First Rounders, Attempt #1

I haven't actually done any projections yet, but I thought it might be worthwhile to give some thoughts on what the first round of the draft should look like. I'm sure my first rounders will change in the coming months, but let's use this as a starting point.

First, let's look at what's happened in a couple "experts" mock drafts.

Over at Fantasy Gameday, the first round looked like this:

1. Alex Rodriguez
2. Hanley Ramirez
3. Chase Utley
4. Jose Reyes
5. Albert Pujols
6. Prince Fielder
7. David Wright
8. Matt Holliday
9. Jimmy Rollins
10. Ryan Howard
11. Miguel Cabrera
12. Alfonso Soriano

Thoughts:

• I love Chase Utley, but 3rd overall? Ahead of Reyes and Pujols? I don't know about that.
• Fielder and Howard put up pretty similar stats. How are we going to choose between the two?
• It seems that Cabrera trails behind Wright, probably due to the lack of steals.

Meanwhile, at Mock Draft Central, the order went like this:

1. Hanley Ramirez
2. Alex Rodriguez
3. Albert Pujols
4. Jose Reyes
5. David Wright
6. Matt Holliday
7. Ryan Howard
8. Chase Utley
9. Jimmy Rollins
10. Miguel Cabrera
11. Prince Fielder
12. Vladimir Guerrero

Thoughts:

• Ramirez #1 over A-Rod. Very interesting. He will steal a lot more bases than A-Rod and still has power, so it's certainly defensible.
• This time Howard went four spots ahead of Fielder! I'm going to have to analyze these two guys more closely and come up with an answer to this situation.
• Guerrero instead of Soriano with that last pick. Not sure I agree with that.

With that, here is my initial first round projection:

1. Alex Rodriguez
2. Hanley Ramirez
3. Jose Reyes
4. Albert Pujols
5. Chase Utley
6. David Wright
7. Jimmy Rollins
8. Matt Holliday
9. Miguel Cabrera
10. Ryan Howard
11. Prince Fielder
12. Carl Crawford