Dutchmen Balance Present, Future In Draft

By Clyde Elkins

Having beaten the odds in the league’s three-team lottery to add consensus first overall selection Jose Abreu to a slow-to-gel lineup, the argument could be made that anything gained after was icing for Elysian Fields. While some subsequent selections off promise, the Flying Dutchmen were unable to address as many needs as hoped in the 2015 MMDA draft.

 The Dutchmen added Jose Abreu with the No. 1 overall pick

With just 603 outfield at-bats on the roster heading into the draft, and without a second-round pick, Elysian Fields elected to spend two high fourth-round selections on outfielders Michael Morse and Ender Incarte, who don’t fit the forward-looking profile of other selections. In the same vein, but at lower cost, the Dutchmen selected Hector Noesi and Chris Young in the seventh and eighth rounds to flesh out a young and injury-hampered rotation.

The Dutchmen held their breath as the second round turned into the third, and the club felt fortunate to acquire pre-draft target Andrew Susac, kicking off the only position run that registered with Elysian Fields, for catchers J.T. Realmuto and Mike McKenry immediately followed Susac off the board. The acquisition of Miguel Montero for two quality relievers did grant the latitude to make this upside pick, with the hope being Susac is ready to stick with the Giants, allowing Buster Posey to slide over to first base more often in the upcoming season.

After the two usage-driven picks in the fourth round, high-risk/high-reward center fielder Michael Taylor joined the Dutchmen in the fifth round, followed by corner infielder/outfielder Ryan Rua in the sixth. Rymer Liriano, taken in the ninth, spit the bit in his first major league exposure and is blocked by newly acquired Justin Upton, Matt Kemp and Wil Myers in the San Diego outfield—not to mention incumbents Will Venable, Cameron Maybin and Carlos Quentin.  Catcher Tucker Barnhart, taken in the 10th round, has limited offensive potential but gets high grades for his receiving skills, especially as a good pitch-framer. Veterans Juan Francisco and Tsuyoshi Wada filled out the roster with the last two picks.

Dodgers Adhere To Pre-Draft Plan

By Tim Ednoff

Coming off a solid 2014 and with minimal holes to fill, the Dodgers were able to go into the draft with the primary strategy of adding to the bullpen while also taking the best player available. The bullpen was an area of concern, for the Dodgers recently parted with Joaquin Benoit and Jordan Walden in order to buy low on Jay Bruce.

Jon Singleton has time to percolate on the Dodgers' farm

Round 1: No pick. Traded in 2014 to acquire Sergio Romo and Justin Masterson for a playoff run.

Round 2: Brad Boxberger. Was set to take Mike Fiers or Dallas Kuechel as they kept falling in order to upgrade the weakest part of my team (the rotation). Keuchel was selected the pick before. Ended up taking Boxberger here because of his current year card value and age. Still, if I were to do it over again I would have taken Matt Shoemaker here who got selected the pick after mine. A ton of right handed relievers still left on the board at this point.

Round 3: Jon Singleton. best prospect available in my eyes. Debated between Singleton, Vargas, Heaney and Jimmy Nelson here. Vargas and Nelson have shown more to date in the major leagues, but it is a bet on the athleticism and the tools. He's still just 24 years old and hit lefties very well as a rookie, though the 40% K rate and the makeup are big concerns. Thought the upside validated the risk here. No pressure to develop right away with Miguel Cabrera and Hanley Ramirez ahead of him at 1b and DH, respectively.

Roadrunners Zero In On Top Bats

By Mike Siddon

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif.—The California Roadrunners went into the draft as prepared as they could be. Mookie Betts was the player who topped the wish list, but when he went to The Breakers at # 4, Josh Harrison was the apparent pick at # 7 when he was available.

Will Josh Harrison's hustle endear him with California fans?

Harrison will most likely be the starting 2B as Aaron Hill is coming off a down season. Harrison has decent numbers vs. both LHP and RHP and may be the leadoff hitter for California.

California's second pick in the draft and #23 overall was Steve Pearce, a pre-draft favorite to join the Roadrunners. Manager Mike Siddon felt the need to have an extra pick in the second round to secure Pearce and go after a decent starter a few picks later. Pearce will add a decent bat and will likely be penciled in as the cleanup hitter. With Pearce at 1B, Chris Carter will be the full-time DH.

Hornets Address Two Key Needs In First Round

By Jim Derer
    
The Rosehill Hornets went into the draft with a need to upgrade their starting pitching and to get a starting 2B. We also needed backups at catcher, shortstop, and 1B.

The Hornets happily drafted Masahiro Tanaka at No. 8

As the first round unfolded, we were shocked that Masahiro Tanaka dropped to us at #8! We had him projected as the #1 SP and we didn't think he would last that long as other drafts and various projected drafts had him going in the top 4. Our next first-round pick was at #14 and we were able to get our 2B in Dee Gordon who should be our leadoff hitter, and we'll use Freddy Galvis to sub defensively in the late innings.
 
We projected that we could get our future closer in the second round with our pick #28 and luckily we were right. We selected Ken Giles who should help in a limited role this season and we expect big things from him in the future.

Draft Takes Shape Organically For Crows After Pederson

By Steve Frediani

Joc Pederson had no chance to get past the Crows at No. 2

While not quite as prepared as I would have liked to be, it was a pretty good draft and a lot of fun.

Going into the draft the Crows had only ONE usable relief pitcher (Luke Gregerson) on the roster, but felt that the abundance of relief cards would allow us to put together a workable bullpen at the end of the draft.

#2. Joc Pederson. We traded up to get this pick, and there was never any doubt that Pederson would be our guy

#18. While I did entertain thoughts of Dellin Betances or Rusney Castillo, I had engaged in previous discussions with Matt regarding this pick for Yasmani Grandal. Since J.D. Martinez had not gone lower than 12 in all the drafts I was aware of, I felt he was our best chance of making this deal work.

Scorpions Push Reset Button In 2015 Draft

By Mike Renick

The franchise known as the Columbus Clippers was recently sold and relocated to Little Rock, Ark. Team owners moved swiftly to rebrand the franchise as the the Little Rock Scorpions. The change in ownership meant lots of changes on the field. First there is a brand new stadium named the Scorpion Den. The new stadium's facade is modeled after a what was a local treasure for more than 70 years, Ray Winder Field. There is a statue of the great Bill Valentine just outside of the home plate entrance. Local legend is that team owner Mike Renick buried a Jose Cruz game used jock strap under home plate. It is, a modern shrine to baseball's past and present and to the eternally hopeful future.

In addition to a snazzy new logo and stadium the new ownership has vowed to do a better job of keeping the franchise stocked with talent and youth. Evidence of the change in philosophy was clearly demonstrated by the initial flurry of roster moves. Notably, a concerted effort to acquire youth and players who project to earn full-time jobs in the near future. Players on the inherited roster included names like Zoilo Almonte, Brian Bogusevic, Tim Fedorowicz, Jeff Francouer, Freddy Garcia, Jack Hannahan, Jeff Keppinger, Barry Zito and Nate Freiman.

Truly, it was an amazing(ly depressing) collection of backup to the backups, geriatrics, and bad role players. This meant making some hard (and some really easy) decisions about current pieces of the roster. Immediately after acquiring the club, ownership began the roster overhaul. The Scorpions traded Matt Holliday, Hiroki Kuroda, Evan Gattis and Nelson Cruz. (So, yes, offense will be lacking in 2015). The return for these veterans included a collection of picks in the first two rounds of the draft as well as some assets to help carry the team through the rebuild. Heading into draft day, the Scorpions owned two top 10 picks and the first three picks in round two.

Maulers Target Top Arms In Draft

By Mike Johnson

DRAFT REVIEW

Jake deGrom fell to the Maulers at No. 12 overall

First round (#12): Jake deGrom (SP). I expected the top 3 SPs to picked, so I was planning on selecting Betances. If I could not draft a SP, I would enhance my RP. Happy w/ the pick and improved my SP (Bumgarner/deGrom/A.Wood/Weaver/Latos/Hendrick).

Second round (#25): Andrew Miller (RP). I planned on and wanted this guy! It would have been nice to have Betance/Miller. St. Louis RP is solid and deep.

Second round (#32): Kyle Hendricks (SP). This was my last pick until the 5th rd so I needed it to count! The 25 YR old K.Kendrick is solid and his 88 IP fills in for the shortage of IP that deGrom has (154 IP). Thought about Shoemaker with this pick. Kendrick was solid in the minors. My rotation is set!

What A Replacement-Level Team Would Look Like

By Matt Eddy

For the second year in a row, White Sox third baseman Conor Gillaspie went unselected in our league's draft, despite having an abundance of at-bats both years. MMDA managers clearly are not impressed with the lefthanded-hitting Gillaspie's low-watt power (zero ballpark diamonds) and unremarkable fielding (4e16) at the hot corner.

Nobody seems to want Conor Gillaspie in the MMDA

This led me to wonder which other passable cards were passed over on draft day. That led me to wonder how competitive such a collection of draft leftovers might be, so I created a team out of our league's freely-available talent. This is the very definition of replacement level, for an expansion team picking up where the MMDA draft left off in round 12 could have acquired all these players at no cost.

Using the roster evaluator tool at the SOM World site, I plugged in the most logical draft leftovers to populate a 21st roster in the MMDA. Needless to say, this team would not be competitive for anything more than the No. 1 overall draft pick.

In fact, a 21st MMDA team would finish with an estimated 58 wins, according to the roster evaluator. Take a wild guess where the evaluator sets the minimum win total for even the least-talented team? That's right: 58 wins. In other words, even the worst team ought to luck its way into a win about 35 percent of the time.

Lions Makeover Continues On Draft Day

By Matt Eddy

A hyperactive offseason in Mohawk Valley gave way to a busy draft day as the Lions' extreme makeover continued unabated.

From Motown to Mohawk Valley, J.D. Martinez carries a big stick

The Lions selected seven players in the 2015 draft, then completed a post-draft trade with Spokane to acquire left fielder J.D. Martinez. Current card value was clearly the theme of the day, for the average age of Mohawk Valley's eight draft-day additions is 26 years old. All the maneuvering indicates the club's goals for the coming year: a 10th consecutive winning season and fifth straight trip to the playoffs.

In all, Mohawk Valley will bring to spring training a dozen new faces expected to fill regular or complementary roles.

The Lions kicked their retool into high gear last fall, swinging trades for second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera, left fielder Carl Crawford, first baseman Albert Pujols, No. 5 starter Drew Smyly and center fielder Denard Span. They added role players, such as reliever David Carpenter and platoon second baseman Logan Forsythe, around the margins.

On draft day, Mohawk Valley buttressed a weak bullpen with righthanders Dellin Betances (first round) and Justin Grimm (ninth) and lefty Fernando Abad (fourth), while also picking up outfielders Brandon Guyer (fifth) and Dan Robertson (10th) for weak-side platoon deployment. The club also speculated on power righties Blake Treinen (eighth) and Chris Bassitt (11th) in the late rounds, but they have no defined roles for 2015.