Giancarlo Wants to be Like Mike

[DOUGHBOYS]

Last year, a prominent NFBC player stated that he would rather bypass Jay Bruce in the third or fourth round and grab the same statistics from Adam LaRoche in the 10th round.
At the time it sounded feasible. Now that the season is over, we know his reckoning to be wrong.
Even though wrong, it is how we think when we take our players. We think the best of our draftees. We think that LaRoche will have yet another great year, even knowing that his best years, most likely, are behind him.
If a player has a season high of 25 homers, we want and almost expect 30 homers, now that he's rostered on our team.
Why do we do that?

It's the same as when we draft Carlos Gonzalez or even Kevin Youkilis. We tell ourselves, 'This is MY team, he won't get hurt on MY team.
But they do.
When drafting, these players almost turn into our own sons and daughters. Our daughter can be a goalie, and her team can lose the game 8-0, and still we'd fawn on about the ONE great save that she did make, overlooking the goals given up.
That's our job as Fathers. We want the best for our kids.
Just like we want the best for our players.

Is this a good thing?
Probably not.
If we get caught up in one good stat for a player....and I'll use Joey Votto since I just read Wayne's excellent wrap-up post...
Let's say we think a lot of Votto's line drive rate.
That one thought can override all other thinking.
We'll read about other players like Puig and his SuperMan impression. How Matt Kemp could come back and be an MVP.
Or how Ryan Braun is a 'sleeper' this year. And we will entertain thoughts of taking them, but we come back to that line drive percentage and in our hearts know that we will take Joey Votto.
We should never let one stat dominate our thinking. The same works for negative stats. I've railed on about Votto's eagerness at avoiding rbi this year.
But, if Votto is there at the third pick in the second round, he'd have to be a consideration.

It's tough to think of the negative things about players when we decide to choose them. Starlin Castro owners could only have been thinking about Castro only getting better and stronger. Maybe even a 20 homer campaign.
Absolutely none of them were making a plan b if Castro failed.
We all use the last part of a draft differently.
Some of us will throw darts at would be difference makers.
Some of us will shore up a weak position.
Some of us will get a Closer in Waiting or gamble on a Minor Leaguer.
By this time of the draft, we have lowered expectations. This is our own humaness (shuddup spellchecker, they know what I mean!) showing.
Like the draft itself, as the players talent level lessens with each pick, our expectations do so as well.

For the first part of the draft, we are safe. Most will use adp, so they don't get gypped. They want a player coveted by all, especially themselves.
In the following rounds, some will use adp for ugh, 'Value picks'. Thinking they got something better than somebody else because the adp tells them so.
Adp had Albert Pujols as the second best first baseman last year.
Adp had Giancarlo Stanton as a first rounder.
As a congregation, adp'ers felt that these were safe first round picks.
Despite Pujols aging before our eyes the year before and Stanton's team waving good bye to him, leaving him the lone Ranger on a bad team, adp'ers still felt safe with them. (By the way, Stanton sucks as Giancarlo. Mike Stanton was a lot better ball player.)
And worse, had high expectations, because that is what we do.
Stanton would be termed an ugh, 'value pick' in second rounds.
And the funny thing is that if that esteemed NFBC colleague had compared LaRoche 10th round numbers to Stanton's first round numbers, he would have been correct.
Stanton .252/57/23/55/1
Laroche .239/69/20/62/4

Personally, I don't follow adp much, except to poke fun at it.
Look up, 'False sense of security' on Google. Adp should be mentioned.
It does create a higher expectation, something I am going to work hard not to have in my first few choices.
Instead of drafting a player who hits 25 homers and expecting 30, I'll expect 20.
Who knows, maybe the lowered expectations in the first few rounds will lead to higher expectations later and I can have an assbackwards draft.
This way I can expound on the eight goals allowed, not the one great save.