Fake Teams

Continuing our look at the positional ADP draft trends over at Mock Draft Central , we come to the ever mysterious Outfield. Now for me it doesn't look as deep as everyone else thinks it does. It seems to be very top heavy with a deluge of tweener 3-4th OF stuck in there. I am only one voice though and have participated in enough mock drafts to date to shake several sticks at. So take a look at the trends that are driving pretend baseball. More analysis after the chart. Enjoy.

• Now I am skeptical of the overall depth of OF, but in a 3 OF or any league there is plenty to go around. I don't play in any league that have only 3 OF or any league smaller than 14 teams, so maybe my opinion is jaded a little. The top of the draft is littered with OF the first 3 rounds has a total of 10 OF's being selected. Starting pitching has 9 and 1b has 6 for comparison sake.
• The top shelf for me, and that's #1 or #2 OF, falls off at about the 28th ranked guy Jayson Werth. This is only in round 8 people. I am not telling you that you can't make a successful OF after that but the quality of talent after that is less, lot of empty stat guys or SB threats.
• Desmond Jennings personally is going too high for me to gamble on currently. Sure he has potential for 20/50. I would like a bigger sample size of MLB experience for him to show it to warrant a 4th round grade.
• I will prolly take my first OF in the 4th round, it will probably be someone from the Jay Bruce, Hunter Pence Nelson Cruz grouping. So if all goes to draft plan I will have a 1B, Best non-1B, SP and then an OF with my first 4 picks. This all depends on draft position in the first round because if I can sniff Tulo in the first I am taking him
• Stolen bases are a plenty and you only need and want one SB only guy. Just pick one of the Gardner, Bourn Crisp group and then don't look for another one(until late because there are plenty of sleepers). The other players you draft should contribute enough to be decent enough from week to week.
• Good value picks continue through the 9-13th rounds. Lot's of guys who used to be higher and continually get drafted based on past experience, yeah i'm talking to you Nick Markakis. Krispie Young jumps out at me as a great 20/20 guy after rd 10. Best value from this grouping for me to exceed there draft position, Logan Morrison. Still just 24, I can see him exceeding every stat this year, tentatively have him at 260/28/85/80/8sb and getting on base at a .370 clip.
• As your reading down the list and get past LoMo, it gets pretty gross. This is what i was talking about your possibly 2nd and 3rd OF choices look really ugly. I am calling this the "2 o'clock special". Ugly, you don't care about their past and you only really need them for one thing only. This list goes from Matt Joyce at 39 overall to Delmon Young at 63. Granted there are some good ones mixed with some sleeper appeal, but that 25 pick stretch is like finding one onion ring when you order fries from BK.
• Now is where the fun for me starts. Lot's of sleeper type guys to work into your 3rd- 4th OF/Util/Bench. Guys that I have taken frequently are Seth Smith, check his stats, go ahead i'll wait. Yea even in limited time he is pretty decent. Line-up around him is trash but I think he makes the All-Star team how is that for being optimistic. Others I like from the this sleeper group are Dex Fowler, Lucas Duda and Jose Tabata.
• As you get towards the end I like to look for guys that have one of two things. Multiple position eligibility or can steal bases. Garrett Jones, Juan Rivera, Ryan Raburn types. For speed it's always good to look for guys that will have no trouble getting AB's, Ben Revere, Alex Presley and Wil Venable are all on young second division teams with no real better options.