71 thoughts on “2020 WGOM Draft: Round 2”

  1. Spoiler SelectShow

    So many choices. Tons of players I wanted to take but decided I should get myself an ace pitcher. And I wanted a lefty, so who else but arguably the best lefty of all time.

    Spoiler SelectShow
    1. I see your strategy here... all players with the initials "LG". Luis Gonzalez and Lucas Giolito are on notice.

  2. Spoiler SelectShow

    I really loved those Mariners teams from the 90's and he gets bonus points for being on the Expos, hitting that bird, and me having his rookie card.

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  3. Spoiler SelectShow

    Going by positional scarcity here to snag my first position player. I strongly considered two other hitters who both play just a little lower on the defensive spectrum, one of whom has a super-fun name to say. I won't spoiler the other just in case he might still be available next round.

    The good news is that I now will not need to draft a backup shortstop! Oh, and this guy also once signed an autograph for me before a game back at the Metrodome in the mid-1990s. Finally, his career line in games I attended: 8-for-21 (all singles), 5 runs, 5 RBIs, 3 walks, a hit by pitch, and 2 sac flies (also 7 assists, 15 putouts, and no errors).

    Spoiler SelectShow
    1. His career OPS vs. the Twins was .849 (vs. .788 career). The only other AL team he did better against was the Royals, who were horrible for most of his career. Between Mike Mussina and Ripken, there was a reason the O's dominated the Twins for many years.

  4. Spoiler SelectShow

    Well, I'll be the first person to not have a pitcher in his first two picks. I can't pass up this guy as he's arguably the best outfielder on the board and he's my late grandmother's favorite player. She grew up in Missouri and remained a die hard Cardinals fan until her death in 2005. She talked fondly about the all St. Louis 1944 World Series and listened to Musial on the radio whenever she could.

    Also, seven batting titles, two slash stat triple crowns, including his 1948 season where he OPS plussed 200. He was a plus fielder before the war and like Ted Williams lost a little bit of counting stats possibly in 1945. In his final season at age 42 he still had an OPS+ over 100.

    Also, all accounts pretty much agree he was a mensch. He convinced his teammates to not boycott when Jackie Robinson came to play. Willie Mays says Musial reached out to him for support when he joined the majors. He always had time for fans and strangers.

    Not sure yet which position he's going to man. He played all three outfield spots (and first base) throughout his career. I'll stick him in center for now and move him to the corner if I can.

  5. I wouldn't have guessed I'd be able to pick a player with a higher career rWAR than my first-round pick, but here it goes:

    Round 2, Pick #6 SelectShow

    Rationale

    I suppose there's some danger in this pick, given the player's era. Will his skills translate across time? Looking for reassurance, I turned to b-ref's vs. Pitcher tool. Unfortunately, the tool only goes back to 1925, so I'm getting a picture of this player completely past his prime, from his age 37–40 seasons. Here's how he fares against some notables:

    Pitcher PA 2b BB OPS
    Ted Lyons 60 5 8 .722
    Urban Shocker 43 5 2 .861
    Sad Sam Jones 42 3 7 .905
    Lefty Grove 38 5 10 1.298
    Walter Johnson 24 2 2 1.379

    Not bad. Given that he's the all-time leader in doubles — just 8 short of 800! — and ran pretty well — 222 triples, 436 stolen bases — I think he'll be able to hang at the plate.

    But what about in the field? Looking at Rfield totals for center fielders, he's a pretty respectable 13th, just one run behind Chet Lemon, and the first pre-WWII player on the list. From his SABR bio:

    In the outfield Speaker played so shallow that he was almost a fifth infielder. “At the crack of the bat he'd be off with his back to the infield,” said teammate Joe Wood, “and then he'd turn and glance over his shoulder at the last minute and catch the ball so easy it looked like there was nothing to it, nothing at all.” Twice in one month, April 1918, Speaker executed unassisted double plays at second base, catching low line drives on the run and then beating the baserunner to the bag. At least once in his career Speaker was the pivot man in a routine double play. As late as 1923, after the advent of the lively ball forced Speaker to play deeper, he still had 26 assists.

    “I know it's easier, basically, to come in on a ball than go back,” Speaker said later. “But so many more balls are hit in front of an outfielder, even now, that it it’s a matter of percentage to be able to play in close enough to cut off those low ones or cheap ones in front of him. I still see more games lost by singles that drop just over the infield than a triple over the outfielder's head. I learned early that I could save more games by cutting off some of those singles than I would lose by having an occasional extra-base hit go over my head.”

    Speaker was well-regarded as a player-manager who retained his inner-circle greatness after the Deadball Era ended. He didn't have jaw-dropping power of some of the other elite center fielders available, but ripped enough doubles & triples to float a .500 slugging percentage anyway. He was beloved in two cities. Speaker's alleged ties to the KKK gave me pause; the connection stems from a sportswriter who claimed Speaker revealed this in a confidential conversation. Hearsay being hearsay, and actions being louder than words, Speaker's work with Larry Doby swings the needle in his favor:

    Like Paige, Robinson and Doby had also played in the Negro leagues. But unlike Robinson, who played a season of minor league baseball in Montreal before moving up to the Dodgers, Doby did not have an apprenticeship.

    Veeck signed him on July 3, 1947, and he was pinch-hitting for the Indians on July 5 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. Doby played sparingly that first season, and not all that well. But in 1948, with the help of Tris Speaker, the Indians’ Hall of Fame outfielder, Doby converted from second base to center field and started to become a dangerous hitter.

    Speaker's connection with the KKK appears to be related to his anti-Catholic religious prejudice and the anti-immigrant focus of the Second Klan. I don't want to minimize these things, but it seems worth contextualizing. I don't know how Speaker felt in his later years about people who worshipped differently or came from Eastern & Southern Europe. If Speaker remained a committed member of the Third Klan, my guess is he'd not have been interested in helping Doby break the AL's color barrier.

    Roster SelectShow
  6. Goddamn it.

    Ok, fine.

    Spoiler SelectShow

    You guys forced me into this. If Bob Gibson is available later, I might take him too so that I can I have a battalion of mean SOB headhunters. Maybe I will get Drysdale and Marichal too.

    I refuse to take seriously any of those pre-Babe Ruth pitchers who piled up WAR by starting 50+ games per season. Just too different a game.

    Twain, on the other hand, dominated right through the steroid era. Third all-time in rWAR for pitchers and tenth in WAR7, with most of the guys ahead of him being of the deadball compiler type. 4 ERA titles in his twenties, two in his thirties and one in his forties. 7 Cy Young's. Led league in FIP 9 times. Led league in WAR for pitchers 7 times. Undeniably great.

    Spoiler SelectShow
      1. If I had drafted a position player in round 1, he would have been my pick up above.

      2. This ain't Field of Dreams. A-holes still get to play.

        But I wouldn't mind having a couple Stan Musial types to balance him off.

              1. I'm guessing that ex-Yankees Luis Polonia, Chad Curtis, and Jim Leyritz don't sneak onto any benches. (Same with current Yankees Aroldis Chapman and Domingo German.)

    1. This was my pick if you hadn't gotten him first. When evaluating pitchers, I initially had him a ways down the list (6th or 7th). Upon further review, he's probably 1st or 2nd (depending on how you rate Walter Johnson) for me.

      1. ditto, truth be told. I had the Big Train first, then Clemens, then probably Lefty Grove. Although Grover Cleveland "Pete" Alexander probably deserves a nod, given that his career stretched all the way to 1930. And Randy Johnson was a pretty solid pick as well.

  7. Round 2, Pick #7 SelectShow

    That stretch from 1955 to 1961 is ridiculous. At his best, he was a force of nature. Even beyond that, there's something very, very "baseball" about him. He appeared larger than life and was 1b to Mays' 1a for a large chunk of his career.

    For years, the question was whether Mays or Mantle was the superior player, and while I think the answer is obvious (and settled pretty conclusively in this very draft), I think I'm getting pretty good value at pick 24.

    Current Roster SelectShow
      1. 4th all-time in rWAR for CFs and he had about 4 seasons-worth fewer ABs than the three in front of him. Mays' WAR7 sets him apart from Mantle, however. 73.7 is almost unfathomable. Mantle's 64.8 was merely ridiculous.

  8. Just a reminder to folks. Some of you have gone to the spreadsheet and edited the draft order; there's also a second tab to edit your roster. With that, not sure people need to include it in each individual post.

  9. Spoiler SelectShow

    I'm going with an up the middle defender in round 2. I really like leadoff hitters with career .401 OBP. Not sure I can say anything else about this guy that he hasn't already said himself.

    1. Nice. He played a good center early in his career, then got pushed to left for Dave Henderson, then got old.

    1. Remember what Casey Stengel said. "You have to have a catcher, because if you don't you're likely to have a lot of passed balls."

  10. Round 2, pick 10 SelectShow

    I don't know much about him prior to this pick. But, he played second base and had a lot of WAR. He also won six World Series and made it to a few more as a GM of the Red Sox. Somehow managed to keep playing after the 1919 season too despite his dreadful line over the eight games. He had a great eye for talent, so long as they were white and Protestant. I only need him to play second though.

  11. Round SelectShow

    Yup, I'm going there. If I get to pick my own team, I'm picking this guy. (Plus Sean just took my 2B)

  12. Round 2, Pick 12 SelectShow

    With a run on starting pitchers, I figured I better grab one. He might not have as much durability as pitchers ahead of him in career WAR, but I don't think there was any pitcher more dominant for his career, at least as far as run prevention relative to his era (154 ERA+).

  13. Actual Spoiler SelectShow

    One of my all-time favorites. Being a nerdy kid, a nerdy-looking, thoughtful pitcher was someone to look up to. Plus, the years of those 4 straight Cy Young awards line up with my first pick's 3 (but should have been 4 straight) MVP's.

      1. And Mantle would have been my pick here, had he been available. I'm guessing he wouldn't have made it this far, though.

  14. Spoiler SelectShow

    I don't know if anyone has a more entertaining love/hate relationship with the SABR crowd than this guy. He was surrounded by such talent and thrived at OBP and OPS before that was a "thing" that he might have actually been a little underrated at his peak. They even had a website dedicated at his bad baseball opinions!

    I had considered a couple other guys here but I didn't like the other 2B options that would be available to me after him and didn't want Philo to steal him. By back-up plan for my next pick is more appealing than the next 2B on my list.

    1. He was the guy I strongly considered but only obliquely wanted to hint at above.

  15. Round 2, Last Pick SelectShow

    I debated heavily between a pitcher and a position player here. I was looking ahead to my pick, and hoping that Maddux and Morgan were still going to be available. Alas, I had to come up with a different plan. Now, with those two off the board, I find myself in a position of wanting 3 different players between my back-to-back picks. But when I look at those players, I know who I'm taking in Round 3, and its a position player, so that leaves me choosing between getting a pitcher or getting positional value (I'm guessing this other person gets snatched up pretty quickly)

    And while this is as much about needing to have a front of the rotation pitcher as anything else (There's a lot of SP slots to fill), when I look at the tiers of pitchers in my mind, Seaver fits more nicely with the Madduxi and Johnsons than he does with the Niekros and Blylevens. So I'll take Seaver, and be happy with all of my strikeouts, and great JAWS.

    1. Goddamn it, Phyllo.

      Seaver was easily my favorite player when I was a kid. His mechanics were soooo perfect. I remember how he would wear out the knee on his right (drive) leg pants because he often got so far over it that it would rub the ground.

    2. This is a tremendous pick. Great value in the third round, too. I think he's probably in my top 5 pitchers.

      Also, what bS said at the top.

      1. The more I thought about it, the more I liked this pick. In retrospect, I'm surprised a number of other pitchers were taken before him. If you're playing for 1 year, he wouldn't be as high. But if you were playing for a decade or more... definitely.

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