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The 2024 MLB season saw the infusion of one of the best crop of rookie outfielders in recent memory.  But it was a rookie pitcher who stole the show.  Less than a year after being selected by the Pirates with the first pick in the 2023 Draft, and with just 12 professional starts under his belt, right handed fireballer Paul Skenes made his big league debut in May of 2024.  Two months later, he started the All-Star Game for the National League.  After the conclusion of the season, he was named NL Rookie of the Year, finished third in the NL Cy Young vote and even garnered some MVP votes.  Now, he’s been selected first overall in another draft with the Cougars selecting him to start the 2025 DTBL Draft.

Skenes is the first player to be selected first overall in both the MLB and DTBL drafts since Carlos Correa.  But for Correa, who was selected by the Astros out of high school, those selections were separated by four years (2012 and 2016).  Skenes did it in a 20 month span.  While Skenes probably would have been the favorite to lead off this draft regardless of who was picking, he especially made sense for the Cougars who had a very rough season from their pitchers in 2024, finishing last in total pitching points as well as the categories of ERA and wins, with a ninth place finish in strikeouts.  In comes Skenes who should give them a huge boost in all of those categories.  In just 133 MLB innings, he struck out 170 batters with a miniscule 1.96 ERA and 0.95 WHIP.  He even won 11 games despite not being allowed to work terribly deep into games to keep his inning count under control.  It is scary to think what he might be capable of he is fully let loose.

Here is a fun fact for you.  Prior to this year, there had never been a DTBL player with the first name Jackson.  Now all of the sudden, three of the first 13 players selected in this year’s draft have that given name and a fourth remains available in the draft pool.  Must have been a popular name choice two decades ago.  With the second pick in the draft, the Jackalope selected Milwaukee outfielder Jackson Chourio.  Chourio made the big league Opening Day roster last year at the ripe age of 20 and made an immediate splash.  He hit .275 with 21 homers and 22 stolen bases.  He finished third in the NL Rookie of the Year vote, behind the two players he was sandwiched between in this draft.  The Jackalope will be happy to have Chourio on hand to rebound from last year’s ninth place finish that saw them at the bottom of the batting point standings.

Another Jackson was selected with the third pick.  That would be Padres outfielder Jackson Merrill, picked by the Darkhorses.  Like Chourio, Merrill made his MLB debut on Opening Day last year.  He was about a year older though, having turned 21 a couple weeks into the season.  In addition to learning how to handle life in the big leagues, he was also learning a new position.  Merrill was almost exclusively a shortstop during his rise through the minors.  That learning curve did not appear to derail his hitting.  He hit an impressive .292 with 24 home runs and 16 stolen bases.  He finished between Skenes and Chourio as the NL Rookie of the Year runner-up.  Now those three will get to duke it out again for DTBL ROY honors.  Merrill provides some youth to a very experienced Darkhorses lineup.  No returning Darkhorses player has quite the same power and speed combo as Merrill.

While the run of Jacksons ended with pick four, the run of young dynamic outfielders did not.  The Choppers selected Rangers outfielder Wyatt Langford with the number four pick.  2023 MLB Draft:  #1 Skenes, #4 Langford.  2025 DTBL Draft:  #1 Skenes, #4 Langford.  Langford was another guy given the opportunity to debut on Opening Day of ’24.  However, he missed about a month of time due to injury.  He finished the season quite strong, rebounding from a slow start to his career.  He racked up 16 homers with 19 steals, proving to be another versatile fantasy producer.  The Choppers will look to Langford to pump some life into an offense that has been their downfall in recent years.

Next comes yet another young outfielder.  With the fifth pick, the Komodos selected Nationals slugger James Wood.  Wood didn’t make his debut until July, so his rookie numbers weren’t quite as gaudy as those taken ahead of him in this draft.  But he did show off a propensity for hitting the ball hard.  Once he starts hitting more of those balls in the air, the sky is the limit (no pun intended).  He probably has the most raw power of anyone taken in the first round of this draft.  Oh, and despite his hulking 6’7″ frame, he can run too.  Wood is a nice fit on a Komodos offense that could be sneaky good.

How about another outfielder?  With the sixth pick, the Diamond Dogs selected Rockies center fielder Brenton Doyle.  Doyle was the first player selected in this draft who didn’t make his MLB debut in 2024.  But he is brand new to the DTBL just like the others.  Doyle initially came up as a glove first outfielder.  While he remains an elite defender, he also broke out as a hitter last year, hitting 23 home runs to compliment 30 stolen bases.  The Dogs should benefit from Doyle playing half his games in Denver for the foreseeable future.  However, an encouraging sign is that he hit almost as many homers on the road as at home a year ago (11 vs 12).  Doyle joining Elly De La Cruz and second round pick Brice Turang ought to make the Diamond Dogs the overwhelming favorite to lead the league in steals.

The outfielder run finally came to an end with pick number seven.  The Demigods used that slot to select third baseman Jordan Westburg.  Westburg was the first non-DTBL rookie off the board.  Interestingly, he actually finished the 2024 DTBL season in the free agent pool after an August release by the Mavericks.  Perhaps his impending move from 2B to 3B scared some teams off from signing him late in the season.  While not a DTBL rookie, Westburg is still quite new to the big leagues with ’24 being his first extended run.  He hit .264 with 18 home runs.  As a right handed hitter, he could be one of the prime beneficiaries of the Orioles moving in the fences in left field at Camden Yards.  Most teams would probably value Westburg more if he remained at second base, but the Demigods had a gaping hole at third that he should fill nicely.

My easily searchable draft records go back as far as 2005.  Since then, on two occasions half of the players selected in the first round were outfielders (2011 and 2021), but never more than that.  Until now.  With the eighth pick in the draft, the Kings selected Dylan Crews, the sixth outfielder to go off the board.  Crews is yet another product of the 2023 MLB Draft, where he was the second overall selection behind his LSU teammate Skenes.  Like all of the other outfielders taken in this first round, Crews can both run and hit for power.  Perhaps he leans a little more towards the speed side than the others though.  He didn’t debut with the Nationals until late August last year, but still managed to steal a dozen bases.  The Kings were in desperate need to join in on the outfield fun as they lost Mookie Betts to the infield and only kept one remaining outfielder from last year’s squad.  Crews will be a nice first piece towards that outfield rebuild.

Most years, there is little chance a player with Garrett Crochet’s profile would drop all the way to the ninth pick in the draft.  But the way this year’s draft order shuffled out, most of the teams in the middle of the round had bigger needs than pitching.  The Moonshiners, on the other hand, only kept three starters from last year and had an obvious need for someone to compliment reigning Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, their first round pick a year ago.  So the Moonshiners being able to grab Crochet at #9 worked out quite nicely for them.  Crochet’s first professional season as a starting pitcher was a roaring success.  Had he not been on a strict innings limit in the second half of the season, he may have challenged Skubal for the AL Cy Young award.  He struck out 209 batters in just 146 innings.  And now he’s been freed from a god awful White Sox roster and has a chance to be a bonafide ace in Boston.  Crochet remains rookie eligible in the DTBL.  He was drafted by the Jackalope as a reliever in 2022, but tore his UCL and had Tommy John surgery before the season started.  He has not been on the league roster the past two years.

The defending champion Mavericks closed out the first round by selecting starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, another pitcher who probably would have been picked earlier in a different year.  This also worked out quite nicely for the Mavericks who already have one of the best offenses in league history coming back.  One of their very few weaknesses a year ago was starting pitching depth.  Now Yamamoto joins Chris Sale and Pablo Lopez to form a trio that should easily keep them near the top of the standings.  Yamamoto was the preseason favorite to win that NL Rookie of the Year award that ultimately went to Skenes.  But injuries limited him to just 90 innings.  Unlike most Japanese pitchers who had come over to MLB before him, Yamamoto is still approaching the prime of his career.  This will be his age 26 season.  There is perhaps some post-hype sleeper potential here.

So the six outfielder first round was bookended by three starting pitchers.  That means just one infielder and no catchers were selected in the first round, the fewest from that group of five positions in any draft since 2005.  The most comparable year was 2011 when there was also just one infielder selected, but amusingly there were three first round catchers that year.  Not surprisingly, infielders were very prominent in the second and third rounds of this year’s draft.  Hopefully we’ll be wrapping up the draft around this time next week and Opening Day preparations can begin in earnest.

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Coming off three straight last place finishes (two under current leadership), the Diamond Dogs obviously had a lot of holes to fill.  However, shortstop wasn’t one of them.  Trea Turner and Bo Bichette have been among the best shortstops in the game for several years now.  Last year, Oneil Cruz appeared poised to join those ranks before a nasty leg injury ended his season soon after it started in April.  With all three of those players back in the fold for this season and the consensus #1 player available in the draft also being a shortstop, the Diamond Dogs had a difficult decision to make.

A couple days prior to the start of the 2024 DTBL Draft, the Diamond Dogs dealt Bichette to the Kings, opening a spot for them to select Reds dynamic shortstop Elly De La Cruz with the first pick.  Meanwhile, the Kings filled a spot vacated by a position change and their postseason release of longtime shortstop Carlos Correa.  In addition to clearing room for De La Cruz, the Dogs also acquired the Kings first round pick (7th overall) and catcher Sean Murphy.  The Kings added Bichette and the first pick of the fourth round.  For the Kings, giving up that first rounder for Bichette was a fairly easy call as he is a far safer bet than anyone selected in this entire draft.  While giving up the steady Murphy hurt a bit, they do still have Will Smith behind the plate.  On the other side, the Dogs did not keep a catcher, so Murphy immediately moves into their #1 catcher spot.

Of course, De La Cruz was the main reason why this trade happened.  Soon after making his debut for the Reds last year, he became the talk of the league, demonstrating his light tower power and blazing speed on a nearly daily basis.  Initially splitting time between shortstop and third base, he would eventually settle in as the Reds everyday shortstop, a position he figures to occupy for the foreseeable future.  By the All-Star break, he was hitting .325 with an .887 OPS and 16 stolen bases.  He did struggle down the stretch though, in the longest season of his professional life.  His batting average finished at .235.  But he did slug 13 home runs and stole 35 bases.  Even if the hit tool is slow to develop and the strikeout problem continues, his raw power and elite speed gives him a pretty high floor and certainly someone who will help a Diamond Dogs team that finished dead last in steals a year ago.  That almost certainly won’t happen again.  Him joining forces with a healthy Oneil Cruz will make the Dogs fun to watch at the very least.

It would have been difficult to predict how the rest of the first round would play out because De La Cruz really was the only player who felt like a lock to be among the first players off the board.  The Cougars, who finished last in every offensive category except for stolen bases last year, opted to go with the best bat they could find, outfielder Nolan Jones.  Jones had previously seemed to be a bit of a bust as a prospect for Cleveland.  Moving to Colorado was just what the doctor ordered though.  He put up a 20/20 season, exactly 20 home runs and stolen bases, with a .297 average, all while regularly playing in the outfield for the first time in his career.  The Cougars moved on from a couple of their longtime players who remain Rockies, Charlie Blackmon and Kris Bryant, but now have a much younger Rockie in the fold.  Jones should help them become a more dangerous offensive team.

Like the Cougars, the Moonshiners more or less drafted for need with the third pick.  But their need was on the mound.  After winning the league title in ’22 with an excellent staff, that same group cratered to just 18 pitching points a year ago.  In comes the only non-DTBL rookie drafted in the first round this year, lefty Tarik Skubal.  Skubal’s actual DTBL rookie campaign with the Kings in ’22 ended abruptly with elbow surgery, which caused the Kings to release him following the season and kept him entirely off the league roster last year.  He returned with a vengeance last summer, throwing even harder than he did pre-surgery.  In 15 starts, he compiled a 2.80 ERA, 0.90 WHIP, striking out 102 in 80 innings.  Still just 27 years old, he’ll add some youth to an otherwise veteran laden rotation.

The Komodos went with a little bit younger pitcher in the fourth slot.  They selected Guardians righty Tanner Bibee.  Bibee, who just turned 25 a couple days ago, had a very impressive MLB rookie campaign which placed him second in the AL Rookie of the Year vote.  He won 10 games with a sub 3.00 ERA (2.98).  He struck out 141 hitters in 142 innings.  He appears poised to become Cleveland’s next great pitching development success story.  The Komodos have the makings of a very strong rotation if they can ever get and keep everyone healthy.  Shane McClanahan will likely miss the entire season and it is unclear when Walker Buehler will return after missing all of last year.  Bibee doesn’t need to be the staff ace though as Framber Valdez is still around too.

The run of pitchers continued with the Choppers going even younger yet, selecting Marlins 20 year old righty Eury Perez at number five.  Perez made his MLB debut last May, just a month after turning 20.  You would think a towering 6’8″ 20 year old pitcher who throws serious gas would be a walk machine.  But Perez actually has quite good command.  He struck out 108 hitters with just 31 walks in his 91 big league innings.  Again, quite impressive for someone that age.  He was a little home run prone, but that is just picking nits at this point.  The Choppers have a rotation full of interesting options now, but it would behoove them if Blake Snell were to sign with a team relatively soon.

The streak of starting pitchers extended to four when the Jackalope selected Orioles righty Grayson Rodriguez with the sixth pick.  The highly touted Rodriguez had a rough introduction to the big leagues which eventually led to him being demoted back to AAA.  But then he returned to Baltimore as a much more confident and effective pitcher.  He had a 7.35 ERA when he was demoted near the end of May and was able to drop that 3 full points to 4.34 by the end of the season.  He had a 2.58 ERA from the All-Star break on.  This is the first time since 2018 that the Jackalope have used a first round pick on a pitcher.

With the seventh pick, the Diamond Dogs used the pick they acquired from the Kings in the Bichette trade to add another slugger to the lineup.  Marlins third baseman Jake Burger seemingly came out of nowhere to become one of the very few bright spots on the White Sox before they dealt him to Miami.  While Burger was a former first round pick of the Sox, it seemed unlikely he would ever reach the majors after blowing out his achilles tendon twice.  Finally given a chance to play nearly every day last year, he slugged 34 home runs while driving in 80, and actually improved his bat to ball skills hitting over .300 after arriving in Miami.  Burger is on the old side for a DTBL rookie.  He will turn 28 shortly after Opening Day.

After the momentary pause with the Burger selection, it was back to pitchers with the eighth pick.  The Mavericks selected Dodgers righty, and McHenry, Illinois’ own Bobby Miller.  Safe to say this is the highest pick ever of a McHenry County native in DTBL history.  Miller, with his 99 MPH average fastball, posted very impressive numbers in his first MLB season.  In 124 innings, he struck out 119 with a 3.76 ERA.  He won 11 games pitching for one of baseball’s best teams.  Interestingly, he will essentially be replacing a Dodger legend in the Mavericks rotation.  Clayton Kershaw’s illustrious 15 year career with the Mavericks came to and end this offseason.  Julio Urias is another Dodger gone from the Mavs’ rotation, but I would not call his career quite as illustrious.  Miller will look to continue the Dodger domination for the Mavericks.

Perhaps a bit of a surprise that he fell this far, the Darkhorses nabbed third baseman Royce Lewis with the ninth pick.  A string of injuries is the only thing that prevented Lewis from joining the ranks of the DTBL years ago.  Still just 24 years old though, he should have plenty of great years ahead of him.  Lewis smacked 15 homers with a .309 average in just 217 at bats last season.  And then he added four more home runs in the Postseason.  Initially drafted and developed as a shortstop, Lewis seems to have found a home at the hot corner where he will join Alex Bregman to form an enviable duo at that position for the Darkhorses.

The first round wrapped up with the Demigods selecting utility player Spencer Steer, officially a first baseman for this season in the DTBL.  While the Reds haven’t found a permanent positional home for Steer, his bat pretty much ensures he’ll be in the lineup most days.  He hit .271 with 23 homers, 86 RBI and 15 steals last season.  The defending champion Demigods continue to have one of the most balanced rosters from top to bottom, so they could have gone any number of ways with this pick.  Steer will fit in nicely at first base this year and wherever he might wind up down the road.

On the heels of what was one of the most hyped rookie classes in recent history, and then that ’23 class lived up to the hype in year one, this year’s crop has their work cut out for them.  With five exciting young pitchers in the first round mix this year, perhaps we will see a little more balance though.  Time will tell.

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After having written a grand total of just four blog posts in the past eight months, I am aiming to do four or five this week alone.  Most of them will make up our annual DTBL season preview series.  However, before I get to that, I want to do a quick review of the recently completed draft.  The 2022 draft was rather unusual with a majority of the first round picks being pitchers.  This year, things were back to normal.  The first round was comprised of mostly young hitters.  While the beginning of the 2023 DTBL draft was rather predictable, it was also quite interesting.

The draft kicked off with the Diamond Dogs making the first  pick for the second consecutive season.  Last year, they went a bit off the board in selecting pitcher Shane Baz, a move which backfired quickly as he hurt his elbow soon after the draft and eventually had Tommy John surgery.  This year, the Dogs played it more conventionally, selecting the clear best available player in the draft in outfielder Julio Rodriguez.  Not only was Rodriguez the consensus best available player in this draft, I’ve seen dynasty rankings that have him #1 among *all* MLB players heading into this season.  He broke into the big leagues with a 28 home run and 25 stolen base season, earning him AL Rookie of the Year honors.  It has been quite some time since a player had such a dominant rookie season in both of those categories.  He has true five category star potential and should be a cornerstone for the Diamond Dogs franchise for years to come.

Speaking of guys with elite power and speed talent, the Mavericks selected shortstop Bobby Witt Jr with the second pick.  Witt also joined the rookie 20/20 fraternity with 20 home runs and 30 steals.  The stolen base aspect of his game will give the Mavericks the only thing they were missing from their extremely potent offense.  Witt is of course the son of former MLB pitcher Bobby Witt, who had a one season stint in the DTBL with the Metros in 1997.

The first pitcher selected was Spencer Strider by the Darkhorses at #3.  Strider was an under the radar prospect who made his presence felt immediately at the big league level.  He struck out 202 hitters in just 131 innings pitched, while posting a 2.67 ERA and a sub 1.0 WHIP.  Like Rodriguez being the first hitter taken, there was little doubt that Strider would be the first pitcher off the board.

Strider’s Braves teammate, outfielder Michael Harris II was the fourth pick, taken by the Jackalope.  Harris is yet another huge power and speed contributor.  He hit 19 home runs with 20 steals while posting a .297 average.  In almost any other year, he would have been the best five category player available.  Perhaps playing in a loaded Braves lineup does give him the best immediate outlook among these top hitters though.

The first non-DTBL rookie selected was outfielder Bryan Reynolds.  The Cougars picked him up in the fifth slot.  Reynolds was a surprising drop by the Komodos this winter, but the Cougars were happy to add him to their roster.  He could be an especially nice addition if the Pirates were to trade him to a team that would offer more lineup protection.

It is almost hard to believe, but prior to this year there had not been a catcher selected in the first round of the draft since 2017 (Gary Sanchez and Willson Contreras).  The Choppers ended that drought by choosing Adley Rutschman at #6.  Rutschman had been the #1 prospect in baseball heading into last season according to many publications, and one of the most highly touted catching prospects in modern history.  He had a very good rookie campaign and should give the Choppers a leg up on most of the league at an extremely shallow position.

The second and final pitcher of the first round was Cristian Javier, selected by the Komodos with the seventh pick.  Javier had a decent stint with the Jackalope back in 2021, but fell off the league roster last year as the Astros kept shuffling him between the rotation and bullpen.  He established himself as an extremely valuable starter last season though, highlighted by his dominant performance in the Astros combined no-hitter in Game 4 of the World Series.

The next two picks are the consensus top two prospects in baseball heading into this season, as the others drafted ahead of them have already exhausted their MLB rookie eligibility.  The Demigods took speedy outfielder Corbin Carroll with the eighth pick.  Carroll stole 33 bases across three levels last season.  Oh, he also has pop.  He hit 28 home runs in his ’22 minor and major league season.

Third baseman Gunnar Henderson went to the Kings in the ninth slot.  Corner infield wasn’t exactly a position of need for the Kings going into the draft, but they are certainly happy to have Henderson now with Rhys Hoskins out for the year.  Henderson doesn’t have quite the same speed as the other hitters picked ahead of him, but he can run a bit and certainly has big league raw power.

Finally, the defending champion Moonshiners selected catcher MJ Melendez with the last pick of the first round.  Melendez filled in admirably behind the plate for the Royals when Salvador Perez got hurt last summer.  This year, he will likely spend most of his time in the outfield, but should catch often enough to maintain catcher eligibility.  His bat should make him an extremely valuable commodity as long as that remains the case.

To pull back the curtain a bit on my own draft process, this wound up being as predictable of a first round as I can recall.  Since I had the ninth pick, I had exactly nine guys who I had settled on as potential selections.  As it turns out, only Henderson remained from that list when my pick came up, which made my decision pretty easy.  While I didn’t map out exactly which team I expected to take which player, not one of the first round selections was even remotely surprising to me.

Now it is time to dive into the season preview.  I’m actually hoping to get the first part out later tonight, or tomorrow at the latest.  So be on the lookout for that!