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Friday, August 1st, 2008

Breakfast of Champions: Daily MLB Commentary

by Tarrell Graham

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Overall Top 25 Drafts

Top 10 rankings by Scoring Category

League by League Breakdown

Well, the trade deadline has official passed and not one of my teams was really affected. I did scoop up Craig Hansen as a speculative pick in a few leagues. I am almost positive he will get some late inning looks in Pittsburg, but I am anything but sure he can handle it. Since the deadline news is being covered by everyone and their brother this morning, I am going to do a look back at the PCL AAA draft review and see how far off with my player values 3 months ago. We will look at the first 5 rounds today and then this weekend get to the rest of the draft. Lots to cover, so onto the baseball...

Last April I wrote this summary of the PCL draft:

So, the Elite PCL league’s draft ‘happened’ last night. I say it ‘happened’ and not that ‘I took part’ in it because from the outset I felt completely out of sync. I had the 6th selection overall and normally would’ve been happy with that, but in this draft I was sandwiched between Justin Dalia and John Liebertz – two guys that seemed to have stolen a copy of my cheat sheet and conspired to prevent me from getting any player I had in my queue. Round after round my prospective pick was snatched up right before my turn and this caused me to changing strategies several times during the draft. Often I felt like my hand was forced and that my picks were almost out of my control, they just kept ‘happening’ to me – like a car wreck, a hurricane, or cancer. Below I have laid out a round-by-round breakdown of my draft, as well as the picks that I thought were the best and worst in reach round.

I did feel like my picks were being stolen, but in retrospect that was probably just an excuse for having a bad draft. Also, considering that Dalia and Liebertz are 7th and 8th respectively in the PCL standings it was probably a good thing they sniped my picks. I am surprised to say it, but it appears that I could have actually done a much worse job drafting.

ROUND 1

6th pick - David Wright

So, the draft started well and I was genuinely surprised that Wright fell to me. I was really hoping that Reyes would fall before Dalia grabbed him 5th, but I am very pleased to have his infield mate. Wright filled my 3B slot, and with his growing maturity on the field, he could easily put up a 35-30 season. I would have taken him as high as 4th overall so this wasn’t too shabby a start.

Best Pick: Prince Fielder at 11 - Forsch55

Worst Pick: Albert Pujols at 2 – Hecklers

The talent is so evenly distributed this year that there aren’t really any great or terrible picks in the first round. I think that with questions about Pujols’ elbow I wouldn’t have taken him before the 6th spot at the earliest. The first pick needs to have as little risk as possible associate with it and Pujols is a time bomb right now.

WOW. I actually thought Pujols was the worst pick?? Well, I take consolation in the fact that I was not alone. Pujols has been a great player this season and has avoided the catastrophic injury we all feared. The truth is that 2nd overall was still way too high and Hanley should have gone there. The new best pick is Hanley at 3rd overall by Perculator and the worst has to be Jimmy Rollins at 4th.

ROUND 2

19th pick – BJ Upton

I went with the high-upside MI pick here. Part of me wanted to wait on Kinsler or maybe Weeks late in the draft but Upton has a potential to go 30-30. It is a long shot, and some would argue Kinsler has the same upside, but I just believe in Upton and sometimes you have to follow your gut. He was a little bit of a reach there, but with a group that really values youth, I had to snatch him up. With the improved TB offense and his pedigree Upton was still a decent value.

Best Pick: Carlos Beltran at 24 – Wiley

Worst Pick: Brandon Phillips at 14 - Forsch55

Once again it’s hard to say that anyone made a horrible pick here, but Phillips just isn’t going to repeat last season. I will go on record right now that 25-20 is his ceiling this season. For all you Phillips lovers, my email is commissioner@elitefantasybaseball.com, I will be waiting for your hate mail, but I still won’t bepicking him. Beltran is pretty good value as the last pick in the 2nd, I don’t love him either, but that is a solid pick.

Well, I was right about Phillips but I should have said 25/25 which is still obviously good for a 2B, but his 2007 season is not going to be repeated. Beltran at 15/15 and .265 doesn’t look like such a great value now, I wrote about how much I hated him in my “Art of Losing of Trade” article, but I didn’t think he would be this bad. Really its obvious now that Grady Sizemore at 18 was the huge value pick in this round and Ryan Braun at 15 was pretty solid as well.

(Daily)- The box scores don't always tell the whole story, but you don't have to miss out on he inside scoop. Check in everyday as Tarrell Graham highlights the previous days MLB action from a fantasy perspective.

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