The Twelfth annual Dream Team Baseball League Draft featured one of the best young crop of players this league has seen. While the overall quality of talent available may have been down, the quantity of young, potential stars was at an all time high. The first round alone featured six players entering just their second or third year of big league play. The youth movement certainly did not stop with the first round though. The second and third rounds also saw more young stars chosen than proven veterans.
The Darkhorses had a difficut task picking first in a draft that featured no obvious player to go number one. In the end, they wisely chose the young Royals shortstop, Angel Berroa. In his rookie season, Berroa displayed early and often that he will be a five tool player. He hit .287 with 17 home runs, 73 runs batted in, 92 runs scored and 17 stolen bases. Those are certainly impressive numbers at any position, but especially for a middle infielder. Youth was clearly a priority for the rebuilding Darkhorses. They took DTBL rookies with their first five picks, including outfielder Rocco Baldelli and pitcher Rich Harden. This team now has a much different look than the club that finished a distant tenth place in 2003.
2003 was a disaster for the Jackalope. With a few less injuries and some significant upgrades, they hope to return closer to the top of the standings. They selected second baseman Marcus Giles with the second overall pick. Giles gives them some much needed power in the infield. He hit 21 home runs with a .316 average last year. Vicente Padilla and Jose Contreras were drafted to shore up a pitching staff that was injured and largely ineffective last season.
The Cougars took the surprise player of 2003 with the third pick, starting pitcher Esteban Loaiza. He practically reached career highs in most categories by the All-Star break a year ago. He wound up with 21 wins, a 2.90 ERA, 1.113 WHIP and 207 strike outs. Those were easily the best numbers of any non-DTBL pitcher last season. If he comes anywhere close to repeating those numbers, he will give the Cougars staff a huge boost. In the second round, the Cougars quietly picked up a young star in first baseman Mark Teixeira.
No team stuck to the plan of going young more than Nick's Naturals. The Naturals did not pick a veteran player until the final round of the draft. They started the youth movement selecting 2003 playoffs hero, outfielder Miguel Cabrera with the fourth overall pick. Cabrera had a great rookie season, driving in 62 runs in just 314 at bats, but he really made a name for himself in the playoffs, playing a major role in the Marlins World Series championship. Outfielder Carl Crawford, third baseman Morgan Ensberg and shortstop Alex Cintron were a few of the other young stars selected by the Naturals in the '04 draft.
The Demigods were the first team to draft one of the many young pitchers when they selected starting pitcher Carlos Zambrano with the fifth overall pick. Zambrano posted a low 3.11 ERA with 13 wins and 168 strike outs. Perhaps his most impressive stat, though, was his 214 innings pitched. Few young power pitchers posess the endurance to pitch over 200 innings. He figures to be a workhorse for the Demigods pitching staff. Two of their next three picks were middle infielders (shortstop Jimmy Rollins and second baseman Placido Polanco), which turned out to be a good thing since they later traded second baseman Jeff Kent to the Moonshiners for first baseman David Ortiz and second baseman Todd Walker.
The most surprising strategy of the draft clearly belonged to the Thunder Choppers. They ruined draft plans of several other teams by selecting closers with each of their first three picks. Joe Borowski went in the first round, followed by David Riske and Mike MacDougal. This left teams scrambling to pick up what few closers remained. The Choppers figure to finish near the top of the league in saves, which was definitely not the case a year ago. They obviously feel the rest of the roster did not need an upgrade. It is too soon to say if their strategy will work, but it certainly caused some pain for other teams on Draft Day.
Marc's Mavericks added some serious thunder to their lineup last Sunday. They were thrilled to pick up third baseman Hank Blalock with the seventh overall pick. The youngster hit .300 with 29 home runs and 90 runs batted in last year. Outfielders Hideki Matsui and Jeromy Burnitz should help turn around the Mavericks image as a team with no power. For good measure, the Mavericks picked up young phenom starting pitcher Dontrelle Willis in the third round. This team is clearly ready to contend for the title in 2004.
The Gators were the one team that chose to ignore the young talent and instead focused on acquiring proven veterans. It is a reasonable strategy for a team that already looked pretty strong on paper. The Gators picked first baseman Kevin Millar with the eighth overall pick. Millar hit .276 with 25 home runs and 96 runs batted in. The corner infield spots were a major weakness for the Gators last year. So they went out and picked first and third basemen with their top three picks. Besides Millar, they also acquired third basemen Joe Randa and Bill Mueller. This should help fill the only noticable weakness on this team.
Besides the Choppers flurry of closers, the other big story on Draft Day was the trading ways of Mike's Moonshiners. The Moonshiners completed three trades, dealing away Bobby Abreu, Michael Young, Raul Ibanez, David Ortiz and Todd Walker while acquiring Trevor Hoffman, Derrek Lee, Jeff Kent and a couple draft picks. Oh yes, they took part in the draft as well. With the ninth overall pick, they selected rookie shortstop Jose Reyes and followed that up with speedy outfielder Scott Podsednik in round two. The Moonshiners figure to be near the top of the standings once again, but with a much different looking team.
Finally, the four time defending champions acquired starting pitcher Brandon Webb with the last pick in the first round. Webb will fill the fifth slot in a very strong rotation for the Kings. In his rookie season, Webb won 10 games with a 2.84 ERA and 172 strike outs. The Kings would like to see him fill in for his Diamondbacks teammate Randy Johnson, who figures to be near the end of his dominating career. The Kings worked to improve a mediocre bullpen by picking Arthur Rhodes and Danys Baez with their second and third round picks.
As always, the DTBL Draft was highly entertaining. All ten teams seemed very focused on improving their ball clubs, both for the present and the future. For all of these DTBL rookies who were selected in the early rounds of the draft, the future is now!
