It was the best of picks, It was the worst of picks.
May 28th, 2008 by Tyler Norton
It was the best of picks. It was the worst of picks.
My friend did this in a personal league, and I thought it was great. Now that we have something legit to base it on (1/3 of a season), I’ll go through and give my best/worst picks of all the rounds of the Fantasy Game Day draft. Followed by some other comments.
Note: these are based on results, not exactly moving forward to what they will do by the end of the year. Because of this, I am excluding prospects who were drafted in the regular draft as “best/worst” picks.
Round. Best/Worst
1. Utley/A Rod
2. Braun/Santana
3. Berkman/Bedard
4. Webb/Jeter
5. McCann/Cano
6. Jones/Putz (honorable mention Ad. Gonzalez)
7. Furcal/Bay
8. Mi. Young/Renteria
9. Uggla/Liriano
10. Burrell/An. Jones
11. none (thats right, no one deserved it)/O Cabrerea
12. Hamilton/Fields
13. Youkilis/Damon
14. Pedroia/Hughes
15. Percival/Too many to count
16. Soto/Borowski
17. Okijima/Lugo
18. Votto/Towles
19. None/Neshek
20. Kurdoa/most of the other picks
21. Sherrill/Baldelli
The rest was basically a crap-shoot with the exception of Jacobs in the 24th, Napoli in the 25th, and McLouth in the 26th.
If you use a simple (overly simple) non-weighted +1/-1 system, then compare it to the standings, it looks like this.
Best/worst standings
1. jeters 2
2. ball3 1
3. nny 1
4. wina 1
5. metro 1
6. freak 0
7. bri 0
8. splitting 0
9. chasing 0
10. fuku -1
11. soriano -2
12. pronk -2
Real Standings
1.Jeters Never Prosper
2.BRIWILEY
3.The FukuHomies
4.Chasing Saves
5.metroyanks
6.Optioned to AAA (formerly pronk)
7.Splitting
8.Freak
9.Ball 3 Strike 2
10.Winabango
11.soriano slappos
12. NNY Lobster
Hey, at least we got the first team right. This is less in depth than I would have liked, but when we get to the all-star break I will have something 10 times more comprehensive and exciting. Here is a link (http://www.fantasygameday.net/leagues/draft.htm) to the draft results if you want to argue my best/worst picks.
For the most part, I agree with your picks. But there are a few glaring items.
This is probably splitting hairs, but I think Reyes is a worse pick right now vs ARod. ARod was injured, Reyes just isn’t performing. Yeah, the surprise pop is nice, but AVG/OBP is terrible. He’s drafted for SB and R yet he’s 8th in SB and 10th in R, for shortstops, 52nd overall…
Don’t like the Bedard pick. How can Hafner not be the worst pick of the third round? First pick in the round and he’s done NOTHING. Bedard has been good since his return from injury.
How is Jason Bay the worst pick of the 7th? He’s arguably the best pick of that round. Everyone wrote him off and he’s on fire. 12HR, 5 SB’s and an OBP of .415. If that’s bad for a 7th round pick, I don’t know what’s good. Wells, Kemp, Torii Hunter, Helton, Delmon Young are all better picks? Hardly.
I like Shields in the 11th vs none.
Connor Jackson in the 19th not a good pick? Though he’s cooled, he’s pushing to be a top 10 1B right now.
I know this doesn’t address all the issues, but a few should be….
I started doing it by place picked within the round too. (hence A Rod being the worst of the first), I lost pace with that and began just comparing players around round 3 (I know, way to hold out with that rule).
Rounds 1 -2: I think you have to give a pass to everyone selected here. There certainly aren’t any reaches and beyond that it’s all using 20/20 vision hindsight.
Round 3: This is where you can see people having regrets.
Hafner - I love this guy like a hospital receiving blanket, but he’s playing like he’s done. When you look at Berkman taken two picks later at the same position, it hurts. I’m quite thankful though.
But the worst pick of the draft belongs to yours truly.
Liriano - Talk about putting your eggs into one basket. He was so not ready. Here’s some pitchers I could have had instead (Halladay, J. Vazquez, Sheets, Carmona). It’s not even close - I win, by losing.
As for good picks, I look at 2009 value. Here’s my ranking with each player’s round for next year.
1. Josh Hamilton - Round 9 (Ball 3 Strike 2)
2. Geovany Soto - Round 13 (The Fukuhomies)
3. Jay Bruce - Round 17 (NNY Lobsters)
4. Nate McLouth - Round 23 (Jeters Never Prosper)
5. Conor Jackson - Round 16 (Chasing Saves)
6. Kevin Youkilis - Round 10 (NNY Lobsters)
7. Jair Jurrjens - Round 24 (Pronk’s Body Double)
Forgot…
Joey Votto - Round 15 (Jeters Never Prosper) #5
I’ll soon do a “best picks moving forward” piece too. for the seven players like you listed. Glad you guys liked this one. I’d give pick of the draft to Soto (Fukuhomies), as much better and later McLouth was taken, I feel like even Jeters will admit he was a semi-stab in the dark.
yeah i don’t get the Nay one either, other than that it makes sense.
Bay that is
Hey, Do I get a plus 1 credited to me since I have since traded for Furcal? Somehow I don’t think so.
Nope, this was draft only…. sorry Kelly
Nice analysis, Tyler. I’m glad you revised your opinion of my Papi pick
I agree though Pronk was the worst pick, conceivably of the draft. Again that’s hindsight, since most of us expected a bounceback a la Bay. I did use my restored #1 waiver priority (thanks again, all) on Pronk on the off chance it’s really been the shoulder all this time. If it was, and he can return, that’s a steal because waiver wire pickups are late-round keepers. Likewise, taking Miller off waivers, looking toward the future… But the truth is ASB and post-season is when we can really evaluate. I still think it’s a smallish sample size. Personally I wasn’t enamored of my draft because I’d never really gauged round-penalties for keepers before… Should be interesting going forward! 
Wire guys are only late round keepers if they are undrafted. Pronk keeps his awfulness even though he has been dropped.
How can the 5th best fantasy player to date, drafted in the 2nd last round not be the best pick of the draft?
Oh…and he wasn’t a semi-stab in the dark. The lights were on.
Is that true? Hmmmm…. Really, the league should be on TSN and for money. I’d pay more attention. LOL