We recently completed our January Snake Expert Mock Draft here at MLB Front Office. You can find the complete results in the draft guide. We had two participants from MLB Front Office in the draft, Adam Cohen and I. Mock Draft Central was kind enough to host the draft for us. Make sure you check them out! My team follows (I picked 9th), with the round the player was taken in parentheses:

C: Geovany Soto (13)
C: Chris Snyder (22)
1B: Ryan Howard (1)
2B: Yunel Escobar (19)
3B: Troy Glaus (21)
SS: Michael Young (6)
MI: Stephen Drew (17)
CI: Josh Fields (16)
OF: Carl Crawford (2)
OF: Eric Byrnes (3)
OF: Chone Figgins (4)
OF: Corey Hart (5)
OF: Matt Kemp (12)
UTIL: Frank Thomas (18)

P: John Smoltz (7)
P: Kelvim Escobar (8)
P: Roy Halladay (9)
P: Trevor Hoffman (10)
P: Jason Isringhausen (11)
P: Dustin McGowan (14)
P: Rafael Soriano (15)
P: Zack Greinke (20)
P: Micah Owings (23)


As you can see, I got of to a nice start and a good balance of speed and power with Howard and Crawford. I was happy to see Crawford fall to me early in the 2nd with guys like Johan Santana and Grady Sizemore going higher than I expected. Over the next two rounds I loaded up on speed. I was hoping to nab Tulowitzki with my fourth round pick, but he went slightly before I picked and I had to settle for Figgins. Having missed out on Tulowitzki in the fourth, I grabbed Young in the 6th.

Clearly, in this draft I decided to focus on hitting first and spent my first six picks on hitters. In retrospect I probably should have gone with a power hitter in the fourth round instead of Figgins and I ended up with not quite enough power coming out of the top six rounds.

In round seven, I grabbed my first pitcher in John Smoltz. He provided a nice solid anchor to a rotation of youngsters I anticipated on drafting. The less risk you take at the top, the more you can take at the bottom. At this point, I was satisfied enough with my offense to spend rounds eight through eleven drafting pitchers. I grabbed two guys to round out the top of my rotation and two good closers. With pitching as deep as it is this year, I think this strategy works well. You can get three top rotation guys in the 7th through 9th rounds and round out the rest of the rotation with high upside guys a little later.

In rounds 12 through 14, I grabbed three youngsters that I’m very high on this season. The best pick of my draft came probably came in round 12 when I nabbed Matt Kemp. This is a kid who can be a 20/20 player, but has gone relatively un-hyped in fantasy so far. Last year all the hype surrounded Rocco Baldelli’s potential to hit 20/20 and it vaulted him up into the upper rounds. This year, you can get Kemp lower and with less risk. I then grabbed Geovany Soto in round 13. I absolutely love him, but this is probably a little bit early. Then in round 14, I selected Dustin McGowan. McGowan has the potential to post an ERA below 3.60 this year.

Realizing my clear deficiency in HR and RBI, I spent the latter rounds of the draft on guys such as Frank Thomas, Josh Fields and Troy Glaus to add a little pop. In the end, I think my best pick was Matt Kemp in round 12 and my worst was Chone Figgins in round 4, especially considering I ended up using him at OF and not 3B. All in all, I am fairly satisfied with the team; although, it is still short on power. Next week, we’ll have some analysis of the Expert Auction Mock Draft.