Kept: The Jeff Kimball Story

Kept Players
Jonathan Papelbon (Round 14)
Shane Victorino (Round 16)
Scott Baker (Round 24)
Cliff Lee (Round 25)
Josh Johnson (Round 15)

Last Year’s Record: 16-8
Division: Winners
Season Result: Second place in Winners Division and clenched a Wild Card berth.

Keeper Decision Scale: 5.3/10

Kimball’s pitching heavy keeper decisions may prevent him from making the playoffs in the highly competitive Winners division. But then again, he’s Kimball, so who knows. But let’s start with where I agree with Kimball.

The Good:
Clearly, keeping Cliff Lee as a 25th round pick is a good decision. Even if Lee regresses (which he will), it will be difficult for him to regress to a point where he wouldn’t be worth the 25th round flyer. And if he puts together another Cy Young caliber year, he will have cemented his position as being the most valuable keeper in this draft. Yes, even more valuable than CC Sabathia.

In the 16th round, Shane Victorino is another nice value pick. Given the lineup he hits in and the value of stolen bases in our league, a healthy Victorino can only out-produce his draft status.

ESPN has Jonathan Papelbon as the top closer in fantasy baseball this season. So getting him in the 14th round is a nice deal for Kimball.

The Bad:
Kimball kept too much pitching. This is more of a philosophical difference than it is a terrible decision on Kimball’s part.

In my mind, pitching is one of the hardest things in baseball to project. There are only a select few pitchers one can say will have a dominating season, and those few should be the ones who ought to be kept.

As I stated above, the decisions to keep Lee and Papelbon made sense given their value and their previous high level of success.