Finishing it Off: The Late Rounds Apr 1, 2012 | More

Just to recap, at this point you have your infield set with four outfielders and two starting pitchers in tow.  You’re way ahead in every offensive category except for steals and have a good base to build your pitching staff from.  Over the next 10 rounds plan to take at least five pitchers, maybe six, three of which are closers.  Below are the tiers, and remember be careful not to overload with high WHIP pitchers

Tier 1 (rounds 11 through 13) – Cory Luebke, Shaun Marcum, Anibal Sanchez, Max Scherzer, Brandon Morrow

Tier 2 (rounds 14 through 17) – Justin Masterson, Jaime Garcia, Derek Holland

Make sure to have your third starting pitcher before this point!

Tier 3 (rounds 18-22) – Brandon McCarthy, Gavin Floyd, Mike Minor, Chris Sale, Jhouyls Chacin, Ryan Dempster, Chad Billingsley, Scott Baker,  John Danks

You must leave the above tier with five starting pitchers, preferably six but if you only leave with five you can make up for it with some extra late round fliers.  The exact number of starting pitchers you  want depends on the size of the league, but for our sakes we’re looking at rostering eight starting pitchers.  Good news, you shouldn’t have anjy trouble getting at least two of the guys below.

Late round fliers –Tim Stauffer,  Juan Nicasio, Henderson Alvarez, Tom Milone, Matt Harrison, Homer Bailey, Edinson Volquez, Jeff Samardzjia

Now, what about those pesky closers?  Well, see how light the pitching tiers are between rounds 11 and 17?  That’s when you pounce.  You must ensure three of the below and it must be just dumb luck but I was much lower on Joakim Soria, Ryan Madson, Chris Perez, and Drew Storn than most.  Hopefully my luck filters through the rest of these guys too!  I omitted the top tier (Craig Kimbrel, Jonathan Papelbon, Mariano Rivers, Jose Valverde, John Axford, Brian Wilson, and Heath Bell) but if any of them fall obviously take one of them first.

1.        Jason Motte

2.        Rafael Betancourt

3.        Sergio Santos

4.        JJ Putz

5.        Jordan Walden

6.        Joe Nathan

7.        Joel Hanrahan

8.        Brandon League

9.        Huston Street

10.    Carlos Marmol

11.    Andrew Bailey

12.    Grant Balfour

Hopefully you don’t have to worry about the rest of them and you just shore up three of the above.  It’ll vary draft-to-draft when you must take these guys, but from my experience to be safe you need to have all of them by round 15, 16 at the latest.

To put some names to the above, I’d be expecting to get Marcum or Sanchez from tiers 1 and 2, Floyd, Baker, and Minor from tier 3, and Nicasio, Alvarez, and Harrison from the fliers.  Concerning closers, League and Balfour are very likely to be two of them (sorry if you don’t get credit for their already converted saves) and one of Motte, Betancourt, Santos, or Walden to be the other.

 

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