team going into the draft. I've got 8 slots to fill up. I go in there with the goal of finding a couple young guys to hang on to. I'm willing to have 1 (maybe 2) roster spots devoted to guys with late 2011 (or even 2012) ETA's. But I'm of the belief that you should use the guys on your roster to win now, if your team's got a shot.

Obviously, the pitching is a strong part of my team. I pulled off a useful trade before the draft, to get Cliff Lee. In addition to Lee, my rotation is Lincecum, Kershaw, Carpenter, Volquez, and Peavy. My RP are Soria, K-Rod, and Bailey. Assuming that I get about 200 IP out of those 3, I've got about 1250 IP to use up with my SP. I know that Peavy is hurt, but there's a reasonable chance that some of the guys go more than 200 IP. So, really, SP isn't a priority. I know that Bailey is on the DL to start the season, so I need to get some cheap SV, so I think about a couple possible RP to pick up. But it's nothing too pressing. I figure that worst case, I can trade for a RP at some point. But getting 2 cheap RP in the draft is what I'm thinking.

On the hitting side, there are a few holes. Obviously, 2B, since I don't actually have a 2B on the roster. And I'm giving up games at C, with only Posada on the roster. So at some point I'll need to get a 2B and a C. And last year, there were problems with power, so figuring out how to get some more power in there was important, as well. So, I can go with some potential power.

As far as who I'm thinking about, there were a number of possibilities.

For getting offensive production, there were a number guys who were dropped that had pedigrees: Rafael Furcal, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, Carlos Beltran, Chipper Jones, Alfonso Soriano, Hideki Matsui, Jason Kubel, James Loney. And some hyped prospects that had lost luster: Alex Gordon, Dexter Fowler, Travis Snider, Adam Jones. The younger guys were all reasonable choices. Of the veterans, I was most interested in the guys that had been injury risks, since there was better chance that the decline was injury-based, and not from loss of skill. And the younger guys were all intriguing, but seemed to carry more risk than I wanted. Furcal and Thome were two familiar faces to the O.N. Thugs. Beltran and Chipper were two players that I though were interesting, as well.

At 2B, things are always tight. Prado would have been the best choice, but he's probably not getting to me at the 11th pick. Juan Uribe had a productive season last year, but he has such a low OBP, that he's a little scary to me. And Chone Figgins has put up decent rate stats in the past, though not last year, and would be good for about 45 SB. Neil Walker put up a .810 OPS last year, and would have been intriguing, as well. Ryan Rayburn qualified at 2B, and had produced, though wasn't a full-time player. And I actually had Omar Infante last year at some point. And the Japanese dude Nishioka was going off in drafts, as well, and was going to be the starting 2B in MIN. I figure that I'd have time to get one of those guys in the first few rounds. And if not, there would be someone I could get in free agency, after I put some guys on the DL. Good ol' Freddy Sanchez, Orlando Hudson, or Skip Shumaker. But I wanted to get someone in the draft, since I did need to fill that spot in the roster.

At C, there was actually more playable depth. Two familiar faces were Russell Martin and Ryan Doumit, two former O.N. Thugs. Arencibia got some hype last year. Ruiz, Hernandez, and a few other names could have been passable, as well. But this was a lesser concern. I figured that I had at least 110 games from Posada (maybe even more now that he was DH'ing). This could wait until free agency, if it needed to.

As far as RP goes, there weren't many true closers there, save for Brandon Lyon, who's a little problematic to own because he's not good. Brandon League and Matt Capps were probably going to get a couple saves early on, as Aardsma and Nathan got into the swing of things, and could have been a temporary option. Either Contreras or Madson was going to get a few saves in PHI, and one of the Blue Jay pitchers had to get saves, I figured. And after that, you had some set-up guys, ranging from younger guys like like Sale, Meek, and Walden to older guys like Farnsworth, Motte, and Uehara. None of these options looked particularly sexy to me.

With the prospects, I figured that Bryce Harper and Mike Trout (the consensus #1 and #1a top prospects this year) would be gone by the time I was drafting in the 1st round. A number of the top prospects were already on rosters (Hellickson, for example). There were a number of names that were certain to be picked at some point in the draft: Domonic Brown, Mike Minor, Brandon Belt, Desmond Jennings, Dustin Ackley, Kyle Drabek, Mike Moustakas, Julio Teheran, Jhoulys Chacin, Jose Tabata, Michael Pineda, Freddie Freeman, and Jesus Montero. My goal was to get to two of these guys, ideally one of whom was going to be a 2011 contributor.

So the draft starts up.

And Bryce Harper goes #1. No surprise. Jeff had actually e-mailed me about my thoughts, and I told him that I'd be very surprised if Harper or Trout would get to him in the 2nd round, since I'd be 99% to draft them at #11 and 100% to draft either at #16 overall. Then Prado goes off at #2. Again, sure. Zambrano goes off at #3. I almost kept him, before I pulled off the Cliff Lee trade (and thought about keeping him as a 7th SP). Then Neil Walker goes at #4. So my options at 2B look worse at this point. Probably waiting another round or two before I go down that road. Then Brandon Lyon goes at #5, and I laugh a little, because I figure that he'll go over like Dotel did for Greg last year.

Initially, I was figuring out if I liked Beltran at the #10 slot, and was talking myself into it. But after Lyon goes off, I start wondering if Trout may fall to me, like Aroldis Chapman did last year. I figured that there was no way, since CJ was picking at #10, and had indicated that he'd go young this draft, and that he'd lock down either Trout or Harper if they fell to him at #11. But I wondered.

Adam Jones and Rafael Furcal go off at #6 and #7. Again no surprise. Then Ryan Rayburn goes off to Greg at #8. That was a bit of a surprise, since he's got other needs. And C-Lauff's picking at #9. I start heckling him with Ricky Nolasco, since he was his guy last year. And CJ chimes in on the chat, saying for me to shut up. At that point, I remember that CJ was also targeting SP, and was interested in Edwin Jackson. And evidently Ricky Nolasco, as well. All of a sudden, I wonder if Mike Trout was going to be an option for me.

C-Lauff goes with Figgins at #9. CJ quickly grabs Nolasco at #10, and I fall into Mike Trout. Happy outcome for me. Particularly since Rup and Pauly lay off Beltran, and he's there for me to grab at #16 overall. As the draft continues, it comes to me in the 3rd (37 overall), and I realize that it's either draft Infante now (or maybe wait until my 4th round pick - #42 overall), or wait until FA to get a 2B. Decide that I shouldn't risk having Rup or Pauly randomly grab Infante (though it was a small chance), and just pick now, figuring that Chipper (who I was debating) would be there in the 4th. It worked out OK, and I ended up with Infante as my 2B (eh, needed a starter), and got Chipper as my 2nd offensive lottery ticket. So, I'm pretty happy. I get my prospect, get 2 offensive lottery tickets, and get a 2B with my picks.

Here, the RP situation looks to be tightening up, to the point of looking ugly. So I'm thinking about just ignoring it, and taking more offensive lottery tickets and prospects. And I set my sights on Domonic Brown, Jesus Montero, and Mike Moustakas. Brown and Moustakas go off in the 5th round. But meanwhile, I had sort of gotten bored of the draft. I'm off on Facebook or Twitter or something, and checked back in to see that Hisanori Takahashi had been selected, so I made some joke about the tsunami of Japanese players being selected, and then I went back to goofing around on the internet. I had Montero set up in my queue, and figured that I had time to figure out who I was going to take in the 6th.

But sure enough Montero gets picked up by CJ at the pick right before mine. Only I don't notice this. So I end up with like 20 seconds left on the clock, and I'm looking around for who to select. I do a quick check of the Blue Jays team, looking to see their RP situation, and have Arencibia catch my eye. So, I decide that if I couldn't get Montero, I'd still go with a prospect C. And as I'm about to click "draft," my time runs out, and I get an auto-pick.

Koji Uehara. Japanese guy. Part of the tsunami of Japanese players :-) Whoops. So there was extra irony in that pick. Later CJ commented that he thought that pick was deliberate after I made the tsunami joke. My first thought is, "Who the hell's Koji Uehara?" The screen told me that he was a RP with BAL, and my next thought was, "Dammit. I have an Orioles RP, this can't be good." But I looked at his stats from last year, and saw that Kevin Gregg was their closer, and I figured that there was a reasonable chance that he turns into gold this year. So I was less annoyed.

So, I queue up Arencibia for my pick in the 6th. As I'm figuring out who Koji Uehara was, the draft continues. And again, my guy gets picked right before I'm going to draft him, as Pauly gets him in the 6th. And again, I don't notice until there's like 45 seconds left on my clock. At this point, I'm horribly bored, and knew that it was too early to get after prospects who probably weren't going to be drafted. Since I had looked at the Blue Jays team information, I just stick with one of the RP on that staff. Figured that there was some karma at work somewhere, and I go with Octavio Dotel, particularly after I had made fun of Greg last year. So I pick him up.

And at this point, I'm just guessing, as most of the prospects that I had on my radar had been picked up. In retrospect, I didn't realize that Brandon Belt was still available, and had I noted that, I wouldn't have gone Dotel. But since I didn't catch that Belt was available, and since I had just read about the Blue Jays, I pick up Kyle Drabek in the 7th. Then Belt goes to Pauly right afterward, and I'm instantly annoyed at myself for how badly I had botched the last 3 rounds because I got bored. I do manage to get things under control, and was happy to get my guy Russell Martin as my last pick, hoping that the change of scenery to NY would do him well.

As I look back, things have worked out OK so far with the late picks. Dotel's been hurt, which I knew. Uehara has tossed well, Martin has hit a HR and has a SB in his new role as the starting C in NY, and Drabek had a stud outing in his first start. As for the early picks, Trout's in the minors, Beltran and Infante have had slow starts, but Chipper looks to be back to his old self. As I look back, I'm pretty happy with the draft because I filled the slots I needed, and got a couple good prospects and lottery tickets. Obviously, I've gotten a little lucky with the results of my Uehara and Drabek picks. On the other hand, I'm back to the drawing board at 2B, as Infante has been bad so far. I've picked up Jose Lopez, who doesn't qualify for 2B for a few more games, but that's not exactly the next coming of Joe Morgan.

In any case, the season is off and running. We'll see how everything plays out.

-Chairman (aka O.N. Thugs)