Setting up Tiers

[viper]

I would like my tiers to somehow approximate the auction price for players. After running CVRC I have dollar values. My first thought was the $20 tier would be for players priced out from $18 to $22. Essentially going $2 on either side of the $20 point. All tiers would use this grouping with everyone below $3 in that $1 tier.

However, you article on how these AL and NL league are consistent in upping the cost on the high priced player while subsequently reducing it for the less expensive players make me modify those groups to more approximate realities of the draft. If I know going in that a $27 players will actually cost me closer to $30 than $25, why should he be in the $25 tier. My current tiering thought is

$30 - $31 to $27
$25 - $26 to $22
$20 - $21 to $18 - the surcharge is going away
$15 - $17 to $14 - things are normal
$10 - $13 to $8 - start of discounts
$5 - $7 to $4 - discounts continue
$1 - $3 to -$3 - end game discounts, these players seldom have more than one raise if at all.

The key is still managing your overall budget but I wanted an idea on when players would go and account for the known surcharges when bidding.

Thoughts?

[Todd Zola]

It all depends on what the individual user wants.

Some prefer to know the value in a vacuum and make adjustments on the fly.

On my end, every league is different, so I feel my best course of action is to do them as is and let the user season to taste.

As a matter of fact, I know of a certain ESPN writer that downloads the tiers, clears the names and types his own in, because he likes colors and columns.

And actually Brian asked me an interesting question today and that was why don't I alphabetize the names within the tiers as opposed to leaving them in order of value.

His point was it is hard sometimes to find the players, which is something that never occurred to me, primarily because I am so intimate with the players and values that I know where they are. Alphabetizing would also really pound home the point that all players within a tier are equal. But I can see how some would be more comfortable with value as the order.

[viper]

In the "for what it's worth" category, I finally decided to tier based on the numbers and not the expectations. In past years, I have alphabetized my tiers but that was mostly because I did many online draft with minimal time to cross off names. Doing three or four auctions this year with my sole straight draft a full week into the season, I am leaving them is dollar order within tiers.

I am maintaining two lists of hitters. One has just names within tiers. This is my cross-off list. It will not have any skill related information and is solely for seeing who is left where. A second list is alphabetical by name [it may end up by dollar value by the time I draft my first league this Friday]. This list contains minimal information but it is the things I have found over the years to be what I look at. I plan to make a post tonight on what I do for those two or three people that are interested.

[deansdaddy]

It all depends on what the individual user wants.



And actually Brian asked me an interesting question today and that was why don't I alphabetize the names within the tiers as opposed to leaving them in order of value.

His point was it is hard sometimes to find the players, which is something that never occurred to me, primarily because I am so intimate with the players and values that I know where they are. Alphabetizing would also really pound home the point that all players within a tier are equal. But I can see how some would be more comfortable with value as the order.

I'll give my two cents here - since I just used these in my Sat draft. It is true - it's easy to find and cross off YOUR players - since you are focusing on them. It can be harder sometimes in the flow of the draft to find other people's picks- especially when you get to the highly populated OF and SP tiers that come later on- and if picks happen quickly you can waste valuable time finding names to cross off. Even so,I am probably more in the camp of liking having guys in order of value and think there would be as much downside for the average user if you did it alphabetically. I think as fantasy players we have been "trained" to equate the order players are listed with value - so I think the most intuitive way to list them is the way you do.

Also - if I am using the Tiers as a primary draft tool - then I want to have that specific "value" incorporated within the tier. For an extreme example, let's look at the $15-11 OF tier. Marlon Byrd brings up the rear here at present. Do it alphabetically he comes third. Throw in Bay, Beltran, Cuddyer and Crisp who also jump from bottom to top and this tier and the sheet ceases to help me quickly value players as much as it did before. I would need to have a second sheet handy for this. I would rather keep the tiers as is and use another sheet as a cross-out list. They may be close in "value" - but there is a big drop from Colby Rasmus to Byrd in my mind.

Let's face it - other sites rank certain players differently. For example another site that I respect has Drew Stubbs as their #34 ranked OF. On the Tiers he clocks in at #13, right at the top of his tier. 23 more names come after his here. List him alphabetically and his name would have him #20 listed in this tier instead of #1. I understand the concept of every guy in the tier having similar value - but the tier has a range and listing them the way you do tells me who you put near the top of the range and who you put at the bottom. I want to know at a glance who YOU GUYS value most. So if you were to go alphabetically - I think a dollar value would have to follow the name for clarity.

I think a drafter such as Brian or yourself (who are very intimate with where MB ranks/projects these players) could more easily use an alphabetized list, but I still think the "value" list makes more sense for the average MB customer. While I can buy into the premise that all players in a tier are created "equal", I find that I do like to get a quick snapshot of how MB projects/ranks them without having to consult another list.

I would stipulate - that once you get to the overpopulated RES rounds - this could be an area that alphabetizing could make sense. If you were going to do it - I would experiment with it in those areas first - and leave the top areas at value.

[Todd Zola]

I know people are paying us to do the work, but with that said, especially if you are only doing one draft, it would take less than 5 minutes to sort each tier alphabetically, with a little extra work required for the tiers that have 2 or 3 columns.

[AllstonRockCity]

To me, this is where a Mock gives you the most help.

I have been making my own tiers for years, I'll tweak something every year, but the layout remains the same. Everytime I make a new cheat sheet I like to do at least 3 mocks on it. That way I am training myself to find the players on the sheet and in the tiers quickly.

When MB posts an update, I make a new sheet and mock at least 3 times on it to get to know it again. For the most part I could care less how the draft turns out as I am only trying to familiarize myself with the cheat sheet. I do mock for more serious reasons and treat those differently, but I like to be forced to find players in 20 seconds and learn where they are, that way I don't have to worry about it when it counts.

Sometimes, I will use the 8 day old values rather than the 1 day old values, since I don't want to be bothered learning where everyone is again. I guess that would be the downside to my method, but by that point (late March, early April), things are much more concrete than they are in Feb.