AL East Pick 2, Draft Order schwarze, me, pedrocerano, thejuice6
As the season has started and I am undefeated (1-0) and have a commanding lead over schwarze, pedrocerrano and the juice, I think this is the best time for me to post my thoughts on the draft. First, before making my decision as to which league and draft pick to choose, I spent hours of research and planning as to my selection, all to no avail as I had the 24th "pick" and I had an inkling of where that was going to be. Second, I am very lucky just to be in this round as without schwarze's generosity I wouldn't be here. Third, I think everyone should have the experience of making every draft pick just after either pedrocerrano or schwarze. Who knows how long the emotional scars will last.
My general "strategy" for this draft was to make sure that my pitching was as strong as it could be as I thought the starting pitching was comparatively weak and the overall hitting had very few hitters that were heads and shoulders above the competition. This is meant as a companion piece to schwarze's write up (see above).

Round 1) Pedro, Clemens, Lowe, Cole.
I was hoping Pedro would fall to the second pick (only kidding). I chose Clemens. No surprises so far.
Round 2) Posada, Garciaparra, Sale, Mussina
Happy to get Sale. Only downside is he only has 158 IP. Mild surprise, Posada going so soon.
Round 3) Halladay, Snell, Judge, Delgado
Snell has only 181 IP but he is another lefty and he was in my top 5. No real surprises as Delgado and Judge are great hitters and schwarze clearly is valuing innings pitched as his first three picks are all over 200 IP and very solid choices.
Round 4) Uehara, Bettis, Menoah, Bautista
Still going with building my starting pitching. Like Menoah's stats especially as a 4th starter. Mild surprise is Uehara going so early, that being said for juice or I to have a chance we have to make some surprising picks.
Round 5) Bernie Williams, Price, Ellsbury, Serverino
I like Price's 220 Innings and there is not a lot of high inning quality starters left. Mild surprise (to me) is me picking Price. I had it in my mind to build a starting staff and Price may not have been much better than what was still out there. I tend to get stuck on a certain direction whereas schwarze, pedrocerrano and the juice are more flexible and creative (more to come on this).
Round 6) Cano, Morton, J.D. Martinez, LeMahieu
I turn my attention to hitters and realize that pedrocerrano has already taken 3 OF's and schwarze has taken 1. In most drafts this wouldn't be much of a problem but in the AL East there are not many really good OF's (IMHO there is a drop off after my top 6). I go with J.D. Martinez
Round 7) A. Rod, Shawn Green, Betances, Donaldson
I was happy to get Green as my second OF. Surprise- A Rod lasting to the 7th round and schwarze picking his third 3B (Bautista,Lemahieu, oh Lemahieu play 2B, and A Rod as a DH?). So far I am pretty happy with the direction the draft has taken.
Round 8) Ortiz, Jeter, Manny Ramirez, Giambi
This is where the draft starts to get wonky for me. Huge surprise to me when pedrocerrano takes Jeter when he already had Garciaparra. Welcome to the real world of drafting. I was sure that I would pick up Jeter when it came around to me. Once I recovered I decided to add one of the few remaining great hitters left in M. Ramirez. He could be my third OF (poor fielding aside) or my DH. It was between him and Giambi and was hoping that Giambi would be available after schwarze's 2 picks. Silly me.
Round 9) Sanchez, Pedroia, Tom Gordon, Shields
There goes Giambi. Time for another shift. I look at what is left at 2B with Lemahieu (2B or back, up back up 3B) and Cano already taken and decide to go with Pedroia. pedrocerrano goes with his second high IP reliever and juice picks up a high innings starter. Makes sense.
Round 10) Britton,C. Johnson, Tejada, Everett
picked my 5th hitter in a row, Tejada. I had only 4 SS's that I thought were worth taking and pedrocerrano already has 2 of them, with schwarze and juice both needing a SS I didn't want to take a chance.
Round 11) Varitek, Rodney, Ryan, Cortes
With 5 SP's and 5 Hitters picked, I want to concentrate on building my bull-pen. I go with Rodney with 75 IP and great stats. I am a little nervous about 4 catchers being selected but everyone has already picked 1 catcher, except for schwarze who has picked 2. I am really hoping that Javy Lopez will be available later on in the draft.
Round 12) McClanahan, A. Gonzalez, Rivera, Bradish
I am a bit surprised that M. Rivera is still available so I snatch him up.
Round 13) Bucholz, Green, Papelbon, Winn
I am happy to add Green as my third reliever.
Round 14) Granderson, Escobar, Chapman, Slegers
With my first 3 relievers having 75,71,69 IP and knowing that I plan to take 13 pitchers, I feel comfortable picking a lower IP reliever in Chapman
Round 15) Valdez, Anderson, McGee, Benoit
Everyone is picking relievers so I go with the flow and pick Anderson. 44 IP and a .52 WHIP I am very happy to pick up my number 1 rated reliever under 50 innings.
Round 16) Bedard, Wakefield, Kimbrel, Machado
I pick up Kimbrel as my 6th reliever. I am surprised that he was still available with 69 IP and a .68 WHIP. Maybe his .78 HR/9 will come back to haunt me. I notice out of curiosity that schwarze has picked Machado, a 4th player that can play 3B but he probably will use him at SS. At least I know that he won't pick another 3B so I feel pretty comfortable waiting on picking a 3B.
Round 17) Pineda, Lopez, Vaughan, Crawford
I really felt that Lopez was the best option available at C and I really like his 638 PA's. This should give me a lot of choices when picking up a back-up C. It seams like all is back to normal in this draft.....
Round 18) Spencer, Osuna, C. Davis, Roberts
Wanted to add a left handed power hitter to my line-up and Chris Davis fit the bill. juice's pick of Spencer with his huge stats but low AB's is a great pick. Life is good, but curiously schwarze picks up another 2B in Roberts. I thought that Lemahieu was going to play 2B, interesting, at least it wasn't another 3B.....
Round 19) Beltre, Mora, Youkalis, Pham
What???? scwharze picks up his 5th 3B in Beltre, how many does he need????? I panic even though I know there are still some good choices at 3B but with schwarze picking they won't last forever. I pick Mora, who I like and pedrocerrano picks Youkalis, who I like. schwarze, mission accomplished!
Round 20) Carpenter, Yarborough, Zobrist,Pearce
I stayed up late (for me) waiting on pedro's pick. I went to bed absolutely sure that pedro would snipe my pick. Woke up and to my surprise he did not pick Zobrist. 20-20 hindsight I could see he didn't need him but so far in this draft I had been sniped plenty of times. For some reason this became my favorite pick as Zobrist has some good stats and he can play every position except C. Since I will not need any back-ups other than C for the rest of the draft this gives me a lot of flexibility for my last 5 picks.
Round 21) Torres,Lester,Schilling,Bogerts
I wanted 6 Starters from the beginning. I like Lester becuase of his IP and he is a lefty. Pleased to pick him up. Juie picks a SS to avoid getting sniped, probably by pedrocerrano as he seems to collect SS.
Round 22) McGuire, Miller, Markakis, Porcello
I pick up Markakis who is a solid hitter and a much better fielder than Ramirez who will now be my DH. Good picks by everyone this round showing that there is still quality out there in the 22nd round.
Round 23) A. Sanchez, Leon, Iglesias, Balfour
I pick up my back-up C in Sandy Leon. He is a good hitter with a good arm. I will bring him in as a defensive and late inning replacement for Lopez and hopefully stretch Lopez's 638 PA's. Of course pedrocerrano picks another SS, juice picks up a quality reliever and schwarze picks up another quality pitcher.
Round 24) Houck, Guerrero, Santos, R. Hill
I add Santos, another low inning RP with great stats, my 13th pitcher. pedrocerrano picks up his 3rd 1B/DH (it feels like he got more picks than than me)
Round 25) Urias, Belle, Bard, Robertson
I have been thinking about Belle since the middle of the draft. His salary is low and he is not a great fielder so I didn't think others would pick him. I noticed that there are not many traditional lead-off hitters like the style of Henderson and Raines. I am thinking of starting Belle in LF and batting him lead-off. He has 101 walks and surprisingly good speed with 17-20 SB's. Probably will abandon that strategy within the first 10 games.
Final Thoughts
As always juices drafts are great fun and challenging. My one sure take away from this experience is prepared to get sniped if you are picking after schwarze and pedrocerrano. I am happy with my team going into the season. I am sure that will change after the first 20 games. Juice, thank you for putting a great tournament together. Play Ball!

"Round 20) Carpenter, Yarborough, Zobrist, Pearce"

Nice writeup kstober. I didn't mention this in my writeup, but I was debating between Zobrist and Pearce (for my 4th OF) until you grabbed him in front of me. I hadn't really made up my mind at that point, so I was fine taking Pearce. Didn't realize how badly you wanted him.

Thanks schwarze. I am not sure how much I really wanted Zobrist or how much I didn't want to get sniped by pedrocerrano again.

AL East (Pick 3):

At the time I selected the AL East, I had the choice of picks 2, 3, or 4. I selected pick 3 because after Pedro, there were only two other good SPs available with both IPs and decent HR9#: Clemens and Lowe. I would happy with either one. Based on the fact that the division was really lacking in SP and hitting depth, my strategy was to grab as many elite hitters as possible. Similar to my AL/NL West drafts, I also wanted to get good RP with a higher IPs (80+), even if their ERC#s may be a bit higher than some other elite relievers. This way I’d limit as much as possible the innings needed out of the starters.

Round 1: Derek Lowe

As expected, Pedro went first, Clemens second, and I got Lowe.

Round 2: Nomar Garciaparra
Round 3: Aaron Judge
Round 4: Mookie Betts

Many of the positions (C, 2B, SS, OF) lacked depth while those that had some depth (1B, 3B), had a few players that really stood out. My plan was to get as many of the following players over the next few rounds as possible: Posada, Delagdo, LeMahieu, Garciaparra, Jeter, Bautista, A Rodriguez, Judge, Betts, B Williams, Ellsbury, and JD Martinez. Garciaparra and Judge were my top two choices. I selected Nomar first because the drop off at SS after he and Jeter was so big. After schwarze and kstober took their second and third SPs, I was happy to get Judge as well. In round 4, I was hoping for Delgado or Betts, and when juice opted for a RP (and Delgado), I was able to get Betts.

Round 5: Jacoby Ellsbury

In round 5, I decided to complete my OF. I really wanted B Williams, but schwarze took him to lead off the round. When kstober took his fifth SP, I had Ellsbury and Martinez available. I took Ellsbury because I already had three right handed bats and he could leadoff against RHP.

Round 6: Charlie Morton

This is a pick I regret. I wanted LeMahieu here and could have taken him, but I was worried about my lack of pitching. Morton was the only SP left who had a decent HR9#. As juice had already picked in this round and kstober already had 5 SPs, schwarze was the only one who might take a SP before my round 7 pick. As he had three SPs w 692 IPs, I probably should have rolled the dice that he wouldn’t.

Round 7: Dellin Betances

Of course, schwarze took not only LeMahieu, but ARod as well. That left Jeter as the only hitter left from my original list. I considered taking him here, but I also began to realize that there weren’t as many high inning relief pitchers as in my other two drafts. Since I already had Nomar at SS, I took Betances and his 90 IP.

Round 8: Derek Jeter

After taking Betances, I was looking to take Tom Gordon and his 90 IP in this round. However, I had also really wanted to get David Ortiz as my DH – love the left handed bat and the .440 OBP. I thought he would slip at least one more round, if not two or three as Adrian Gonzalez, Chris Davis, Vlad Guerrero, Mo Vaughn, and Manny Ramirez were all still left to fill 1B and DH. However, juice took Ortiz to start the round. Now my DH spot is not going to be as strong as I thought. With LeMahieu and Cano gone at 2B, that was looking like a relatively weak spot as well. With Jeter still left and his numbers much better than the remaining 2B, I decided to take him. That gave me 5 of the original 12 hitters I wanted, with the added bonus that now SS was a much weaker spot for my three friends.

Round 9: Tom Gordon

At this point, I have my MI and OF set but still need to address C, 1B, 3B, and DH (and a lot of P – only three Ps and 505 IP so far). Also, 4 of my 5 hitters are RH and all the remaining Cs (with decent arms) and 3B are RH. Therefore, I really need to try to get 2 of the 3 remaining LH 1B (Gonzalez, Davis, Vaughn) to fill 1B/DH. I’m also very aware that this division has a serious lack of good high inning relief pitching. I was able to get 9 good RPs in the AL West with 70-90 IPs; and 6 RPs with 79-126 IPs in the NL West. In this division, only 9 RPs total with 70-90 IPs were available. I would need to balance the hitting vs pitching selections over the next few rounds.

Round 10: Charles Johnson

This was the second pick I regretted. Other than Posada, who went early, there wasn’t much quality at the position. The one exception was Gary Sanchez, whose 229 PA season would upgrade anyone else he was paired with. When schwarze took him in round 9, it left Lopez, Johnson, Varitek, and V Martinez as the only options. Johnson had the best OPS# (.920) of this group and a decent (B-) arm. I decided, I didn’t want schwarze to have him and Sanchez. However, in looking back, I’m not sure that schwarze would have taken him. He really likes left handed and switch hitters and doesn’t seem to care about the arm that much (he has Will Smith and Hundley in the NL West and both have D arms). In addition, Lopez wasn’t that much of a drop in talent and he lasted until round 17.

The only small consolation was that schwarze took Varitek in round 11 and probably could have waited until much later.

Round 11: BJ Ryan

After taking a hitter in round 10, it was back to pitching. Rivera was still available but since all four of my pitchers were RH, I needed to add a lefty here.

Round 12: Adrian Gonzalez
Back to hitting this round. I decided to grab one of three good LH 1B remaining. I probably could have waited another round or two. I was still able to grab Mo Vaughn in round 17 and C Davis lasted until round 18.

Round 13: Jonathan Papelbon
Round 14: Kelvim Escobar

After the Ryan pick, I had five pitchers w 668 IPs and I really had to think of where I was going to the remaining innings from. I knew I was going to need at least one high inning SP and decided that I was going to have stomach taking either Schilling or Sabathia at some point. I also would need several 100+ IP pitchers. Buchholz (108 IP, 1.97 ERC#, .25 HR9#) had been on my radar for several rounds and I really should have taken him in round 12. Of course, schwarze grabs him to start round 13. Escobar (126 IP, 2.35 ERC#, .42 HR9#) was next on the list. Juice had the two picks between my 13^th and 14^th and he already had 5 SPs. I was pretty confident that he wouldn’t take Escobar, so I grabbed Papelbon first.

I really should have taken Buchholz.

Round 15: Jake McGee

At this point, my pitching really isn’t looking very good. Let’s take another LH with decent IPs

Round 16: Tim Wakefield

Let’s make the pitching staff worse and add the 164 IP Wakefield.

Note: Wakefield gives up 10 runs in 2 IP in his first start (45.00 ERA) – makes me long for Earl Whitehill or Brickyard Kennedy.

Round 17: Mo Vaughn

Back to hitting for my DH. Vaughn or Davis? Both good options, but I decide to take the average (.332 to .289) over the slugging (.566 to .623).

Round 18: Roberto Osuna

Back to pitching and am happy to find a decent option with over 60 IPs at this point.

Round 19: Kevin Youkilis

With the Vaughn pick, I now only need a 3B to complete my starting nine and there were three decent options remaining (Mora, Beltre, Youkilis). I wanted to take Mora – really liked his AVG/OBP and was ready to take him here. However, schwarze, who already had the three best 3B options (Bautista, ARod, and LeMahieu) decides to take a fourth (Beltre). I don’t know if this pick forced kstober to take Mora here, but regardless, he swiped him right before my pick. I felt I needed to take Youkilis here based on my recent experience with schwarze. In the recently completed NL West draft, I decided to leave my 3B selection until very late as everyone had their 3B – schwarze had two (Sandoval and Headley). However, he takes my choice (Castilla) in round 23 with no real need. Lesson learned – take Youkilis now.

Round 20: Ryan Yarbrough
Round 21: Curt Schilling

With my starting nine completed, I started looking at the stadium options and decided Fenway would look really nice for my offense with its’ +2 +4 for singles and doubles. This of course meant more IPs. I had three pitching slots left and one of them had to be 200+ IP SP. I was going back and forth on whether the final two could be good RPs or whether I’d need to find some 100+ IP pitcher to ensure enough innings. It took awhile to decide. Finally decided that 1510 innings I’d get with two RPs might not be enough and that I should grab Yarbrough’s 142 innings as he was the only remotely tolerable option left.

Round 22: Andrew Miller

After the Youkilis pick, I also had three hitting spots left and needed a second C and a MI (to cover Nomar’s shortage of PAs). The third spot could be any position. I wanted Zobrist as the MI and Sandy Leon as the C and debated on when to take them. I could have taken Zobrist in round 20 but felt I needed to lock my IPs as the other pitching options were not good – probably another mistake. After Zobrist was gone, MI wasn’t a priority, so I was trying to choose between Miller and Leon. Juice had just his second C (McGuire) to start the round and I didn’t think kstober would take one here – in fact I thought he might not take a second one at all (Lopez has 638 PAs). However, I should have considered that Leon would give him a switch hitting complement with an A+ arm. I took the best LH reliver still available.

Round 23: Jose Iglesias
Round 24: Vlad Guerrero Jr
Round 25: Josh Bard

With Leon gone and several SH catchers still available, I put that choice off until the last round. For the MI spot, I was deciding between Bo Bichette and Iglesias. Don’t like Iglesias’s D- range, but love that .385 AVG and 47 doubles in Fenway.

The last spot came down to getting more IF help (upgrade fielding) or taking a real good bat. I considered Moreland, Bichette, and Brett Lawrie here. Ultimately took Guerrero due to losing out on Ortiz much earlier in the draft. He will platoon with Vaughn at DH and hopefully together they can match Ortiz’s production.

Final Thoughts:

Always fun to draft with other great owners – here in the AL East as well as my drafts in the AL and NL West. This is probably the weakest of my three teams due to the overall lack of good pitching in the division. Hopefully, my hitting can win more games than I lose but this team probably misses the playoffs.

GL everyone.

AL East Pick 4: Draft Order (1) SCHWARZE, (2) KSTOBER, (3) PEDROCERRANO, (4) THEJUICE6

Pick 1: Gerrit Cole
Watching pitching go with the first three picks, I simply figured I better grab at least one good, 200+ IP guy before they disappear.

Pick 2: Jorge Posada
Gave serious thought about grabbing Bernie Williams, Aaron Judge or another SP here but after looking at all of the available position players at each position, my assumption was that among Catchers in the A.L. East, Posada was in a class by himself and I better grab him now. Plus being a switch hitter definitely helps. Part of me thinks I may have over-reached by taking this pick so early but, what do I know...

Pick 3: Carlos Delgado
Had to get me a sluuger to sit in the three-spot.

Pick 4: Koji Uehara
Probably another reach here but his numbers look so freakin' good - and I didn't have a lot of faith in how good my Starting Pitching staff was going to end up so I wanted an elite closer. (Game 1, he gave up four earned runs in 0.0 innings pitched...lol).

Pick 5: Luis Severino
Didn't want to wait too long to grab my second SP and his numbers looked pretty good.

Pick 6: Robinson Cano
Another pick that came along using the same thoughts I used on Posada. He appeared to be (to me, anyway) the best 2B option available so I grabbed him.

Pick 7: Josh Donaldson
Felt like I was lucky to see him still available this late into the draft so I swooped him up.

Pick 8: David Ortiz
Another slugger that I couldn't believe was still sitting there. Looks like this is going to be one big "slugging" team.

Pick 9: James Shields
It's looking like my Starting Pitching staff is going to be made up of 5 or 6 low-inning (at least as far as SP's go) guys who I'll have to watch their pitch counts pretty closely. Not a lot of high IP guys left - that are worth anything.

Pick 10: Zach Britton
My second RP - great numbers to go near the end of the bullpen with Uehara.

Pick 11: Nestor Cortes
Like Shields above, another low-inning Starter but with good numbers. I'm sure hoping this mix-and-match Starting Pitching unit does what it's supposed to do.

Pick 12: Shane McClanahan
Again, my fifth SP to go with the above. Ditto what I said about Cortes.

Pick 13: Randy Winn
Just thinking about making this pick makes me gag. The OF selection at this point was REALLY getting abysmal and this is the best I could come up with. (He hasn't disappointed me so far - he's started out the season on an 0-19 streak).

Pick 14: Curtis Granderson
Repeat what I just said about Winn. (At least he's doing better than Winn - he's started out the season on a 1-19 streak).

Pick 15: Joaquin Benoit
Pick 16: Erik Bedard
My third RP and my sixth SP. Nothing spectacular to mention.

Pick 17: Carl Crawford
My third starting outfielder - by now my gag reflex has reached its limit. (At least he's began the season batting .238).

Pick 18: Shane Spencer
I figured this guy would have gone earlier but then again - I'm not the brightest bulb in the box. I grabbed him in hoping that maybe once or twice in the coming season that he could provide some thunder off the bench.

Pick 19: Tommy Pham
Pick 20: Matt Carpenter
Two more really good bench guys with great numbers.

Pick 21: Xander Bogarts
I figured I really screwed myself by waiting so long to grab my starting SS. This guy was the only decent one left on the board.

Pick 22: Reese McGuire
My back-up catcher. Didn't need a lot of AB's here since Posada will probably play every game.

Pick 23: Grant Balfour
Pick 24: Tanner Houck
Pick 25: David Robertson
Finished off my bullpen with three decent arms.


Drafting against KSTOBER, SCHWARZE and PEDRO, I really didn't hold out a lot of hope for building a great team. These guys know so much more about how to build a winning roster than I do. I'm hoping we can be competitive at least. So far, in starting out the season, we're holding our own with a 4-1 record (begin the jinx here). My hitting overall is horrendous but my pitching staff is coming in with a 1.84 ERA after five games. If this make-shift pitching staff can hold up, who knows where we may go? However, we currently have a .226 Team Batting Average so the hitting will have to pick up somewhere down the line.

Good luck all!

I knew as soon as I posted the above and mentioned how good my team started off - I just freakin' KNEW that the jinx would bite me in the ***. Now currently 8-10 and on an L6 (and counting)...