Revisiting the February 23rd Mock Draft

On February 23, I posted my first mock draft of the season. It was titled, "Mock Draft 1.0" because I thought I would do more than one. Unfortunately, I was unable to complete another mock. With the one mock on record, let's analyze and see how I did as the MLB enters it's All Star break.

This was the team drafted:

C - E. Gattis

1B - E. Encarnacion

2B - M. Carpenter

3B - M. Cabrera

SS - J. Reyes

2B/SS - J. Gyorko
1B/3B - M. Machado
OF - G. Stanton
OF - J. Bautista
OF - J. Hamilton
OF - A. Gordon
OF - M. Cuddyer
UTIL - X. Bogaerts

Starting Pitchers: M. Cain, G. Gonzalez, M. Wacha, J. Lester, H. Kuroda, P. Corbin, Y. Gallardo, C. Tillman

Relief Pitchers: A. Reed, C. Janssen, F. Rodney

Bench: C. Hart

The first thing that comes to mind is players I would have dropped by now.  Without a doubt, Gyorko, Corbin, Tillman, and Hart would be released. Given that this was a 10 team draft, I am perfectly fine with losing my projected 6th and 8th starters (Corbin and Tillman) because they would have been easy to replace. Players like Corey Kluber, Scott Kazmir, Jason Hammel, Garrett Richards, and Alfredo Simon have been unbelievable this year and none of them were drafted by another team in the mock. Therefore, it is safe to assume I would have added at least one of them, if not more. I cannot give myself credit for owning them, since clearly I did not draft them in this mock. Regardless, replacing starting pitchers in 10 team leagues is not as hard as some would think. Gyorko and Hart have both struggled and spent time on the disabled list (DL). Dropping the two of them would be an easy decision.

Given that Gattis, Encarnacion, and Wacha are all on the DL, I highly doubt Cuddyer would have been held on to. 

Keeping these injured players in mind, there are still plenty of positives with this roster. This team has seven All Stars. Gattis, Encarnacion, Stanton, Cabrera and Bautista combine for 94 home runs so far this season, which is an average of about 19 per player. 

As for speed, this team would be doing about as I expected. Not much speed. Overall, though, this offense would have been pretty darn good. Plenty of pop, pretty good average, and lots of runs.

 http://resources3.news.com.au/images/2013/10/23/1226745/090499-matt-carpenter.jpg

The pitching has serious issues. While there are some positives, such as Jon Lester's brilliance so far this season (ranked as the 10th SP on ESPN's Player Rater), there are far more negatives. Gonzalez, Cain, and Gallardo have been inconsistent and, as previously mentioned, Michael Wacha is on the DL. Kuroda's ERA is north of 4.00 and the other two starters would have been dropped. Clearly, this team would struggle with starting pitching. Of course there are exceptions, and this isn't to sugarcoat the lackluster pitching, but in a 10 team league (head-to-head), you can live with sub-par pitching so long as your hitting is great. I do believe this team has stellar offense.

Finally, the closers have all found success. While Reed has certainly been unspectacular, he has accumulated 21 saves on a team that only has 40 wins. Casey Janssen has been arguably untouchable since returning from the disabled list for Toronto, with an ERA of 1.29 and WHIP under 1.00. Rodney is a lot closer to Janssen than Reed, with 27 saves and an ERA under 2.00. The three closers have combined for 61 saves, and would have been perfectly suitable for this team. 

Given the pitching troubles, all the DL stints, and the prolonged slumps of players such as Xander Bogaerts and Jose Reyes throughout the first half, I don't think this team would be doing so well to this point. However, I would expect a turn around in the second-half given the team's excellent power-offense and the recent success from starters Gio Gonzalez and Matt Cain.