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So, you were lucky enough to nab the first pick in your [tag]fantasy draft[/tag]. Good for you! Now, what do you do with it? I’m going to write this post with the assumption that you’re playing in a 5X5 mixed league.

There have been 6 names floating around in relation to the first pick in a draft like this.

• [tag]Albert Pujols[/tag]
• Ryan Howard
• ARod
• [tag]Alfonso Soriano[/tag]
• Johan Santana
• [tag]Jose Reyes[/tag]

Now, all 6 of these players are studs and worthy of “first pick in the draft” talk, but I’m only going to focus on three of these guy. The only three I consider to have first pick status are Pujols, Soriano and Reyes.

Lets start by looking at stats from the last three years:

Pujols

2004 - .331/.415/.657 46HR 5SB

2005 - .330/.430/.609 41HR 16SB

2006 - .331/.431/.671 49HR 7SB

Reyes

2004 - .255/.271/.373 2HR 19SB (Only 220 AB’s)

2005 - .273/.300/.386 7HR 60SB

2006 - .300/.354/.487 19HR 64SB

Soriano

2004 - .280/.324/.484 28HR 18SB

2005 - .268/.309/.512 36HR 30SB

2006 - .277/.351/.560 46HR 41SB

Pujols is the model of consistency here. You can see Reyes numbers growing and growing. Could he possibly get even better? Soriano might not help you average too much, but he’s going to produce in every other hitting category. Advantage here goes to Pujols.

Now let’s look at some projections for these guys for 2007:

Pujols

Bill James - .333/.431/.672 50HR 7SB

CHONE - .323/.424/.645 46HR 8SB

ZiPS - .320/.423/.643 48HR 9SB

Reyes

Bill James - .289/.333/.448 13HR 58SB

CHONE - .294/.343/.440 13HR 50SB

ZiPS - .296/.340/.462 16HR 58SB

Soriano

Bill James - .275/.331/.552 38HR 31SB

CHONE - .278/.335/.538 39HR 23SB

ZiPS - .265/.324/.498 36HR 27SB

These projections show me that Pujols is going to have another steller power year. Reyes is going to approach .300 with 50+ stolen bases. And Soriano is surely a 30/30 guy. Advantage, once again goes to Pujols.

So, by looking back to the past and into the future, Pujols seems to be the pick. And you can’t go wrong with him. Reyes is going to swipe 60. If his average rises above .300 and he can get his power numbers up, his stock will continue to rise. Soriano’s got power, tons of it. His old ballpark wasn’t exactly a hitters dream, but he still packed a lot of punch. What can he do in Wrigley?

Here’s how I’d rate them:

1. Pujols
2. Soriano
3. Reyes

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2007 at 10:01 am and is filed under Draft Strategy, Fantasy Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.