It's Draft Day

Mock Draft 5.0

It's finally the day we have all waited for!

1. Houston: Khalil Mack (Previously: Mack)


2. St. Louis: Sammy Watkins (Clowney)


3. Jacksonville: Jadeveon Clowney (Robinson)


4. Cleveland: Greg Robinson (Watkins)


5. Oakland: Mike Evans (Evans)


6. Atlanta: Jake Matthews (Mosley)


7. Tampa Bay: Blake Bortles (Bortles)


8. Minnesota: Teddy Bridgewater (Bridgewater)


9. Buffalo: Eric Ebron (Ebron)


10. Detroit: Darqueze Dennard (Lewan)


11. Tennessee: Aaron Donald (Dennard)


12. New York Giants: Taylor Lewan (Matthews)


13. St. Louis: Odell Beckham Jr. (Beckham Jr.)


14. Chicago: Justin Gilbert (Gilbert)


15. Pittsburgh: Zack Martin (Donald)

16. Dallas: Johnny Manziel (Manziel)


17. Baltimore: Ha Ha Clinton Dix (Clinton Dix)


18. New York Jets: Brandin Cooks (Cooks)


19. Miami: Ryan Shazier (Shazier)

20. Arizona: Derek Carr (Carr)


21. Green Bay: CJ Mosley (Martin)

22. Philadelphia: Cody Latimer (Latimer)


23. Kansas City: Marquise Lee (Lee)


24. Cincinnati: Kyle Fuller (Roby)


25. San Diego: Bradley Roby (Fuller)


26. Cleveland: Anthony Barr (Jean-Baptiste)


27: New Orleans: Calvin Pryor (Pryor)


28. Carolina: Kelvin Benjamin (Benjamin)

29. New England: Kyle Van Noy (Van Noy)

30. San Francisco: Morgan Moses (Kouandijo)


31. Denver: Xavier Su' a-filo (Barr)


32. Seattle: Davante Adams (Adams)

Mock Draft 4.0

It's finally draft week... feels like its taken 2 years and about 100 mock drafts to get to today. This will be my last mock draft until Thursday which will be posted right before the actual draft begins. A little different format today, as opposed to having blurbs on every player, it will simply be teams and names. 

1. Houston: Khalil Mack (Previously: Clowney)


2. St. Louis: Jadeveon Clowney (Robinson)


3. Jacksonville: Greg Robinson (Bortles)


4. Cleveland: Sammy Watkins (Watkins)


5. Oakland: Mike Evans (Evans)


6. Atlanta: CJ Mosley (Mack)


7. Tampa Bay: Blake Bortles (Lewan)


8. Minnesota: Teddy Bridgewater (Bridgewater)


9. Buffalo: Eric Ebron (Ebron)


10. Detroit: Taylor Lewan (Matthews)


11. Tennessee: Darqueze Dennard (Mosley)


12. New York Giants: Jake Matthews (Martin)


13. St. Louis: Odell Beckham Jr. (Beckham Jr.)


14. Chicago: Justin Gilbert (Dennard)


15. Pittsburgh: Aaron Donald (Donald)

16. Dallas: Johnny Manziel (Manziel)


17. Baltimore: Ha Ha Clinton Dix (Clinton Dix)


18. New York Jets: Brandin Cooks (Cooks)


19. Miami: Ryan Shazier (Shazier)

20. Arizona: Derek Carr (Carr)


21. Green Bay: Zach Martin (Gilbert)


22. Philadelphia: Cody Latimer (Latimer)


23. Kansas City: Marquise Lee (Lee)


24. Cincinnati: Kyle Fuller (Roby)


25. San Diego: Bradley Roby (Fuller)


26. Cleveland: Stanley Jean-Baptiste (Verrett)


27: New Orleans: Calvin Pryor (Pryor)


28. Carolina: Kelvin Benjamin (Benjamin)

29. New England: Kyle Van Noy (Van Noy)

30. San Francisco: Morgan Moses (Kouandijo)


31. Denver: Anthony Barr (Barr)


32. Seattle: Davante Adams (Adams)

Only 3 more days....

Stop The Joey Votto Ignorance

Daily, heck even hourly, people can be heard saying that Joey Votto is "not playing like a guy making 20 million a year". Well, first off that statement makes zero sense because Votto is not getting paid 20 million a year, in fact he's not even close. This may be why this senseless argument is so annoying, quite often people debate Votto with misled facts and outrageous standards.

Typically, when asked what fans think Votto's stat line should be to back up his contract, fans will respond with something along the lines of, "I want the guy that earned the big money. He should be hitting 30 homers, driving in 100 runs and batting .300 for that kind of money."

The total number of times since 2010 in which a National League player has hit 30 homers, drove in 100 runs and batted .300?

7. The answer is 7, and one of those guys is Joey Votto. Let's put that in perspective and assume that each team has on average, completely a guess on this number but seems logical, 17 position players play per year throughout the season. There are 15 National League baseball teams. So, if we do some quick math that is 255 position players each season and since we looked back since 2010 that means that we looked at 4 seasons which would give us a grand total of 1,020 position players who have played in the NL since 2010. This 1,020 position players are not all unique but each season the same player is counted as 1 per season. This tells us that out of the 1,020 opportunities to hit .300 with 30 HR and 100 RBI it has been accomplished .007 percent of the time.

For those of us that are not good at math or understanding what this means, it means that to expect that stat line is not only expecting a lot from a player, it's expecting something that nearly never happens.

The next argument is that guys making money similar to Joey Votto produce at a higher level. This again is untrue. Let's take a look at the stat lines of guys that Joey Votto should be compared to considering his quality of play.

Joey Votto: .280 Batting Average .438 OBP  4 Home Runs 10 Runs Batted In  12 Million Salary

Andrew McCutchen: .286 BA  .408 OBP  4 HR  14 RBI                7.25 Million Salary
Robinson Cano:         .296 BA  .346 OBP  1 HR  12 RBI                24 Million Salary
Miguel Cabrera:        .277 BA  .320 OBP   2 HR  15 RBI               22 Million Salary
Joe Mauer:                .276 BA   .388 OBP  1 HR   6 RBI                 23 Million Salary
Prince Fielder:          .206 BA    .331 OBP  2 HR   9 RBI                24 Million Salary
Buster Posey:           .264 BA    .350 OBP   6 HR   13 RBI             12.5 Million Salary
Albert Pujols:           .279 BA     .341OBP    9 HR   23 RBI            23 Million Salary


Where does Votto rank amongst these 8 players?

Salary: 7th
Batting Average: 3rd
On Base Percentage: 1st
Home Runs: 3rd
Runs Batted In: 6th


Your move Mr. Votto is a terrible player guy.

Thrice is Nice

1. That is a bad loss. Will the Reds beat every team that they are better than in every game that they play? No, but they can not afford to lose games like they did last night. While watching the game last night, I actually said to myself that we looked like we were the Cubs. Right about the time that Joey Votto made an error on an easy play, it started to look like we were the team from the Windy City. This team has the opportunity to still be a very good team, but there just seems to be a overwhelming sense of frustration and pressing from this ball club. Everyone seems very tight and nervous about not being able to make the play that they should make.

2. A must win series in May? It never means anything good if you are in a must win series before the calendar even reads June, but that is exactly where the Reds find themselves. Coming into the four game series at 12-15 and 7.5 games back, the Reds must take no less than 3 of 4 against the Brew Crew this weekend and that will be no easy task. The Brewers enter with an 11-2 record on the road this season while the Reds have fallen under .500 at home. If the Reds can take 3, then they still sit at 5.5 games back but with momentum and the mindset that they have beat the hottest team in major league baseball. The difference between 5.5 and 9.5 behind is not impossible to overcome in May, but it certainly isn't easy.

3. So what happens? Call me the ultimate optimist but I think Homer Bailey comes out with his best game of the season on the biggest night and gives the Reds 7 much needed innings of 1 run baseball and collects the win. The Brewers will even up the series on Friday, but no projections how because if the Reds don't win then who cares. The Reds will take the weekend and win both Saturday and Sunday behind strong pitching from Johnny Cueto and Alfredo Simon. That's a 3-1 series win and momentum heading in to Boston.