Impact of Draft versus weekly management

[viper]

This will be the first of several post season posts on theory and strategy. Right now while things are fresh in your mind is probably the best time to think about these things.

We spend a lot of time on the draft. And for good reason. The basis of our team is created during the draft. Failure to address a category can have a season long effect. In no trade leagues, such as the NFBC, certain categories cannot be helped through FAAB - with a very limited number of exception. These include power hitting. Injuries can be crippling depending on where they come.

And then I look at Shawn Childs' team in the NFBC and see how it preformed. His drfaft was nothing spectacular - good but nothing you would drool over. His league opposition included Todd. And he ran away with his league.

Was his performance due to good/lucky late round draft selections or exceptionally solid weekly FAAB selections?

A bigger question is what [percentage of a successful season is the draft compared to weekly play. And then how important is having a team which is on the lower side of injury impact. We all have players go down and when a major player hits the dust, problems are created. Should drafting emphasize projected health more than it does?

Sorry for a somewhat disjointed question but I hope you get what I am curious about.

[JP Kastner]

Injuries remind me of Donald Rumsfeld:

[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know.

The "known knowns" are the players who are hurt. At the start of the year you crossed out Sean Marcum's name from your draft list. You drafted Joe Mauer and then picked up a third starting catcher for the first month of the season. You have to read the news and be up to date to avoid making a careless mistake. That is why we don't buy a magazine and draft from it.

The "known unknowns" are the players with a history of injuries or a chronic condition. This includes pitchers with a ton of mileage on their arm. They could play all season and give you much more than you paid for or they could get hurt and miss a chunk of the season. The inherent risk is accounted for in the bidding process by everyone. Because they have to potential to give you much greater value, you cannot avoid selecting some of them, but you have to make intelligent decisions.

Finally, there are the "unknown unknowns". These are the perfectly healthy players who get hurt and destroy your season. If you selected Jose Reyes or Grady Sizemore in the first round of the NFBC draft, then you screwed yourself at the draft table, but you didn't know it. The simple fact is that it is impossible to know about it, so don't trouble yourself worrying about it.

So, you need to be up to date, you need to be shrewd and you need to be lucky. There are opportunities here for us to gain an advantage.

First is roster management. If you have a reserve list, there are opportunities over the course of a season to pick up players you hope to never roster. That means spending some FAAB just to keep that reserve list up to date.

Second, is a better understanding of injuries and the health of players. That means cutting through the static and the noise to glean facts that you can use to make intelligent decisions.

Finally, I propose that we undervalue players with multi-position flexibility. Players like Mark DeRosa may not be glamorous, but they give you choices. They will not solve your problem by replacing the injured player, but instead of replacing Jose Reyes with Jack Wilson off the waiver wire, you move DeRosa to MI and get your #6 outfielder who is playing every day off the bench. The more choices available, the better the chance you have of compensating for an injury and staying competitive.

[Todd Zola]

For the record, Shawn was not in my Main Event league.

I had to battle the $234,000 man, Lindy Hinkleman and former $100,000 man, Terry Haney.

One reason for bringing JP on and now that Rob is back, this further clears the path, but I intend to bring more discussions like this to the site through various means.

I just plan on doing them when there are more eyeballs to get more participation, etc.

[viper]

It is true that fewer eyeballs exist at this time.