How do YOU prep?

[Black Sox]

Just wondering if anyone wanted to share how they go about preparing for the new season. I like to ask this question every year since I've gotten some great idea's on how other people prepare for their drafts.

For me besides my custom ranks and tier set up since my leagues are all drafted online I like to do a ton of mock drafting. I've heard many people talk about having a 6th sense of how to react to different situations that arise during the draft. For me that 6th sense is aquired thru mock drafting. The trick is not to constantly lock on to indiviual players and to force yourself to comprise teams in different ways. As an example I really like to lock up 3B early but purposly passed on Longoria, Wright ( even though they were avaialble ) in recent mocks and looked to still draft a team that I would feel comfortable playing out. Also I like to rotate my starting draft position since picking early, middle or late in the round can completly change the players you target and who's likely available.

That's what I do, would love to hear from others on their methods since I'm always looking for any edge I can find!

[Andy]

I prepare a single player list, ranked by dollar value.

Positions are colour-coded.

Multi-position players are highlighted.

Players who I really, really like are highlighted.

Before this I'll have done a good bit of reading of quality stuff like Mastersball, Baseball Forecaster and Baseball Prospectus (always interested in their Pecota forecasts but their dollar valuations are horrible) as well as the ESPN stuff and similar to see what the mainstream people might be looking at.

I don't mock draft.

[Captain Hook]

The single most important thing to do leading up to making YOUR final lists for your drafts is to READ..........read all the articles here (Cactus League blog starts in two weeks); read other people's questions and answers (especially Todd's); read ALL the player news you can get from KFFL, Rotowire, Rotoworld - whomever you get your information from...don't forget MLB.com and ESPN.......any and all player information is helpful to give you more to distill.

Mock drafts can be an excellent use of time IF (capital I and capital F)
1) you are drafting against live people
2) the format is exactly the same as the league your are prepping for, and
3) you keep in mind this is just random view of some drafters thoughts
Mock drafts can be VERY valuable if the quality of the drafters can be qualified but this is pretty tough. Instead what many of the top players do is enter the cheap ($125) satellite leagues of either the NFBC (15 team mixed, 5X5) or WCOFB (14 team mixed, 5X5 but ten man pitching staffs which have to be 6SP, 2RP, 2FP, F being any). THAT list of players and where they were drafted is far more valuable than a hundred mock drafts.


I make my own rankings for all leagues, but for those national redraft leagues I would take Todd's latest H/P rankings and start at the top and say who would I take at
#1 - Pujols
#2 - if Pujols is gone, Hanley Ramirez
#3 - assuming first two gone X
#4 - rinse, repeat
just keep going down the list at least for the first fifteen because the first round is the only one that is independent.


Mark off TIERS in each list of position players but especially for SP, closers, and OF - in the heat of the moment in a draft you have to know what the alternatives are and at least in general ranges you should know what players are contributing to the hitting categories so when you are picking your fourth and fifth outfielders you can adjust if you need speed or power or even BA if your other targets are under control. If you don't know the "inventory" the contributions of the players available, HOW are you going to make those decisions?

So PREPARE hard - then confidently sit down at the draft table and.....HAVE FUN

[Black Sox]

Perry,

Thanks for the tips. Playing in lower $$ leagues to generate ADP's was one tip I forgot to include.

Made the mistake one year of not taking the time to rank out the first round just assumed I'd get one of the top guys I wanted since my ranks were vastly different than the norm and was caught off guard when a few other teams had me scrambling, swore I'd never let that happen again.

As for live vs computer - one advantage of having a couple computer teams in the room is that it stops sliders from happening. I think if the site ranks are acurate you get safe picks from the computer.