{"id":1217,"date":"2019-03-09T09:51:54","date_gmt":"2019-03-09T16:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1217"},"modified":"2019-03-10T20:32:25","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T03:32:25","slug":"acuna-soto-highlight-round-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1217","title":{"rendered":"Acuna, Soto Highlight Round One"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a id=\"ahpeMOk5SR92w02tML8-nA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1047287714\" target=\"_blank\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>\/\/ <![CDATA[\nwindow.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'ahpeMOk5SR92w02tML8-nA',sig:'iQkT_Z61EHhoYYY2VXzzz-u9Km88srRCiRYDPp-uyl8=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1047287714',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><script src=\"\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nThe first round of the DTBL Draft almost always features a crop of young up-and-coming stars.\u00a0 But this year&#8217;s group is especially notable for their youth.\u00a0 Eight of the ten players selected in the first round are under 25 years old, including the first seven picks of the draft.\u00a0 And two players, Ronald Acuna and Juan Soto, are among the most accomplished players at their age to ever enter the league.\u00a0 Acuna and Soto just turned 21 and 20 respectively over the offseason.\u00a0 All ten first round selections are DTBL rookies.\u00a0 A trade of two marquee players also highlighted an excellent start to the 2019 DTBL Draft.<\/p>\n<p>For the second straight year, the reigning National League Rookie of the Year was the first pick of the draft.\u00a0 Ronald Acuna joins the Jackalope coming off a stellar rookie campaign.\u00a0 He hit .293 with 26 home runs and 16 stolen bases, flashing all of his plus tools.\u00a0 The Braves outfielder became a star almost immediately upon promotion and helped lead his team to an unexpected division championship.\u00a0 He could help the Jackalope make a similar jump in the standings this year.\u00a0 The Jackalope offense was especially disappointing a year ago, but the pieces are still there to be one of the best teams in the league.\u00a0 Acuna was a pretty clear choice here.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, the Komodos took a young Dodgers star with the first pick of the draft (Cody Bellinger).\u00a0 This year, they took another young Dodgers star with the second pick.\u00a0 Walker Buehler should give a\u00a0significant boost to a pitching staff that really struggled a year ago.\u00a0 Buehler was pretty clearly the best pitcher available in this draft.\u00a0 In 137 big league innings, he struck out 151 while posting an impressive 2.62 ERA and 0.96 WHIP.\u00a0 That ERA is a full point lower than any Komodos starting pitcher posted in &#8217;18, when they finished dead last in the league in that category, by a healthy margin.\u00a0 Buehler will immediately become the Komodos best pitcher.<\/p>\n<p>Juan Soto has already put himself in rarefied air based on his accomplishments in the big leagues as a teenager.\u00a0 Nobody was expecting Soto to reach the majors for another year or two, but a series of injuries to Nationals outfielders caused them to bring him up last May. He was an immediate success and made it impossible to send him back down.\u00a0 He was so good in his rookie campaign that the Nationals decided to only make a halfhearted attempt to retain Bryce Harper this winter.\u00a0 Soto hit .292 with 22 homers in just 414 at bats.\u00a0 The Naturals selected him with the third pick and he could have joined his Nationals teammate Victor Robles to form an exciting young duo for the Naturals as well.\u00a0 But Soto was immediately traded to the Mavericks in a blockbuster swap of outfielders.\u00a0 In return, the Naturals acquired Andrew Benintendi.\u00a0 These are two of the best outfielders in the game, so this is quite a swap.\u00a0 Benintendi is more established and is a little more well-rounded, offering a stolen base threat as well.\u00a0 But Soto has a nearly unlimited upside in the power categories.\u00a0 It will be very interesting to compare these players as their careers progress.\u00a0 For the Mavericks, an outfield of Soto, Mike Trout and Aaron Judge is pretty darn scary.\u00a0 But the Naturals have no shortage of young star hitters either.<\/p>\n<p>With the fourth pick, the Moonshiners selected this year&#8217;s most interesting player, two-way star Shohei Ohtani.\u00a0 Coming over from Japan, Ohtani was expected to be an immediate star on the mound, but many questioned if he would really be able to hit big league pitching.\u00a0 In fact, some thought if he truly wanted to be a two-way player, he may need some time in the minors.\u00a0 Well, turns out he can hit major league pitching.\u00a0 He hit .285 with 22 home runs in just 326 at bats.\u00a0 An injury limited him to just 51 innings on the mound, where he struck out 63 with a 3.31 ERA.\u00a0 Unfortunately, he needed Tommy John surgery and will not pitch in 2019.\u00a0 He does intend to hit, but probably won&#8217;t see action in a big league game until May.\u00a0 The Moonshiners have all sorts of options with Ohtani.\u00a0 First, they can use him at 1B or OF this year since he didn&#8217;t play a non-pitching field position last year.\u00a0 And looking forward, they will have the option to use him as either a pitcher or hitter next year, assuming he is a keeper.\u00a0 The sky is the limit with this pick, but the Moonshiners probably won&#8217;t get their money&#8217;s worth until next year and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>The Mavericks aren&#8217;t used to picking in the first half of the first round, at least not with their own pick.\u00a0 Last year was the first time they finished in the bottom half of the standings since 2011.\u00a0 They took advantage of the rare positioning to acquire two of the top five players selected in this draft.\u00a0 In addition to the trade for Soto, they selected pitcher Jack Flaherty with the fifth pick.\u00a0 The Mavericks have an absolutely loaded offense, but the once undisputed top pitching staff in the league was anything but that a year ago.\u00a0 Injuries destroyed the staff and caused them to finish dead last in pitching points.\u00a0 Flaherty is the first step to try to rebuild that group.\u00a0 Overshadowed a bit by the players already mentioned above, he had a rather dominant rookie campaign as well.\u00a0 182 strikeouts in 151 innings is great for any pitcher, much less a 22 year old rookie.\u00a0 The Cardinals hurler also had a strong 3.34 ERA and 1.11 WHIP.\u00a0 He should provide stability for this revamped staff.<\/p>\n<p>The Cougars have had a pretty good recent track record of selecting hitters in the first round.\u00a0 Second baseman Gleyber Torres is the next in line.\u00a0 The Cougars will likely open the season with their offensive lineup featuring their past five first round picks.\u00a0 Torres is younger than all of his predecessors though at the time of joining the squad.\u00a0 He hit .271 with 24 home runs during his age 21 rookie season.\u00a0 That combination of ability and age should make him a fixture on the Cougars roster for a very long time.\u00a0 The Yankees have a lot of options in their infield this year, but one thing is certain.\u00a0 Torres will be playing virtually every day, whether it be at second base or shortstop.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of impressive young Yankees infielders, another one was selected with the seventh pick, with the Choppers taking third baseman Miguel Andujar.\u00a0 Andujar hit .297 with 27 homers and 92 RBI, to finish second in the American League Rookie of the Year vote, behind Ohtani.\u00a0 The only knock on him is his glove, but that matters not at all in fantasy.\u00a0 The Choppers will look to Andujar to replace team legend and future Hall-of-Famer Adrian Beltre, who retired over the winter.\u00a0 If Andujar can provide a spark to the Choppers offense, they could have a chance of ending their 20 year title drought.<\/p>\n<p>For the second straight year, the Demigods took the old guy of the first round.\u00a0 But in this case, it is still a league rookie.\u00a0 Jesus Aguilar started the 2018 season as a bench player for the Brewers.\u00a0 But the first baseman immediately showed off his incredible power, quickly earned a starting job, and then made the NL All-Star team.\u00a0 He slugged 35 homers with 108 runs batted in.\u00a0 He did cool off a bit in the second half of the season, with only 11 of those homers coming after the All-Star break.\u00a0 Outside of maybe Acuna and Soto, he was probably the safest bet for power in this draft.\u00a0 The Demigods finished eighth in home runs last year, the biggest weakness for an otherwise strong offensive team.<\/p>\n<p>The Darkhorses selected Braves pitcher Mike Foltynewicz with the eighth pick, making this the first time since 2015 that more than two pitchers were taken in the first round.\u00a0 Foltynewicz had a breakout season a year ago, which earned him an All-Star appearance.\u00a0 He struck out 202 hitters in 183 innings with a sparkling 2.85 ERA and 1.08 WHIP.\u00a0 His previous best ERA season was 4.31, so &#8217;18 saw quite a dramatic improvement.\u00a0 While he has spent parts of five seasons in the majors, he is still just 27 years old.\u00a0 The Darkhorses barely missed winning the championship last year, with a mediocre pitching staff holding them back.\u00a0 Foltynewicz could be exactly what they need to get over the hump.<\/p>\n<p>Sitting with the last pick in the first round, the Kings believed there was one player remaining who was clearly the best available, but he was at a position in which they were already well stacked.\u00a0 So instead, they swung a trade with the Jackalope to move up a spot to grab that player.\u00a0 The Kings received the Jackalope 2nd round pick (11th overall) along with a swap of 4th round slots.\u00a0 The Jackalope then took Royals shortstop Adalberto Mondesi to close out the first round.\u00a0 Mondesi is a rare breed in that he is an elite base stealer, but also has surprising power.\u00a0 He managed to steal 32 bases and hit 14 home runs despite not making his big league season debut until late June.\u00a0 While he&#8217;s unlikely to maintain a pace like that for a full season, he still could be an above average contributor to the power categories while potentially leading the league in steals.\u00a0 Once considered an elite prospect, Mondesi had slipped under the radar a bit before his 2018 breakout.\u00a0 Slight spoiler alert for my upcoming season preview articles, but you definitely won&#8217;t see the Jackalope projected to finish last again.\u00a0 They managed to acquire the two players with the highest projected PAR in the entire draft pool.\u00a0 So the Jackalope started and finished the first round with a bang.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the Kings selected starting pitcher Zack Wheeler with that pick they acquired from the Jackalope, the first pick of the second round.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to all of you for the excellent pace to the first half of this draft.\u00a0 At this rate, we&#8217;ll be done with plenty of time to spare before the Japan openers.\u00a0 Let&#8217;s keep up the good work!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images The first round of the DTBL Draft almost always features a crop of young up-and-coming stars.\u00a0 But this year&#8217;s group is especially notable for their youth.\u00a0 Eight of the ten players selected in the first round are under 25 years old, including the first seven picks of the draft.\u00a0 And two [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8,11,12,13,6,9,31,3,10,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-choppers","category-cougars","category-darkhorses","category-demigods","category-draft","category-jackalope","category-kings","category-komodos","category-mavericks","category-moonshiners","category-naturals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1217"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1221,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions\/1221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}