Last
time we talked about getting you ready for the draft and now its time to talk
actual strategies for the draft itself.
The draft isn’t something to be taken lightly and has broken more
friendships than a game of Mario Party…that’s still a thing right? If you go into a draft under prepared
than it could mean the end of you season right off the bat. What this article will do is point out
a few good and popular strategies that you can employ during the draft and some
traps to avoid as well.
Know the position: Did you read my last article and the importance
of the mock draft? No? Well this is
going to be a tough issue for you isn’t it. Half hearted mocks and plugs aside you really do need to
know what players could possibly be available to you before the draft even
begins. Mock drafts allow you to
draft from any position in the draft and doing so will show you which players
will be available if you were to land in that position. The players you see on the board with
the second pick wont be the same as the ones you see with the forth or fifth so
you need to practice to set up a basic idea on where your strategy goes from
there.
Make the safest first pick: “You can’t win the league with the
first pick but you can certainly lose it.” These are very strong and smart words from fantasy experts
Matthew Berry and Nate Ravitz that describe better than I could have. That first pick needs to be consistent
and a sure fire thing to make the first round and its no place to take a risk. Now every player comes with inherit
risks but you try to limit it as best as possible by picking players like
Miguel Cabrera and Mike Trout and not guys like Bryce Harper and Javier
Baez. While the upside of Harper
and Baez are high the risk of them not meeting expectations is far higher than
Trout and Cabrera not meeting their respective potential. This is why it’s important to pay
attention to mock drafts and see whom goes where so you can plan around it.
Pick from the Head no the Heart: Everyone has a favorite baseball
player and sure we all would love to have him on our team, well expect me since
mine is retired. But lets face
facts that someone like Adrian Gonzalez isn’t a first round guy. Playing with your heart means you
choose players out of position just because you like them. Sometimes this is fine if you pick them
right but most of the time, at least from what I’ve seen and experienced,
people tend to look at that pick later and wonder what they were thinking.
Know your league mates and exploit: This is a very underhanded and
weasely tactic and that’s why I say do it! This only works when you know there’s a special player a league
mate wants or that he tends to pick players from a specific team, likely his or
her favorite team. Knowing this
actually can give you an advantage in making future moves or making moves that
can work for you in the future. In
some cases you can even punish a person for being to blind to fandom. Short story time: I was in a fantasy
football league with an auction draft (something I’ll be getting to in a
second) and the budget was two hundred dollars. In the first round the third pick went to a well-known
Packers fan and he selected Aaron Rodgers for thirty dollars or so. There was one person in the league that
decided to make him pay for Rodgers and up bided him all the way to eighty
dollars before letting him have Rodgers.
That was almost half his budget on his first player making the rest of
the team very weak. Remember that
you can fall prey to this as well so be very cautious.
Set a limit (auction drafts only): Before a draft every player is
given a dollar value and that lists the recommended buying price of a
player. Now it can happen but it
is rare that a price for a good player ends right at that recommended
total. It’s a very good idea to
consider what your willing to spend on any player in general but especially
early in the draft. If you spend
high early you get many strong single players but weaker players later. On the flip side you save on the early
rounds you lose those key players that can help dominate a league but have a
stronger overall team. Setting
your budget early can prevent you from, oh say, spending $80 dollars when you
only have $200.
Keep track of you positions: Imagine this scenario: You’re near the
end of the draft and you’re picking you sleepers and bench players. You fill in the last bench spot and
think “Well my teams all done,” but then you noticed there’s still one round
left to draft. You look at your
team confused and then you see it, you forgot to draft a catcher. Now with the last pick in your draft
you have to pick from players like Nick Hundley, Tyler Flowers, Ryan Hanigan
and Francisco Cervelli as your starter.
It happens and it’s defiantly something to watch for when you’re
drafting your team this year. You
may get enticed by having multiple stars on your team when they fall to you,
something that you should capitalize on, but it can’t come at the cost of other
positions.
Resist the reach: This is the hardest thing to do in a draft. Resisting that urge to grab a
particular player before someone else gets him even though if you do your
passing on players more worth said pick.
This is the hardest to avoid when you see a player coming up in the
draft and it’s a position that not only you need filled but is a shallow
position*. The way to combat that
feeling to reach is to remember that there are always more players after him
that are just as good and just wait for them.
*Shallow position refers to any
position that doesn’t have a depth and the number of good players in that
position is very low. An example
would be the outfield as a surplus of speedy players but is very shallow in
power hitters making them a premium position over other outfielders.
Remember the end game: The end of the draft doesn’t mean you can
relax. Look at your team and see
what you could improve with a trade or two if necessary later on down the
road. Look for your best chips and
come up with potential trades.
Look at the waiver wire, yes the draft just ended but you may have
missed someone during the draft that you really wanted or was overlooked by
everyone. You’d be surprised how
many sleeper options are left on the board.
Corner the market: What do I mean by cornering the market? The strategy revolves around grabbing
multiples players from a shallower position and rostering them. This will make it so if people what to
fill that positional void they have the owner will likely come to you first for
trades since you have a spare player.
Example: say you draft Miguel Cabrera in the first round and two rounds
later you draft someone like Prince Fielder. While you already have a first baseman you know have a
strong corner infield position filled with a top end player. If you never trade either you still
have Fielder and Cabrera leading your offense and if you do end up trading one
you get a big haul and possibly are able to fill your positional gaps with
players from that trade. Don’t try
this for multiple positions or you may end up regretting it.
Now
that the draft is over you get to start the real fun and do whatever it takes,
within the rules of course since no one likes a cheater, to bring home that
metaphorical title belt. Or a real
belt depending on some leagues, I’ve even heard some leagues use a trophy of a chicken
for the championship trophy. Next
time we’ll take a look at some keeper strategies because that alone needs its
own article to go over.
