Inaugural draft: Who would you pick?

[battists]

OK, so I'm actually messing around with my own fictional league.

Through an absurd stroke of luck, I have the first pick in the inaugural draft. Curious to hear from you folks, who would you pick, and why?

Here's the draft pool.

The HTML files for the players should be up, but none of the other reports, so don't stress if you try to go looking around and there are a bunch of dead links!

[PadresFan]

Too hard to play without sortable numbers...

[Commo_Soldier]

I would take Carlos Rúbio because he is only 22 at an important position playing second. In addition he is one of the premier offensive forces in the league with
Contact: 79
Gap: 120
Power: 128
Eye: 107
K: 70

Not much more to say but should be an HOF some day.

[edm]

Hitter:
António Colón

Young, 18, already hits for average with good power with even more potential. Decent speed and plays adequate SS, 3B. He also has a killer stache

If I wanted a pitcher:
José Jiménez

Young, looks like the best starter under 25. Good endurance. Right handed.

Sleeper: someone you might be able to snag later in the draft.
Ken Fox

Only 22 and has great stuff, movement, and decent control. He;s listed as a MR, but has borderline endurance that may be enough to make him a starter.

If I had to pick one I'd take Colón

[SDtwin]

I would grab SS Ricardo Castro. Just my preference. I don't trust taking an 18 yr old with the first pick

EDIT: Actually, I think it's a toss up between the two. Colon has better potential, but could probably fall on his butt easier too. Castro has the better defense at short and should get on base more right now, but has 4 more years on him. It's definitely one of those two though.

[Kuttner]

Assuming you're in a league with more than 10 teams and you're doing a serpentine draft, I'd be tempted to go with Jose Jimenez. There's not a lot of young, good, right-handers in the pool. I imagine all will be gone by your 2nd pick.

At 26 years old, he's a bit older than I'd like with a 1st pick, but Koto Hojo looks impressive. A 120 contact rating vs. RHP?! That's crazy.

[pbar25]

very tough without seeing defense.
looks to be Ricardo Castro versus Antonio Colon.

If they are both elite defensively I would go with Castro, I think he's the better hitter. But intelligence & work ethic should play a big part too.

Just me, but I'd never take a pitcher in the first round, can't help you everyday.

EDIT: just realized I could click on them.....
might consider Koto Hojo, as both the shortstops are not elite hitters against right-handed pitching. Hojo is a monster. 26 years old, but the best hitter in the league.

[Jaba_Rules]

Hojo, if for nothing else the mustache!

Seriously young consistent hitter that will be the 3 man in your lineup for years to come. (if you can afford to keep him, he doesn't have a sudden talent drop or the dreaded CEI).

[Honolulu Blue]

Thanks for sharing. I like threads like this; they get my brain working.

Let me start by saying that I don't like the pitching pool very much; none of them are worth a first pick, or even close to it. That said, there are so few starters worth anything that you don't want to wait too long to start picking among those that have talent.

Back to the hitters... lots of fantastic looking players here. My pick for your 1st season's MVP is Mekonnen "Mombasan Missile" Nyombi. He does most everything well, and some important things fantastically. Second pick is David Peterson. Third would be Hojo.

Those guys are options for pick #1, along with Antonio Colon, Carlos Rubio, and Steven Sherman.

Who would I go with? If I were in a big park, I'd go with Hojo. A small park would favor Rubio. For most situations, I'm picking Nyombi.

[playball335]

Carlos Rubio.

Young, decent middle infielder. Should be an offensive force.

[zekester91]

José Jiménez -- I like to build a team around a solid starting pitcher and he's seems to be the best young one in the draft.

I might go with Ken Fox and try and convert him into that number 1 guy but he is right on the border for that.

[Raidergoo]

Antonio Colon, and it's not even close.

He is in the top 10 in Contact, Power, and Eye. He is 18. He plays shortstop (and 3B AND 1B) fairly well. He is the top overall power hitter listed.

And he's an 18 year old SS!

[PotatoPeeler]

Originally Posted by Raidergoo

Antonio Colon, and it's not even close.

He is in the top 10 in Contact, Power, and Eye. He is 18. He plays shortstop (and 3B AND 1B) fairly well. He is the top overall power hitter listed.

And he's an 18 year old SS!

And he doesn't have much room left to develop so there's really no where to go but down. Carlos Rubio and Koto Hojo are clearly better hitters than Colon. I would go with Rubio myself. :

BTW, what's up with the pitchers in the league? They seem to be quite a ways behind the hitters.

[Raidergoo]

Originally Posted by PotatoPeeler

And he doesn't have much room left to develop so there's really no where to go but down. Carlos Rubio and Koto Hojo are clearly better hitters than Colon. I would go with Rubio myself. :

A-Rod does not have much room to develop, either. Hojo is eight years older, and Rubio four years older. I'd always take the youngster in this circumstance.

[Jaba_Rules]

The question with Rubio is will he develop into a consistently great hitter versus right handed pitching. Sure he might (I would guess that he will), but it is the first pick, call me conservative.

[akw4572]

I'd go with one of three pitchers:

Jose Jimenez
Alberto Velez
Angel Rodriguez

All are fairly young (Velez is 27), the other two are younger. Good stamina and good rating s across the board. I tend to build around pitching, and go for high contact, good speed guys which tend to be left in the later rounds. In my first inaugural draft in v9, I went, SP, SP, CF, CL with my first 4 picks. I get middle infielders late who are good on defense, and high on contact.

[Kuttner]

This is usually the approach I take too. I used to believe in the whole "SP can't help you every day" mentality, but have ditched that when I have a great SP to build around. My last draft went SP, RF, SP, 1B. I look for those middle IF in the late rounds too. I usually have my 1-4 SP's before I round out my infield.

Originally Posted by akw4572

I tend to build around pitching, and go for high contact, good speed guys which tend to be left in the later rounds. In my first inaugural draft in v9, I went, SP, SP, CF, CL with my first 4 picks. I get middle infielders late who are good on defense, and high on contact.

[Hrbek14]

Originally Posted by Kuttner

This is usually the approach I take too. I used to believe in the whole "SP can't help you every day" mentality, but have ditched that when I have a great SP to build around. My last draft went SP, RF, SP, 1B. I look for those middle IF in the late rounds too. I usually have my 1-4 SP's before I round out my infield.

I've always looked at the starting pitcher vs. everyday player debate this way - which one of them directly affects more at bats? Ignoring injuries for the moment and using a simple example, if I have a starter who averages 6 innings per start and allows, say, 8 baserunners (including hits, walks, HBP, errors, etc.) then he'll face 26 hitters in each start. An everyday player over a 5 day period (I'm assuming a 5 man pitching rotation here) will typically have fewer plate appearances than that unless his team plays some long games. Add in the fact that everyday players are generally going to take games off sometimes and whenever a team has an off-day, they can get a pitcher back on the mound after missing only 3 games instead of the usual 4.

Relief pitchers are a different story - they certainly affect a lot fewer at-bats directly than either starting pitchers or everyday players, but they tend to work a lot of "important" at bats. A starting pitcher usually doesn't make it to the very end of the game, and an everyday player can't control when he comes up to bat - it's all where he is in the batting order. A relief pitcher, however, is intentionally brought in at certain points in the game.

Given a choice of an elite position player, starting pitcher or relief pitcher (all of equal value according to whatever criteria I'm setting out) I'd generally take the SP first, the RP second and the position player last.

[battists]

For what it's worth, here's who I took:

Rd 1: SS Ricardo Castro - Couldn't resist his combination of stuff. Of course, my scouts saw him a little differently than the web pages, but he's an above-average fielding SS, vast leadership ability with good work ethic and loyalty. Every single one of his batting ratings is > 60 on a 1-100 scale, and he's a switch-hitter.

Rd 2: RF Koto Hojo - Surprised he was there 15 picks later, but I'm not complaining. As others pointed out, this guy is just a monster hitter, particularly against righties. He's a decent right-fielder, too.

Rd 3: SP Angel Rodriguez - Glad he was here in round 3. The 22-year old righty will hopefully anchor my lineup for many years. He's not the uber-ace I would have liked to get, but he has great movement, and as others pointed out, the pitching in this draft was pretty weak.

Rd 4: 3B Hector Valentin - Not sold on this pick, but I was feeling a little pressure already to fill out my starting IF, and the pickings weren't great. This guy is an above-average fielder whose batting ratings are all between 67 and 73. He's really greedy, so we'll see how long he sticks around.

Rd 5: LF Roy Hamilton - Partly a spite pick just to have ONE American name in the starting lineup. Miserable fielder, which I hate, but at this slot I couldn't pass up a young hitter like this one.

Rd 6: CL Javier Cruz - I would normally never pick a reliever this early, but this guy is just so lights-out, with good leadership and loyalty, that I just couldn't pass him up. I told myself since the starting pitching was so thin, I'd better at least get a good bullpen.

Rd 7: SP Rafael Caraballo - At this point, mostly feeling the pressure to have at least two decent starters in my rotation. At 23, he still has room to improve, and my scouts think he can get up into the 70s in movement and control. The kicker for me is his 106 leadership ability.

Rd 8: 2B Armando Davila - Rounding out my infield with a young, smart, hard-working 2B who can get his bat on the ball pretty well for this slot in the draft. Can run a bit, too.

Rd 9: 3B Marcos Ramirez - An inadequate fielder, but he can play third and first, and I need a first baseman at this point, and hate drafting guys who can only play first. Pretty good contact, might pop a dinger or two.

Rd 10: C Pete Rhodes - Wasn't a particularly deep draft for catchers, so I waited a long time to fill out this critical position. Ended up getting a big guy from Texas with brains and a good work ethic. Above average defensive catcher with an above average arm. No great hitting skills, but he's not gonna hit .220 either, I don't think. (Especially not with the starting pitching we saw in this draft.)

Well, that was great fun!

Now I have to figure out where to assign everyone, because I'm not gonna let the AI do it!

[Tycobbler]

ah.. a little late to the party but Ricardo Castro was my pick as well. He gets on by way of hit, walk, and is hard to K.