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I have pointed out some of the early ADP returns from Mock Draft Central a few times this off-season,but have not really focused on the expert mock draft results. The main reason for that is that they’ve only recorded seven expert mock drafts, and it is a safe guess that all of those were done for the different magazines or ezines that are currently on shelves, as mock drafts are a staple of draft guides.

However, a new expert mock draft has begun, being coordinated by the great guys of MLB.com’s Fantasy411 and including other participants such as my Tout Wars colleagues Todd Zola and Lawr Michaels, Ray Flowers from Sirius XM Fantasy, Jeff Erickson and Derek Van Riper from Rotowire, Eno Sarris (who writes more places than I do), Paul Sporer of RotoHardball, USA Today’s Steve Gardner, and Baseball Prospectus alums Joe Sheehan and Will Carroll.

Given that it has been nearly three weeks since the last of those seven expert mock drafts was run, I thought it would be interesting to compare those results to how this latest expert mock draft (which is now early into round 8) is going.

PLAYER

PREVIOUS 7 ADP

CURRENT DRAFT

DIFFERENCE

Matt Kemp

2

1

-1

Albert Pujols

2

2

0

Jose Bautista

3

6

3

Miguel Cabrera

4

3

-1

Troy Tulowitzki

6

4

-2

Adrian Gonzalez

8

17

9

Robinson Cano

8

5

-3

Joey Votto

9

7

-2

Jacoby Ellsbury

10

9

-1

Evan Longoria

10

11

1

Justin Upton

13

8

-5

Prince Fielder

13

12

-1

Carlos Gonzalez

13

10

-3

Hanley Ramirez

14

13

-1

Jose Reyes

16

16

0

Dustin Pedroia

18

14

-4

Curtis Granderson

19

18

-1

Justin Verlander

19

21

2

Ian Kinsler

20

15

-5

Roy Halladay

21

26

5

David Wright

23

27

4

Mark Teixeira

23

22

-1

Andrew McCutchen

24

20

-4

Mike Stanton

24

25

1

Ryan Braun

25

34

9

Clayton Kershaw

25

19

-6

Josh Hamilton

26

23

-3

Adrian Beltre

30

32

2

Ryan Zimmerman

31

24

-7

Carl Crawford

33

45

12

Carlos Santana

34

30

-4

Matt Holliday

36

28

-8

Tim Lincecum

37

50

13

Cliff Lee

37

31

-6

Jay Bruce

38

37

-1

Elvis Andrus

38

36

-2

Felix Hernandez

40

29

-11

Starlin Castro

40

47

7

Brian McCann

42

42

0

Dan Uggla

42

68

26

Alex Rodriguez

44

54

10

CC Sabathia

45

38

-7

Jered Weaver

46

46

0

Mike Napoli

46

33

-13

Brandon Phillips

47

59

12

Nelson Cruz

49

57

8

Rickie Weeks

51

62

11

Hunter Pence

52

4-

-12

Buster Posey

53

58

5

Eric Hosmer

54

56

2

Chase Utley

54

87

33

Michael Bourn

54

41

-13

Pablo Sandoval

55

41

-14

Cole Hamels

56

35

-21

Jimmy Rollins

58

72

14

Paul Konerko

58

73

15

Shane Victorino

59

74

15

Aramis Ramirez

59

88

29

Desmond Jennings

62

49

-13

Zack Greinke

62

69

7

Kevin Youkilis

62

48

-14

Dan Haren

63

66

3

Ben Zobrist

63

55

-8

Brett Lawrie

65

39

-26

Asdrubal Cabrera

67

77

10

David Price

68

44

-24

Alex Gordon

68

43

-25

Jon Lester

70

65

-5

Yovani Gallardo

73

84

11

Stephen Strasburg

73

61

-12

Shin-Soo Choo

74

52

-22

B.J. Upton

76

53

-23

Matt Cain

76

76

0

Matt Wieters

78

67

-11

Drew Stubbs

79

75

-4

Joe Mauer

80

71

-9

Mike Morse

83

91

8

Adam Jones

84

83

-1

Jason Heyward

85

63

-22

James Shields

87

64

-23

Brett Gardner

88

73

-15

Miguel Montero

88

78

-10

Corey Hart

89

90

1

Craig Kimbrel

90

60

-30

Lance Berkman

92

89

-3

Ichiro Suzuki

94

87

-7

Alex Avila

97

79

-18

Cameron Maybin

103

91

-12

Erick Aybar

110

81

-29

Mariano Rivera

116

80

-36

Jonathan Papelbon

121

82

-39

Drew Storen

125

70

-55

Joel Hanrahan

157

92

-65

Is it me or does this look a lot like the Hall of Fame voting process. None of these players have taken a single swing with a bat this off-season, but their ADP status has seen some rather wild swings. The five wildest all went to closers, as this group of experts clearly values closers more than previous ones. Craig Kimbrel, Mariano Rivera, Jonathan Papelbon, Drew Storen, and Joel Hanrahan have all been drafted anywhere from 30 to 65 spots head of where they went in the previous seven expert drafts.  Conversely, Chase Utley has seen his stock drop 33 spots, Aramis Ramirez 29 spots, and Dan Uggla 26 spots.

 In all, 16 of the 92 players drafted thus far have seen their ADP drop at least 10 spots in this draft, and most of them have been position players. Tim Lincecum and Yovani Gallardo were the only pitchers in that pool of 16 players to see their ADP drop while Alex Rodriguez, Asdrubal Cabrera, Rickie Weeks, Carl Crawford, Brandon Phillips, Jimmy Rolllins, Paul Konerko, Dan Uggla, Aramis Ramirez, and Chase Utley made up the rest. Interestingly enough, Crawford is the only player in that pool who has had any injury news come out since the last draft.

The early trend in this draft appears to be more attention being given to pitchers. Twenty-two pitchers have been taken so far, with 14 of them being grabbed above their ADP from the earlier expert drafts. David Price has seen the biggest jump of all starters, going 24 spots earlier. I took James Shields 23 spots earlier while Cole Hamels went 21 spots earlier.

It has been discussed a bit on Twitter how some of the early mock drafting in both mainstream and expert leagues is trending toward an emphasis on starting pitching. So far, that is how this draft is playing out. I will do another story next week once this draft is over to see how that trend held up.

Thank you for reading

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acmcdowell
1/24
The difference column is inconsistent. For example, Felix Hernandez has gone from 40 to 29, and is listed as -11. Carl Crawford, on the other hand, went from 33 to 45, but is listed as -12.
derekcarty
1/24
Thanks for the catch. Crawford's sign was wrong. Everyone else is correct.
davinhbrown
1/25
the obvious question is where else does Collette write?
moonlightj
1/25
SBNation covering the Rays & the University of Central Florida Rotowire, & I help throughout the college football season at fantasycollegeblitz.com
moonlightj
1/25
should be a comma there after UCF :)