Strat-O-Matic Baseball 365

too bad that we cannot trade draft picks in live drafts.... it would make it even funnier and more realistic... tonight i have trhe 3rd pick in the 250M$ saturday night live draw... i would gladly go down a couple of ranks because the player i am seeking should satay available until the 8-10 picks range

So you grabbed Frank Thomas at #3, the domino effect of this was that Josh Gibson went 5th, Mickey Mantle 7th, and Rogers Hornsby 8th. All three of those guys are approximately as good offensively as Thomas, and can play a position competently.

Meanwhile, in the Friday night draft the night before I got Thomas at 21, and he often lasts longer than that. Because, you know what, DH's are cheap. You can usually get Kiner at about the 20-24 range, Beckwith in the 4th round, Hack Wilson in the 6th. And if you're like me you just take what you can get as a DH - often with a platoon of delGado or Stargell and some random RH bat.

It's really silly to go into a live draft with a preconceived notion of what kind of team you want. You have to grab marquee talents until they are gone. And no sensible evaluation of Thomas makes him a more desirable player than Gibson, Hornsby, Mantle, Foxx, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Charleston, Gehrig, or a few others. I'd say that, off-hand, you made a horrible mistake grabbing Thomas - Kiner got drafted in the 3rd round, shortly after you grabbed Cobb. You could have had Mantle in CF and Kiner at DH instead of whatever you're doing out in CF now.