Draft From the Third Slot

As I looked over my board initially, I thought it was a very good draft. But before I go into detail about the draft you must understand the history of the team. When I took the team over, it was in disgustingly bad shape. There was maybe two or three players in the minors that had a chance to play in the majors. Most of the players in the majors, half didn't belong. This made the team a 4 to 5 year rebuild. I usually rebuild a team through Rule V, the draft, and IFA's rather than spending money on FA. I have spent rather sparingly on FA's just to remain competitive though.

The season 9 draft was not done by me but had a pretty good draft class. Since then I drafted pitching the first year and was pretty successful. The second was position players and that was not all the bad as I got three pretty good players I think. But what was lacking was scouting money, there are two ways to do a rebuild. The slow way is to take HS players, the quicker way is to take college players.

The reason I say that, HS players take longer to get to the ML level. They may seem to reach potential just as fast as college players but will actually take longer to mature for the ML level than college players. So the point of the first two seasons was to get the budget to $20M in training, college scouting and adv scouting. At the moment, the budgets are pretty locked in for the next two seasons before upping the HS budget and lowering the college to get more of an even mix. Also, the chances of me having a top 10 pick will lessen each season.

Right now the team needs are relief pitching and power hitters and that is the focus of my draft. The draft pool actually reflects my needs very well for the first round and I draft best player available. After the first round there really isn't much that will help. With the third pick in the draft, I have already narrowed down my choices as to which player I am going to draft. Which one I will take depends on the other two GM's. I also keep the rookie team pretty well stocked, so if I end up accidently getting all pitchers or position players I won't have to scramble to keep the team running smoothly.

The best player on my board is a pitcher, my chances of getting him is very slim unless there are better players on the other two GM's boards. That could very well be as I don't have many HS players on my draft board and there is a chance he is not on either of those teams boards also. He may not be what I need, but I can't refuse the best player.

The second best player is a position player that I desire. The position he is tagged at being able to play is not even close to ML standards but I still can't refuse and I can find a place for him to play. Normally I look at SS's both hitting and fielding wise as the best possible position player before going to another. My board doesn't have one that deserves a top 10 pick IMO.

The third choice is another pitcher which I would be ecstatic with.

Even though the chance of the first player falling to me with the third pick is slim, though I have been surprised before, I am forced to leave him there. The second and third choices are real tough as I could use either one. The difference in OVR is two points so that is a non-issue and chances are pretty good that both will be there.

Using the 20/10 rule I run into an odd situation. Their projected ratings match the OVR well enough. One pitcher won't make the the projected pitching ratings which is also a non-issue. The other pitcher won't make the projected fielding ratings and one pitching rating will probably fall short at least. The position player will fall short in one rating also. Knowing this helps in a way. I can now adjust their projected OVR's in my head as to what their real future OVR's will be. One will drop at least 5 points, maybe more, the other two will roughly have a two point drop. That makes all three about equal to one another. So it boils down to whom I think is the best.