For those of you who don’t get (okay take) the day off and don’t already have your plans for this afternoon, read on – this is an important day for your fantasy teams.
Today is the 2011 Rule IV (read amateur player) Draft for Major League Baseball. The choices made today will help shape the rosters of clubs – both MLB and fantasy rosters for years and that’s why you should be watching.
At least for the first round, I don’t expect you to watch as much as I will. Many of these players will be picked in minor league drafts next March. Heck, in some keeper leagues many of these players are already on rosters.
They are hoping they may have already found the next Josh Hamilton, or Bryce Harper, or David Price.
So let’s take a brief look at the top players in this years’ draft. For more than a year I was pretty sure that the first pick this year would be Rice University’s third baseman Anthony Rendon. But Rendon strained his shoulder early in the year and it has severely limited him – enough to be a concern going into the draft. He will still be drafted early in the first round I believe, but he may fall a few spots. Of course, the other thing that might prevent Rendon from being the first pick in the draft is that the Pittsburgh Pirates previously used a first round pick on Pedro Alvarez in 2008.
ON THE CLOCK
1 – Pittsburgh Pirates – Likely taking a college pitcher; best guess = Danny Hultzen, LHP, Virginia
2 – Seattle Mariners – With so many holes they would like to take a hitter and Rendon would be a good fit here.
3 – Arizona Diamondbacks – Two of the first seven picks for the DBacks and this one is likely to be a pitcher – Hultzen if he is still available, but Gerrit Cole, RHP, UCLA or Dylan Bundy, RHP, Owasso High School, Oklahoma seem like choices Arizona will make.
4 – Baltimore Orioles – Whomever Arizona leaves them but Bundy or Hultzen seem like the logical choices
5 – Kansas City Royals – If there is not a college pitcher they like here (Cole or Bauer both from UCLA), they might take the local star – Bubba Starling, OF/P, Gardner Edgerton High School, Kansas
6 – Washington Nationals – Whichever player is left but it might well be Starling (and that might be legendary in a few years….Strasburg, then Harper, then Starling….just saying).
7 – Arizona Diamondbacks – They would love Bundy or Bauer to still be here but with that unlikely they would likely look at another college pitcher – Sonny Gray, RHP, Vanderbilt; or Matt Barnes, RHP, UConn
8 – Cleveland Indians – They have been linked to Oklahoma prep star Archie Bradley, RHP, Broken Arrow High School
9 – Chicago Cubs – They would like Starling to be here but are thought to be leaning towards Mikie Mahtook, OF, LSU if he is not
10 – San Diego Padres – Likely a college player, Matt Barnes, RHP, UConn if he is still on the board
This is regarded as a deep draft and that is a very good thing if you are the Tampa Bay Rays. While they already have one of the better farm systems in baseball, it will get a lot better this year – the Rays have 10 of the first 60 picks!
Get yourself in front of a television and enjoy the MLB Network’s fine coverage of the draft and meet some of the players that will be on your fantasy teams in the next few years.
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