(*) MASTER NOTES: LABR-Mixed draft recap

Earlier this week, Steve Gardner (Senior Fantasy Editor, USAToday Sports) hosted the 4th annual LABR-Mixed league draft. This is a 15-team, mixed 5x5 straight draft format. Last year, Gardner beat me out on the final day of the season to win the league by a half-point.

I drew the 9th pick in this year's draft order; you can view the full draft results here. I'm fairly happy with how this team shapes up. Rather than simply go through a pick-by-pick recap, here are five in-draft decision points that I faced, and my thought process behind them:

1. Adam Jones over Miguel Cabrera in round 1.

Cabrera ended up going at pick #10, and there is certainly the possibility that selection turns into a coup for Craig Glaser and Corey Schwartz from Bloomberg Sports. I opted for the ultra-reliable, low-risk selection of Adam Jones rather than take the Cabrera gamble. That decision was partially a function of the calendar: drafting in February, before players have even reported to spring training, it can be hard to properly assess risk. If this draft were held in mid-March and Cabrera seemed on track for Opening Day, the risk calculation would be different. Of course, in that scenario, Cabrera probably never falls to #9 in the first place. But with some seven weeks until Opening Day, there's enough risk in something unforeseen happening in spring training. Given that dynamic, I didn't feel the need to start this draft by rostering an already-known risk.

2. Starling Marte over Félix Hernández in round 2.

At BaseballHQ.com, we offer Average Draft Position from the National Fantasy Baseball Championship. According to that data, Félix Hernández's draft position has fallen between 7th and 22nd overall in every NFBC draft to date. As I wrote here a couple of weeks ago, I took him 15th in a draft myself. But in this draft, Hernandez was still available at my 2nd round pick, the 23rd overall. But I passed on him.

Why? Two reasons:

• As discussed in the previous article, in a league like LABR where there are pickups and trading in-season, I'm comfortable loading up on hitting early and managing the pitching staff in season.
• Toward that goal of loading up on hitting, I really wanted to land Starling Marte, who we have valued as a first-round talent but whose ADP falls toward the 3rd round. It was very questionable as to whether Marte would fall to my 3rd round pick. Again, being risk-averse, I elected to lock up Marte with the 2nd-round pick, and let Felix go by.

A Cabrera-Hernandez opening to my draft certainly would have been sexier, but I think the Jones/Marte path provides a more secure foundation.

3. Not taking an SP until round 7.

It wasn't a pre-determined plan to wait so long on SP. I would have entertained David Price in Rd. 3 (taken the pick before mine) or Jon Lester in Rd. 5 (two picks before). Then I nearly took Jeff Samardzija in Rd. 6, but was fortunate to get him a round later. After waiting so long for a pitcher, I came right back with Alex Wood in Rd. 8. The net of the Samardzija/Wood pair plus the high-strikeout closer David Robertson (Rd 5) should provide equivalent numbers to a Felix-like ace, plus a lesser closer and #2 starter, and I've got Starling Marte in my back pocket.

4. Jarrod Dyson in round 22.

With 6 bench spots and an unlimited DL, LABR is a pretty deep league. The unlimited DL removes any tough decisions about who to cut in a roster crunch: having a 6-man healthy bench at all times is a luxury. And one way to use that to my advantage is to tuck away Dyson, who of course has a very specific skill. He had 36 SB in 260 AB last year, but his lack of other counting stats make him a liability if you leave him in your lineup all season in search of those stolen bases. However, Dyson should have a few periods during the year when he plays more and provides clusters of SB. For instance, in July and August last year, he stole 19 of those 36 bases. If I can have Dyson active for some 8-10 weeks during the year and net 20 SB in those 10 weeks, that's enough to flip the SB category for me.

5. February drafting creates a lot of opportunity to throw darts at upside plays.

In last week's Master Notes segment, Ron Shandler spent some time admiring all of the gambles that were available for end-game picking. I got my fair share in the back half of this draft, focused on rebound candidates:

• Carlos Beltrán in Rd. 15
• Pedro Álvarez in Rd 18
• Mike Minor in Rd 21
• Clay Buchholz in Rd. 26
• Matt Moore in Rd. 27
• Mitch Moreland in Rd. 28

As we like to say, "one you display a skill, you own it," and these veterans have displayed some helpful skills in the not-too-distant past. We'll see if any of them can rediscover those skills in 2015.

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