A couple of weeks ago, Joe gave me the idea of reviewing the draft as the season went on. I thought it was a great idea for a midweek thing, and so here is the first installment of Draft Review, beginning with Round 1. It is still kind of early, but we are almost half way so I figured we could start now because there are twenty five rounds to cover for the rest of the year. Feel free to argue against my points that I make because as we all know, this wouldn't be as much fun if we didn't. Oh and Jack, I vote for three weeks. Sounds like a good number to start with and increases the accuracy of the ASS Rankings. With that, on to Round 1...
1st Pick: Hanley Ramirez, ss, Yung Joseph
I will admit I was a little surprised when Joe took Hanley instead of Fat Albert, but hey, he's Joe and he does everything differently than everybody else. Looking at it now though, it was a smart move because there is more disparity between the top shortstops as opposed to the top first basemen. Joe was still able to get a solid first basemen in Adrian Gonzalez, and he has a shortstop how is hitting .342. His power production is a little down, as he's only on pace to hit 25 homers, but with Adrian and ARod on his team, Joe will be fine with that from the SS position.
2nd Pick: Albert Pujols, 1b, Religious Sects
This was pretty much a no-brainer for Caff. Granted it was Yahoo! who chose Pujols, but still Mike probably would have done the same thing. He's the best hitter in the game, and has not disappointed this year with a .346 BA, 1.168 OPS, and 17 homers. The dude's a freak.
3rd Pick: Jose Reyes, ss, JJmakesmeHARD(Y)
This seemed like a solid pick at the time with Reyes debatably the best shortstop in the game with Hanley, but Reyes recently was injured and then injured himself with a torn hamstring while on the DL. SI.com says he'll be out until July, but Yahoo! makes it sound like it's not as serious. Even without the injury, Reyes started out kind of slow (at least for him), hitting only .279 and 2 dingers. He was still solid with 11 steals, but we'll see if that changes when he gets back or not.
4th Pick: David Wright, 3b, Tony McDonald
Wright is the second best third basemen after ARod, and so Tmac did pretty well to take him here I believe. He's batting .345, although he only has three home runs this year so far, which is not what you want out of a first round pick. Fourteen steals so far though is pretty solid, considering last year he only stole fifteen in the whole season.
5th Pick: Grady Sizemore, of, Just 2(5) Guyz
Even before going on the DL, Sizemore had been struggling mightily. Hitting only .223 this year, Sizemore may need surgery on his inflamed elbow which would keep him out until late July. With all all of this being said, it makes Luke's rise from the cellar even more impressive without his first round pick in the lineup for the majority of the run. I don't know if it can last though once Manny comes back because Juan Pierre will probably go back on the bench, unless he gets traded. Luke would be wise to trade one of his stud pitchers (hint hint Luke) to get some more hitters for his team, because he won't last at the top of the standings with Ben Zobrist as his shortstop.
6th Pick: Miguel Cabrera, 1b, Consistency
As can be seen by Joe's all-time review, Andy has pretty much sucked in fantasy baseball (let's be honest Schneides, you've been terrible). With that being said, he has stuck to the top of the standings this year, and a large part of that is due to Cabrera. He is one of the most consistent players in the game when it comes to hitting, and he hasn't disappointed this year hitting .340 with ten dingers so far this year.
7th Pick: Lance Berkman, of, The Poblano Effect
This was probably the surprise of the first round for me, but hey, when doesn't Jack surprise with his first round choice? Everybody should remember the time Jack selected Tony Gonzalez with his first pick in fantasy football. Berkman has not hit anywhere close to where a first round pick should hit, with a .246 average and .847 OPS. His BABIP is .261 though, so all hope is still not lost for Jack.
8th Pick: Ryan Howard, 1b, Superhydrophobocity
I'm not a big fan of taking a first basemen not named Pujols in the first round, only because there are so many solid first basemen (case in point, Adrian Gonzalez leads the league in homers this year, but was taken with the last pick in the sixth round by Joe). With 17 homers and 47 runs batted in, he has done fine in power categories, but he's hitting .259 and strikes out more than anyone not named Mark Reynolds. If I were JP, I would have gone for Mark Teixeira here because he hits for a higher average and similar power.
9th Pick: Josh Hamilton, of, Abusement Park
Hamilton's only played in 35 games this year, and is going to be out a while longer because of surgery, and so there really isn't much analysis I can do here. Riley's not hurt that bad really because he had some other solid outfielders, although it would be nice to have Hamilton in the lineup instead of Luke Scott.
10th Pick: Jimmy Rollins, ss, Da Commish
Rollins may have been a little reach for me here, but I wanted to make sure I got a top-notch shortstop and so there he was. He hasn't hit like a top-notch shortstop, with a .222 average and an extremely ugly .583 OPS so far this year. He does have a .238 BABIP though, and so I'm hoping he rebounds soon.
Well that's it for this time around with the Draft Review. I'll post more rounds as we go on. Obviously this one doesn't have too many surprises, but once we get farther down in the draft I should have more to say. Hopefully I can get a Week Recap done here this week also.