Nice job njbigwig.... I like your team... maybe that's because half of your picks were guys I wanted.

These ‘Quick Drafts’ seem to present a missed opportunity in each round. Because each round comes so quickly with just a few picks between each draft pick there is a tendency to think ‘I can get him next round’ only to find the plans that were not much more than a puff of air to begin with vanish quite quickly.

Round One: If Pete Rose was available he was mine as long as bigwig didn’t take him and he obliged. Rose is one of those players that Sim loves. Always seems to perform close to real life regardless of version. On a side note I grew up a Cub fan and spent many spring and summer afternoons at Wrigley in the 60’s. Pete Rose became a hated man as on one of those games I attended he spiked Ernie Banks at 1st base and faced the wrath of Cub fans for many years after that. Was it intentional? Probably not but Rose was a ‘punk kid’ and Ernie was Mr. Cub. My recollection is that it was just Baseball. Banks, undeniably a graceful shortstop as there ever was became kind of clunky as a first baseman and probably was at fault for poor footwork.

Round Two: Thin starting pitching was evident with the Reds so getting as many quality starters’ innings should be important. It came down to Cueto or Seaver and it was really an imaginary coin flip that chose Cueto.

Rounds Three and Four: More starting pitcher innings with Danny Jackson and Jim Maloney. I’ve used this version of Maloney a few times with good results and never used Jackson but he gives me a lot of innings. Hope they are good ones.

Rounds Five and Six: Planned on taking Ted Abernathy to anchor the bull pen and then take Sonny Gray in Rd. Six to finish the rotation. Got Abernathy fine but Gray was snatched from under my oh so perfect nose and had to scramble and take another pitcher in Joe Nuxhall. Two lefties in starting rotation is probably not wise but like I always say ‘pitching is thinner than the pitchers’ so get the innings.

Round Seven: This round really changed the trajectory of the draft for me because Schwarze was able to move ahead me in this round and he took one of my mainstays in the sim leagues I play, Bill Henry. Pivoting from pitching to outfield anchor Vada Pinson seemed like an easy choice and put me on track to work on position players for the next few rounds although still wishing the opportunity to draft Bill Henry hadn’t vanished.

Round Eight: When you lack great starting pitchers find the best defensive shortstop available. Hope Davey Concepcion can provide some offense.

Round Nine: Was going to take Scooter Gennett, besides liking the name ‘Scooter’, he had a great year in 2018. EJ got to him first so slide over to Sean Casey at 1st. Might work out welll.

Round 10: Here it’s choice between switch hitting Ron Oester and a better Brandon Phillips. Phillips has never performed well for me so this time drawing an imaginary straw got me Oester.

Round Eleven: When a fast ‘A’ range switch hitting outfielder is not available take the next closest thing. Bobby Tolan is that guy. Wish he could switch hit. Seriously we’re only talking baseball here not that there’s anything wrong.

Rounds From There To Eternity: It’s basically filling in bench players and bullpen slots. 3rd base needed to be filled yet but was not inspired by the candidates until I came across Suarez and all his homers. Really was set to take Scott Rolen in Rd. 16 but because his very good Cardinal season I’m using in one of Schwarze’s other leagues has been a disaster a new direction was taken. Eugenia Suarez had 49 homeruns in 2019. In Sim world right handed power hitters all seem to hit .240 with half the RL homers so it’s about right for a 16th round pick. He can’t field either. So perfect. Also, beyond Johnny Bench, catching was kind of grab bag, you know the kind of bag you don’t really want to stick your hand in, but lots of good defenders so Tucker Barnhart was chosen. At least he’s a switch hitter.

After participating in several Schwarze’s drafts I can always says his drafts are the best run live drafts going. Thanks, Schwarze.

I love these write ups. I guess I am gonna have to do one now...to re-live my awful draft...

Nice write up JoeRat. Rose was my brother's favorite player as a kid. My favorite Rose quote is "I'm no different than anyone else with two arms, two legs and 4200 hits". This will be fun.

Here goes. Oh, the pain.

Round 1 -- Don't know much about the Reds 'cept Seaver got traded to them in 77 and I cried when it came on the TV. I was 10 and he was my idol. My grandfather was the superintendent of the local YMCA and Seaver worked out there in the offseason. My brother and I got to meet him in 72 and became instant Met fans. So naturally you would think I would select:
Aroldis Chapman. Gives me the best bulllpen arm and most innings. Keeps my salary the lowest so that of course I can select:
Round 2 -- Joey Votto. What was I thinking??? Great OBP but never really does anything else and Seaver is still on the board.
Round 3 -- Until bigwig takes him with the last pick of the second round. leaving me angry at myself and quickly reviewing the pitching to see that there are a bunch of terrible pitchers to be had. I go with Soto, who has performed well at the 100 million cap level, which is what I assumed would be the effective level of our league cap. Not unhappy with Soto, just unhappy that I had a brain fart.
Round 4. Sizing up the remainder of the pitching and thinking that I need to get some offense because pitchers are few and far between. I wrongly guessed that everyone else would do the same, leaving some starters for later in the draft. So I take Choo -- he gets on base, he fields, so now I have a leadoff/2 hitter. And then everyone else takes pitchers.
Rounds 5-6. Need innings. Start looking at guys under 200 IP for good normalization numbers. So Mel Queen and Sonny Gray. Happy with those picks, still unhappy about Seaver. Years later I worked with two guys who were close friends with him here in CT. Both said the same thing. He's an *******. Aloof. Hypercompetitive. Know it all. I ignored those opinions -- even if they were from two of his closest friends -- and wrote a note telling him the story of my grandfather and thanking him for the autographed photos he had sent to us as kids, annually from 73-84. He never wrote back.
Round 7 -- Schwarze gets the jump on me and takes Rob Murphy. He is my secret lockdown closer. No secret anymore. I take Scott Williamson, who I like.
The rest of the draft is kind of a blur. Felt like I blew it early and never recovered. Reacted instead of controlled the selections. I did like my Scooter pick, was considering Brandon Phillips as well but decided on him because he has a little pop, his percentages above league average were good, and hell his name is cooler than Brandon. In that vein, I was also happy with the Billy McCool pick as well. All in all, my team is terrible. not enough home runs in home run parks and my pitchers are at like .7 HRs. Gonna get killed.
I thought you all did a great job. Got a little botched up in the last round while trying to pick on my phone because I thought I saw bigwig pick twice. Turns out I was wrong. I will blame it on Seaver.

LOL... great writeup ej, and by everybody. Forum drafts are easily the most fun thing on this site... but one or two slow people suck all the fun out it. Glad we were on the ball and kept things moving. Am I the only person with draft withdrawal symptoms?

Very funny EJ, well written. Now I feel bad that I took Seaver on you, had I known.... I must say, as a 15 year old Reds fan (living in Ridgewood, NJ) I was delighted when the Reds got Seaver.

And yes, I am up for a new draft....