Checking The SBL Draftees: Muscle, Technician & Speedster

After the playoff, teams are going to be looking hard down their draft board to find the true gems and first line of hope into the upcoming season. A good start is very important for all the franchises and this very first SBL draft will likely determine which team has the early advantage to find glory in the first few seasons. Today, I will be focusing on the batters -- largely because I still have an unused graphic made by Pingu so I kinda have to stick with this.

Muscle


1B Tracy Prezzy Jr. -- Chicago Storm

If you want power at its rawest form and power only, Tracy Prezzy Jr. is arguably the top candidate to provide just that. The man is rawest in all form, for the good and for the bad. One could say he is a barbarian kind of batter, just swing hard and do absolutely nothing else. His fielding is abysmal, which is why he is handling the least impactful corner spot of the field -- but don't let that make you think you can just ignore fielding at all cost, it's a big con nonetheless. He also has the speed of a sloth, if you can ever call that "speed", and is useless on the basepath. All of that are fine points, but they won't really affect his drafting position at all because this man has some of the strongest power swings you can find in the draft board. An absolute unit standing at 6' 6" and weighing 285 lbs, Prezzy Jr is the prototype 4th batter whose only objective is to smash the ball out of the park -- I mean, we are playing Out of the Park Baseball here, you need dudes who can do that.

One thing that is very impressive of this man is how he already proved his batting prowess in the extreme pitcher's park of Chicago Storm. One can definitely expect better competition in majors but his slashline this season - .317/.359/.490 - and 23 HRs are lower than what you can expect from him in a neutral situation. Pick this man if you want a batter who can hit the ball out a lot and with solid contact to just get a hit if needed.


The alternative to Prezzy Jr. is his fellow contender in the Silver Slugger award, Rocky Mitchell. If you are expecting anything too different from the two of them, don't. To sum it up short, Rocky Mitchell is the left-handed Prezzy with a higher tendency to take a walk but not as good in raw contact accuracy. Both men would serve similar role in a team and you can be certain that you will have a power 1B for life if you get one of them.

Looking at the performance of Mitchell this season, one can argue that Mitchell is a much better "scorer" as he has far better R and RBI. The man was extremely clutch and hit a lot when there are players in scoring positions. Would a GM prioritize him due to his clutchness? Even thought it's just one season? We will see. But I can offer one tip to the GM -- Batting hand. If you have a better park for left-handed batters(vL), go for Mitchell; otherwise, go Prezzy Jr. In a neutral ground, pick whoever you like, I guess you can pick the user you like more or more willing to play for you.

Technician


CF Sora Mekajiki -- Sherbrooke Mohawks

Contact batter, they might not get as much glory as the power hitters - or at least chicks won't dig them due to their lack of long balls - but they are key to creating runs and providing chances for his team to snatch the win. There can never be enough run support and a contact batter can hit himself into scoring position and also hit players in. If we are talking about the premium contact batter of the league, Sora Mekajiki is definitely one of the name. He has been a name that showed up a lot in the Beat the Streak game, so I am pretty sure many others think he is one of the best contact hitters as well.

Playing in a park that is more on the neutral side clearly favored the man. .313/.361/.460 is a solid slashline and he has underrated power too as he hit 20 home runs for the regular season. His weakness could just be that he isn't a solid pitch selector and he will not get a lot of walks. He is a man who simply likes to duke it out with the pitcher and not just simply take a walk. I can respect that, but whether he can sustain his success for a very long time without relying on eyes is something that is up in the air by now. CF is a very demanding position and he is not world-breaking at that. He is slightly better CF than most of his competitors in the minors, but that's more of a sign that the league needs more defensive wizard on the outfield than anything.

Without the patience to filter out the bad pitch as of now, his best usage will be on a hitter's park that favors contact.


I know, Delgado is a freaking power bat, but there are not a lot of contact-first batters in this draft so I kinda have to put Delgado here. Delgado is not an all-out power bat like some others either, he is the representative of a well-rounded batter that does everything right on the batting side. Sure, he sucks in everything else a batting player has to do on the court but you gonna give credit where it is due. One thing that is special about Delgado is his lopsided development. He is a true rightie killer who is a nightmare to all the RHP. His leftie batting isn't so bad either but he makes his money against the righties. His value will be determined by how many pitchers, especially the starters, are right-handed on the other teams.

His number this season is what you expect from a Chicago Storm batter -- underwhelming. Despite that, he is still good for .290/.353/.524 and 31 homeruns, as good as you can get from a disadvantageous park. He is also a great performer at home, hitting 14 home runs there to show that the park doesn't matter that much to him.

If you want a more balanced bat than the two on the power bracket, or if you have a park that just kills rightie pitchers, pick Delgado up so he can really hurt your opponents -- and try to get leftie pitchers so you won't get screwed.

Speedster


CF/LF Flynn Fungo --  Pittsburgh Pioneers

Fungo is one heck of a talent as he provides on all cylinders. He can run, he can play defense and he can hit. No one is truly five tools just yet but he looks like he has the potential to be one. While his 3.2 WAR isn't super impressive in this stacked season, there are value in a speedster who can do them all. In a previous article, I have said that players like this are good as foundation of a team because it's near-impossible to choke in every aspect. If he choke at one part, he still has two parts that he can perform; if a bat-only player chokes at batting, then he is simply useless for the season. Fungo might not be a player that can break all kind of number, but he is like the waterbed of the team and keep things comfortable for everyone. Water is known to adapt to anything and that's just him. He gets added value for being able to play two positions. He adapted to LF and it will prove valuable in this league.

.294/.374/.418 is rather underwhelming in the gun-ablazing batting lineup of Pioneers but if we look at RC/27, he still has a solid 6.14 runs per 27 batters. That remains a solid number as the highest number this season is 7.68, so he is not very far away. He has high upside on his stealing, getting a great 79.1% success rate at a good volume of 68 in 120 games will help any team.

Draft him if you need a backbone for your team, or you want to stay flexible on the LF and CF position. I think this is super key to any GM. If you draft a 1B or whatever, you are stuck with him. If you draft Fungo, you can still draft the best LF or CF out there eventually and don't have to be pissed because you have the chance but cannot take a world-tier talent in said position. Fungo's well-rounded game also makes him a player that can play in any field. He can field relatively well - but again, CF is hard, so invest more into range if you want to play there - in a pitcher's park or a defensive-oriented team and he will easily contribute to an offensive team, like Pioneers, if need be. This pick is straight "water".


There's no way I am not putting Pingu here. First, he made the graphic I am using here and more importantly, he has the highest WAR among batter in this SBLM season. He is also a versatile player, but makes the greatest contribution with his speed. 72.4% SB rate is skeptical, but a good coach can always tone down if he needs him to be more efficient. Like Fungo, he is a versatile player who don't need to depend on park to contribute. He will contribute at literally any park and since this dude is the GM of a major league team, he can control the park anyway so maybe my point is moot.

And again, as he is a GM, I don't need to talk about drafting him. He will be picking himself, 100%. I guess one great thing about a versatile build like him is that he can easily hedge into the thing he needs for next season and already have a good start to that thing. If he needs defense, he can train there to become an even better fielder; if he needs offense, he already has some fairly decent attributes to boot.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And that's all for now. I would cover the defensive wizards as there are some good one to pick but hey, GMs, do you own fucking homework!

Loved this article, makes me so excited for the draft

D R A F T H Y P E

this is tremendous. Nice write up!