SOSH Real Fantasy Draft 2014: Draft Order, Rules, and Draft Thread

Scoops Bolling

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Jun 19, 2007
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Draft Order (CHART)
1) wibi
2) Just a bit outside
3) PrometheusWakefield
4) StuckOnYouk
5) The Best Catch In 100 Years
6) FarvinMoosey
7) Galway Sox Fan
8) Curll
9) Toe Nash
10) dylanmarsh
11) Eck'sSneakyCheese
12) Jaylach
13) Rich Garces Belly
14) Danny_Darwin
15) NJ_Sox_Fan
16) SoxFan58
17) Frank, Fenway
18) keninten
19) StabMastaArson
20) Terrisus
21) BigMike
22) BoredViewer
23) The Tax Man
24) Logglobo Vlandignorf
25) MakMan44
26) Kramerica Industries
27) KFP
28) Leskanic's_Thread
29) Scoops
30) Why Not Grebeck?
Taxi Squad: soxfan121
 
Rules:
The Draft
The order of this draft has been determined randomly, and will follow a serpentine order. There is a 24 hour clock between picks, and each GM is responsible for PMing the following GM once they have made their selection. If a GM believes they will be unable to post their selection within that 24 hour window for whatever reason, they must submit a contingency pick either to myself, or to another poster (or better yet, both). They will be able to add their rationale for their selection at a later time, but steady progress in the draft is the most important point. Failure to post a selection or submit a contingency pick twice may result in the replacement of the GM with a "Taxi Squad" member.
 
Eligibility
Each team shall select a 25 man roster set as C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3rd, LF, CF, RF, DH, 5 starting pitchers, and at least 5 RPs and 5 bench players. Additionally, each team shall select 3 "reserve" players to serve as injury replacements as necessary, for a total of 28 players per team. Every hitter with at least one plate appearance and pitcher with at least one batter faced in the MLB is available in this draft. Japanese players who have been posted by their NPB team as of 12/28/2013 are also eligible. Minor leaguers who finished the 2013 season in AAA are eligible for the draft, as are players who completed the 2013 season in AA or who appeared in the AFL so long as they also appear in the Top 3 of their respective organization's Baseball America Top 10. No player without AA or AFL experience is eligible for selection. Teams may select no more than 3 minor leaguers (i.e. players with no MLB appearances).
 
Start Date
The draft will officially commence on Monday, December 30th at 9:00 AM. Picks can be made at any time before then, but the clock will not commence until the 30th to allow time for all GMs to acquaint themselves with the rules, and begin their draft research if they have not already begun it.
 
Eligibility Addendum
Any Cuban player signed to a MLB contract as of 12/28/13 or available in MLB Free Agency as of that date is eligible for the draft. Jose Daniel Abreu, Miguel Gozalez, Alexander Guerrero and Erisbel Arruebarruena are all draft eligible.
 

StuckOnYouk

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Jun 26, 2006
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Just to be clear as this is my first time doing this.
Are we supposed to be putting together the best 28 man team for 2014 or for 2014 and beyond?
 
apologies if this is a stupid question and it's just a 2014 thing.
 

wibi

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Kenny F'ing Powers said:
Wibi...make your stupid pick and get on with it.
I'm on the left coast currently so I'm three hours behind you.
 

MakMan44

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Aug 22, 2009
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StuckOnYouk said:
Just to be clear as this is my first time doing this.
Are we supposed to be putting together the best 28 man team for 2014 or for 2014 and beyond?
 
apologies if this is a stupid question and it's just a 2014 thing.
Do whatever you want to do. If you want an older team that will compete in 2014 but will suck by 2016, that's your choice. The same thing applies if you want a younger team that will only come into it's own in 2016. There's no winning this thing, it's more of a mental exercise than a fantasy thing.
 

PrometheusWakefield

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Good rule summary Scoops, but you gotta have something for Cuban players  All players who played in the Cuban major leagues in 2013 and have since defected to the United States, or something like that.  Or we could just name specificaly Jose Daniel Abreu, Miguel Gozalez, Alexander Guerrero and probably Erisbel Arruebarruena  
 
Would be a real shame, and pretty silly, to leave them off  It would also negatively affect the talent pool, since three of those guys are slated to start in 2014, which means there would be an insufficient number of starters at those positions available overall.
 

PrometheusWakefield

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StuckOnYouk said:
Just to be clear as this is my first time doing this.
Are we supposed to be putting together the best 28 man team for 2014 or for 2014 and beyond?
 
apologies if this is a stupid question and it's just a 2014 thing.
Part of the point is that you can define it for yourself.  But I think generally the assumption is that you're building the team the way you would if you were an actual GM, so 2014 and beyond.  
 

Just a bit outside

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Building for now and the next 5 years. 
 
With the 2nd pick Ben's Old Catchers select Andrew McCutchen, CF.
 
Just entering his prime at age 27.  MVP at an important position.  Thought about a few others but decided he was the pick.
 

PrometheusWakefield

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The Roma Legio X select Clayton Kershaw, SP1
 


As a Sox fan since 86 I've always been a big fan of the best pitcher in the game, and Kershaw is the best since Pedro.

Btw I'm on phone - can someone else PM the next guy?
 

Just a bit outside

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PrometheusWakefield said:
The Roma Legio X select Clayton Kershaw, SP1

As a Sox fan since 86 I've always been a big fan of the best pitcher in the game, and Kershaw is the best since Pedro.
Good choice.  Kershaw was one of my final four.
 

StuckOnYouk

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With the 4th pick in the draft, StuckOnYouk selects from the Detroit Tigers, the greatest hitter on the planet, 3B Miguel Cabrera.
 

PrometheusWakefield

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Yeah, I think the top three is about what most would predict, although some may quibble with me for valuing a pitcher above a top position player. There's a case to be made that at the very highest level a guy like McCutchen contributes so much on both sides of the ball that its very difficult for a pitcher to equal that value. I just don't care because I fucking love high quality pitching.

Edit: number four is also as I would have predicted.
 

Scoops Bolling

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PrometheusWakefield said:
Good rule summary Scoops, but you gotta have something for Cuban players  All players who played in the Cuban major leagues in 2013 and have since defected to the United States, or something like that.  Or we could just name specificaly Jose Daniel Abreu, Miguel Gozalez, Alexander Guerrero and probably Erisbel Arruebarruena  
 
Would be a real shame, and pretty silly, to leave them off  It would also negatively affect the talent pool, since three of those guys are slated to start in 2014, which means there would be an insufficient number of starters at those positions available overall.
Cuban addendum added.
 

SumnerH

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FWIW in the past there has been no rule against discussing players still on the board. May make sense to do so if you think you can make someone pick a lesser player and leave one you're interested for you to nab. Or it could screw you.

Up to Scoops whether to add such a rule.
 

The Best Catch in 100 Years

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Surprised this guy lasted beyond pick #2.
 

 
Bryce Harper, CF
 
It's quite possible that Harper will be my RF eventually, but I'll stick him in center for now. All the guys who are off the board already are very good, of course, but I am confident that Harper will prove a better pick than Cabrera and Kershaw.
 

The Best Catch in 100 Years

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Also, maybe this is more appropriate for the rules thread (though I think I posted about it already there too) but can I get an explanation for why players with no experience above AA/AFL need to be in their organization's BA top 3 too? Seems like an unnecessary restriction.
 

MakMan44

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I'm convinced the only reason the first 3 picks from last year weren't repeated here was because two of them were injured this past season. 
 
 
The Best Catch in 100 Years said:
Also, maybe this is more appropriate for the rules thread (though I think I posted about it already there too) but can I get an explanation for why players with no experience above AA/AFL need to be in their organization's BA top 3 too? Seems like an unnecessary restriction.
Because if there was no restrictions the later rounds would turn into a prospect circle jerk and that's just not interesting. 
 

The Best Catch in 100 Years

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MakMan44 said:
Because if there was no restrictions the later rounds would turn into a prospect circle jerk and that's just not interesting. 
Completely unconvincing. Many players with no experience above AA or the AFL going into this year are going to be productive MLB players very soon, as soon as next year. You might not find the process of identifying these players to be "interesting" but uh, I do, and I'd imagine I'm not alone. It seems pretty inarguably linked to the point of the whole exercise, really, assembling a group of players who will be productive next year and beyond.
 
Also, I understand that people wanted to have some kind of restrictions on the amount of players with little upper minors experience floating around. My point, which I could have made better, is that the BA top 3 thing is a dumb, arbitrary way to go about it. Factors that shouldn't come into an exercise like this, such as the strength of a player's organization (relatively bad players from good organizations will be excluded; relatively good players from bad organizations will be excluded), whether or not he's crowded out of the top 3 by AAA guys who are eligible anyway, and, of course, how BA views him (a certain superstar second baseman who just signed a massive contract never made a BA top 100), will have a decisive influence on who is eligible. Why not just restrict the amount of players with no experience above AA or the AFL on any given team's roster to 3 or 4 or something? I mean, can someone explain what risk is run if people go beyond organizational top 3's? They end up drafting shitty players?
 

MakMan44

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I actually do find it pretty interesting FWIW. However, I can also see the argument for wanting to restrict the prospect pool. The drop out rate last year at the end of the draft was pretty bad and I can't imagine it being any better when you end up throwing out names that most of the people in this draft have never even heard of before today. 
 

Moosey

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Jul 20, 2005
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Picking 6th for the 2nd time the Riverbottom Nightmare select Buster Posey, C
 

 
Ultimately the Nightmare hope his interest in a good, healthy diet make him an anchor for the team for many years to come and they are pleased to immediately shore up the catcher slot for the foreseeable future.  Reached for comment, the GM of the Nightmare, Emmet Otter, took time away from his jug band to reveal that "Buster was a handsome man and hopes that he realizes the benefit of carrots when consumed orally, not through one's ear."
 
In other news, fans hope that if there is indeed a curse following the Nightmare that it follow the pattern presumably set last year when 3rd rounder C.C Sabathia fell off a cliff and years ago 1st rounder (6th pick overall) Grady Sizemore crumbled into a set of lego bricks.  Given the tides and the brightness of Orion's belt on this fine night, researchers have rolled dice and proclaimed that "One of the first 5 picks of the Nightmare has a reasonable shot at a shitty year."
 
Fascinating stuff.
 
 
 
 

SumnerH

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While I normally try to not post twice in a row, I wanted to separate this and remind people to place their pick in bold with the intended position for your pick.
 
This will help the wonderful page Sumner does for us:  http://sumnerhayes.com/static/fantasy/SOSH RealFantasy 2014.html
 
Also, thanks Sumner, that is an invaluable tool during this.
Np. Company over now but I'll update it later tonight.

Also, post exact positions (rf or cf or lf, not of). You can shift people later if needed. People have done fine with this so far.
 

MakMan44

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Galway Sox Fan said:
With 7th pick overall the Irish Wolfhounds pick:

Carlos Gonzalez - LF - of the Rockies
Assuming league neutral stadiums again, this is just way too early. CarGo is NOT a top ten talent outside of Coors. 
 

The Best Catch in 100 Years

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MakMan44 said:
I actually do find it pretty interesting FWIW. However, I can also see the argument for wanting to restrict the prospect pool. The drop out rate last year at the end of the draft was pretty bad and I can't imagine it being any better when you end up throwing out names that most of the people in this draft have never even heard of before today. 
Can't really state this more clearly, but I'm not arguing against the idea of "restricting the prospect pool." I am arguing against the way we are doing it: restricting people to the BA top 3. See my earlier post for why I don't like this. One other reason not to do it this way is the fact that ten teams' 2014 prospect lists aren't even available online yet.
 

BigMike

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Along the lines of the Cuban Addendum,  is Tanaka also eligible? He has been posted as of Dec 28th
 

Scoops Bolling

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I'm having severe Internet issues, so I apologize for the delayed response. It's taken me about 15 minutes just to get this reply window to open, and I had to give up on quoting the posts I meant to quote.
 
Quick Hits:
1) Tanaka is available. He fits the criteria for Japanese eligibility (as he should given they were written to ensure that).
 
2) I decided to use the BA Top 3 for AA and AFL player eligibility to make a very select few players available who I knew would fit that criteria, and who I believed would be both A) Highly desired in this draft, and B) Stood a solid chance of playing in the MLB next year. That is why the rule was written in that manner.
 
3) Now is not the time to be debating eligibility rules. I solicited opinions for that repeatedly in the original thread; you were given a myriad of opportunities to express your opinion, and to debate with those you disagreed with at that time. We are now in the draft proper, and the rules are final.
 
4) There is no express rule against discussing players still on the board, but consider it an unwritten rule to exercise caution in doing so. It's not a big issue this early in the draft, we all know who the top talents are, but as the draft progresses it becomes more of an issue. It's one thing to go "I don't know why you selected player X, player Y has a similar skill set but is better because of A, B, and C" it's quite another to say "I can't believe JOEY VOTTO is available in the 15th round!".
 

MakMan44

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Is there seriously only two guys knocking CarGo going 7th overall in the draft? 
 
He's basically been league average outside of Coors in his career. 
 

Eck'sSneakyCheese

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MakMan44 said:
Is there seriously only two guys knocking CarGo going 7th overall in the draft? 
 
He's basically been league average outside of Coors in his career. 
 
I'll pile on. 7th overall is way too high for CarGo. He's nowhere near a top ten talent in the league.