{"id":1373,"date":"2021-03-16T17:50:55","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T00:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1373"},"modified":"2021-03-17T07:05:22","modified_gmt":"2021-03-17T14:05:22","slug":"predictably-unpredictable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1373","title":{"rendered":"Predictably Unpredictable"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a id=\"2_riDbRoTmd-dKTdOSBYrA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1277185020\" 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:'2_riDbRoTmd-dKTdOSBYrA',sig:'tAwj69saWOecw7Jk9hWQpwZeV-unMsquGmYEXKVqAiU=',w:'594px',h:'409px',items:'1277185020',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><script src=\"\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nThere is no blueprint for how to approach a fantasy baseball draft following a 60 game, pandemic affected season.\u00a0 How much weight do you put in players&#8217; performances in such a short sample size?\u00a0 Is it safe to ignore the poor numbers of a veteran player with a long track record of success?\u00a0 How do you judge a rookie who made his MLB debut after not being able to play in real minor league games for almost a full year?\u00a0 Can the breakout stars of 2020 be trusted to repeat their performances over the long haul of a full season?\u00a0 And finally, how do you judge the players who actually contracted and recovered from COVID-19?\u00a0 Nobody knows the right answers to any of these questions.\u00a0 And based on the results of the first round of the 2021 DTBL Draft, it would seem there were many different answers among the league&#8217;s members.<\/p>\n<p>Going into this draft, I had absolutely no idea what to expect.\u00a0 Unlike most years, there were hardly any sure-fire first round selections.\u00a0 Partly because I was the owner of the second pick, I didn&#8217;t even bother trying to compile a top ten list like I normally do.\u00a0 But if I had, I think I can safely say I would have been wrong on close to half of the names.\u00a0 And outside of the first two picks, I&#8217;m not sure I would have correctly pegged any other players with the teams that selected them.\u00a0 Besides the general unpredictability, the other abnormal theme of the first round was the number of non-DTBL rookies selected.\u00a0 Four players were chosen who have previous experience on DTBL rosters.\u00a0 I have complete draft records dating back to 2005.\u00a0 In the previous 16 years, no more than three non-rookies were selected in any year.\u00a0 While unusual, this was not terribly surprising since there just wasn&#8217;t a lot of time for newcomers to make their mark during the 2020 MLB season.<\/p>\n<p>The one pick in this draft that was definitely not surprising was the first one.\u00a0 The Komodos selected White Sox young star outfielder Luis Robert.\u00a0 The five tool phenom hit the ground running with an incredible first month of his big league career, during which he wasn&#8217;t only one of the best rookies in the game, but one of the top players as well.\u00a0 But even Robert comes with some question marks as he really struggled down the stretch, seeing his batting average fall to .233.\u00a0 He was still just one steal away from a double\/double HR\/SB season, which would have been more like 25\/25 stretched out to a full campaign.\u00a0 With his power and speed, Robert is a legitimate 40\/40 candidate down the road.\u00a0 HR and SB were already two of the Komodos better categories, so he could help boost them among the top teams in the league in those areas.<\/p>\n<p>The second pick is another player with well above average power and decent speed as well.\u00a0 The Kings boosted their extremely disappointing offense from a year ago with the selection of outfielder Randy Arozarena.\u00a0 Arozerana became a breakout star in October, almost singlehandedly leading the Rays offense on the way to the World Series.\u00a0 While he did seemingly come out of nowhere, he actually started mashing soon after being activated from the COVID-19 list in late August.\u00a0 He slugged seven homers in September before adding \u00a0an incredible 10 more in the Postseason.\u00a0 Even though he made his MLB debut in 2019, Arozarena actually remains MLB rookie eligible this year since he missed so much time in 2020 recovering from the virus.\u00a0 For the Kings sake, hopefully he kept up his now famous pushup regimen this offseason.\u00a0 If so, he could help the Kings rebound from a shockingly disappointing 2020.<\/p>\n<p>With the third pick in the draft, we had a quick throwback to last year&#8217;s draft that featured four sons of former DTBL players selected in the first 15 picks.\u00a0 The Choppers selected third baseman Ke&#8217;Bryan Hayes, 28 years after his father Brian, also a third baseman, played for the Choppers in the inaugural season of the DTBL of 1993.\u00a0 The elder Hayes played four seasons in this league.\u00a0 Ke&#8217;Bryan figures to stick around much longer.\u00a0 Known mostly for his slick fielding as a prospect, Hayes burst onto the scene with a .376 average and five home runs in 85 big league at bats.\u00a0 He has an advanced bat and runs well too, so there is serious five category potential here.\u00a0 This marks the fourth straight year that the Choppers have selected an infielder with their first pick.\u00a0 Hayes will join last year&#8217;s pick of Pete Alonso to form a strong corner duo for years to come.<\/p>\n<p>So after three picks, this first round didn&#8217;t look too dissimilar from previous years.\u00a0 But things started to change at four.\u00a0 The Demigods selected veteran outfielder J.D. Martinez, who they had just cut from their roster last month.\u00a0 I suppose this could be chalked up as a case of seller&#8217;s remorse.\u00a0 Martinez struggled badly a year ago, but this came on the heels of three straight seasons of hitting at least .300 with 35+ home runs and 100+ RBI.\u00a0 While he&#8217;s no youngster at 33, it seems likely that his &#8217;20 campaign was an outlier and a product of a weird season.\u00a0 Had the Demigods not picked him, some other team surely would have done so relatively early.\u00a0 The surprise here is that it was the team that just cut him that made the pick.\u00a0 If you ignore that fact though, Martinez makes all the sense in the world for a Demigods squad that has more than enough talent to contend and could really use his proven bat in the lineup.<\/p>\n<p>The Cougars followed by selecting another non-DTBL rookie.\u00a0 But this one was more of a technicality as starting pitcher Corbin Burnes is at a completely different place now than he was when the Choppers took a late flier on him as a relief pitcher in 2019.\u00a0 Burnes fell out of the league last year, but now returns as a starter with huge upside.\u00a0 He started nine of the 12 games he appeared in last season and put up some impressive numbers.\u00a0 He had a 2.11 ERA, 1.02 WHIP and 88 strikeouts in 60 innings.\u00a0 This is the second straight year the Cougars have used the fifth overall pick on a starting pitcher who had fallen off the league roster the previous year.\u00a0 Worked out pretty well with Lucas Giolito.\u00a0 Those two should help the Cougars improve upon a rotation which somewhat held them back from being contenders a year ago.<\/p>\n<p>Jo Adell entered 2020 as one of the top prospects in baseball, but probably not quite ready for the majors.\u00a0 The lack of a minor league season probably prevented him from that last bit of development time he could have used before making his debut.\u00a0 Instead, he was thrown into the fire with the Angels for a bulk of the season.\u00a0 It did not go well.\u00a0 He hit just .161 and struck out in over 40% of his plate appearances.\u00a0 He is flying under the radar this spring, in large part because he lost rookie eligibility and is thus not being discussed in prospect rankings.\u00a0 But he is still very much a coveted prospect with great power and speed tools.\u00a0 If he can improve the hit tool, he has a chance to be a star.\u00a0 He will likely start this season in the minors though.\u00a0 But that did not prevent the Mavericks from selecting him with the sixth pick.\u00a0 This is a luxury the Mavericks could afford with their absolutely loaded roster, particularly in the outfield.\u00a0 They don&#8217;t really need anything from Adell to be a contender this season.\u00a0 But the enormous upside was too much to pass up.<\/p>\n<p>The next pick was another player with an uncertain role this season.\u00a0 The Beanballers selected Dodgers pitcher Dustin May with the sixth pick.\u00a0 May is also not a DTBL rookie.\u00a0 He was picked in the sixth round by the Mavericks last year.\u00a0 But not having a firm grasp on a rotation spot heading into the season made him expendable.\u00a0 The Beanballers were willing to gamble on the talent.\u00a0 Even if he isn&#8217;t able to crack the Dodgers rotation to start the season, it would be surprising if he didn&#8217;t get plenty of opportunities sooner than later.\u00a0 May did start 10 games a year ago and had an excellent 2.57 ERA and 1.09 WHIP.\u00a0 If he can improve on his strikeout rate, he has top of the rotation potential.\u00a0 The Beanballers could definitely use a big season from him this year as they bide their time before Noah Syndergaard returns from Tommy John surgery.<\/p>\n<p>With the eighth pick, the Moonshiners went a more traditional route, taking a rookie who made a strong impression in his debut.\u00a0 Orioles outfielder Ryan Mountcastle put up numbers very similar to Hayes.\u00a0 He hit .333 with five home runs in 140 plate appearances.\u00a0 Mountcastle was a consistently strong hitter in the Orioles farm system for five full years before he finally got his opportunity in the big leagues last season.\u00a0 He was the fifth outfielder selected in the first round.\u00a0 Mountcastle should help shore up a Moonshiners offense that was below average a year ago and an outfield that should be much improved with Kyle Tucker quietly becoming a fantasy star and Shohei Ohtani returning to the offensive side of things this year.<\/p>\n<p>Next, the Jackalope selected shortstop Dansby Swanson, who has had a very interesting four year DTBL career.\u00a0 This is the fourth time he has been drafted, by four different teams.\u00a0 He has never spent consecutive seasons on the same roster.\u00a0 Originally a second round pick of the Naturals in 2017, this was his first time as a first rounder.\u00a0 Swanson is coming off a career year in which he hit 10 homers with 35 RBI in a shortened season.\u00a0 He was a solid contributor to the championship winning Darkhorses, but was squeezed out with their deep roster.\u00a0 The Jackalope were happy to add him to their infield, which was mildly disappointing a year ago.\u00a0 Their offense will feature six of their former first round picks this season.\u00a0 Even a minor improvement to that offense should put them in strong contention for a title.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, the defending champion Darkhorses closed out the first round by selecting another young slugger who made the most of the shortened season, but also enters 2021 with a somewhat unsettled role.\u00a0 First baseman Dominic Smith was the final pick of the first round.\u00a0 Smith made his MLB debut in 2017, but is still just 25 years old.\u00a0 Last season, he hit .316 with 10 home runs and 42 RBI.\u00a0 With Pete Alonso firmly entrenched at first base for the Mets and the designated hitter not being in play in the NL this year, Smith figures to see a bulk of his time in the outfield.\u00a0 If he gets semi regular playing time, he could be a monster offensive force for a team that is already the best team in the league with the bats.\u00a0 Immediately following the selection of Smith, eight of the Darkhorses ten hitters were players who hit double digit home runs a year ago.\u00a0\u00a0And that doesn&#8217;t even include Alex Bregman, who is only a year removed from hitting 40.\u00a0 This is a truly scary offense.<\/p>\n<p>Half of the first round picks were outfielders and another could move there a year from now.\u00a0 Meanwhile, only two pitchers were selected in the first ten picks.\u00a0 This was despite much more league roster shuffling among hurlers than hitters.\u00a0 It will be interesting to see which strategies pay off following a very unusual 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images There is no blueprint for how to approach a fantasy baseball draft following a 60 game, pandemic affected season.\u00a0 How much weight do you put in players&#8217; performances in such a short sample size?\u00a0 Is it safe to ignore the poor numbers of a veteran player with a long track record [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,7,8,11,12,13,6,9,31,3,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beanballers","category-choppers","category-cougars","category-darkhorses","category-demigods","category-draft","category-jackalope","category-kings","category-komodos","category-mavericks","category-moonshiners"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373","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=1373"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1378,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1373\/revisions\/1378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}