{"id":1426,"date":"2022-03-29T20:12:44","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T03:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1426"},"modified":"2022-03-29T20:12:44","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T03:12:44","slug":"a-pitcher-takeover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=1426","title":{"rendered":"A Pitcher Takeover"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a id=\"01pgk83USQVVjfVztDfggA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1345777411\" 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:'01pgk83USQVVjfVztDfggA',sig:'YxAaela1CicCj-a1ih3fiTJSNah511vfEkBHg8f-76g=',w:'594px',h:'407px',items:'1345777411',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><script src=\"\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js\" async=\"\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nWe are in the midst of the 30th annual DTBL Draft.\u00a0 With almost three decades of history to draw from, there is a pretty typical pattern in how the first round of the draft plays out.\u00a0 Normally, a majority of those early picks are young players who made their MLB debut the previous season.\u00a0 And among those players, the first round tends to skew towards hitters.\u00a0 Young hitters are generally more projectable than pitchers.\u00a0 TINSTAAPP (There is No Such Thing as a Pitching Prospect) is a common refrain in baseball for a reason.\u00a0 Well, you can\u00a0throw all of that out when analyzing the 2022 DTBL Draft.<\/p>\n<p>For the first time since 2003, a majority of the first round picks were pitchers.\u00a0 The six starting pitchers taken in the first round was a league record, blowing past the previous high of four.\u00a0 While these pitchers did skew young, they are not all DTBL rookies and even fewer were MLB rookies last year.\u00a0 This was truly a first round group of ten that did not resemble any previous year&#8217;s new crop.\u00a0 Perhaps this is a product of the pandemic shortened 2020 season that saw some position players pushed to the majors due to not having minor league opportunities for development, while pitchers were kept on a more conservative path that led to guys who may have otherwise debuted in &#8217;20 being pushed to &#8217;21.\u00a0 But with\u00a0many of the pitchers drafted in this first round not actually being MLB rookies, who knows?\u00a0 Probably just a one year oddity.<\/p>\n<p>The draft started with the Diamond Dogs making their first ever selection after taking over the Beanballers roster.\u00a0 They chose young right handed starting pitcher Shane Baz.\u00a0 This was a bit of a surprise, but not because of Baz&#8217;s pedigree.\u00a0 Most MLB prospect rankings that have been released this winter have Baz among the top 15 prospects in the game.\u00a0 And in most cases, he is the top ranked prospect who has already made his MLB debut.\u00a0 The Rays hurler, stolen from the Pirates as the third piece of the Chris Archer trade, made his debut in late September.\u00a0 His three regular season starts were impressive enough to earn him a start in the ALDS as well.\u00a0 The future is bright for Baz.\u00a0 Unfortunately for the Diamond Dogs, Baz underwent elbow surgery just days after this selection.\u00a0 The good news is it wasn&#8217;t a career altering elbow surgery like Tommy John, but rather a cleanup procedure that should just keep him out a few weeks.\u00a0 He will begin his DTBL career on the injured list though.<\/p>\n<p>With the second pick, the Komodos took the guy who most people probably expected to go #1, Baz&#8217;s Rays teammate Wander Franco.\u00a0 The phenom shortstop had been the #1 ranked prospect for several years before making his much anticipated MLB debut in June.\u00a0 He proceeded to have a very solid season, hitting .288 with seven home runs, earning him a third place finish in the AL Rookie of the Year vote.\u00a0 While he only stole a couple bases in the big leagues last year, speed is certainly part of his game as well.\u00a0 He has been touted as a true five tool player.\u00a0 Having just turned 21 earlier this month, he figures to be a fixture in the Komodos infield for a very long time.<\/p>\n<p>While Franco was the most highly touted hitter to debut last year, second baseman Jonathan India was the most productive.\u00a0 The Jackalope selected him with the third pick.\u00a0 The Reds infielder hit .269 with 21 homers, 69 RBI, 98 runs scored and 12 stolen bases, earning him the National League Rookie of the Year honor.\u00a0 This marks the fourth straight year that the Jackalope have used a first round pick on an infielder.\u00a0 This pick feels quite a bit safer than their last similar pick of second baseman Keston Hiura with the fourth pick in 2020.\u00a0 India should be able to hold down that spot for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n<p>The Cougars followed with the breakout star of 2021, making outfielder Cedric Mullins the fourth overall pick.\u00a0 Mullins still has DTBL rookie eligibility, however, this is not his first time on the league roster.\u00a0 He was added in 2019, but went undrafted and then unsigned in a very forgettable season.\u00a0 2021, on the other hand, was rather memorable for Mullins.\u00a0 He became the latest addition to the 30\/30 Club, slugging exactly 30 home runs and stealing exactly 30 bases.\u00a0 The latter wasn&#8217;t a huge surprise, but the power seemingly came from nowhere.\u00a0 He had seven career home runs before last season.\u00a0 Even if he can&#8217;t repeat that feat, he still has enormous fantasy potential because of the power and speed combo that so few possess.<\/p>\n<p>The pitching run began in earnest with the fifth pick that the Demigods used on lefty Robbie Ray.\u00a0 Ray had a solid run with the Moonshiners from 2017-2019.\u00a0 But a brutal 2020 knocked him completely out of the league last season.\u00a0 All he did while away was win the AL Cy Young with a league leading 2.84 ERA, 1.05 WHIP and 284 strikeouts.\u00a0 Good call by me removing him from the league roster.\u00a0 He&#8217;s back now and should provide an immediate boost to the Demigods pitching staff.<\/p>\n<p>The Darkhorses selected the pitching breakout star of the year at #6.\u00a0 Giants righty Logan Webb started his career with a couple mediocre seasons that did not provide much of a hint that he would become the staff ace of one of the best teams in baseball in 2021.\u00a0 Webb won 11 games with a 3.03 ERA and 158 strikeouts in 148 innings pitched for the Giants last year before becoming a postseason horse with a pair of dominant starts against the Dodgers in the NLDS.\u00a0 He will play a major role in the Darkhorses retooled rotation that only has two holdovers (Jacob deGrom and Jose Berrios).<\/p>\n<p>The Moonshiners were just a respectable pitching staff away from being a serious championship contender last year.\u00a0 They attempted to fix that glaring weakness by selecting young Blue Jays hurler Alek Manoah at pick number seven.\u00a0 Another highly touted prospect, Manoah did not disappoint in his first big league season.\u00a0 He had a very respectable 3.22 ERA and 1.05 WHIP along with nine wins and 127 strikeouts.\u00a0 Given the Blue Jays offensive firepower, he figures to be a solid\u00a0candidate to win double digit games along with strong numbers in the other three categories.<\/p>\n<p>We got a brief break from all those pitchers with the Mavericks selecting second baseman Jazz Chisholm with the eighth pick.\u00a0 Chisholm struggled in his 2020 debut, leaving questions about his ability to hit big league pitching.\u00a0 Those questions were answered in 2021.\u00a0 He hit 18 home runs while stealing 23 bases.\u00a0 Again, that combination of power and speed makes him an exciting fantasy prospect.\u00a0 Add to that the serious lack of depth at second base right now and you have a player who should be among the league&#8217;s best at his position.\u00a0 The Mavericks had to have been thrilled to add a player like him this late in the first round.<\/p>\n<p>Back to starting pitchers with pick number nine.\u00a0 The Choppers reacquired a player they had picked up on a whim late in 2020, White Sox righty Dylan Cease.\u00a0 Cease technically still has DTBL rookie status since he was never placed on the Choppers active roster in 2020.\u00a0 He was subsequently dropped from the league last year due to his erratic performance in &#8217;20.\u00a0 He finally harnessed his stuff last year though, with an extremely impressive 226 strikeouts in 165 innings, along with a 3.91 ERA and 13 wins.\u00a0 Still just 23 years old, Cease has the potential to be one of the league&#8217;s premier strikeout pitchers.<\/p>\n<p>Rounding out the first round was yet another pitcher who had a great 2021 campaign.\u00a0 Marlins southpaw Trevor Rogers was never a particularly highly touted prospect.\u00a0 So his rookie campaign went largely under the radar.\u00a0 He posted a 2.64 ERA with a 1.15 WHIP and 157 strikeouts in 133 innings.\u00a0 That earned him a spot on the NL All-Star roster and a runner-up finish in the NL Rookie of the Year vote.\u00a0 Rogers joins a Kings staff that led the league in pitching points last year, but was looking for another consistent presence behind Max Scherzer and Zack Wheeler.\u00a0 They now have three of the NL East&#8217;s best pitchers.<\/p>\n<p>The run on starting pitchers didn&#8217;t end in the first round.\u00a0 Four more were selected in round two and exactly half of the first 22 picks were starting pitchers.\u00a0 It seems unlikely we will see anything like this in the near future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images We are in the midst of the 30th annual DTBL Draft.\u00a0 With almost three decades of history to draw from, there is a pretty typical pattern in how the first round of the draft plays out.\u00a0 Normally, a majority of those early picks are young players who made their MLB debut [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8,11,12,34,13,6,9,31,3,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-choppers","category-cougars","category-darkhorses","category-demigods","category-diamond-dogs","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\/1426","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=1426"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1428,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1426\/revisions\/1428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}