2014 Draft Analysis: The best and worst from each team

Hello everyone,

Welcome back to another season of fantasy baseball. I can't promise you it'll be as engaging in terms of rankings and blog posts as it has been in the past, but I can promise you some post-draft analysis. So without further ado, here is the best and worst from each team's draft.


1) Longfellow Deeds

Best Draft Move: Taking guys looking for a rebound year. We love, love, love this strategy in drafts, and intentional or not, Adam did a nice job here. Josh Hamilton, Curtis Granderson, Jason Heyward, Brian McCann, CC Sabathia, and Mark Buehrle are all guys who had pretty lousy 2013 seasons but have proven in the past they can get it done in the fantasy circle. Some say it's a team of 2010 All-Stars; we say it's a calculated risk.

Worst Draft Move: Closing the door on first base. With such a deep position, Adam really hurt himself by waiting so long on first base. He is stuck with Daniel Murphy and James Loney to plug in there, by no means ideal. And he could have prevented this by simply waiting a bit longer to take closers. Kenley Jansen with the first pick of Round 8 over guys like Mat Adams, Billy Butler and Jose Abreu is flabbergasting when Adam was already sitting there with Craig Kimbrel.

2) Veto Corleone

Best Draft Move: Scooping up Mike Minor in Round 9. If Minor comes back after only missing two to three weeks, then this is a steal and Bob could even already be penciling him in as a 2015 keeper. Had Minor been healthy, he goes two to three rounds earlier.

Worst Draft Move: Passing up on Gerrit Cole. We understand Bob is going back to his slug-it-out offensive strategy, but when you don't have a true fantasy ace, it's still tough to build a rotation both short-term and long-term. After starting the draft with Trout, Davis, Gonzalez and Ortiz, perhaps taking a flame-thrower in Cole rather than Ian Desmond in Round 6 would have set up Bob's rotation nicely for now and the future.

3) Backdoor Slider

Best Draft Move: Using late-round picks on youth. A lot of teams will wait till the very end for relievers, but with the addition of the 4th keeper, the wildcard, we like what Ken did here: Yellich, Castellanos, Moustakas, and Quintana. If any of them turns out to amount to anything, it's a steal and potentially very cheap keeper. Don't sleep on Nolan Arenado in Round 15, either.

Worst Draft Move: Jose Reyes. Ken, please close your eyes and envision it being August 20th, 2014. You're in 8th place or so, fighting hard to sneak into the playoffs. You see a ESPN.com story that Jose Reyes has finally been shut down for the year after never recovering from the hamstring tear. You cut him and then casually load up the draft results. You see you passed up All-Stars Ortiz, Heyward, Holliday, and Desmond to take Reyes. You cringe and you think "What could have been?" True or false: There is a better than 50/50 chance this all actually happens?

4) Fireballs

Best Draft Move: Taking Robinson Cano once he fell to No. 4. It's hard to think Rick was prepared for this, as most mock drafts had Cano going 3. We're glad Rick didn't get flustered and reach for someone else or take Max Scherzer like we might have seen in the past; although it took him 75 seconds to decide, it was the right play.

Worst Draft Move: Playing the game of "Relief Roulette" yet again. Five relievers is no surprise on this squad, and it's the same old story from Rick. But, hey, he hasn't made the playoffs or had a winning since 2009, so why bother changing it up, right?

5) Billy Ball

Best Draft Move: Securing backups for every position. If it's one thing we can write down in pen for 2014, it's that Jack will suffer injuries. Happens every year; in fact, it's basically like another summer holiday. Memorial Day? May. Labor Day? September. Jack's Injury Day? Usually sometime in June. Well, this year, Jack took out some insurance with some dual-eligibility players. We like the idea, as it will mean he relies less on the waiver wire for fill-ins.

Worst Draft Move: Not sure there will be a worst draft move in 2014 than Jack taking Kris Medlen, not to even mention it came in Round 12. For someone who already entered the draft behind the 8-ball in pitching, this one could hurt. Jack will admit it was a terrible boo-boo, and let's hope for his sake, not a season-ender like Medlen's second UCL tear was.

6) Dad

Best Draft Move: Taking Ivan Nova in Round 16, a whopping No. 186 overall. Based on Nova's last 15 or so starts in 2013 and his spring dominance, we think this will be an absolute steal. Mark it down.

Worst Draft Move: Other than this stupid team name? Well, taking Adrian Gonzalez, who already tweaked his back sightseeing, over David Ortiz, who has been a model of .310/30/100/80/.900 consistency for years and now has 1B eligibility. This was just one of several front-five blunders, as Mike's entire starting infield had an average OPS in 2013 of .739. That is brutal and hard to fathom.

7) Off In Church

Best Draft Move: Drafting 10 starting pitchers. Dave is trying to make up for his lack of pitching quality by maximizing on quantity, and we like the move. At the very least, to start the season, he should have no problem contending each week in innings, strikeouts and wins. On the other hand...

Worst Draft Move: Leaving himself with a truly, truly terrible rotation. Hands down, this is the worst preseason pitching we have this year - and arguably ever in the league. The oft-injured Anibal Sanchez is his most reliable starter outside of Matt Cain, and after that it's a bunch of low-end guys. I can't remember someone having so many 4th and 5th starters on one team: Delgado, Smyly, Ross, Peavy, and Bradley.

8) 12 Years A Freeman

Best Draft Move: Drafting Matt Harvey in the 18th round. Hey, if Andy can avoid more than 2 DL stints at a time, then this could turn out to be genius. The payoff could be worth the gamble if Harvey recovers in time for 2015 (or even late in the 2014 season).

Worst Draft Move: Drafting Matt Harvey in the 18th round. If you remember a few years back, Andy did this with Stephen Strasburg, who was also recovering from Tommy John surgery. The result? He sat as a wasted DL spot for almost the entire year, came back for a few meaningless starts in September, and went back into our draft pool the next offseason.

9) Sheep Squared

Best Draft Move: Not doing anything fancy in Rounds 1 and 2. We fear this could be a rebuilding year for Shea. So we're glad he took Carlos Gomez and Jason Kipnis with his first two picks, AKA the best players on the board at the time.

Worst Draft Move: Not drafting a true 3B for Manny Machado insurance. We question Shea not taking someone like Kyle Seager, Chris Johnson, or Nolan Arenado to slide into 3B in case Machado misses time in April and beyond. Instead, he went with Xander Bogaerts.

10) Smutt Peddlers 9

Best Draft Move: For the fear of sounding hypocritical in about 2 minutes, we're going with loading up the pitching rotation. Look, this has to be Joe's best draft move simply by default. What else could it be? At some point, Joe made the decision that he was going to go hardcore on pitching, and he never looked back, sticking to that strategy. Only one of his pitchers projects to have an ERA over 3.81 and a WHIP over 1.27, and he could have five guys around the 200 strikeout mark.

Worst Draft Move: David Price with his second pick. Once Joe took Price to give him 3 pitchers in his top 5 players, he set the tone for the rest of his draft. With two keeper pitchers, we think this was pretty unnecessary. And cover your eyes because it's really hard to look at Joe's offense and think he has any chance in hell of competing for a weekly skin, let alone a division title. We've said that about Joe's teams before, but we really mean it this time. Joe is only projected to have three players eclipse 20 homers this season, and two of them - Pedro Alvarez and Mike Napoli - will strike out close to 400 times and fail to hit .270. When Joe told us he prepped for this draft, we had to make sure the calendar didn't say April 1.

11) The Allen Websters

Best Draft Move: Taking outfielders in the early rounds. Going into the draft, Hal had keepers at 2B and SS, and although we're big proponents of the BPA (Best Player Available) strategy in the early rounds, it's hard to blame Hal for wanting to fill his outfield spots early. Jay Bruce, Allen Craig, and Wil Myers were Hal's first three picks.

Worst Draft Move: Limited pitching depth. Hal has perfected this in the past, in terms of selectively playing the matchups and benching guys, but at some point it could catch up to him. Hal only drafted seven starting pitchers, and he's already feeling the heat as two are now injured. Hal is really putting pressure on his offense to not lay any eggs each week, because it's hard to imagine his pitching carrying him to victory in a given week.

12) FreshPrince of Texas

Best Draft Move: Balance, balance, balance. Chris won last year because of his balanced offense, so we're not surprised to see him go right back to that strategy this year. He loves those 20-20 guys on offense, and if everyone stays healthy, it looks like he could have four of them on his team.

Worst Draft Move: Too many unproven pitchers. OK, we understand why someone would want to grab a prospect or two in this league, but Chris just went overboard. Masahiro Tanaka, Tijuan Walker, and Yordano Ventura have next-to-no MLB experience, and Chris Archer has a half -season to his name. We're not talking bench hitters here; these guys make up half of his starting pitching rotation -- a dangerous game to play in this league.


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