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Anatomy of a dynasty draft, round two E-mail
Written by Bob Taylor   
Monday, 26 January 2009 13:12
Here's what round two looked like for the Major League Baseball Front Office first-year dynasty draft. If you missed part one, or need reminded of this 16-team league's unique rules and regs, click right here. Critiquing the picks gets a little harder now, since almost any player can make sense within a well-thought-out grand scheme. With that said, here we go ...

17. Prince Fielder -- Fielder before Howard is interesting. Dollars may have played a role; Fielder will be a lot cheaper this season. But if each plays to their potential, their salaries should even out sooner rather than later. (Fielder gets a significant pay hike this year, which his owner will have to take on next year.)

18. Nick Markakis -- I actually (very) briefly considered him in the first round. A cornerstone player for an inaugural dynasty team. Nice pick.

19. Ryan Howard -- Two things to deal with here: The abysmal batting average and an unknown salary future. Howard's also older than I thought. Did you know he was already 29? Maybe that's why Fielder went first. Hard to argue against Howard's run production, though.

20. Mark Teixeira -- The salivating thought of Teixeira hitting in the Yankees lineup could perhaps outweigh budgetary concerns. Perhaps.

21. B.J. Upton -- You have to think the home-run total will come up this year. I would have grabbed him before all of those power-hitting first basemen.

22. Cole Hamels -- Second pitcher selected ... and he should have been. It's possible his owner won't have to pay him over $10M until 2013.

23. Matt Holliday -- No one knows how Holliday's going to perform away from Coors. Plus, he's 29. Plus, his salary jumps from $9.5M to $13.5M next season. Too much risk for the price.

24. Matt Kemp -- This was my pick. It was between Kemp and Alex Rios. I wanted a likely 20/20 guy. Kemp's younger and has more upside, so I went with him. My leaguemates seemed to like the pick. Taking somebody so young and unproven makes me a little nervous. I'm really drafting for the future here.

25. Brandon Phillips -- I actually told a friend that Brandon Phillips would be the best guy for me to target in the second round ... if I didn't already draft a second baseman in the first. So the manager right after me taking him makes some amount of sense.

26. Russell Martin -- Catchers are going really early in this league (despite the fact that you start only one), and this is where the run started. Yeah, yeah, Martin is young and produces well for a catcher and steals bases and blah, blah, blah, Truthfully, I always avoid the guy. Way too much is asked of his legs. Both a breakdown and a position change seem almost inevitable.

27. Adrian Gonzalez -- I love this pick here. You know his production will be better than solid this season, he doesn't cost all that much, and you could always hit the jackpot in a few years if San Diego ships him to a team that plays in a hitter's park.

28. Joey Votto -- Here's the difference with this draft it a nutshell. Currently, Votto is going, on average, 84th in standard non-keeper drafts at MDC. Here he went 28th overall. Not sure he should have gone before wunderkind Chris Davis, but I'm still a big Votto fan. His three-HR day last year was fantasy bliss.

29. Justin Morneau -- Had the quietest 129 RBI ever in 2008. He's younger than Howard. (See? That doesn't even seem right, does it?) The fact that his home-run totals keep dropping is of concern.

30. Carl Crawford -- He's only 27, so if a bounce-back season is in the cards, Crawford is a solid pick here. If he disappoints or gets hurt again, I'm ignoring him forever, while his owner in this league will be stuck with him.

31. Kevin Youkilis -- Strikes me as a better real-world player than fantasy player. He's already 30, and I'm pretty sure he never touches 115 RBI again. Then again, Youkilis can, for the moment, play third base in this league. And I like Youkilis better than the veteran third basemen ranked directly behind him (Chipper, Aubrey, Atkins, Beltre). Maybe the manager who took him was thinking the same thing. Of course, there's the matter of Davis also qualifying for third base this season ...

32. Brian McCann -- There goes catcher #2. I like Soto over McCann, but really that's just an unquantifiable gut reaction. Their stats were nearly identical last year. In fact, Soto was a guy I was potentially targeting for the third round. Spoiler alert: He never got back to me. Oh, and if you don't believe me about catchers going early, just wait till you see where Ryan Doumit was drafted!
Comments (8)add comment

Mike said:

...
I hated the Gonzalez pick at the time. Didn't like his park. Coveted some fo the outfielders available, but the fact that I thought cheap first basement were hard to find (and the chances of an OF I liked being available in Round 3) swung me this way. I felt much better about it after Morneau and Votto went immediately after.
 
January 26, 2009
Votes: +0

Bob Taylor said:

...
Yeah, the park sucks, but 32+ home runs still feels like a lock. Hard to complain about that.
 
January 26, 2009
Votes: +0

Kevin said:

...
I went back and forth between Markakis, Kemp, and BJ Upton. I went with Markakis because of the fact that he is a true 300 hitter with 4.5 tools. He didn't run as much last year but he scores a ton of runs and hits line drives. His ceiling may not be as high at Kemp or Upton but Kemp's strikeout per game and low RBI total scared me off. For Upton, the health of the shoulder is somewhat of a concern, as well as his ridiculously high BABIP. Those two things made the choice a bit easier, and it will be interesting to see how those three play out this year.....
 
January 26, 2009
Votes: +0

Kevin said:

...
A couple of picks in this round surprised me, honestly. If you take away Votto's games against the Cubs last year (15 games, .333, 8HR, 16RBI, 3SB), his numbers look a bit more Connor Jackson-esque. However, stolen bases from your 1B slot should give you a fantasy chubby...

Russell Martin would not have been my first choice, I agree with the 'lot to ask of the legs' idea, and his following selection makes this one even more puzzling. His best days may have already come and gone.....

Youkilis, meh, I'm just not that into him.....Other than that, some fairly solid picks imho.....
 
January 26, 2009
Votes: +0

Sandon said:

...
Can you draft a minor leaguer, such as Bumgardner or Villalona? and have it count as zero against your cap?

Also, how come nobody drafted Zito yet?!?! Talk about a performance/salary stud!
 
January 26, 2009
Votes: +0

Kevin said:

...
Sandon-
There is a separate 7 round minor league draft after we finish the major leaguer smilies/smiley.gif Bob's already tipped his hand about who he's taking......Cough, slushies....
 
January 27, 2009
Votes: +0

Bob Taylor said:

...
BTW, the plan is for me to post the first four rounds here with comments. After that, if anyone has any questions about where specific players are going, I'll be happy to answer them.

For those interested, I'll write about the minor league draft a little, too, when it goes down.
 
January 27, 2009
Votes: +0

Diamond Cutter said:

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LOVE the Markakis pick. He's a great pick especially for a dynasty league as he's just going to get better and better.
 
January 30, 2009
Votes: +0

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