Random Ramblings of the Chancellor: Round 3

Random ramblings of the chancellor, round 3:

For 10-12 team mixed leagues - Strategies, no strategies, favorite players:

-       The most common method of drafting a mixed league is to just draft best player available for 10-15 rounds, and then fill in holes later in the draft.  It’s a workable plan, but watch for getting caught with less optimal players at SS and 3B.

-       Positional scarcity is often used to pick players; usually at 2B, SS, and 3B.  Using this strategy, players like Robinson Cano, Troy Tulowitzki, Hanley Ramirez, David Wright, and Jose Reyes get moved up the draft boards past what their baseline numbers would indicate.  The concept with positional scarcity is to get players that have a much greater difference between their player and most (or all) of the rest of the players at that position while getting players at other positions that are roughly equal to the rest of the league at that position.

-       The Patel Plan, invented on a bar napkin by some members of the website rotojunkie.com, consists of using the first four rounds to get the best 1B and 3 OFs, an anchor SP in the fifth and best hitters  at any position in the next three rounds.

-       I’ve modified the Patel Plan to draft 2 OFs, 1 1B, 1 MI and 1 CI in the first five rounds before looking at pitching.  It’s worked pretty well for me in 10-12 team mixed drafts.

-       Because many teams chase hitting early, some teams will try and get premium pitching in early rounds.  It’s risky, since often teams will end up either power or batting average short.  I have seen a strategy of going for premium pitching, and then focusing on BA/SB/R in a 5x5 league.

-       If you have a favorite player you MUST have on your team, I’d recommend researching some sites to see where his Average Draft Position (ADP) is, and correlating that to what round he’s commonly picked.   Plan on taking him at least one round early and possibly two.  If it’s a player who will go in the top 15, figure out if you need to move up in the draft to get him, and what pick you’d be willing to give up to move to the place where you can get him.

And if you want to auction:

-       Regardless of depth or type of league, it’s imperative to come into an auction with a strategy.  Flexibility is a must, but a general plan will prevent the two most common sins in an auction – overspending early or underspending and leaving significant money and talent on the table.

-       In general terms, the deeper the auction (like an AL only versus a mixed auction), spending on pitching goes up.

-       When nominating players, some will nominate players they don’t want to take money and positional slots off the table.  I’m not a fan, other than in very select situations, and never in the early rounds.

-       If you’re in an auction, over-prepare.  Being ready for virtually anyone who comes up in an auction is a must – even if ready is defined as “I wouldn’t buy that guy if he was the last player on the board.”  In mid to late rounds, if you have to waste time looking a player up, your window for profitable bidding may well have passed by the time you find him.

-       Monitoring everyone’s roster to see what slots they have available and how much cash to fill those slots is a must.  I use pencil and paper, some use spreadsheets, others use some high-end software.  But keeping track of only your roster will lead to missing key opportunities.

-       End game bidding is an art.  Some like to end by filling their roster with 1-4 $1 players; high risk, high reward.  Others like to keep some extra back in case a decent player has slipped to the very late rounds.  I tend toward the latter, but the best pure bidder I’ve witnessed in auction leagues does the former.

-       You’ll see much written about the “right” ratios of money to spend on hitting and pitching.  Most leagues are $260 in auction money, and I’ve seen everything from 150 hitting/110 pitching to 225 hitting/35 pitching.

-       There’s a number of low-budget pitching strategies for auction leagues.  Ron Shandler of the Baseball Forecaster invented the “LIMA” (Low Investment Mound Aces) plan; Paul Sporer of Baseball Prospectus perfected the “Pitching Tiers” concept, both are interesting reads.