Fantasy Baseball: A 10-team Head-to-Head mock draft to wrap up Winter Meetings – CBSSports.com

It wasn’t supposed to be a crash course in shallow-league draft strategy. It just sort of became that.

In our haste to put together a mock draft responding to the flurry of activity during the Winter Meetings and thereafter, we had to settle for 10 knowledgeable drafters instead of our usual 12:

1. Joel Nickels, loyal podcast listener
2. Adam Aizer, CBSSports.com
3. Brent S. Gambill, former EP for MLB Network Radio
4. George Maselli, CBSSports.com
5. Heath Cummings, CBSSports.com
6. Lance Brozdowski, BigThreeSports.com
7. Scott White, CBSSports.com
8. Chris Towers, CBSSports.com
9. R.J. White, CBSSports.com
10. Phil Ponebshek, Patton & Company

But hey, no problem. We like to cater to different formats here, and plenty of people play in 10-team leagues, right?

They really shouldn’t.

Now, I’m not one to dictate to others how to have fun, so if 10-team leagues are your thing, have at it. But the impact that removing two teams had on the distribution of talent was staggering, challenging everything we know about scarcity and surplus.

The former was virtually nonexistent, particularly around the infield, which is something we had noticed to a lesser degree in our 12-team drafts. It’s a phenomenon that’s uniquely 2017, owing no small part to the record number of players who hit 20-plus homers last year, and in a format where every team starts only nine hitters — no extra middle infielders, in other words — it can make for some incredible value picks as owners forgo the excess.

Picks like
Rougned Odor
in Round 10. Or
Ian Kinsler
in Round 11. Or
Jason Kipnis
in Round 14,
Ben Zobrist
in Round 16 or
Dustin Pedroia
in Round 18.

I don’t know what it is about second base, which isn’t even as deep as third base on paper, but something about the middle-heavy distribution of talent compels owners to wait. In 12-team leagues, it’s maybe one or two players who slip through the cracks, but in this draft, all five of these guys went about five rounds later than they could have.

It was such a glaring inefficiency that I ended up drafting three of them myself … after already taking
Daniel Murphy
in Round 3. It’s not the way I drew it up, of course, but with Zobrist capable of playing the outfield and no
David Ortiz
types to block Odor at DH, it works.

That’s right: My nine-hitter Head-to-Head lineup features three second basemen. How 2017 is that?

The viscosity of the player pool made for some other oddities. Naturally, in a shallower a league, a higher standard needs to be met at each position, and so upside became the order of the day. Players like
Jorge Soler
,
Javier Baez
,
Jose Berrios
,
Travis Shaw
and
Lucas Giolito
were drafted even though none would rank in my top 210. There’s merit to the approach, yes, but when
Adrian Gonzalez
, with all the security his track record provides, is going undrafted, it’s an overcompensation in my mind. Shoot, Pedroia nearly went undrafted, and he averaged 3.23 Fantasy points per game last year, better than
Matt Carpenter
,
George Springer
and Starling Marte.

Even if everything goes right for Shaw with his move to Miller Park and all it offers for left-handed hitters, is he better than that? I don’t think so.

That’s not to say all the player movement of the last couple weeks didn’t impact this draft.
Kelvin Herrera
, new closer for the
Kansas City Royals
, went one pick after
Craig Kimbrel
.
Ian Desmond
was drafted between
Nelson Cruz
and
J.D. Martinez
, reflecting the renewed optimism he’ll remain a top-12 outfielder with his move to Coors Field.

But the takeaway for me is that in leagues where you know infield depth won’t be tested, you shouldn’t extend yourself for mid-tier talent, instead using those picks to stock up on the positions that will suffer an actual drop-off, such as starting pitcher.
Jose Altuve
and
Trea Turner
are fine.
Carlos Correa
,
Robinson Cano
,
Brian Dozier
— you get the idea. But anything less, just wait. When everyone else is debating between Drew Pomeranz and Matt Shoemaker, then you can swoop in for the value bats.