The 19th annual DTBL Draft is set to begin this afternoon, so I figured I would take a few minutes to set the stage.
All eyes will be on the Mavericks, who possess two of the first three picks in the draft. Last year, they made three first round selections. So they seem to be well positioned to build a solid foundation with young talent. But before the Mavericks have their pick of the litter, the Demigods will make the first overall pick. Some years there is an obvious #1 player on the board, but I don’t think that is the case this year. They could go a number of directions to fill a need. The Choppers and Gators hold the fourth and fifth picks respectively, and figure to be in good spots to pick up quality players.
Overall, I think this is a deep draft. As I previously mentioned, I had trouble making the final decisions on which players to include, especially when it came to pitchers. This should make for a very interesting draft start to finish. Having said that, I was only able to identify five players who I feel are sure thing first round picks. This means that half of the players taken in the first round could be surprises and could cause some teams to pick the best player available at a position of need rather than going with the best player on the board.
Will this be another draft full of trades? Already, a number of picks have been dealt in carry over trades from last season. The first trade of the year was recently completed, but it did not include draft picks. The Mavericks and Naturals made another deal swapping Orioles players. The Mavericks acquired outfielder Adam Jones from the Naturals for starting pitcher Brian Matusz. This trade was a product of a numbers game. The Mavericks had six starting pitcher keepers, so at least one of them was expendable. Meanwhile, the Naturals already had a full outfield. This deal gives both teams a little more flexibility on where they can go with their early draft picks.
Now let’s get this thing started. Happy drafting!