Mock Drafting

This Saturday I’ll be participating in a mock draft sponsored by Going 9 Baseball, which has a program on Sirius/XM satellite radio.

I’m looking forward to the chance to jump into the season with a mock draft, and indeed they’ll be covering it live on the air (or at least the start of it). I’ve updated the settings of my 5×5 Mixed League to reflect the parameters of this mock league: 12 teams, and 23 roster spots. They use 2 starters, 2 relievers, 4 other pitchers (either SP or RP), 1 each at the infield positions and catcher, 3 OF, 2 utility offense players, and a 5 player reserve. So there’s no explicit DH slot to fill, nor does this league use the flexible corner/middle infield slots. And just one catcher.

So this will be quite a shallow fantasy league compared to what I’m used to: my long-time AL and NL leagues draft 280 or 270 players out of just one major league; this one drafts 276 players out of both. Also, this is a 5×5 format, so strikeouts and runs scored matter.

I actually like the 5×5 format better than 4×4, because it puts more of an emphasis on getting good starting pitching by using strikeouts as a counting category. In 4×4, it’s easier to skimp on starters and use relievers to protect ERA/WHIP, but a 5×5 format penalizes that strategy more.

The draft itself is being hosted at http://www.mockdraftcentral.com, and after I’ll certainly give a retrospective about what I thought about the experience!

Update 2/23: You can follow the draft here if you have an xhtml-capable browser. Older versions of IE won’t update live, but you should be able to refresh the (rather large) page to update.