Vol. V, Issue #1 - January 2017

** "Building Your Draft Team for 2017
– Wolfman Shapiro, Part II **
      (This is a continuation of the article I wrote in our December 2016 issue, offering a look at my
strategies for building a Keeper League Team using the latest card set offered by the game company
and especially, using my team in the CBA, the Skokie Wolfmen as an example of my ideas & strategies.)

(Notes from the Wolfman:  Ok, here we are again, to continue the article from the end of last year, on sharing my thoughts, ideas and strategies for building your team in a Keeper Draft League. Especifically now as all of us are preparing for our league's draft as the new 2017 card set is about to be released by Strat-o-matic next month.  Also, this month, the Ultimate Strat Baseball Newsletter released our 1st drafting tool which most definitely is a key weapon at your disposal to help you with your draft if you choose to obtain it. I have to admit, I have been a bit surprised that more of our members have not taken advantage of this tool, as there over 300 players evaluated and the Design Team added some great features to make it very easy to use. There is a mention of this tool on the SOM News page, but let me not tarry here as we have a lot to discuss. 

Of course each league has its own rules defining what players are available in a draft. Most leagues, as I understand it, do not allow you to draft an uncarded player (either a player in the minor leagues, or one of the foreign players signed by a MLB team and under their control or players who only receive a computer card image) before the player receives their 1st printed strat card. In the CBA we can pick one totally uncarded player and any players who get a printed or computer image card.

However for the purpose of this article I will cover as best I can a more generic situation.  The goal of this article is to have you walk with me, as I look at the CBA draft and discuss my strategies. I will discuss the hand I have been dealt with via the players we have control over for our 2017 season as we have been in this league now --  going on my 12th year.  Here, you will be listening to me describe the exact strategies that I plan to use to get our team ready to be competitive once again and be in the playoffs for many years to come. I will also note that we are still in a rebuild mode but trying to get us back into the playoffs as soon as we can.

Now if you have not read Part I of this article, it really is necessary for you to go back and read it in order to follow what I am going to share here. Or if you have already read Part I, but it was a while ago, you may want to go back and review it.  All I am going to share again in this article is my current roster before our draft so you can see what I am talking about when I mention various players.  To read Part I of this article, please go to:

http://www.ultimatestratbaseball.com/USBN-12-2016/WolfmanShapiro-BuildYourTeam-December2016.htm

Ok - lets delve in to the meat and potatoes of building your team -- it is my fondest wish that this two part article provides for some of our members more ideas how to prepare for your draft. Be warned however, as it is a long article but I truly believe that if you spend the time to read it, it might offer you some different ways how to approach building your team with a greater chance of success, enjoy .... Wolfman

 

---

The Skokie Wolfmen in the CBA
(team strategies before the 2017
season begins and the draft happens)

Part II - The Plan

As I discussed in Part I, you have two ways to build your team. First, you just use all the ways possible within your league to get onto your the team with the very best players (using your draft and trades or maybe your league uses some form of money as well) and start over each year; -- or you go the route of the Champion 2015 Kansas City Royals and the Champion 2016 Chicago Cubs, and you add youth and good prospects and build over time to have a team that consistently can compete for the championship. 

In this article we are going to explore the second route, as this will now be our 4th season (since 2013 when we were in our last CBA World Series) of re-building.  We came to this place because we could no longer win using the 1st technique.  Many of our players the Wolfmen  had at the end of 2013 were becoming old veterans or were injury prone and thus, we couldn't field a competitive team. Thus, we had no choice.   Plus, in 2013 we made a big error to get into the World Series and traded some amazingly good young players away to let us get back into the playoffs.

Now to fully illustrate this point I just made, I am going to go back a bit in the history of our team first, to show you some young players we traded away in 2013 and how this hurt our team. It was an interesting year, we tried to start to rebuild that year, but our division was very weak and even though for most of the season we were below or around .500, we were never out of our division's race.  When I saw if I did my usual strategy to trade with non-playoff bound teams to get some excellent players we were able to finish the year at 87-75 and made it into the World Series only to lose in 6 games as our hitters didn't come through in a pitcher's park. Now let's go back in time .... (did you ever watch the old show "The Time Tunnel"?)

Historical Wolfmen

Fortunately, the roster director of the CBA, who just happens to be Doug Brunet, the coordinator of the USBN draft guide no less, does these amazing spreadsheets for our members that keeps the history of our league.  So I can go back to 2013 to review the players we drafted and what trades we made up till now.  I want to show you how we self destructed our team just to get us back to the playoffs and the World Series, which we had no business being in that year.

First before our draft in 2013 (this would be using the 2012 MLB based cards), I gave up a late draft pick to get Anthony Rendon, a young promising 3B of the Nationals.  Then during the draft itself, trying to rebuild our team with Youth we drafted:  Pitchers: Wade Miley, Mike Fiers, Wily Peralta, Liam Hendriks, Vinnie Pestano, Andrew Cashner, and Bryan Shaw.  Hitters I was able to obtain were:  D.J. LeMahieu and Avisail Garcia as well as Gregor Blanco (def. OF).  In a trade we made with another team (I don't remember what players we gave up) I was able to acquire Darwin Barney (the year he made no errors at 2B) to be our new second basemen and Brett Gardner for the future (he was injured and could only be used sparingly in 2013).  Also I was able to trade for Chris Tillman, his 1st year of pitching for Orioles.

So basically I was resigned to start a re-build process know that having acquired all these young players we would not be competitive in 2013.  Therefore, if I still had some of these players right now we might have been able to return to playoffs by now.  But, as I said, we were too impatient to want to win back-to-back championships so we traded LeMahieu, Garcia, Shaw, Cashner, Peralta along with Gardner and Tulo who was our key SS (he was injured in 2012 and only had limited play) and in return I was able to acquire back:  Grant Balfour (a good closer); Carlos Beltran (RF); Asdrubal Cabrera (SS); Tim Hudson (SP); Bryan LaHair (DH, 1B); Juan Pierre (DH, LF), Aramis Rameriz (3B, replacing Youkilis) and Eric J. Young (LF) ... These trades mostly improved my hitting which allowed us to make the 2013 CBA World Series as I had along with these players Molina as our catcher and also the power bat of Alonso Soriano and Ethier in RF.  Essentially I filled my holes quite well ... but quite a few of these players I had picked up went south in the 2013 MLB season (our 2014 season) and thus, our team went into a great decline since 2014.

Now I want to discuss the young players we picked up from the 2014-2016 CBA seasons as we have been in total re-build mode.  In 2014, our uncarded player we took in the 1st round was George Springer, actually, in over 10 years of being in the CBA, this was the 1st time we went after a potential superstar in the 1st round.  We made a trade before the draft began and gave away Molina and received back in that trade Chris Archer, Jeff Locke and Carlos Santana (who became our catcher).  We also picked other young players in the 2014 draft including Matt Davidson (CHW, 3B) Dan Jennings (P), Brandon Maurer (P), Brett Anderson (SP), Jenry Meija (P) and we traded for Danny Hultzen - while some of these players helped us in the next few years, Archer, Springer and Santana remain on the 2017 Wolfmen ...

In the 2015 Season, we again tried to keep adding more young players in our draft or via trades.  Some names of players we added were Scott Carroll (P), Kyle Hendricks (2nd round draft pick), Leury Garcia (INF), Ender Inciarte (before he became a star, for his PAs, a lucky pick), Jimmy Nelson (SP), Steven Souza (OF) and we obtain Kyle Zimmer in a trade (prospect KC).  As you can see a few of these players are now on the 2017 Wolfmen including Hendricks, Inciarte, Nelson and Souza.  So each year we are getting more and more quality players but not enough to be competitive.  We did not use our pick for a non-carded player this year to draft one of the top 100 prospects.

Now, last year for the Wolfmen (based on the 2015 MLB season), we continued this trend and took as our 1st pick, Kenta Maeda as our non-carded pick.  We also took these young players Hanser Alberto (INF), Eddie Butler (P), Tony Cingrani (P), Chelsor Cuthbert (INF), Delino DeShields (OF), Carlos Frias (P), Adonis Garcia (3B), Marco Gonzalez (traded for a draft pick), Kelvin Herrera (trade for Miley), Mikie Mahtook (OF), Rafeal Montero (traded for a draft pick), and Kevin Plawecki (C).  Of the playes mentioned, on the 2017 Wolfmen are Cingrani, Cuthbert, Garcia, Herrera and Plawecki.

So as we enter our 2017 season pretty much all our starting pitchers and relief pitchers are in their 20's and we have now several of our starting positional players in their 20's as well.  So now, its time to look at the current team and talk about what moves we are preparing to do and what research we are going to use to decide the value of the players available in the draft and who we might pick.  But I will say at this point, that we have been looking each year to acquire as many players as we can who are 27 years old or younger, who we intuitively sense may be ready to break out.  First let me share again our current roster and their stats from the MLB 2016 season so you can follow what I will be discussing.

Meet the 2017 Skokie Wolfmen
(our process to prepare for the draft)

Below you will find broken down into our hitters first and then followed by our pitchers for our 24 man roster.  This includes Javier Baez, who although at the time of the writing is not officially a Wolfman yet, he will be due to a gentlemen's agreement we made that goes into effect in March and where we trade away Jhonny Peralta.

(Above are the positional players we have control of going into our draft which will be in early March. I am showing this roster as well as our pitchers below, so when I discuss our team and our players you know exactly who I am speaking about and their strengths.  We have tried to build up the young players on our team as you will notice by their ages.  For some reason, Cuthbert fielding rating didn't show up, he is rated a 3 at 3B.)
 

(This list are the pitchers who we have control of prior to the CBA Draft. Right now we have 8 pitchers with enough innings to use during our 2017 CBA season with three pitchers (Holland/Montas/Ross) we are holding for our 2018 season who we believe will be key factors for their teams in the 2017 MLB season. We need to get innings for a 5th starter (probably 2-3 more pitchers who can start) and we need 3-4 more relievers, especially a good LHRP. We will be looking at good young pitchers and ones we intuitively feel could be very good in real life in the baseball season coming up soon.)

 

---

The Wolfman's Plan to Prepare for our Draft
(Section I - the top 100 Prospects)

As I shared before, via our roster director Doug, we received a MS Excel spreadsheet which shows us the roster of all the other teams in our league and which players are available.  What I do with this spreadsheet is I color code it by placing a highlight color in the background around those players we would have an interest to bring on-board the Wolfmen as well as I add another column to give a ranking to the players available for our draft and then sort the entries by position and my personal ranking. Naturally, I am looking for existing or full all-star caliber players along with good young players (27 years or younger) who would help us to fill our positions which are weak.  In my analysts of the players available I will related to the needs of our team, the 2017 Wolfmen, to be used as a real-life example within this article.

Another thing I normally do is I study on mlb.com - the list of the top 100 prospects (which a new ranking for this list came out before the release of this article) that is available under the Fantasy menu of this website, and under the option Prospect Watch.  This list is developed by two gentlemen who watch these prospects, Johnathan Mayo and Jim Callis (who we have interviewed for the newsletter and has played strat baseball). 

Now, since our league lets us pick an un-carded player (defined as a player who has never received a printed card or computer image card in strat or; a player who was injured for an entire prior season), and since we have 24 teams in our league, this means each year usually the top 15-20 ranked young prospects are taken by a team in our league.  So please take this into account when I discuss the Wolfmen and which players we are looking to bring on board.  The other issue is for us, is that some of these top 100 were brought up briefly at the end of last year and thus they see a card (printed or computer image) in SOM for the 2017 set.  So for the Wolfman, I try to get one or two of these top 100 young players if we can, although it depends how many ABs or IPs they have and also if they don't have the minimum amount required by our league so they can be utilized during the season. We only are granted 5 roster places for any uncarded players we control or a player who has a card but does meet our rule for a minimum about of ABs or IPs during that season. As I discussed in my last article, I already had 3 of these five slots taken, so there is only two more such players I can draft, and I am not sure at this point if we will be able take a top 100 prospect who is not carded yet as there are quite a few top 100 young prospects who did get carded in 2017. 

But I study these top 100 prospects very closely and will read reports about them to see who could be the next superstars.  I would say Mayo and Callis evaluations are pretty good because usually the top 10-20 players make it into the majors as they predict and have a positive effect for their major league teams.  Also, you may want to read the article this month by Matt Eddy as well as go to the website by Baseball America or get their Prospect Handbook they put out each year (which talks about the top 30 prospects of all the MLB teams) as this group specializes in these young players.  Sometimes, some of a MLB team top 30 prospects not listed in the top 100 will be brought up so you do need to be aware of this group of players as well. My point here being that if you want to be a good GM, besides finding the players who have the best strat cards, you have to plan ahead too, and I am usually working on our roster for two seasons at the same time. I am looking to fill our team to 38 players and meet all the usage requirements for the season coming up. And, since I don't feel our team is fully ready to compete yet this year, I am also drafting or trading for players for our 2018 season.  That is if you can split yourself with these two views at the same time.

Now let me look at the top 100 prospects list that were released on mlb.com on January 28th. I will just list the top 20 plus also tell you which other ones are going to have a Strat Card (printed and/or just computer image) in the new set and who could very possibly be available in your own draft. I will also indicate if, for my story, a CBA team has drafted this player already (indicated by *C, also note their current MLB team is listed as some prospects were traded).

1) Benintendi (OF, has card, *C, analysis - will be used by Redsox in 2017, hard to crack OF)
2) Moncada (INF, has card, *C, analysis - is going to be used by the White Sox in 2017)
3) Gleyber Torress (SS, no card, not in CBA, analysis - I bet the Yankees see him in 2017)
4) Swanson (SS, has card, *C, analysis - definitely used by Braves in 2017)
5) Amed Rosario (SS, no card, not in CBA, analysis - Mets will bring up, backup INF)
6) Alex Reyes (SP, has card, *C, analysis - defintely in roation for STL in 2017)
7) Crawford (SS, no card, *C, analysis - should be up for Phillies in 2017)
8) Victor Robles (OF, no card, not in CBA, analysis - a top OF prospect, Nationals should use in '17)
9) Tyler Glasnow (SP, no card, *C analysis - no doubt the Pirates will use him in 2017)
10) Austin Meadows (OF, no card, *C analysis - could be a backup in Pirates OF in 2017)
11) Ozzie Albies (2B/SS, no card, *C, analysis - Braves will definitely be using in 2017, starting?)
12) Lucas Giolito (SP, has card, *C, analysis - should be used by White Sox in 2017)
13) Cody Bellinger (1B/OF), no card, not in CBA, analysis - could be Gonzalez backup at 1B in 2017)
14) Eloy Jimenz (OF), no card, not in CBA, analysis - a top Cub prospect, hard to crack OF, up 2018)
15) Brendan Rodgers (SS, no card, *C, analysis - hard to crack CO infield)
16) Michael Kopech (P, no card, not in CBA, analysis, won't be up for White Sox in 2017, 106 mph/fb)
17) Rafael Devers (3B, no card, *C, analysis - not sure if Red Sox will bring up in 2017)
18) Lewis Brinson (OF, no card, *C, analysis - will see actions for Brewers in 2017)
19) Mickey Moniak (OF, no card, not in CBA, analysis - expect Phillies to bring up in 2019, top 2016 pick)
20) Frances Martes (P, no card, not in CBA, analysis - expected to be used by Astros in '17)

As you can see 12 out of the 20 ranked prospects were already on rosters in the CBA.  Also five of these prospects made it into the majors in 2016 and have a card.  Below are some other players who made it into the top 20 prospects redone by Mayo and Callis.

Below are other players who received a card or carded computer image in the 2017 set and are still or were ranked as Top 100 Prospects;

Manny Margot (OF, SD, #23); Josh Bell (1B, PITT, #27); Jose de Leon (RHP, LAD, #33);
Carson Kelly (C, STL, #39); Hunter Renfroe (OF, SD, #42, *C); Aaron Judge (OF, NYY, #45, *C);
Jeff Hoffman (RHP, COL, #44); Reynaldo Lopez (RHP, CHW, #46); Yohander Mendez (LHP, Tex,#56);
Luke Weaver (RHP, STL, #68); Carson Fulmer (RHP, CHW, #71); Jorge Alfaro (C, PHI, #72);
German Marquez, (RHP, COL, #73); Albert Almora (OF, CHC, #75, *C); Robert Stephenson (RHP, CIN, #87,*C) Ramiel Tapia (OF, COL, #90); Jeimer Candaelario (3B, CHC, #96);

Other players who have been ranked at the top 10 of their position outside of the top 100 include:
Austin Barnes (C, LAD, #8 in C); Tom Murphy (C, COL, #10 in C)
Dan Vogelbach (1B, SEA, #8 in 1B); Carlos Asuaje (2B, SD, #9 in 2B); Hunter Dozier (3B, KC, #9 in 3B)

So a total of 26 of these top prospects have a card (printed or just computer image) in the 2017 set, the question is which ones will be utilized for their MLB team in 2017 and be the next superstars - most people are betting that Moncada will be one of these young players although with Benintendi and Torress now ranked quite high these players also could be keys for their MLB teams.

OK, so now lets look at Skokie, and talk about how we will do our draft, continuing to go over go young players as well as fill up our roster and have enough bodies to carry the load ...

(Section II - Who Should We Draft?)

Well let's do an analysis of our team, looking at different positions and see what we have and what we should try to obtain in the draft.

There are too many players available for the CBA draft to show them all in this report, so we will summarize the key or better players that we will be considering.  The first position I want to focus upon the Wolfmen is our starting pitchers.  With Archer, Hendricks, Maeda and Nelson, we have a lot of starter inning but we are missing a 5th starter. Now since Archer didn't do as well as he has in the past and neither did Nelson, our starting pitching will be weak in 2017 - but both Archer and Nelson could rebound in real life during the 2017 MLB season and we expect Hendricks and Maeda to be good in the 2017 MLB season.  So we will need to add starting innings and since I don't think our team yet has enough to compete, we will try to get some inning eaters late in the draft. Also we may need to get some additional pitching innings very late in the season so we could take advantage of getting a Restricted Free Agent (RFA -- a player who is not any team, we can release a player and picked up such a player to use, but lose this RFA at the end of the year).

Also all of our starters are right-handed, so during the draft we should try to get one or two left handed starters added to the team to prepare for the 2018 CBA season.  Also we have two pitchers on our current rosters, that we can used in 2017, Tyson Ross (injured but signed by the Rangers in the 2017 MLB season so he should have 160-180 innings and could be our 5th starter in 2018) plus we have Frankie Montas who is a top prospect that is on the A's and could become one of their starters.  The last comment I want to make here is that good starting pitchers available in general in the CBA draft is always difficult to find and we may have to try to trade for another starter during the season.

(Note, the players listed below are the main ones we will be seriously considering to add to the Skokie Wolfmen)

Considering who we could pick up in the Draft:
LHSP - Sean Manea / Rob Zastryzny / Ryan Merritt / Andrew Hearney / Tyler Anderson
RHSP - Michael Fulmer / Chris Devenski / Javy Guerra / Joe Musgrove /
Robert Gsellman / B. Peacock

Next let us take a look at relief pitching.  Normally every year within the draft are a lot of very good relief pitchers.  Of course we only have 4 available relief pitchers right now with Kelvin Herrera, Pedro Strop, Tony Cingrani and A. J. Ramos (our closer).  Since there are over 100 relievers on our list that could help our team in various ways then perhaps we will have to wait in the draft till the later rounds and try to get  the best young relievers we can who might be available.  We definitely need to try to get another LH reliever or two and maybe a few RH relievers.  Our situation for the 2018 CBA season is that we could have 3 closers on our team as Greg Holland comes back from his injury with the Rockies and Herrera is being looked at as the new closer in KC and Ramos still will be Miami's closer.  Here are some of the top relievers we will be looking at in our draft:

Considering who we could pick up in the Draft:
LHRP:  Brian Flynn / Matt Strahm (restricted) / Kyle Ryan / Donnie Hart (restricted) /
Rob Zastryzny (restricted) / Alex Claudio / Will Smith / Yohander Mendez (restricted, prospect) /
Ryan Butcher / Marc Rzepczynski / Boone Logan / Sammy Solis / Richard Bleier

RHRP: Chris Devenski / Kyle Barraclough / Cam Bedrosian / Ryan Dull / Derek Law /
Edwin Diaz / Joe Biagni / Jhan Marinez / Tony Barnette / Justin Grimm / Bruce Rondon /
Seung Hwan Ho / Dan Otero / Matt Bush / Nate Jones / George Kontos / Xavier Cedeno

Next up - lets review our situation at 1B -- right know we have Carlos Santana as our primary 1st basemen with Javier Baez as the backup. Santana always has a lot of PAs as he DH's and plays the position. But it would be nice to have a Young and upcoming 1B to use so we could use Santana more at DH.  Here is what is available in the draft but there isn't much available:

Considering who we could pick up in the Draft:
Young 1B - Tommy Joseph, Austin Tyler, Jason Rodgers, Daniel Vogelbach, Christian Walker

Veteran 1B - Ryan Zimmerman / Mark Teixiera / Adam Lind / Byungho Park / Chris Colabello (??)
(Note - rumored Ryon Healy of the A's will play 1B in 2017)

For 2B we have a bright future and really we just need a young backup utility type player who can play multiple infield positions. For us right now we have Javier Baez, with Asdrubal Cabrera and Stephen Drew for backup.  However, in our draft here is who we would look at for this position toward the future:

Considering who we could pick up in the Draft:
Young 2B - Whit Merrifield / Ryan Schimpf / Rob Refsnyder / Tommy La Stella / Carlos Sanchez /
Hernan Perez / Adam Frazier / Raul Mondesi / Kelby Tomlinson / Joey Wendle / Alen Hanson /
Carlos Asuaje (prospect) / Daniel Castro

Veteran 2B - Chase Utley (LH power at 2B) / Johnny Giavotella / Darwin Barney / Chase D'Arnaud /
Ivan DeJesus / Gordon Beckham / Andes Blanco

(Note - there are a few good 2B candidates here for a team searching for one ...)

In the case for SS we also are in pretty good shape as we have Asdrubal Cabrera as our main shortstop backed up by Javier Baez and Stephen Drew.  However Baez we want to use as our primary 2nd baseman.  It would be nice to have a young shortstop to have for the future and for some reason there are a lot of good young shortstops these days.  Here are my proposal who to consider for the draft:

Considering who we could pick up in the Draft:
Young SS - Aledmys Diaz / Tim Anderson / Hernan Perez / Trevor Story / Nick Ahmed /
Christian Adames / Ronald Torreyes / Daniel Castro / Yadiel Rivera / Wilmer Difo / Hansen Alberto /
Jose Rondon / Erik Gonzalez / Gavin Cecchini / Raul Mondesi
(no old SS to add ..)

On to 3B -- for Skokie we have Adonis Garcia and Cheslor Cuthbert, so with PAs, we are over covered but neither of these players are the type of third basemen that fits our team - however in the draft this is not a strong position so we will have to find a way during the season to see if we can trade for the kind we like - better defense and power.  In 2017, for KC, Cuthbert is going to become more there a DH but Baez also plays 3B.  Anyway here is what I show to consider for 3B with our draft:

Considering who we could pick up in the Draft:
Young 3B -- Ryon Healy (will move to 1B for the A's in '17) / Matt Reynolds / Hernan Perez /
Whit Merrifield / Ryan Schimpf / Tommy La Stella / Carlos Sanchez / Kelby Tomlinson /
T. J. Rivera / Kaleb Cowart / Charlie Culberson (may not play in major in '17) /
Richie Shaffer / Enrique Hernandez / Rob Refsnyder

Veteran 3B -- Chase Utley / Darwin Barney / Gordon Beckham / Conor Gillaspie / Andres Blanco /

What about Catchers?  Catching is a very weak position for us - since Santana stopped catching we haven't been able to find a dependable stable catcher - so in this draft there are a lot of young catchers coming up and we most definitely need to find one. At catcher we have Kevin Plawecki who is a good def. catcher and we have Chris Innetta who is an adequate catcher. We expect both of these players will be used quite a bit in 2017 but neither has power or is a good hitter.  So we definitely hope to find a young catcher in the early round of the draft. We tried to get Gary Sanchez in the 2016 CBA draft but he was taken too early for us.  Here are the candidates to consider:

Considering who we could pick up in the Draft:
Young C -- Tony Wolters / Jett Bandy / Juan Centeno / Austin Romine / Omar Naravez /
Bruce Maxwell / Tom Murphy / Austin Barnes / Pedro Severino / Jorge Alfaro / Jacob Stallings /
Carson Kelly / Max Stassi / Tomas Telis / John Hicks / Christian Vasquez

Veteran C -- Curt Casali / Martin Maldonando / Rene Rivera / A. J. Ellis / Hank Conger /
Drew Butera / Jeff Mathis / Eric Fryer / Bryan Holaday / Jose Lobaton / Anthony Recker /
Tuffy Gosewich / Devin Mesoraco / Brett Nicholas / Jesus Sucre 

(So I believe we will find our stable catcher within this large list ....)

And finally we can look at the last position that being the OFers -- we will combine all three outfield positions together here ... Our outfield is pretty strong although we could use another LH outfielder in LF. For our outfield we have George Springer (can be all OF positions), we have Ender Inciaite in CF and we can use a combination of Carlos Beltran / Steven Souza / Jake Marisnick in LF. So I would like to have another LH outfielder who can hit RH pitching.  Beltran allows us to play him in RF or LF but his fielding rating is a "5", better to use him as a DH. Here are the outfielders I see to consider:

Considering who we could pick up in the Draft:
Young OF -- Avisail Garcia / Robbie Grossman / Aaron Hicks / Tyler Naquin / Alex Dickerson /
Joey Rickard / Enrique Hernandez / Hernan Perez / Keon Broxton / David Dahl / Mallex Smith /
Tyler Goeddel / Oswaldo Arcia / Rafael Ortega / Matt Szczur / Juan Lagares / Tyler Collins /
Tony Kemp / Andrew Toles / Guillermo Heredia / Anthony Gose / Steven Moya / Brandon Nimmo
Roman Quinn / Jason Coats / Steve Selsky / Jared Hoying / Reymond Fuentes / Brian Goodwin /
Ramiel Tapia / Junior Lake / Manual Margot  / Terrence Gore / Socrates Brito / Dalton Pompey

Veteran OF -- Colby Rasmus / Ichiro Suzuki / Hyun-Soo Kim / Ezequiel Carrera / Matt Joyce /
Gregor Blanco / Shawn O'Malley / Jeremy Hazelbaker / Brett Eibner / Tommy Pham / Drew Stubbs
Dustin Ackley / Bryce Brentz / Hernan Iribarren / Rusney Castillo

Summary and Conclusion about Draftable Players

Now within the section we just shared above with players suggested to draft, it was presented using our team as the example, with our current strengths and weaknesses. By doing so, we were able to make a suggestion of what players we will be looking to add to our team.  As each Keeper League is different, you no doubt will have other players available in your draft that we might not have within the CBA as it depends upon how many teams there are and there could other players available that are not within our league.

My basic goal in the building of the 2017 Skokie Wolfmen is to get more good young players who have the potential to become stars in the near future so that in future drafts going forward we will already have a very solid core team. Thus, in future drafts we will only need to pick up backup or utility players, with perhaps in some cases, get a few platoon players as well. Also these extra players will help us to satisfy the usage requirements we must have for the season.  Since it is apparent our team still has too many holes, we are working for 2018 to be the beginning of many years to be competitive once again (as we made the playoffs 7 of the 1st 8 years we were in the CBA).  Thus, if we can't get all the players we want and need within the upcoming draft (which always happens) then we will take the whole year of 2017 to make key trades to do so.

The teams that have been successful for us in the past, when we have done well in the playoffs are teams with a good balance in hitting, pitching, power, speed and defense.  Of course it is difficult to have all these areas covered -- part of the reason we won in 2012 is our team had all these aspects with a good platoon system.  But as we enter the 2017 season, we have been acquiring players who follow this formula as best we can. There are definitely some good players to be had in our forthcoming draft linked to our rebuild, but in general its a weak draft in other ways as there is a very limited amount of acceptable and good starting pitchers and several positions with very little quality of players because the managers in our league being very astute have picked most of the best players already.  This is why it will take us 5 years (like the Cubs) to fully re-build and we are now in our 4th year.

So to recap, we are looking for in the draft: Starting innings and at least one good lefty starter; to rebuild our relief staff and get at least one good LH reliever.  We can't fix our 3B situation but we might draft a top 100 prospect there, we need backups in the infield at 1B/2B - a young LH LFer who might be good going forward and to find a good steady young catcher who will be stable for many years to come.  We have two more picks we can use for players that are not eligible to be used (low ABs, low IPs, and one un-carded player).  So we have 14 more players to acquire to fill all these needs.  Now lets move to the last part of this report, as I discuss our draft plan to be utilized. Again, remember, the goal of this report is to give our readers of an example of one strat GM's preparation for their draft and work towards rebuilding a championship team.

Time to make a Strategy for the 2017 CBA Draft for the Wolfmen