Improving your drafting

[Black Sox]

Todd,

You stated in your last blog how you worked hard to improve your drafting skills and it's something you feel you've succesfully improved. How did you go about improving, any tips you can provide on how to improve?

Thanks

[Todd Zola]

We'll be discussing this in site content, both free and subscription, but the biggest reason for my improvement has been to get away from static value and looking at things in terms of relative value.

What I mean by this is instead of saying "I won't take my first pitcher until round X", I say "I want a pitcher from this group" and I take one when that group is going.

The hardest part to wrap your head around is the thinking that if no one is taking pitching, a guy you figured to go in round 2 or 3 is available in round 4 or 5, and you HAVE to take him as he is now at value. WRONG. You take a pitcher later to bully up hitting. The reason pitchers are falling is everyone is bullying up hitting. So by taking a pitcher, you are falling behind in hitting. It is really hard to explain. But it is basically such that you can juxtapose a couple of rounds and the draft would have gone more like you figured.

The idea is to have a certain construct of team in mind and go with the flow to assemble it. You can pick the same 23 players in 2 different drafts, but maybe only 6 of them were taken in the same round. That's the idea anyway.

Bringing this over to your question about the CVRC -- I don't worry if I cannot match my values with how I think the draft will go (although you asked, I did it for you over there ). I am only concerned with RELATIVE VALUE. Value of a player at the same position and across positions. This leads to the tier drafting you mention in the CVRC thread so you have one key down.

[viper]

would you also look for moments in the draft when there are several consecutive rounds with minimal declining value of hitting. This would lead to looking for positions where concentrations of equal players exist in that single position. If you can ignore drafting that position while taking solid equivalent value in the active tier in other positions, you can force points of the draft where you can switch from hitting to pitching.

That was confusing but I think I know what I meant. Sort of strategic bullying.

[Kelly_Leak]

Will be trying my hand at my first NFBC satellite league this year and have really found both Todd's and Viper's comments on drafting very helpful as I prepare.

Todd and/or Viper, do either of you track category goals during the draft? Maybe not hard and fast numbers, but, for example, do you have a general idea of how many projected SBs you would like to have at the end of the draft? What kind of targets would you set for yourself in a 5x5 15 team mixed league?

[lawr]

i confess that i am much stronger at auctions than drafts. but, there are a lot more variables, and the opportunity for control in an auction that are not present in a straight snake draft.

that said, i also believe it is pretty hard to blow it the first three rounds. and, while arod or albert might easily be a #1 pick, i do believe, once the obvious top guys are gone, in going scarcity. i like utley, for example as a first rounder (even though second is pretty well loaded).

and, i do like for example if i am on the wheel, and the fourth or fifth round comes, taking two people back-to-back at the same spot, especially closers.

because there are two aspects to approaching such a draft. the first is targeting guys i want (or more appropriate will fit my team makeup and be successful). the second, which is hard to pull off, is causing as much disruption and chaos to the plans of my opponents as i can.

therefore, starting a run of players, like closers, can do that. and, taking nathan and papelbon as the say 4th anf 5th picks is not so bad. because it:

gives you a solid grip on the saves catagory
pulls the top two closers off the board
makes everyone else rethink their closer position
takes care of drafting that spot for you for arguably the rest of the draft.

i also think it is ok to be fearless with your picks. if you think neftali feliz will really be an impact player, or julio borbon, and everyone is targeting guys like that around the sixth or seventh round, take them earlier (not like in the third, as you have to be pragmatic and realistic). in that same vein, do be realistic in what you project for a player, eg, i never target anyone to hit 40 homers or hit .300 or win 20 games no matter who they are or what they did before.

the final thing is to stay flexible. there are a lot of players. even in a 15 team snake, there is always a full team of guys left over who would have made a competitive agregate team, and there are plenty of ways to compensate for mistakes, at least early on in the season.

but, the more ways you can juggle and shift players around in your cheat sheets, and rotate them in and around your lineup, the better off you will be. the more options usually equates to the best choices. and, boxing yourself in with what you need or who you want is generally a prescription for disaster.

lawr

[viper]

Todd and/or Viper, do either of you track category goals during the draft? Maybe not hard and fast numbers, but, for example, do you have a general idea of how many projected SBs you would like to have at the end of the draft? What kind of targets would you set for yourself in a 5x5 15 team mixed league?

I do set some simple targets. My method is a bit complicated but essentially I want to be over the projections I draft from by at least 5% but hopefully 10%. After I create my lists, I take what I feel are the best 210 players. Using HRs & SBs as examples and also using the 1/16 CVRC with my weighting [I only upped BA from Todd's defaults], those 210 players averaged 18.3 HRs and 10.5 SBs. After all this precision, I now go to approximations. First I add about 10% to the player average. This would make HRs at 20ish. For SBs I would use 11 or 12. I assign a value to HRs based on +/- 5 from the target. To wit:

+3 = 55-46
+2 = 45-36
+1 = 35-26
0 = 25-16
-1 = 15-6
-2 = 5-0

If I draft Fielder, I put a +2 in the HR column and have a +2 total.
If my next selection is Jeter, put put a -1 in the column and get a +1 total.
And so it goes.

At the end of the draft I want to be zero or positive. I only do this for HRs, SBs and BA. I, correctly or not, figure RBIs and Rs will take care of themselves. Also, tracking too much takes too much effort. Realize I'm a paper and pencil type drafter and don't have a computer with me. A partial reason is two of my four local auction leagues have a rule prohibiting a computer except for the person recording selections.

I use my projections to determine targets because I believe that last year's results are not what you should be drafting against. Consider the fact that every time a player is injured he is replaced by a replacement player. Prior years numbers are all impacted by these replacements. Trust your projections and draft against those projections. Face it, after the draft, you normally run some type of projected final standings [START]. You run it against your own personal projections. With 15 people using 15 different projections, you can have 15 winners. But come early April, the exit polls mean very little.

[Todd Zola]

First off I want to applaud Lawr for recognizing there is a difference between a draft and an auction and admitting he is stronger in one over the other. I not so humbly believe a great deal of my industry brethren do not give drafts the respect they deserve, both in terms of the advice offered and the preparation and manner they approach their own drafts. But that's a story for another blog, I mean day.

Viper unknowingly touched on a couple of points I have been jockeying around in the ever-shrinking mass known as my grey matter.

Yes, i believe in target drafting and many credit me with being the first to really talk about it -- not invent it, but talk about it in the archived Winning Tendencies essay, coming soon to a web site near you.

Lately, I have been less married to "hitting my target" and more concerned with using them as a means to attain balance.

Recently, it has struck me why, in a quantitative sense. This whole conundrum revolves around the fact that if I have done 100 drafts the past 5 years, I have hit my targets in about 100 of them. These targets are usually 80% of the maximum points in each category. And while I am not 100-0, I am not 0-100 either. But the number of championships is closer to 0 than 100. Why?

I believe we are not considering 2 factors with respect to setting targets, both of which Viper referenced.

1. Projection bias. My hangup is determining a means to quantify the bias. Is it 5%? 10% 30% I don't know. And truth be told, the bias is almost always a difference in playing time.

2. The draft is only the beginning. First, especially with pitching, but with hitting as well this season in the NFBC, you can MANAGE your team into more points by playing matchups with your reserve. Second, you will likely replace a couple of players you started the first week with players you get as free agents or drafted as reserves. Third, there are some players that are going to miss time, you just know it. This is factored into their "value" and they are drafted accordingly. But who is more valuable? Chipper Jones, or another third baseman who is going to put up the exact same stats in 155 games? Chipper is, because you get to replace him when he inevitably gets hurt. And if he DOESN'T get hurt, he will produce MORE than you paid for. Your draft day totals do not reflect these additional stats. And finally, a player you DID NOT expect to get hurt will, and you will have to replace him, likely at a loss.

Other than that last injury point, everything discussed will lead to adding stats that are not accounted for at the original auction. Unexpectedly losing a player obviously costs you stats, or else you would have already had the better player in your lineup.

By looking at a bunch of drafts and seeing how teams end up, it is probable that we can quantify how many stats are gained during the season. Will this balance the projection bias, bringing us back to just using the historical standings? I'm not so sure.

So for now, my use of targets will remain as a means of balancing HR versus SB and making sure I have ample strikeouts from my staff.

I will say this. Shawn Childs has some sage advice when it comes to drafting. For those not familiar with Shawn, he is the EF Hutton of the NFBC. When Shawn speaks, people listen. His mantra is drafting 75 HR and 75 SB with your first 3 picks, keeping in mind this is for a 15-team mixed league. And his success speaks for itself. That said, I believe the 75/75 ratio is IDEAL, but the looser goal should be 150 HR+SB, assuming your HR>SB. If you exit the 3rd round with 85 HR and 65 SB, you'll be just fine.

What this means is it is best to avoid players early whose primary contribution is batting average. Someone like Dustin Pedroia or, dare I say it, Joe Mauer. You will need to take Pedroia in the 2nd round, meaning you will need about 60 HR and 60 SB to make your mark with your first and third picks. That will be hard to do. Granted, the concept is if you have Pedroia, you can afford to take an Adam Dunn to catch up in HR or a speedster with a lower average to catch up in steals, but in a DRAFT, there is no assurance they will be available for you as you are at the mercy of your fellow combatants. Actually, there is a BETTER chance you can pick up a Placido Polanco or AJ Pierzynski to make up BA points than rely on a low BA, high counting stat guy to be there for you.

[gesucks]

Todd-for the reasons you just mentioned I believe Pedroia will drop to the 3rd round-we will see soon enough-good luck with the family.

[lawr]

i love dped. i had him two years ago, seriously undervalued and he delivered.

that said, i don't think he really is a top three pick, because he has to always nail every category as he did in 2008 to get there.

he does not have 30 homer or steal capabilities, and that means you are principly drafting him for average, and ideally runs, hoping he will deliver 15 homers and 20 swipes and 75 RBI.

which he can do, but for better or worse, that is his upper limit.

meaning, if you take him as a top three, he has give you an MVP year to justify the investment. and if he didn't, you essentially overpaid the play in taking him that early.

again, i really love the guy. he is kind of like former sox wade boggs, another guy who could hit and play and do everything on the field, but it did not always translate to fantasy exactly.

i like utley way better, and though he is brittle, kinsler as well before i like dped.

essentially pedroia as a fantasy pick is kind of equivilant to ODawg, whom i also like a lot (though he is getting older but whom at peak was maybe a fifth or six rounder).

part of what is really critical in drafting (or auctions) is, as noted, attainable goals. if all your picks have to have their career year to get you a title, you will probably be disappointed.

it is getting the underappreciated guys undervalued that peform that trick.

but, i would rather have adam dunn and mark ellis taken later, and fill those early slots with pitchers and outfielders than take dped and morneau/gonzalez (and someone) within the first three rounds and scramble for arms later. even with pujols first, dped has to really jack it out pretty much every day.

at least i think it is a better route.

[Todd Zola]

I have no qualms about buying Pedroia in an auction as I then have control over how I build around him.

[Todd Zola]

Todd-for the reasons you just mentioned I believe Pedroia will drop to the 3rd round-we will see soon enough-good luck with the family.

Hmm, looks you're right. His present ADP is about 38. I thought it was sooner. I think the positional scarcity drafter might swoop in the second round. I'd rather take Brandon Phillips in the second.

I'm doing an NFBC style draft right now and took Utley, Votto and Youkilis with my first 3. My numbers have that at 84 HR and 38 SB so I am obviously below the 150 target. But I feel as though I do have some batting average cushion with that troika and have not yet filled any outfield spot and I think there are some viable SB options to help me catch up later, even if it means taking a "Judy", another Shawn-ism. I am finding that in rounds 4-7, outfielders are littering the top of my rankings, some with 2nd and 3rd round value so having all 5 slots available will allow me to make up for the short speed after 3 rounds.

FWIW, these are the sort of drafting nuances it took me a while to learn. Lawr is right, in a vacuum it is really hard to take 3 bad baseball players with your first 3 picks. But the right combination can certainly open the door for some value picks later.

[lawr]

totally agreed, although again, spending much more than $20 pushes the limit. but, that is one of the advantages of the auction, don't you think?

targets and parameters are pretty much the same as with a draft, but, the variables to assembling the puzzle pieces that make up a team are so varied with an auction (because ideally any owner can obtain the rights to any player) that you can work around a dped pick, even at max value, and make it work.

[deansdaddy]

Regarding Pedroia current ADP - one thing to remember is that we are looking at early draft data which is always a little skewed due to the source. And if you are preparing for an NFBC Sat draft - I encourage you to get on MDC and get familiar with their rankings and the interface- because everyone will be using THEM (unless they/you take the time to input your own). It is the only downside to drafting online - the fact that everyone basically works off the same cheatsheets. You have to be aware of it and use it to your advantage when possible. Also be aware that the MDC rankings can sometimes create runs at certain positions (closers) earlier than they may have occurred otherwise.

[viper]

aren't you able to create your own set of rankings on MDC. You certainly could last year although the interface to do it was not exactly easy.

[Todd Zola]

FWIW, the ADP I listed for Pedroia was from MDC. We will be providing MDC's ADP as par of our subscription content.

We are also pleased that our friends at Rotowire, the new owner's of MDC want to continue using our projections to fuel their standings generator.

[Hambowen]

I am almost exclusively an Auction player but tried an NFBC Sat last year just for something different. I really enjoyed the different dynamic and can certainly see how the bully hitting approach is really the way to go in those leagues.

Also did the Mastersball league and felt another whole new dynamic drafting against so many top notch players. Hope we can do that again.

Finished 3rd in each league and feel more confident with drafts now then before and plan on doing more NFBC leagues this year to shake things up from all my private auction keeper leagues and to further learn about drafts. Although they are really tempting me to go with my comfort zone with all the new Auction options this year!

I will say the biggest thing i learned is that I want to even further push the envelope and exploit ADP vs. my personal belief on where a player should be drafted. It is risky since you may have someone who feels the same way about the player and you lose him by pushing the rounds close to that players ADP. However if you are right about the player and get them close to their "low" in your eyes ADP you could set yourself up for some league wins.

[joshua]

If you add in doubles and triples, does Pedroia become a better commodity? I am in a 20 team league 6x6 that drafts the AL, then the NL. Number 19 in the American league (no, it's not a snake- I have the number 2 pick in the NL). Brian Roberts is out there, too. There won't be the big sticks in the AL down so low ( Lind, Kendry, types will be gone). I don't really want to take a pedroia, as I will get Hanley, but I don't want to reach with Torii, Markakis needs a lot more power, Hamilton is too risky, Cano isn't a legimate pick at 19, Aaron Hill looks like a sucker pick, and this sentence is going on forever. Adam Jone's second half looks like he was overmatched. Anybody have a bonifide stud lurking around at number 19 in the AL?

[Todd Zola]

Joshua -- I'll let you answer your own question -- here's our top 20 in "troubles" (triples plus doubles)

Roberts, Brian 52
Pedroia, Dustin 50
Rollins, Jimmy 50
Beckham, Gordon 48
Sandoval, Pablo 48
Braun, Ryan 47
Ethier, Andre 46
Markakis, Nick 45
Morales, Kendry 45
Cano, Robinson 45
Hart, Corey 44
Pujols, Albert 44
Lind, Adam 44
Drew, Stephen 43
LaRoche, Adam 43
Prado, Martin 43
Choo, Shin-Soo 43
Wright, David 43
McCutchen, Andrew 43
Longoria, Evan 43

[joshua]

I appreciate that,Todd. Who would you lean to if you had that Number 19 pick?

[Todd Zola]

One thing I might do is peruse the list for "surprises". Just on the top-20, Prado and Hart stick out for me, so I may try to sneak them on my squad, as most will not be quantifying "troubles." That is, take them where most feel they are fairly valued and you get some profit from the odd category.

I know you will have Hanley, but he's at SS with Roberts and Pedroia at 2B. I's take either Pedroia or Roberts, based on which skill set I prefer.

Roberts -- more speed, a little pop

Pedroia - some speed, some pop, excellent average over a ton of at bats

FWIW, I hope you're wrong about Adam Jones -- I seem to be owning him a lot so far. I like his skill set and see just enough upward trending to hope he is still on the upswing.

[daweasle]

hmm

if I were going all NL then all AL - I would think there's a major advantage to be reviewed.

I see #2 is hanley with no questions asked - but I would think if you wanted to fill up on power NL pitchers in mid-rounds and a couple of decent closers in the late rounds, you could focus on hitters in the AL and have the advantage of almost never having to deal with a pitcher who faces a DH (or the yankees/redsox/etc) and all your hitters would be in a DH friendly lineup without a pitcher hitting #9 (indicating your # hitters get more RBI and #7+8 hitters get more runs scored.

I am not saying it's a hard and fast rule - but I think it's something to consider......(assuming everyone else is not already thinking the same thing???)