The first and most important thing you need to understand about any mock draft involving Fred Zinkie is that watching him assemble an initial roster is like watching a master chef cinch their apron and sharpen a knife, then seeing none of the actual food prep.
For Fred — perhaps more so than any other analyst in the fantasy industry — the draft is merely the first step on a road that ultimately leads to a very different roster (and probably a championship). He is our game’s greatest and most prolific trader.
Zinkie is a high-motor fantasy manager who will definitely pry away your team’s best players, yet leave you feeling great about the exchange. He’s ruthless. He is also bubbly and agreeable. The combination is devastating.
Honestly, Fred probably used our most recent Yahoo mock draft as an opportunity to set the rest of us up for some future fleecing in a league of actual consequence. Fred is a cunning manipulator. He sees around corners. I’m quite certain he maintains thick files on each of his industry colleagues — opposition research compiled over many years, revealing tendencies and weaknesses.
Fred is every fantasy shark’s favorite shark.
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And again, you can never assume Fred’s end-of-season roster will bear any resemblance to the squad he drafts in the spring. At some level, it’s silly to evaluate any Zinkie team in February or March.
But Dalton Del Don? Well, that’s another matter entirely.
Plenty of wild things can happen when Dalton is in your fantasy league, but a trade involving his squad is not among them. The last time Del Don clicked “accept” on a trade offer was never. He has been drafting and managing fantasy rosters for the better part of two decades and has yet to find a deal to his liking.
This is a reflection not only of the cautiousness and timidity with which Dalton moves through life, but also his absolute conviction about every fantasy pick he has ever made. Del Don is going to get his guys in a draft, then cling tightly to them for the next seven months. If you’ve seen his roster in March, you know exactly what it’s gonna look like in September.
As for Scott Pianowski and myself, we fall somewhere in between Fred’s frenetic transactional alchemy and Dalton’s extreme inflexibility on the fantasy management spectrum. We are each active on the waiver wire in-season and we are certainly willing traders, though neither of us has reached Zinkie’s tier in terms of lifetime trade winning percentage. Fred is truly the Edwin Moses of fantasy dealmaking — undefeated and unchallenged.
[Fantasy Baseball Draft Rankings: C | 1B | 2B | 3B | SS | OF | SP | RP]
Any roster drafted by either Scott or myself will typically remain recognizable as our team throughout the season. He and I will invariably finish among the league leaders in total transactions, but our foundational drafted players are likely to remain on our squads.
We mention the varied management habits of the Yahoo team as preamble today because it’s important you understand the following:
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When Fred drafts a player in a mock, it’s just another trade chip — Zinkie’s level of commitment to said player is nil;
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When Dalton selects a player in a mock, it is an eternal blood oath;
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When Scott or Andy drafts a guy, it represents mild but non-trivial interest.
Again, it’s essential that you review the mock results below with these facts in mind. You can’t interpret the mock without first understanding the managers.
Last week, over the course of several days, the four of us participated in a 12-team mock exercise, each drafting three rosters via shared spreadsheet and a massive email thread. Obviously this was a nightmare to manage and track. Would not recommend. We’re never doing it that way again.
Lesser fantasy experts would have definitely abandoned the project by the second day, but we four persisted through 23 grueling rounds.
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Fred drafted teams “Eric Gagne for the Win”, “Matt Stairscase to Heaven” and “Down by the Jason Bay”
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Dalton drafted teams “Keeping it Clase”, “A battle of Witts” and “I’ll be the Judge”
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Scott drafted teams “Scoreless in Seattle”, “Peanut Butter” and “Elly and Ezequiel 25/17”
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I drafted “Vlad and the Impalers”, “Schwarberry Shortcake” and “Things I Hate About Yu”
Behold, the full results:
The Yankees upended our mock while it was in progress
We’d been drafting for five days and had completed 15 full rounds when, on Friday, the New York Yankees abruptly announced they were amending their ridiculous and anachronistic policy on facial hair. It should go without saying that of course we would have drafted a bearded version of Gerrit Cole earlier than the sixth round.
And yes, Anthony Volpe would have been taken well before the 11th if we’d known he wouldn’t look like a toddler.
And obviously Devin Williams should jump to the top of the relief pitcher ranks now that he is once again allowed to conceal his unfortunate chin.
Basically, the grooming news hit us like a shockwave after our first 180 picks were already locked in. When we reconvene for the next mock, all Yankees should get a boost, barring any truly regrettable facial hair decisions.
Last year’s top rookies were pricey, this year’s were dirt cheap
As a group, we are pretty clearly not anticipating sophomore season nosedives from last year’s rookie class (with one notable exception).
Paul Skenes, Jackson Chourio and Jackson Merrill were all selected inside the top 25 overall picks, and by three different drafters. Wyatt Langford was off the board early in the fourth, Mason Miller in the fifth, then a flurry of second-year players landed in the sixth (Junior Caminero, James Wood, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Spencer Schwellenbach).
Luis Gil was really the only breakout rookie from 2024 who hasn’t earned our complete trust moving forward. He went undrafted until Round 17 — and his slide continued even after his mustache/beard outlook improved, so you know we’re concerned. Gil’s monster season involved a fair amount of good fortune (.237 BABIP, 4.36 xFIP) and his walk rate is a huge worry (4.57 BB/9). There’s a fair chance that Gil will develop as a WHIP-wrecking fantasy starter.
None of us took big swings on the incoming rookie class, curiously enough. Roki Sasaki, Dylan Crews and Jasson Dominguez were selected within 11 picks of each other, but not until the draft entered the 12th round. It would be fairly shocking if no rookie delivered top-120 fantasy value in 2025, so, as is often the case, prospects should again offer the greatest profit potential.
The closer run hit in the fifth round
The timing might be slightly different in your upcoming drafts, but a closer run is pretty much inevitable at some point in all leagues. Dalton opened our fifth round with Emmanuel Clase, Josh Hader and Williams, then I closed it with Edwin Díaz, Andres Muñoz and Miller. Tip of the cap to Del Don for triggering the run. As a general rule, it’s best to be the manager who gets it started, not one of the many forced to chase.
We will remind you that in a typical season, initial closers across the league will earn only 50% of all total saves. It’s perfectly fine if your fantasy bullpen is unfinished on draft day, because new sources for saves are guaranteed to appear on the wire throughout the year.
We each took a different approach to starting pitchers — and my method was obviously best
You simply could not pay me to draft a starting pitcher in the single-digit rounds, even in a mock.
(OK, well, we could probably arrive at some number that I would consider fair compensation for selecting a starter in an inappropriate round, but it would have to exceed the league fee. I would be violating my brand and my guiding fantasy principles. Early pitching is the road to despair and ruin.)
Each of my three teams waited until the 11th round to select a starter, and each of them came away with an abundance of pitching upside. Every starting pitcher in the player pool presents a high level of injury risk, and, in the current era, none of them has any chance to deliver a substantial innings total. Last season, only four pitchers topped 200 innings. Over the past eight years, just three individual pitchers have reached 220 IP.
According to Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster, pitchers accounted for an outrageous 74% of total IL days in 2024, up from 63% in 2019. Fewer innings for starting pitchers has certainly not resulted in fewer days lost to injury. Again, you cannot hoard these guys in the early rounds and expect to win a competitive league.
Also, please note that neither of the consensus top-two starters in fantasy baseball this season — Tarik Skubal and Skenes — demanded significant draft capital a year ago. In fact, Skenes was an early May free-agent pickup in thousands of leagues. Each year, high-end pitching talent emerges on the wire at various points in the season, so it’s rarely necessary (or advisable) to load up in your drafts.
There’s no penalty for being the last manager to draft a catcher
Default settings at Yahoo only require one starting catcher, because anything more would be un-fun and excessively cruel. We can assure you that every manager in a 10- or 12-team fantasy league is going to feel just fine about their choice at catcher, no matter the round in which it’s made.
Pianowski was our mock’s most disciplined drafter where this position was concerned, waiting until Round 21 to choose Shea Langeliers, Logan O’Hoppe and Tyler Stephenson as his three backstops. Last season, those three combined for 68 home runs, with none of them hitting fewer than 19. At least in terms of power and run production, that trio should be perfectly adequate in mixed fantasy leagues.
In one-catcher formats, you can afford to treat this position like the kicker spot on your fantasy football roster. Just wait until the closing rounds, then land one of the various, moderately interesting options.
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