Fantasy Talk: How Do You Prepare For A Draft?

by Steve Slowinski on Feb 22, 2012 6:00 PM EST

This is our final post related to Yahoo! Sports fantasy baseball, and I was thinking this would be a good opportunity to talk fantasy baseball prep in general. I have fantasy on the mind right now, as Brad, Erik, and I completed a fantasy auction for FanGraphs last night. If you're into fantasy, I'd be interested to hear how you generally prepare for a draft or auction.

In the past, I've always compiled something akin to one giant ranking list. I think this was a result of me reading lots of ESPN fantasy baseball articles back in my formative fantasy years -- and the fact that I used to do lots of snake drafts -- but this year, I tried something a bit different. Based on suggestions I'd picked up from Eno Sarris and RotoGraphs, I created individual rankings by position and then tiered them. I'd made lists by position before, but this was the first time I'd tried tiering players and holy cow, it was a huge help.

You can make tiers any sort of way you want, but I ended up basing my tiers off ZiPS. Even if their final lines for players aren't 100% accurate, ZiPS is one of the better projection systems when rated by correlation (i.e. it ranks players in proper order well). You can choose any projection system you want (or make up the tiers based on your gut), but I like ZiPS the best so it felt like a solid idea.

I guess we'll see how it works. Anyone else have general strategies or thoughts? Any players you think are good sleeper grabs this season? In my mind, any excuse to talk fantasy baseball is a good excuse.

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Im pretty meticulous

Stage 1 – Looking at regular and advanced stats. Usually on fangraphs, looking at fip/era discrepancy, k%, babip, etc.

Stage 2 – Read up on projections and rankings by credible sites (I love me some grey albright), but try not to let them sway my stance too much.

Stage 3 – Follow spring training news and stats tepidly. Looking at injuries, position battles, and huge/horrible spring numbers.

Stage 4 – Develop draft stategy based on depth. For example outfield is more shallow than usual this season, while catcher, second base, and pitching is really deep.

Stage 5 – Make my own rankings, with tiers. I usually draw a hard line between the guys I will draft at a position and who I wont. I also develop a key with symbols reminding me about things like health questions, poor springs, sleepers, league change, ballpark factors, etc.

Stage 6 – Do a series of mock drafts and dream team draft (h/t razzball).

by BossmanJunior333 on Feb 22, 2012 6:24 PM EST via mobile reply actions

Stage 6 note

I treat mock drafts like speed chess. I dont look at the available players until its my turn. That way im used to making decisions under pressure, and on draft day I dont feel rushed.

by BossmanJunior333 on Feb 22, 2012 6:28 PM EST via mobile up reply actions

Because I get to write about baseball for a living, I often overestimate my drafting prowess.

With about 15 minutes left until the draft, I furiously start looking up WAR leaderboards and prospect lists and mock drafts, and then in a puff of exhaustion and self-loathing, I draft 50% to 90% of the Rays roster — depending on how many Rays fans are in the league with me.

A DRaysBay and FanGraphs writer from Cubs Stats.

@BradleyWoodrum

by BWoodrum on Feb 22, 2012 7:11 PM EST reply actions

I suppose it depends on your league settings

But I doubt WAR is really applicable in fantasy baseball.

Im well aware I might overestimate rays players, thats why I rarely draft any. Last year I just had hellickson and this year ill target longo, jennings, moore, and joyce. I think all four can exceed their draft slots.

by BossmanJunior333 on Feb 22, 2012 8:51 PM EST via mobile up reply actions

I do a lot of linear weights leagues, so, like for pitching, WAR leaderboards actually do help.

This year, in just one of my two leagues, I have: Hellickson, Zobrist, Burke Badenhop, Beckham, and Hak-Ju — and I would have had more if Steve and Erik weren’t in the league.

A DRaysBay and FanGraphs writer from Cubs Stats.

@BradleyWoodrum

by BWoodrum on Feb 23, 2012 7:27 AM EST up reply actions

Drink 3 beers in 20 minutes prior to draft time

then drink some more.

Have a fantasy magazine handy for quick reference.

Cherington has taken off his pants and he’s shitting all over my hopes for 2012
by TheLoneDavid on Jan 10, 2012 12:31 PM CST

by SandalsNoPants on Feb 22, 2012 7:21 PM EST reply actions

Well, tiers are great in a snake draft, but I think they're arbitrary at best and misleading at worst in an auction.

In an auction (especially a deep one), you have a certain amount of money to spend, and if you get value with all of it, at the end of the draft you’re in good shape. If you separate players into tiers, you’ll start thinking that you have to overpay for the last guy in a tier, when really, you should just be steadily looking for value where it’s available, and passing up the good but over-priced players.

But what is value? Ottoneu has forced me to go back and rediscover 90s sabremetrics. If you look at $/point, you end up with a distorted picture, because you’re attributing value to players who will produce the same amount as unowned players available for $1. This is why the idea of replacement level was invented. So the two tricks in figuring out how to price players is (a) correctly projecting replacement level for each position and (b) calibrating how much of your salary should be allotted to your major leagues and to your minor leagues.

The first part of that takes some legwork but is simple (Hint: replacement level 3B is probably just as bad as replacement level SS). The second part, of how to properly split your budget, I’m not all that sure on.

by Whelk on Feb 22, 2012 8:14 PM EST reply actions

Really? I found tiers incredibly helpful for a deep ottoneu draft.

Granted, I also had an estimate of a player’s point value next to them, so I could tell where the talent dropped off steeply and where there wasn’t a huge difference between one tier and the next. FanGraphs Points leagues are great in that sense….it’s easier to attach a single projected number to a player.

I love Casey Fossum. Now try and take me seriously.
Follow @steveslow

by Steve Slowinski on Feb 22, 2012 8:51 PM EST up reply actions

You're not replacing Jason Giambi.

You’re replacing his points.

If every dollar you spend gets you a certain number of points, then at the end of the draft, you have the total of that number of points. It doesn’t matter if it’s concentrated in good players or not. I think the Ottoneu is well enough balanced that the scarce resource is dollars, not players.

by Whelk on Feb 23, 2012 9:10 AM EST up reply actions

Tiers are very helpful

Follow @jasoncollette

by Jason Collette on Feb 23, 2012 9:49 AM EST up reply actions

The major/minor league thing is tough.

I kinda made things up as I went along in the draft. I actually think I shied away from prospects a bit…I felt like they were getting expensive in our league, so I actually went instead toward cheap, older players (who seemed like they were getting underrated). Not sure how that’ll play out in the long-term…I did get some young players, but either their not-highly-touted prospects or else they’ve already seen a bit of time in the majors.

Definitely agree about the replacement level thing. I didn’t calculate a specific replacement level or adjust based on that, but it was pretty easy to tell which positions were deeper than others, and how some positions fell off a cliff early.

I love Casey Fossum. Now try and take me seriously.
Follow @steveslow

by Steve Slowinski on Feb 22, 2012 8:55 PM EST up reply actions

I've been doing my calculations assuming $325 for a major league roster.

And the rest for the minors. That’s pretty arbitrary, though, and doesn’t reflect my team at all.

I took over an empty spot as an expansion team midway through the season, so I’m all major league scraps and about 25 minor leaguers. I have absolutely 0 chance of competing this year, and I’m not sure about next year, either.

by Whelk on Feb 23, 2012 9:13 AM EST up reply actions

If I can plug for a minute

If you’re looking for somewhere to get fantasy advice from other very active players, please sign up for free at rjbullpen.com. It’s been around (former Rotojunkie) for 13 yrs so the experience on that site is quite good.

Follow @jasoncollette

by Jason Collette on Feb 23, 2012 9:50 AM EST reply actions

other strategies

Get last year’s underperformers that were under the age of 32 – they’ll bounce back
Avoid closers coming off career seasons
Draft skills, not names

Follow @jasoncollette

by Jason Collette on Feb 23, 2012 9:53 AM EST reply actions

In 5 x 5 roto with an innings limit.

Get a core of a few top end sure bet starters. Use the late round picks and the waiver wire to bias your roster towards “bad” closers and potential closers so that you win saves based on sheer volume, not quality and draft opportunity cost. Then, towards the end of the season stream pitchers to make up the innings difference and compete in wins and strikeouts.

It works well because it keeps you from giving significant time to marginal starting pitchers just because you drafted them on a hunch.

by Whelk on Feb 23, 2012 10:45 AM EST up reply actions

The best strategy for most of you would be to autodraft.

October 28th, 2011-- a date which will live in infamy--

OTTOTD.com

by Sveet on Feb 23, 2012 11:45 AM EST reply actions

AL batters only, NL pitchers only

I’m in a 8×8 rotisserie ,both league fantasy. i tried to target AL hitters and NL pitchers for the most part.plus or minus 1 or 2 players. it worked pretty well. is this something i should try to do again this year? i just can stand to see my pitchers facing my hitters. i think it should be to my advantage. what do you think?

by RaysFan1998 on Feb 23, 2012 9:33 PM EST reply actions