My recent article explained my team Siani Bros Salami Co and the unique way the Moneyball dynasty league is set up. Now I'm going to tell the story of this team receiving criticism on my draft from baseball writer and podcaster @DevJake while he was appearing on The Commissioner's Office podcast.
The Commissioner's Office podcast hosted by Moneyball commissioner Nathan Longfield, @DynastyOneStop on Twitter, aired an episode where @DevJake reviewed the drafts from three different leagues. My league, Moneyball, being one of those.
They began discussing Moneyball at the 37:25 mark by going over the scoring categories that I wrote about last week here. He didn't review every team in the 14-team league, only the ones he liked and a few he did not like. Unfortunately mine was one he found unfavorable but he spent plenty of time on Siani Bros giving me plenty to work with.
They begin with my team 43 minutes into the episode,
The Commish- "On the other side...who stood out as teams that maybe didn't pull off the good top-10?"
Dev Jake- "Siani Bros Salami Co. Good name, really good name. A lot of risk in this group, Tatis at 3rd, I've been hating a lot of teams with Tatis on it even though I love Tatis. It seems like the curse of Tatis in these three leagues. You get Tatis then the rest of your team kinda falls apart."
I agree, the name is great, thank you @DevJake. I also do agree with the risk assessment. Some players were picked early, but I've had my eyes on them for a while.
Drafting Tatis puts your team in an interesting spot. On one hand you have one of the best players in all MLB and can build your team to win now. On the other hand you have a young player who could face short term regression making the case for building your team to win 2-4 years down the road. I believe mine is built for that.
Dev Jake- "The top three could be really good, Tatis, Bauer, Giolito. I would have gone with somebody other than Bauer there. I think there's more risk with Bauer than there is with similarly ranked starting pitchers. I'm a little bit lower on Bauer than I think some people are."
This is fine with me, I really like Bauer and Giolito and rank them both in my top five starting pitchers. Walker Buehler was the only other pitcher close to the top tier I was interested in at this spot. Gerrit Cole went two picks ahead of me, Jacob deGrom six picks. I would've liked deGrom but Cole and Bauer are very close in ranking.
Dev Jake- "He drafted Chris Paddack and Luke Voit in the fifth and sixth, he also drafted Adalberto Mondesi in the fourth. I don't like any of those picks there.... Alex Verdugo at 87th overall, I like him, he's a nice player. He's not the best option at that particular slot. Verdugo has limited upside. I get the play for this league he's a strong on-base guy but I just think counting stats wise he's a little bit more limited."
Lets start with Mondesi. Here I was looking for a batter and I do tend to select shortstops early in drafts. Other options that got picked around him were Brandon Lowe, Austin Meadows, Aaron Judge, Marcell Ozuna, George Springer, Tim Anderson.
Anderson is the only other shortstop and might have been the better option, but if I could go back I would have drafted Ozuna here. He is better overall and would have put my team in a better place to win now. Mondesi attracted me at the time due to his speed and youth. He also finished 2020 on a hot streak.
I am a huge fan of Chris Paddack and might rate him higher than others. My brother is an even bigger fan of Paddack. I let him choose for me here, he saw Paddack and had to draft him. I'm not upset with this pick at all. There were some solid hitters like Dj LeMahieu and Jose Abreu left, however getting another young pitcher after Gioltio will work well.
How can anyone hate on Luke Voit? I think he's going to have a monster season and is a perfect fit in Yankee Stadium. Me being a Cardinal fan might be why I picked him but Voit was the best available batter in this slot.
Alex Verdugo is very nice for this league due to his above average OBP. He's young, still growing and a good fit for a dynasty league. I do wish I drafted a better outfielder in this draft as Verdugo was the first and best on my team, leaving me with a weakness in my lineup. Jake does make a great point on his counting stats as well. Through 211 MLB games he has only 20 home runs, 91 runs, 64 RBI. These are numbers you would expect somebody with 162 games played to have.
Verdugo's Baseball Savant chart shows why he might struggle with the counting stats. He ranks low in terms of key rankings. However, according to FanGraphs he ranked 20th in 2020 for contact percentage (83.5%) higher than Mike Trout (82.4), Freddie Freeman (81.9), and Juan Soto (81.9). If he can improve his power then Verdugo will be a great player.
Dev Jake- "Dustin May you know I love Dustin May."
The Commish- "Yeah I was gonna say, are you gonna slander Dustin May?"
Dev Jake-"Yeah I mean I may have to with where he went, I think he went a little early. Dustin May went 110, guys like Lance Lynn were going 102 in this draft. So I think he could've gotten better value and waited on Dustin May. I'm a believer I think the stuff will come around with Dustin May, but you don't have to pay that premium especially when he's getting guys like Kyle Hendricks two rounds later at 138."
Dustin May is a player I wanted to get going into the draft. His pitching is filthy, according to Baseball Savant, he ranked in the 90th percentile for fastball spin, and 98th for curveball spin. This spring training May has been hitting 101 MPH with his fastball. He's only 23 years old. May might not have a spot in the Dodger rotation in 2021 but is one of the best young pitchers in baseball and will be a top of the order when he is ready.
While what Dev Jake is saying might be true about drafting him at a better value I could not pass up on this young talent in my first ever dynasty baseball league. I probably valued his youth and potential too much, however.
Dev Jake- "He did some nice things, he took Brennan Davis 222nd, which we both are going to support."
I am fully on board the Brennan Davis train! He is rising up draft boards fast after I selected him. His potential on the 20-80 scale is all above average with a 50 hit, 55 game power, 60 raw power, 55 speed, 55 fielding, 55 future value. Davis is going to be playing everyday in the outfield for the Cubs sometime in the near future.
Dev Jake- "Matthew Liberatore, he must be a Cardinals fan because 143 c'mon that is like. That might be one of the worst picks in this thing".
Baseball America ranks Liberatore as the Cardinals number two prospect over Nolan Gorman. I do see where Dev Jake is coming from. I could have selected Liberatore much closer to the 222nd that I drafted Davis from. I selected Liberatore when I could have selected an established MLB player to help my roster compete right now.
Looking back I'm not sure I would change this pick. While it might be high for him Liberatore projects to make the Majors in 2021 or 2022 likely as a reliever at first. However I could see him being the future ace for this Cardinals rotation. Another building block in my rotation with May, Paddack, and Gioltio.
Dev Jake- "Taking German Marquez 171 I don't like that pick. I do like the Clint Frazier grab where he took him. He's got some good prospects I like Josh Jung"
German Marquez is an ace. This would be a good pick if he played any where other than Colorado where pitchers seem to be doomed by the thinner air. Looking back though I do think this was early for him. Pitchers like Zack Greinke, Marcus Stroman, Dallas Keuchel, Kevin Gausman, Marco Gonzales, and Cristian Javier were all available whom I would've selected in hindsight.
Thank you for the Clint Frazier praise. I think he has some all-star ability in him, maybe not in 2021 but he has it. Also Frazier is perfect for this league due to his high OBP similar to Verdugo, hopefully he can record the counting stats.
Josh Jung is also very good, but unfortunately after this podcast was recorded he broke his foot requiring surgery and will miss some time in 2021.
Dev Jake- "But there's a lot of Cardinals bias on this team. I'd be shocked if he's not a big Cardinals fan with all the Cards he selected."
The Commish- "Oh my gosh, wow. I did not see how many. Yeah there are a lot of them."
Dev Jake- "Yeah there really are."
"There's a lot of Cardinal bias on this team" This is the truest line spoken on this podcast. I am a Cardinals fan but I did not plan on drafting 10 hometown players. I listed them all below.
Matthew Liberatore Paul Goldschmidt Jordan Hicks Jordan Walker Paul DeJong Tyler O'Neill Dakota Hudson Kwang-hyun Kim Ryan Helsley Lane Thomas
Goldschmidt doesn't need reasoning, Hicks is a flamethrower that looks to be the closer.
Jordan Walker is their most recent first round pick and I felt excited to grab him.
DeJong and O'Neill have both struggled at times but surprisingly fell way farther than I
expected them too. O'Neill has been impressive this spring and hopefully carries that into the regular season. I believe both are close to their prime seasons and will record career highs in the next two seasons.
I wrote about why Dakota Hudson is great here. Even though he is missing all of 2021 I will be able to keep him when he comes back for 2022.
Kim had a stellar rookie season at the age of 32 but struggled in his spring training appearances then going down with an injured back. He will not be ready for the start of the season per Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
I believe Helsley to be under the radar on the national level still. Here in St. Louis fans were teased with him being or closer in 2020 before he was placed on the COVID IL. I look at him as a handcuff to Hicks.
Lane Thomas was my second to last pick in this draft and a potential drop candidate. However with Harrison Bader starting the regular season on the IL Thomas will see an increase in playing time. Hopefully he performs while Bader is out and he could end up keeping the everyday job.
That covered everything said in The Commissioner's Office podcast hosted by The Commish, Nathan Longfield with @DevJake appearing as a guest. It wasn't the best feedback to get but I will take any feedback I can get for my first ever dynasty league.
I am thankful that my team had a lot of air time on the episode, Even if not all of it was good. I was able to learn a lot by listening and looked at my roster with a different perspective. I have also used the advice given to perform better in my recent drafts, avoiding some costly mistakes I made here.
Click here for the full league constitution.
Click here for the full draft results.
Let me know in the comments if you think Liberatore was the worst pick in the draft, or what I should do with all the Cardinals on my team. Is Bauer in your top five starting pitchers? How about Giolito?
Feel free to leave a comment, question or suggestion down below. You can reach out to me on social media as I am always available for a conversation about baseball or any sport.
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