My Prospects Team

Over on the MLB.com Forums, I was involved in a draft of prospects.  The concept was simple, build a team of prospects using players that hadn’t reached rookie status yet at the start of the draft.  As the draft progressed, people started to lose interest and/or got busy, so someone else stepped up and started drafting for them.  This was a little disappointing to me because I wanted to see each of the 10 participants to build their own team themselves, but I understand how real life can get in the way.  Then people started picking amateurs that were too young to have been drafted by MLB teams.  Now I already have limited knowledge of prospects as it is, so I just stuck with players with pro experience.  Currently, there’s talk about making this a “keeper” and making it an annual thing.  The details are a little fuzzy at the moment, but that should be fun nonetheless.

This is the team that I ended up with:

(4) C YasmaniGrandal (SD, MLB – 35 PA, .286/.286/.657, .396 wOBA, 159 wRC+
(12) 1B Miles Head (OAK, A+, AA) – 365 PA, .361/.416/.657, .458 wOBA, 178 wRC+
(9) 2B Cory Spangenberg (SD, A+) – 295 PA, .288/.330/.384, .325 wOBA, 91 wRC+
(7) 3B Jedd Gyorko (SD, AA, AAA) – 382 PA, .310/.372/.542, .393 wOBA, 137 wRC+
(1) SS Jurickson Profar (TEX, AA) – 378 PA, .288/.367/.475, .374 wOBA, 134 wRC+
(5) OF Christian Yelich (MIA, R, A+) – 257 PA, 310/.391/.544, .430 wOBA, 169 wRC+
(8) OF Josh Bell – (PIT, A) – 66 PA, .274/.288/.403, .311 wOBA, 84 wRC+
(13) OF Jackie Bradley (BOS, A+, AA) – 401 PA, .356/.469/.508, .440 wOBA, 174 wRC+
(17) UTL Brandon Jacobs (BOS, A+) – 301 PA, .287/.346/.436, .351 wOBA, 115 wRC+
(18) UTL Alen Hanson (PIT, A) – 389 PA, .329/.391/.587, .422 wOBA, 154 wRC+

(2) P ArchieBradley (ARI, A) – 87 2/3 IP, 3.80 ERA, 1.23 WHIP, 8.73 K/9, 5.95 BB/9, 3.90 FIP
(3) P Zack Wheeler (NYM, AA) – 92 2/3 IP, 2.62 ERA, 1.09 WHIP, 8.55 K/9, 3.40 BB/9, 2.77 FIP
(6) P Jacob Turner (DET, A+, AAA) – 84 1/3 IP, 2.77 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 6.08 K/9, 3.31 BB/9, 3.52 FIP
(10) P Joe Ross (SD, R, A) – 28 IP, 6.43 ERA, 1.71 WHIP, 9.00 K/9, 4.18 BB/9, 3.52 FIP
(11) P AJ Cole (OAK, A, A+) – 87 2/3 IP, 4.72 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 9.03 K/9, 1.95 BB/9, 3.61 FIP
(14) P Tony Cingrani (CIN, A+, AA) – 98 2/3 IP, 1.28 ERA, 0.94 WHIP, 11.04 K/9, 2.55 BB/9, 2.26 FIP
(15) P Clayton Blackburn (SF, A) – 83 1/3 IP, 2.81 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 10.26 K/9, 1.40 BB/9, 1.92 FIP
(16) P Luis Heredia (PIT, A-) – 19 IP, 0.95 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 6.63 K/9, 1.42 BB/9, 2.20 FIP
(19) P Kyle Crick (SF, A) – 64 1/3 IP, 3.22 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 10.91 K/9, 6.02 BB/9, 3.40 FIP
(20) P Adam Conley (MIA, A, A+) – 89 1/3 IP, 2.72 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, 9.67 K/9, 2.82 BB/9, 2.64 FIP


List of all teams are here.

I had the #1 overall pick.  With the big three of Mike Trout, Bryce Harper and Matt Moore already graduated to MLB, Jurickson Profar became the obvious choice.  My strategy from then on relied on prospect lists (this got easier as mid-season lists became available during the draft) and stats taken from FanGraphs.  While it’s better to look at things on video, I either don’t have access to them or don’t have the time to look up a lot of them, so the limited, vague scouting reports is all I had to go on.

   

The main reason why I wanted to participate in this draft was to learn more about prospects and I think mission, accomplished.  After the draft was over, one of the smarter prospect people rated my team an “A” with the 2^nd best team out of the 10.  This was mainly due to the resident substitute drafter not doing particularly well with his picks and I’m sure the outcome would’ve been different if everyone got to pick their own players.

 

Only two Tigers prospects were taken out of the 200 overall players.  Nick Castellanos was taken #28 overall and I took Jacob Turner #60 overall.  This shows how much Castellanos has risen and how much Turner has fallen, so much so that Castellanos may have taken over as the Tigers #1 prospect.