"Don't Wait on Starting Pitchers in 2012" Strategy Mock Draft Results

So I decided to try out Ray's idea of a mock draft where I drafted Hitter-Pitcher-Hitter-Pitcher for the first ten rounds, and this is the result. My team was surprisingly deep at hitting, even though I never spent consecutive picks on hitting until rounds 21 and 22. It was unfortunate that it was a 10 team draft, because it didn't properly display the depth one could have in a more common 12 or 14 team league, but it was the only draft available until I had class again. I had the eighth pick, so my picks were eighth, third, etc. It's a 23 round draft, with 2 C, 1 1B, 1 2B, 1 3B, 1 SS, 5 OF, 1 UTIL, 1 MI, 1 CI, and 10 P.

Team results and personal opinion after the jump:

C: Carlos Santana (R3, P8)

Chris Ianetta (R20, P3)

1B: Eric Hosmer (R7, P8)

2B: Robinson Cano (R1, P8)

3B: David Freese (R18, P3)

SS: Jimmy Rollins (R12, P3)

OF: Jay Bruce (R5, P8)

Drew Stubbs (R9, P8) [Disclaimer: My internet froze, which led to the computer giving me Stubbs over Ryan Braun in this slot.]

Corey Hart (R13, P8)

Mike Trout (R21, P8)

Jerry Sands (R22, P3)

UTIL: Nick Markakis (R14, P3)

CI: Emilio Bonifacio (R19, P8)

MI: Stephen Drew (R23, P8)

SP: Roy Halladay (R2, P3)

Zack Grienke (R4, P3)

Ian Kennedy (R6, P3)

Michael Pineda (R8, P3)

Gio Gonzalez (R10, P3)

RP: Kenley Jansen (R11, P8)

Joel Hanrahan (R15, P8)

Sergio Santos (R16, P3)

Chris Perez (R17, P8)

All in all, I think it's a very solid team, the hitting is stronger than expected, with above average power, average, and run production. The only place the line up lacks is in steals, because there's no one major speester, but there is definitely sufficient overall team speed to at least stay competitive in steals.

Pitching, on the other hand, is phenomenal. There are three pitchers that could, in any given year, be in the top five for NL Cy Young voting, in Halladay, Greinke, and Kennedy, while Pineda and Gonzalez will continue to improve with age and better run support, respectively. The relief pitchers are also very good, as Jansen, assuming he beats Javy Guerra out for the closer job in LA, should be good for 25 saves, an ERA of about 2.45, and a MASSIVE K/9, Hanrahan will be great even if he regresses a bit, Santos will continue to improve and is playing for a far better team so will get a lot more save opportunities, and Perez continues to be one of the most underrated players in baseball, in my opinion.

Overall, while I'd need to continue to test and refine this strategy, it's definitely viable and could work out very well for any owner that chooses to use it. I'd consider using the fourth round pick on a hitter, and then tacking a later round pick on a starter, but it's still a championship calibre team, both hitting and pitching.

Thanks for the idea Ray, it was fun to try something way different. Any comments are welcome and if anyone else has ideas of different mock strategies I can try, I'm open to it. (College tends to get slow during weeknights.)

T.C. Engel