Theoretical Poll #3 of 2010 - In draft standings

[Todd Zola]

JP is posting standings every 3 rounds or so for our public mock. Please feel free to vote on an option above and please show your work.

[cwk1963]

I voted helpful. I just look at it as a ballpark not so much as the place I'm in but for the individual categories. If at the end of 12 rounds I have an 8/4 hitter/pitcher split and someone else is 10/2 or 11/1 I know it's skewed. But if it's basically the same I can see if I'm falling behind in a certain category or in the ballpark. I like seeing it rather than trying to figure it out in my head - killed too many brain cells in my youth.

[AllstonRockCity]

I also went with helpful. I think its helpful to track where your at, category wise, but I don't use it to compare myself to other teams.

[Hambowen]

Went with Entertainment only.

I agree with Allston about keeping track of category for all teams just to see if someone is going crazy on a cat (pretty much just steals) so that you will know if you can sneak into 3rd or 4th place for a lot less steals then your category goals might have told you pre draft.

The Standings part which I think is what the question was about is completely useless to me but fun to look at.

[rotodog]

I voted last choice ....But I think I know where Todd is going with this....

The only thing I want to track anymore is my team....And my category totals... and the player pool..

I used use rotolab and got real good at tracking drafts quickly, and tweaking it real tight to each league, but in the end, the standings never meant anything....

I have gone back and looked at previous years drafts and looked at the standings as I left the draft and they looked nothing like the real standings at the end of the year..

[Guest]

They're like almost anything else in the world - in proper context, perfectly useful. In the wrong context worthless.

I like them because they can keep me focused on the types of players I need to be acquiring (power/speed), as well as if I am too light on AVG/ERA/WHIP or vice versa. But I'd say I glance at them once an hour or so.

I am a fully admitted computer drafter and will always be, however,

[Todd Zola]

Where I am going will be a little more clear after my SI.com essay next week

Especially if I am in "first place" by then

Which unto itself is a BIG HINT as to the direction

[viper]

Yesterday, I voted for entertainment purposes but it is a bit more than that. I just don't think it is helpful. It can actually hurt when you know the interim results and you know that people are watching it. You can actually find yourself making selections designed to help your stats but not necessarily make yourself a better team. A risky pick can yield projected standings success but make your team worse in real time play.

What it does do is show you if you are drafting a category too much or too little. We each have a style/mindset in drafting. I want a degree of balance in hitting. I have to guard against having too many or too few steals. I want to actually overdraft power but here I failed. At the time, I was fairly happy with my first three selections. Not any more.

In the standings I am keeping, there are ten teams between 190 and 215 hrs. Most everyone has 10 position players drafted. This is essentially 2 HRs per player. In effect it is a 10-way tie but one team has a 5 and another has a 12.

Another thought is we all pretty much agree that projections are approximations and yet we use them in exacting formulas to calculate dollar value, let alone these precise standings.

As little as these standings mean to me, that actual mock draft has been an eye opener. Really, this is how I feel each year after my first mock draft. I find it takes me 3-5 mock draft to get myself ready for real drafts.

[deansdaddy]

I voted helpful but not the most meaningful - and for me I think Gary J kind of summed up how I feel about them.

In a slow draft they can take on a bigger life because we have more time to ponder them and the projections of the guys we may be drafting. In a fast draft they can help you keep track of targets you set for yourself, but they can also sometimes give you a false sense of security (if say the standings say your team is the best). You have to take them with a grain of salt...and not let them MAKE your decisions for you. Inform your decisions...okay.

For example - if you use one of the many software tools out there to draft - and always take the highest rated player on the board. You will come out of your draft with one of the Top rated teams every time. Does this mean that you drafted a really good team? Possibly. But that's not why we draft, right? Our team construction approach has to be based on more than just the numbers.

I'm seeing that right now in some drafters teams in the slow draft. I'm seeing it in my own. We're into the fun part of the draft now and soon the dartboard will be out and we all have about 4-7 throws. Good reserve round picks don't even effect the standings - but they usually help determine who wins and who loses.

[Black Sox]

I voted for entertainment purposes.

I have some personal experiance with this. I used S.T.A.R.T. last year during my drafts and it didn't work for me, for a number of reasons. Mostly I spent too much time entering picks and looking at how those picks affected the standings. That was time better spent looking at the player pool and planning out my next picks. I do like entering just my picks to save time calculating my stats. I also always plug my entire league into the spreadsheet after the draft ( which is great ), I enter them whole teams at a time starting with who I think had the best draft, all the way till my projected last place team. Always interested to see if my hunches are correct. I also think it gives me a slight edge over teams that don't, when considering pre season trades.

At Mock Draft Central it's great on the one hand that it's all done automaticly for you, however if you do enough drafts you kinda know how to "win" the projection, however I don't think doing that helps me become a better drafter.

[JP Kastner]

The standings are being kept over time every three rounds so that we can see how teams are assembled and what effect it had. I haven't talked to Todd about this, but I have to assume we are on the same wavelength here.

[daweasle]

without reading all the other posts, i immediately clicked helpful, but looking back on it now - after reading other posts - I wish i could change my vote

the more crap i have to sift thru during my auction/draft the worse for me.

I want to know how I am doing and let everyone else do there own thing. even after the draft is over - i don't pay much attention to the standings for a month because i know within a month I will have traded 1-2 players (to get best available players) and will not pay much attention to actual standings until just before end of may - when i start trading for category needs.

If I have a chance to get a SB threat over a 23 HR guy I will do it every time, because I can pickup 23 HR off the waivers, but i can trade the SB threat later for a bigger bat than that.

[viper]

in deep leagues, the 23 HR players are not on waivers. In shallow leagues they probably are. I guess it all depends on your type of league.