What Seek Ye?
A soccer coach of mine once told me, “Church? Who needs church? This field is my god damn church and this ball is my holy grail.” Church is defined as a body of people who hold and worship a particular belief. In that sense, any group of people who hold a conviction about something can be considered a church, more or less. Today I ask you to consider a question posed by Jesus to the apostle Andrew, “What seek ye?” I ask you to consider this question because in the many fantasy baseball drafts I’ve completed over the past couple years, it seems people do not consider the effects of their draft picks. The fantasy baseball community is so obsessed with player rankings that often times the underlying skill gets completely overlooked. Player rankings are only good until the point at which they are useless. Finding this point is much trickier than one might imagine.
The question becomes: At what point do you stop taking the best overall player and start filling team needs? Some people will tell you to take the best available player for the first three or four rounds. However, this is not the most efficient way to spend your money/picks. For example, if you draft Jose Reyes in the first round and Carl Crawford is the highest ranked player left at your pick in the second round, you need to consider the consequences of drafting him. Yes, you’ll be done with stolen bases for the rest of the draft, but how many true power hitters will be left in the third and fourth rounds?
This is not to say you can’t or shouldn’t draft Reyes and Crawford in the first and second rounds, but understand the consequences of your actions. What you’ll have between Reyes and Crawford is a very good average and a lot of stolen bases. How can you compliment them in the later rounds? The first name that should pop to mind is Adam Dunn. He’ll give you a low average, but a lot of homeruns.
The same strategy applies to the later rounds of the draft, possibly even more so. Towards the end of the draft you are simply filling your holes. Draft sheets are essentially tossed out the window. For example, if you need power you may choose to draft Khalil Greene over Orlando Cabrera despite the fact that, in a vacuum, Cabrera is worth more.
This essential strategy is what separates rotisserie fantasy baseball from points based fantasy baseball. In a points based league, you attempt to get the most points you can in any way you can. Rotisserie fantasy baseball requires much more strategy and draft preparation. This is also what makes points based leagues so much easier to create dollar values for. While experts attempt to put a dollar figure on all players, remember to take these dollar figures with a grain of salt. The Dollar values published in magazines are created in a vacuum. That is to say, they only apply to standard 5x5 leagues, don’t take into account league type or league size, and certainly don’t consider your positional needs.
Living by these dollar values or rankings sheets can kill your draft. The MLB Front Office Draft Guide has Juan Pierre worth $16. What this really means is that, depending on team needs among other things, Pierre can be worth anywhere between $11 and $21. One other reason these dollar values should be taken purely as a suggestion is because even the most advanced projection systems are less than 70% accurate. Even if you can maximize your projection system, the system is worth nothing unless you can improve the efficiency of your draft. The best way to do this is by understanding what each player brings to the table.
This idea is exactly what makes a draft guide like the MLB Front Office Draft Guide more valuable than the many projection only guides out there. Our 150+ pages (and growing) are not only filled with projections, but with player analysis from both The Fantasy Man of FantasyBaseballExpress.com and I. While I don’t suggest that you bring the whole 300 page draft guide to your draft, it is important to do your research and understand what each player brings to the table. Remember, you need to have a good base of knowledge before you arrive at your draft, if you don’t, you will be extremely overwhelmed by the whole experience. Draft day is the most fun day of the whole year, don’t ruin it by being under prepared and don’t rely too heavily on your rankings.
The question becomes: At what point do you stop taking the best overall player and start filling team needs? Some people will tell you to take the best available player for the first three or four rounds. However, this is not the most efficient way to spend your money/picks. For example, if you draft Jose Reyes in the first round and Carl Crawford is the highest ranked player left at your pick in the second round, you need to consider the consequences of drafting him. Yes, you’ll be done with stolen bases for the rest of the draft, but how many true power hitters will be left in the third and fourth rounds?
This is not to say you can’t or shouldn’t draft Reyes and Crawford in the first and second rounds, but understand the consequences of your actions. What you’ll have between Reyes and Crawford is a very good average and a lot of stolen bases. How can you compliment them in the later rounds? The first name that should pop to mind is Adam Dunn. He’ll give you a low average, but a lot of homeruns.
The same strategy applies to the later rounds of the draft, possibly even more so. Towards the end of the draft you are simply filling your holes. Draft sheets are essentially tossed out the window. For example, if you need power you may choose to draft Khalil Greene over Orlando Cabrera despite the fact that, in a vacuum, Cabrera is worth more.
This essential strategy is what separates rotisserie fantasy baseball from points based fantasy baseball. In a points based league, you attempt to get the most points you can in any way you can. Rotisserie fantasy baseball requires much more strategy and draft preparation. This is also what makes points based leagues so much easier to create dollar values for. While experts attempt to put a dollar figure on all players, remember to take these dollar figures with a grain of salt. The Dollar values published in magazines are created in a vacuum. That is to say, they only apply to standard 5x5 leagues, don’t take into account league type or league size, and certainly don’t consider your positional needs.
Living by these dollar values or rankings sheets can kill your draft. The MLB Front Office Draft Guide has Juan Pierre worth $16. What this really means is that, depending on team needs among other things, Pierre can be worth anywhere between $11 and $21. One other reason these dollar values should be taken purely as a suggestion is because even the most advanced projection systems are less than 70% accurate. Even if you can maximize your projection system, the system is worth nothing unless you can improve the efficiency of your draft. The best way to do this is by understanding what each player brings to the table.
This idea is exactly what makes a draft guide like the MLB Front Office Draft Guide more valuable than the many projection only guides out there. Our 150+ pages (and growing) are not only filled with projections, but with player analysis from both The Fantasy Man of FantasyBaseballExpress.com and I. While I don’t suggest that you bring the whole 300 page draft guide to your draft, it is important to do your research and understand what each player brings to the table. Remember, you need to have a good base of knowledge before you arrive at your draft, if you don’t, you will be extremely overwhelmed by the whole experience. Draft day is the most fun day of the whole year, don’t ruin it by being under prepared and don’t rely too heavily on your rankings.
