Mastersball Fantasy Forum

A friend of mine started a new 12 team, mixed, 10 category roto draft league. He was short a manager and after a lot of nagging, I finally decided to help him out and join the league. I honestly can't remember the last time I did a draft in any fantasy sport. I have done only auctions for at least the last 10 years (and its probably longer).

I used the CVRC tool to create customized rankings. So now what? Do I blindly stick with the rankings and always take best player available? How does position scarcity (C and SS) factor in? Should I reach a round or two to grab a good SS or C? From what I've read, I should take hitters early and often. So what round should I start thinking about taking pitching?

Any help/advice would be appreciated! Thanks!

I'm very interested in this topic myself, as I come from the "traditional auction background" myself, but now I play in a draft league.

I can at least start the answer: absolutely do not blindly follow your rankings. There are at least two key components to dealing with a snake draft: Come up with your rankings, and also come up with your estimate of when players will be drafted. Your goal, at every turn, is to take the most valuable player available *that won't be available to you in the next round*.

So then the question becomes: how do you estimate when players will be taken in your league. One way to go is some measure of ADP. Another is the default rankings in your league, whether Yahoo, ESPN, or whatever.

That's a start at an answer. I will jump in with more when I have more time. But I'm curious about others' perspective.

Everything is contextual and depends on the size and and format of your league. I am writing a ton about the myth that is scarcity and how it doesn't exist so long as you properly price the players (which the CVRC does for you).

As for pitching, it is 100% league dependent - with league size, transaction rules and trading rules being the most relevant factors.

Agree 100%



This one not so much. I'll be writing Tuesday about what I see as the objective in snake drafts.

I wrote last week about the fallacies of ADP and how misleading they can be.

My approach is to use tiered drafting which again I'll be writing about, likely a week from Tuesday.

As someone who does both draft and auctions I will say that my cheat sheet looks identical regardless.

I use the tiered approach as Todd mentioned. My sheet has 4 columns (OF, MI, CI and C) and each of those pools is broken down into tiers of about a $5 range. While I am using the same sheet no matter what, how I use it does differ.

In an auction, the sheet really just is a way of tracking the inventory and having a $ figure next to someone's name. Building your roster doesn't have much to do with what is on the sheet. What's on the sheet matters more in a draft; this is especially true in a no-trade format where one needs to draft a balanced squad as you cannot trade off your excess to fill a hole somewhere. An auction isn't going to follow your cheat sheet, a draft will. Therefore it is important to always be looking at who is likely to be around the next time you pick, the names a round down your list. Having 1 eye on your current pick and 1 on your next is the biggest way a draft differs from an auction.