Round 11, Pick 206: 1901 Buck Freeman - For the third time this draft, duece took my target right before my pick! I was going to hold off on another hitter for this pick with the expectation that Earl Webb and Freeman would make it back to me in Round 12, but after Webb was taken I couldn't let Freeman go also. "A" range at 1B allows me to put Yaz at DH, where he belongs... lol

Couldn't pass Webb up, normalized 2B are 10/100ab I believe and with him having 700 PA, Fenway being +4 in 2B, and this league having a DH (I don't think he owns a mitt judging by his defensive ratings), he might get 100 two baggers!!! My best pick and maybe biggest steal of the draft so far!!

Yeah... Webb was way overdue. So was Freeman, for that matter. Was hoping one of them would fall to me.

The Red Sox draft is still a few days away from completion (slainte will make the 500th and final pick at 2:45 PM EST on Sunday), but we're looking ahead to the draft recap article. We're targeting Tuesday, April 19th to publish the article. We would again like to include analysis from all of our participants. Please plan to answer the following questions in this forum thread:

• Your best pick: Player name - Brief explanation
• Your worst pick: Player name - Brief explanation
• Your biggest steal: Player name - Brief explanation
• Prediction for your team: Briefly share how you expect your team to fare in the league.

Please share your analysis by the end of the day on Monday, April 18th to ensure it's included in the article.

Sorry they are not one sentence. Feel free to chop them up!

1. My best pick: 1960 Ted Williams (Round 8) - By the eighth round, most people had already spent a pick on a year of Teddy Ballgame. However, his worst seasons still have extremely high OBPs and, in my opinion, that makes his best seasons not worth a high round pick. The difference just isn't large enough. However, I viewed it as important to get SOME season of Ted - and there aren't 20. I patiently kept my eye on how many seasons of Ted were left and, when there were 3, took the only one left that had an A rating for Fielding (allowing him to actually see some time in the outfield without hurting our defense too much).
2. My worst pick: 1907 Cy Morgan (Round 5) - Morgan will do well, but he's not worth a 5th Rounder. I panicked a bit after barely missing out on Elmer Steele and Ernie Shore's good 100 IP seasons and grabbed Morgan, when really I should have grabbed a SP here and gotten 200 quality IP out of this pick instead of 100. I don't think it will hurt me too much, but definitely a mistake.
3. My biggest steal: 1934 Max Bishop (Round 16) - Best OBP of any 2B available. People overlooked him because he has under 400 PAs but, in my book, platooning is no problem.
4. Prediction for my team: I was skeptical for a bit, and am definitely a little worried that we currently have the second lowest team salary, but I expect this team to contend for a playoff spot. Our lineup will absolutely destroy most right handed pitchers, and we are well built to handle spending all year in stadiums that give up a lot of XBH (due to our superior OF Range) and HRs (due to our team HR/9 being 0.12). Our weakness will be our bullpen.

Thanks, ozomatli. Great analysis. Just for you, we'll edit the previous post from "one-sentence explanation" to "brief explanation."

1. Best Pick - 2013 Koji Uehara (round 4) - he is by far the best pound for pound pitcher in the draft, arguably the best RP season in history. Jonathan Papelbon was taken soon afterwards so I don't think I took him too early. I was absolutely elated to get him.
2. Worst Pick - 1958 Leo Kiely (round 18) - With all the Ted Williams, Yaz and Tris Speakers out there it's pretty important to get a left handed pitcher. So this was a pick I had to make, not one I really wanted to make as Leo is pretty mediocre, but was the best available. As of now, my only other LHP is Lefty Grove as my 5th starter, but I needed a guy to come out of the pen.
3. Biggest Steal - 1964 Dick Radatz (round 9) - The 1963 version was taken first, but the 1964 version has a better ERC# and more IP. With 157 IPs, it's like getting 2 RPs with one pick.
4. Prediction for my team - Funny that my notes are all about my bullpen. I feel strongly about my SP as well. I don't have any deadball pitchers, mostly modern pitchers (Pedro, Lowe, Clemens and Schilling) which I am very happy with, but make me 2nd guess myself since I thought they all should have gone sooner than where I picked them. They are also all right-handed. My hitting is probably average for this league. I hope my star hitter (67 Yaz) normalizes well. Hoping for a .550 W/L%.

1.) Best Pick - 1918 Carl Mays (Round 2). After grabbing 1917 Babe Ruth in round 1, I picked up Mays in round 2, which gave me 750+ inning of HR-killing deadball pitching...these guys should combine to pitch more than half of my innings, a pretty good L-R combo in the rotation. Given that I picked too late to get the stud Pedro Martinez seasons, I like my 1-2 as much as any in the league.
2.) Worst Pick - 1903 Bill Dinneen (Round 3). One of the heroes of the Sox first World Series champion, but I really should have used this pick on a stud bat in retrospect.
3.) Biggest Steal - 1956 Mickey Vernon and 1925 Joe Harris (rounds 18-19). That's a pretty sweet platoon combination at first base...Vernon hit .310/.403/.511 and Harris hit .313/.424/.564. I expect them combine to hit about as well as any 1B in this league not named Foxx. But I think it's too little too late.
4.) Prediction for my team - Should be among the best teams in the league in run prevention; should be among the worst in runs scored. Playing .500 ball would be nice, but against the caliber of owners in this league I'm guessing 75-87.

Posted by contrarian23 on 4/14/2016 9:41:00 PM (view original):
1.) Best Pick - 1918 Carl Mays (Round 2). After grabbing 1917 Babe Ruth in round 1, I picked up Mays in round 2, which gave me 750+ inning of HR-killing deadball pitching...these guys should combine to pitch more than half of my innings, a pretty good L-R combo in the rotation. Given that I picked too late to get the stud Pedro Martinez seasons, I like my 1-2 as much as any in the league.
2.) Worst Pick - 1903 Bill Dinneen (Round 3). One of the heroes of the Sox first World Series champion, but I really should have used this pick on a stud bat in retrospect.
3.) Biggest Steal - 1956 Mickey Vernon and 1925 Joe Harris (rounds 18-19). That's a pretty sweet platoon combination at first base...Vernon hit .310/.403/.511 and Harris hit .313/.424/.564. I expect them combine to hit about as well as any 1B in this league not named Foxx. But I think it's too little too late.
4.) Prediction for my team - Should be among the best teams in the league in run prevention; should be among the worst in runs scored. Playing .500 ball would be nice, but against the caliber of owners in this league I'm guessing 75-87.

Interesting... I'll write mine up later but I've also got a 1B platoon. Apparently I "overpaid" for mine as I took Papi12 in round 13 (322/420/597) and Youk10 in round 16 (308/413/551)

Best Pick -- 1908 Elmer Steele (Pick 80) -- I've found that WHIP and HR% are the 2 key stats for pitchers in this game and he is among the best at both.
Worst Pick -- 1909 Joe Wood (1st pick of round 7) -- Probably needed an innings eater at this spot so had to reach for some innings in the middle rounds when some big bats were still available.
Biggest Steal -- 1950 Ted Williams (Pick 200) -- Since each team can only have one Ted Williams, I could wait until round 10. Only 438 plate appearances, but an OPS of 1100 is top 15 among all sox players.
Prediction -- My pitching is top heavy so if I can get to the post-season, I think I can do some damage. Through round 20, my hitting is .323/.407/.550 so hopefully I can win some 10-8 games and get into the playoffs.

1. Best Pick - Rd 2, '19 Babe Ruth - .322/.456/.657. Either a good RF or an error free 1b. Hits 2b's. Hits 3b's. Hits HR's, lots of them hopefully. Just hits

2. Worst Pick - rd 18 - '84 Rich Gedman - Kind of a "just to be a jerk" pick. Didn't really need him. But, a starting quality C, with an A+ arm, to stop that one or two teams that drafted some SB's (is there actually one of those in this draft?)

3. Biggest Steal - 15th rd. '58 Jackie Jensen. Dude normalizes well, and is probably gonna be my starting RF. This late, and with the available hitters left, I think its a great grab. Note: Kudos to Jongdavis, I wanted Walt Drapo here, but he grabbed him the round before.

4. My Prediction - I think my team can rake. .307/.401/.525. We are gonna hit a ton of HR's, deadballers be damned. With that being said, my pitching staff, while staffed with plenty of descent IP, doesn't have a single stud season. Some quality owners in this league, with some luck in the divisional alignment, I hoping for 85-90 wins.

Hello!, Sorry most of my verbosity has been used in the league chat.
But here goes. Although first I have to say after being with What If Sports for all these years, I have never done a Live draft or played anything other than the default leagues. So compared to these other guys, cut me some slack...
OK, Here goes...
1. Best Pick: I'm tied between two, I think for over all positioning, since there were so few Catchers, i'll say 77' Carlton Fisk, Or "Pudge". Although 2nd round was a rough one to use on a Catcher, so given the round, maybe not my best. However if anyone else had got him, I would have been salty and worried about how to staff the Catcher position. My other Best I think for an over all player at 4th round was 08' Dustin Pedroia everything I look for in a position player he has, hitting, speed, defense. Although here again i'm at round 4 and no pitcher what so ever...
2. Worst Pick: Ok, my worst pick I feel was at round 7 when I chose 63' Carl Yastrzemski, or "Yaz". Don't get me wrong I love "Yaz" however I wanted the 68' version but he had just been picked up. I had a Jim Rice in my box, not the top Jim Rice, on the level of 63' Yaz, and i had missed my pick so I was in a hurry and just nabbed the 63' Yaz, i think the reasoning was Yaz had a slightly higher Batting Avg. But I still was like, I really did not like where I got him because there were some comparable "Yaz's" still left on the board, and maybe I could have gotten him further down or another in later picks.
3. Biggest Steal: I'd have to say my biggest steal was 09' Jacoby Ellsbury in the 10th round. Solely because he was THE best base stealer in the entire player pool. I had almost went for him earlier but waited, then I even decided to play him differently, since I had went ahead and did all Offense first, so I did not even need him for hitting. I just solely got him to steal bases, and with the lack of Catchers in the player pool, Jacoby should fair well roundin them bases.
4. My Prediction: This is a hard one, Mainly because I did not pick a single Pitcher till the 11th Round and that was a Closer. However I do feel I have the best Lineup in the league, as far as over all. I might not have a HR/9 of .12 like Oz, but I never like wasting a solo HR, i like to have Grand Slams. So I ballance between BA,OBP,and HR's then set my line up accordingly to maximize when I do get a HR, it's going to put more than 1 point up on the board. Also as foremention in 3. better nail the bases down, because sometimes just a double will put a point on the board. That also will have to be the key, since my pitching is going to be very bad. I do have a great infield to help out the pitcher also so that helps, but I guess it's all going to come down to, If my pitching can at least hold them just enough for my offense to out score them, and if we can do that then we may have a chance. I predict participating in a lot of high scoring games! no 1-0 games here. I definetly don't ever see, and this is just a prediciton anyone even with the best pitchers ever pitching a no hitter on me... But we'll see...

Your best pick: 55 Ted Williams- Round 4. Only 439 PAs, but his OPS# around 1.200 is comparable to all the Williams chosen in the first and second round. He'll be a monster when in the lineup. I was also thrilled to get 16 Babe Ruth with the 16th pick. I had him as my #5 due to his low OAV and somehow pitching 323 without giving up any HRs.
Your worst pick: I'm most worried about the picks I didn't make, mostly bypassing pitching from rounds 4 to 13 so my bullpen is weak. I probably took 13 Ellsbury too early. His sb/sba is ridiculous with + Defense but I don't see him getting on base enough in this league to justify the early pick.
Your biggest steal: 19 Wally Schang- Round 10. His .436 OBP is 20 points higher than any catcher in Sox history and his arm is solid.
Prediction for your team: I had to choose a very average Bill Dineen and his 440IPs in round 13 to get me from 700IP to 1150IP. If he can even be a .500 pitcher and my bullpen doesn't blow too many games for 187 IP Pedro, I'll be fine. If Dineen is a dud, I'm toast.

Also Admin, feel free to edit my post down for the Article, I got a little Verbose...

Best Pick: Tim Wakefield '02 (round 11) he kept dropping because his IP/G is only 3.62, but 164 innings with a 1.05 WHIP works great as the back end of a tandem. I'm a little sad that I can't actually watch Jimmie Foxx try to catch him, though.

Worst Pick: Nomar Garciaparra '97 (round 5). I love Nomah, but I doubt many other guys with a .336 OBP# were picked in round 5.

Biggest Steal: Reggie Smith '73 (round 10). Hits and fields like Speaker for 2/3 of a season.

Prediction for my team: My offense is might be the deepest in the league, and we'll score plenty of runs. I think my tandem starters will be good enough, but the bullpen will cost me some games. I'm guessing we'll finish around 83-84 wins.