The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational slow drafts kick off this Sunday, wherein 250-plus experts and industry folk will meander through publicly viewable draft boards for a few days as part of a couple dozen individual 15-team leagues. Someone will whomp on a league so badly that he or she will win the top overall title.
If you’ve never done a slow draft, find a bigger league to join and try it. There’s nothing like lying to the draft room about being at work when you’re actually spending a couple hours rethinking your strategy based off a single recent sniping you should have been prepared for already.
With the draft approaching on Sunday, I decided to do a quick price check based off three recent drafts — two 15-team mocks and the ongoing Tout Wars draft & hold. It’s not an exact science — the Tout league is 50 rounds and doesn’t allow in-season moves — but each involved experts putting their ranks to the test in the public realm.
The mocks were a 15-teamer hosted by Scott White at CBS Sports and a TGFBI mock that Howard Bender recruited a group to participate in on Monday. You can find the CBS results here, the TGFBI board here and the in-process Tout draft here.
Tout is currently in the 15th round, so I’m not going to dive too deep with these comparisons — there will be early-round surprises, and the late rounds will have a ton of volatility anyway. Some leagues will have people employing vastly different strategies early, while others will see runs start and stop later than others. That’s one of the most fun parts of observing 20-plus drafts at once — players falling round after round even with sharks in the room.
The two biggest discrepancies I see early on are Dee Gordon and Michael Conforto. The Tout league provided the outliers, one in each direction. Gordon fell all the way to pick 129 in the draft & hold, compared to 76 and 79 in the two mocks. But Conforto went early in Tout, at pick 65, and fell to 84 at CBS and 107 in the TGFBI mock.
Javier Baez fell to all the way to the middle of the third round, pick 36, in Tout. The versatile Cubs infielder went early in the second in the mocks, at picks 20 and 21.
Zack Greinke went the other way in Tout, falling to pick 78, while the mockers scooped up the 35-year-old at 50 and 57. It will be interesting to see where Greinke goes on Sunday — I still think there’s plenty in the tank, but picking out of the 5 slot might not give me an opportunity to get him without a steep discount.
It’s unlikely anyone gets a discount on young speedster Adalberto Mondesi — he was off the board in the mid-third in both mocks, although he fell to pick 66 in Tout. It only takes one person in the room intrigued by the power/speed potential and half season of excellence he showed last year. Someone on Twitter compared the sample to that of Byron Buxton’s late 2017 surge, though, and I am out.
Speaking of speed, Jonathan Villar was scooped up at pick 76 in Tout but fell to 90 in the TGFBI mock and all the way to 136 at CBS. He’s only 2B eligible on the NFBC platform, which isn’t such a big deal in a league that uses MI/CI and a UT spot. His 50-steal potential is really tempting in the sixth or seventh round.
The Touts didn’t appreciate Justin Upton’s bankable production. He fell to 96 there compared to 62 in the TGFBI mock and 81 at CBS. Victor Robles lasted at little longer in the real draft, too, going at pick 95 in Tout compared to 70 and 79 in the mocks.
Jameson Taillon has been rising in the ranks recently, and he didn’t make it out of the fourth round in Tout (pick 58). He went even earlier, at 49, in the TGFBI mock but lasted until pick 86 at CBS.
There was some consensus among hot players, as well. J.T. Realmuto fell between picks 43 and 57 in all three drafts, and it doesn’t look like there will be any deals on Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who was off the board between picks 42 and 53 in all three.
Two potential breakout starters could fall to us at a discount. Luis Castillo was drafted at 86 in Tout but lasted until 121 and 128 in the mocks. And Zach Wheeler was around until picks 89 and 109 in the mocks, though one of the Touts grabbed him up at 79.
Any lessons here?
1. Every draft will have its own twists and turns. Be prepared to maneuver along with it.
2. Real drafters will take their player early. As much as we want deals on picks, we have to pay a few premiums along the way.
Follow @TGFBI for links to the live draft boards on Sunday.
