Keith SLT21 Draft Review

*Can't believe it went this quickly*

Whether it was historically slower drafters moving swifter, or blizzard & ski lift selections, or whatever, have to go back to maybe 1996 for a draft this quick. Essentially, just 6 drafters is a good thing if you like fast drafts, despite how much we'd like past members back in the SL (several are BCC’d). I had thought that scouting might have been lesser than most years (albeit SLT 2020 was less), and I was concerned about some lack of responses to group emails in the past few weeks -- which had me believing this would be molasses-slow -- but certainly was not the case. Great job SL!

*Enjoyed a get-together the weekend before the draft*

Sheee-it, hope Greg's dad is at home watching Iowa basketball games in upcoming March's as we go forward ... but if Greg is town, having the locals meet and listen to Jim send disinformation about his draft strategy is a must in future SL offseasons. And it was awesome to have Ken on Google Meet telling us to consider something other than 150% for starting pitchers, even if it didn't occur to us on that day that the 150% rule wouldn't work well w/ the additional games pitched for starters.

*Surprises for my team*

Trout & I have been here before, where I reluctantly selected him in 2016 as an underwhelming 1st rounder, so I don't want to talk much about this here regarding my concerns about taking him again but still doing so. Do feel like I had a lot wild negative swings between Mock Draft position for players, including guys like Candelario & Santander taken much earlier in the draft than what I thought would happen beforehand. Similarly, but on the opposite end of it was my thinking players like Rios & Calhoun would be taken earlier but were available in the 23rd & 24th for me was surprising (granted, the Mock position was very specific to how *I* thought about those guys, so those both might be false positive surprises). And I feel like while I wasn't expecting much balance in my team, per my usual mantra, I was surprised it was more balanced than what I planned -- the term 'balance' w/ this team is relative if I think I am de-emphasizing defense but am calling this out positively because I have more '2' defensive relievers than most and have a PB0 catcher for 57 potential games, and because I ended up w/ a few players who can steal and while everyone's bullpen will be better than mine there are balancing aspects of my pen that fit great with what I had planned out for how they'll fit together w/ my starters.

*My selections related to Preplays*

Maybe it's a short list of guys who caught my eye specific to doing consistently well in preplays, tho it’s probably a quarter of my roster, but that list might include: Seager; Hayes; Santander; Dylan Moore; Rios; and Calhoun. Conversely, the list of who I took despite their preplay performance might be: Trout; Contreras; Plawecki; Grossman; and Gimenez.

*League surprises*

There were several players I hadn't preplayed that were taken moderately early, which isn't an indictment of those SL Draft selections as much as it is noting that my preplay rosters were much more suited to players I wanted to consider. I am a realist, but when I see so many guys taken at the end of the draft who I thought had so much more draft capital, it was very surprising to see late selections of quality players like a Hoyt or a Conforto, or a Happ, or a Justin Turner, or a Starling Marte.

*Drafting next to 2 G's, 2 R's, 2 E's & 3 more G's*

I should have predicted things better, like which league-wide runs were happening that I should have pivoted toward, or what internal runs these two guys were on, but it probably took me a dozen rounds to even figure anything out here. And kind of like Jim and his moderately predictable strategies from year-to-year, both Greg and Gregg drafted very true to how they had previously constructed their rosters during their 2021 SL Draft. The killer fact here about how they were drafting and what I was drafting around them, it wasn't until the 3rd to last selection of the draft did I get from Gregg a comment about how the guy I took was someone that he was preparing to take. And it wasn't a matter of him wanting guys and not telling me about it, he clarified that this was the first time I had selected someone he was preparing to take, maybe even his words were that it was a player he was 'considering' -- which is a brutal ego-crusher. Dang.

*Team name*

Do you guys appreciate 'The Mentalist' like I do? Several characters are amazing, the plot threads throughout are deeply captivating, and it's something I am surprised I like so much because I didn't start w/ it on CBS back in the day until their later-not-as-good seasons, when storylines were a little less robust and when a couple of their terrific secondary characters were off the show. Most rewatchable thing for this SL’er on Amazon Prime.

*Coda*

My team can win 40. And the Spit Cup. Or win 20. And drop a quarterfinal. No matter which of those play out, or whatever in-between plays out if that’s the case, am glad I'm a part of SL 2021.