My Perfect Draft
This year's PERFECT DRAFT. I imagine a 12-team draft that goes exactly the way I'd want it to.
I did this last year, and it was quite a hoot. It also ended up looking pretty sharp, so I’m doubling down this year and going for it. Check out last year’s post here. Some of the highlights of that one:
Francisco Lindor in round 2
Tarik Skubal in round 4
Kyle Schwarber in round 7
Bailey Ober in round 10
Hunter Greene in round 11
Jarren Duran in round 12
Hunter Brown in round 16
Bryce Miller in round 17
Matt Chapman in round 23
No time left to go over the lowlights, of course, we’ve gotta get into this year’s version!
I’ll imagine a 12-team league where I pick wherever I want to pick, and all of my favorite targets fall to me. But I won’t be ridiculous with it; I will generally follow the current ADP, so this is at least somewhat realistic.
We’ll go 27 rounds and fill out these positions:
C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, MI, CI, OFx5, UTx2, SPx7, RPx3, BENCH x3
I’m giving myself the fifth pick in the draft.
Round 1: Jose Ramirez, 3B
J-Ram goes between picks four and six most of the time. With Gunnar Henderson a bit banged up, I don’t think you’ll be having Ramirez fall past pick five very often. So I’ve given myself the fifth pick and taken Ramirez. There’s a real chance he is the runaway #1 player at the position, and it’s always nice to start your draft with a player like that.
Round 2: Jackson Chourio, OF
He’d have to fall a couple of picks past his ADP of 17.5, but this is utopia - and good things happen in utopia. I like starting the draft with two five-category studs, J-Ram + Chourio is the way to do this. It’s also nice to get a stud outfielder early on when you have to select five of them, as we do in this hypothetical.
I think the sky is the limit for Chourio, and it’s hard to imagine him busting out with what we saw from him last season.
Round 3: Logan Gilbert, SP
My third pick would be #29, and Gilbert’s ADP is #27, so this is reasonable. I’d like to get one of the top 10 SPs, and I’m targeting WHIP the whole way down the list. Gilbert has a clean track record of health and was unbelievably effective last year, especially in generating an elite WHIP.