You know there’s a touch of baseball geek in you when the idea of drafting players in the 400-800 range sounds like a good time. Heading into the second half of this draft, Paul and I kept to our basic strategy of looking for the best values while keeping our team young as often as possible. You can find a recap of our fist 20 picks here. It was in these later rounds that we had to flesh out our starting roster before the player pool got too thin. At certain picks it was a struggle to find major league playing time. When it was all said and done we were still able to find some nice values and considering we didn’t sweat pitching in this draft (especially relievers), we were happy with the arms we ended up with. To the picks…

21.401 Alen Hanson

22.440 Gordon Beckham

23.441 Garrett Richards

We consider the Hanson pick to be a great value. Not only is he ranked about 80 spots higher in Bret’s TDG 500, but he’s still the talented shortstop prospect he was a year ago. While his power and average fell, his legs still work (30 SB) and he hit for solid average/pop from the left side of the plate. I went over his stock in more detail at the new ROTOscouting.com. Hanson fits right in with our team of shortstop prospects and bounce-back candidates. Gordon Beckham may eventually give way to Marcus Semien, but for our middle infield slot this year he’s a solid option at this point in the draft. The White Sox have an improved lineup and at 28 years old, Beckham is only one year removed from a 16-homer season. Garrett Richards has a lot of the qualities we are looking for in one of our later pitching picks – improving strikeout and walk rates, a ground ball rate north of 50%, and an age (25) that will hopefully help him hold his value for more than just the 2014 season.

24.480 Braden Shipley

25.481 Seth Smith

26.520 Jarred Cosart

We decided to roll the dice on a pitching prospect with this pick and chose Braden Shipley. Shipley was actually a college shortstop who seems to have made the switch to pitching pretty smoothly in the Diamondbacks organization. He’s made only 12 starts at this point in his career, but he could end up in Double-A later in 2014 and already has three good pitches in his arsenal. Filling our last starting outfield slot is Seth Smith. Nothing sexy here, just going for guys who will get some at-bats. We figured Smith would see enough playing time in the early part of the season with Maybin shelved and not a lot of better options in that Padres right field at the moment. Filling our last outfield slot at this point in the draft was like being last in line at the salad bar, sifting through the last few pieces of that weird red lettuce and hoping nobody sneezed in our vinaigrette. Jarred Cosart’s K:BB ratio from 2013 was awfully scary, but 23-year-old pitchers who still had some upside weren’t easy to find. His strikeout and walk numbers were better in the minors, and we think with some adjustments he can get both trending the right direction in the majors. Paul and I are both Philly guys, so Cosart is still in our memory banks from his days as a prospect in the Phils’ system.

27.521 Dorssys Paulino

28.560 Grant Green

29.561 Carlos Carrasco

30.600 Bruce Rondon

Another pick, another shortstop prospect. Paulino is a personal favorite of mine in the Indians’ system and while he might get dealt or moved off of his position, in our minds he was one of the best prospects on the board at this pick. It’s hard not to like a guy that hit .333 with a .938 OPS and 11 stolen bases in 56 games as a 17-year-old. He’ll be 19 for the 2014 season and while this pick is a little risky, sometimes you just have to get your guys. Grant Green fills our last offensive slot on the major league roster. On a good Angels team he could see playing time all around the infield and he had more youth and offensive upside than some of our other options. Carrasco may win the 5th spot in the rotation for the Tribe simply because he is the only one with no options left. He can buddy up with Cosart on our team since he was also a pitching prospect in the Phillies’ system at one time. He keeps the ball on the ground and while he doesn’t have huge swing and miss stuff he could be a sneaky value at this point in the draft. Obviously we didn’t really care about relievers, so finding a talented young reliever like Rondon this late made us happy. He may even find himself closing games as soon as this year, at which point we will probably trade his ass.

Mike’s on Twitter @643ball