The Week That Was:  The LABR Mixed Draft and ADPs

As covered live on Colton and the Wolfman on SiriusXMFantasy Sports Radio, USA Today Sports Weekly held its fourth annual LABR (League of Alternative Baseball Reality) Mixed League Draft this past week.  In this column, I take a look at some players who were drafted well away from their ADP and offer some thoughts on whether to follow the experts’ lead.

Justin Upton: (LABR 45; ADP 32).  Upton falling as far as he did in the LABR mixed draft was a major surprise to me.  Rick Wolf and I made no secret of that surprise during the broadcast as we expected Upton to be drafted ahead of, not a full round behind his ADP (indeed, we rostered him at 25 overall in the FSTA draft a month ago).  I can understand that players such as Jose Reyes, Todd Frazier and Ian Kinsler went earlier than Upton if the owners fess up to playing SMART (or at least to putting premier value on scarcity).  However, I am hard pressed to see how players such as Harper and Springer go before Upton.  The Rules of Engagement say not to pay full price for performance a player has never achieved.  Unlike Springer and Harper, Justin has been money for years, is only 27 and is playing for a huge payday in his contract year.  Frankly I think this is an anomaly but if Upton falling starts to be a trend, be ready to take advantage and pounce on Upton just as the BP boys Brett Sayer and Mike Gianella did on Tuesday night.

Pablo Sandoval: (LABR 81; ADP 129).  There is no doubt that the “Kung Fu Panda” has the best nickname in baseball and probably all of sports.  Full disclosure, I am a big Panda fan and get a kick out of seeing the portly one rake in the post season.  All that said, it was a surprise to see Panda jump over three rounds above his ADP.  While 3B is indeed a scarce position, I would not follow this lead and grab Panda so high.  Remember, the Rules of Engagement counsel against paying full price for a player who just signed a huge contract to move to a new home.  Plus, as much as we all love the Panda, it is important to remember that he has hit 25 HR exactly once, has tallied 90 RBI exactly once, and has never scored 80 runs in a year.  If this big jump starts a trend, avoid joining the crowd.      

Steven Souza:  (LABR 183; ADP 257).  Wow, the experts in LABR showed serious love for the new Ray and jumped him up almost 5 full rounds over his ADP.  I get that he is a big prospect but I do not get this degree of love.  First, remember that the T in SMART stands for Team and the Rays will not be an offensive force – far from it.  Second, Souza will be 26 this April – pretty old for someone to get his first serious big league playing time.  Finally, Souza has never hit 25 HR in any minor league season and while he did hit .350 in AAA last year, it was aided by an unsustainable BABIP of over .400.  It is not that I do not see things to like in Souza, it is that taking him over the likes of Cain, Crawford and Arcia (who all went later in the round) is hard to justify.

Mark Trumbo: (LABR 155; ADP 98).  Even with the power outage in the big leagues, Mark Trumbo fell almost four rounds below his ADP.  I think this can be explained by a few things.  First, the DBacks look like they will struggle this year.  Second, Trumbo is a batting average liability having posted .234 and .235 the last two years.  Finally, more and more fantasy players are shying away from paying full value for a guy coming off injury.  Last year, Trumbo logged only 328 AB after suffering a stress fracture in his foot.  I think the LABR experts were right to let Trumbo fall down the draft board.  Oh, and the fact that he will be learning to play RF this year will not help the situation.

Adam Wainwright: (LABR 75; ADP 51).  Well, it looks like the experts think Wainwright is a big injury risk.  Nothing else could explain letting him fall 24 picks below his ADP.  After all, here is a guy who has averaged a 3.01 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 17 wins and 194K over the last three years.  There has been a lot of noise this winter about how bad Adam was suffering including the infamous “I couldn’t lift a sprite can” reference.  All I can say at this point is that we have to watch Wainwright carefully in spring training.  If he looks like he is throwing normally and freely, there may be a bargain to be had.  Given the surgery in the off-season however, make sure you do as the BP boys did and get a discount.  

Russell Martin: (LABR 123; ADP 172).  If I was signing a catcher for my real baseball team to provide veteran leadership to a team in contention, Martin would be high on my list.  Alas, no major league team has hired me.  So, given that I draft fantasy baseball teams, Martin will not likely be on my team.  Why?  Good question.  First, Martin has hit over .250 only once in the last 6 years and that was 2014 when he posted an unsustainable .341 BABIP (almost 100 points above the average of his three prior seasons).  Second, has a lot of mileage on the tires and will now have to play his home games on the concrete they call turf in Toronto.  Third, I know this is getting repetitive – the Rules of Engagement say you do not pay full value for players who signed big contracts to move to new homes.   

Yordano Ventura: (LABR 185; ADP 149).  This is interesting!  I think we will see Ventura ping pong around draft boards all spring.  Of course, this is a guy who throws gas, averaging 97 MPH on his heater and we love guys who throw gas.  However, Ventura struck out fewer than 8 per 9 which is hard to explain given his heat.  Moreover, questions are properly being asked about whether his big workload increase (including serious post season innings) will come back to haunt him in 2015.  Keeper leaguers should be jumping on this guy but the re-drafters like the LABR-ites properly exercised caution.  There are too many good arms to gamble too much on a player with some questions. 

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