OOTP Brewers: Fake League, Real Draft

I have a confession to make: I didn’t plan to write this article this week. The amateur draft kicks off Wednesday, as you can no doubt tell from Eric Longenhagen’s mock drafts and the rest of the staff’s complementary coverage. That made the topic for my next OOTP Brewers update obvious; preview OOTP’s amateur draft, and build a draft board for the Brewers.

Out Of The Park is an extremely faithful simulation of baseball, right down to the draft. This year, that even means real players; Spencer Torkelson, Asa Lacy, Nick Gonzales, and the rest of the gang are all available in-game, with attributes roughly based off of their college careers. What better way to bracket our draft coverage than by voting on our very own draft room?

There was one problem with my plan, however. Our OOTP league mirrors the season as it would have been before COVID-19, not the season as it actually is. That means the draft is also as it would have been; all the rounds, regular signing bonuses, and happening at its regularly scheduled time — last week. Whoops!

In any case, without the collective brain trust of FanGraphs readership, I had to formulate my own draft strategy. Our scouts really liked Reese Albert, an outfielder from Florida State. He has some Lorenzo Cain to him; plus speed, good approach at the plate, and the chance to stick at center field (though without Cain’s remarkable defense). In real life, Eric has him as a 35+ FV, which merits a position at the back end of the draft. In OOTP, our scouts have him as a 45, a talent level that puts him at the back end of the first round.

Sounds boring — except that his contract demands are quite low. With that in mind, I tapped him as our first round pick, leaving room to go over slot in the second round. His defensive value is decent — he has plus outfield range and an average arm, which would allow him to play second base if necessary as well. On offense, take a look at Albert’s scouting grades:

With the ability to go over the suggested price range in the second round, the board opened up significantly. Cole Henry, a draft-eligible sophomore from LSU, fell right into our laps. Like Albert, our scouts gave him a 45 potential grade, with four pitches that could be above average and enough stamina to stick in the rotation:

After that, our draft gets a little Cleveland-y; the Indians are known for taking young high schoolers, as their model prioritizes age, and Mario Zabala, a high school outfielder from Puerto Rico, fits the bill. He turned 18 on May 8, so there’s still plenty of room to speculate about what his eventual skillset will look like, but he’s one of the fastest players in the draft and for whatever reason our scouts love his batting eye:

In something of a theme, he might be a tough sign. OOTP has him asking for more than $1 million as a signing bonus, and the third round slot carries only $680,000 of value. Any money we can save on Albert will be useful here.

In the fourth round, we went off the real-life board; Nick Biddison, a sophomore at Virginia Tech, who shouldn’t actually be draft eligible this year. He looks legit, however; good batting statistics in his one-plus actual years of college competition, impressive scouting grades from our regional scout (though with only average accuracy, as he was far down our board), and one of the most well-rounded defensive skillsets you’ll ever see:

He’s not good at any of these positions, at least not yet. But if he can make any of them work, he’ll be a guy; a premium batting eye at an up-the-middle defensive position is something every team is looking for, and he’s rated at all four of those positions.

We made one more noteworthy pick, in the fifth round: Hayden Durke, another high schooler in the Indians mold. Durke recently turned 18, and in-game he has already committed to a junior college, which means we’ll have to bowl him over, relative to his signing slot, to get him into the organization. He’s far from the majors, of course, but his pitch mix could be starter-ish, he already sits 94-96, and his curveball is good enough that he looks like an excellent future reliever if starting doesn’t pan out:

This draft could be quite a coup for the Brewers. The scouting grades for this group are wild, when anchored to the real draft; two FV 45’s (both with high scouting accuracy, as we zoned in on them), six FV 40’s (Enrique Romero, Tyler Gentry, and William Sierra also fit the bill), and a chance, due to Albert’s $270,000 demand in a slot worth $3.99 million, to sign all of them. OOTP is heavier on 40 and 45 FV players than the real-life draft, so take that with a grain of salt, but it still sounds like quite the crop of players.

Of course, we’ll need to carefully prioritize how to spend our money. Take a look at each of our top five players’ slot values and contract demands:

In theory, we have enough money to sign everyone. In fact, Biddison has already signed in-game; he demanded an exactly-slot bonus, and we met his demands right away; how many 19-year-olds with a near-1.000 OPS in the ACC will you find, particularly ones who can play catcher, shortstop, and center field?

In any case, we have to negotiate with the rest of these guys. I don’t mind spending our entire remaining budget on the four unsigned players; pretty much everyone outside the top five rounds has already agreed to a deal, which appears to be a normal occurrence in OOTP. The first question, then, is which player is most indispensable. We have until August 3 to negotiate, but who should we engage first?

With that out of the way, there’s a more important question; who can we absolutely not afford to lose? The obvious answer here is Albert; he’s the key to our entire draft, as the slot savings will facilitate everyone else. Take that as a given; out of the remaining three players, who should we earmark our savings to in the event of a tough negotiation?

Last but not least, I have a quick vanity project. I’ve never actually done a draft in OOTP before; I came up with this plan after a series of mock drafts. OOTP veterans, how would you grade this draft, taking into account the fact that it’s done against humans rather than computers and subject to drafting 20th? I’m open to the idea that I did quite badly; I’m using the real-life draft as a baseline, but OOTP drafts might have a significantly higher ceiling.

In closing, let me apologize one last time; I would have loved to make this a live exercise, a perfect choose-your-own-adventure pairing for draft week. Circumstances, and my own forgetfulness, conspired against me. I hope that this ex-post examination of our draft is an acceptable substitute. I’ll be back on FanGraphs Live, tomorrow at noon ET, to go over the draft and plan our next moves with the major league team.