What are the most valueable resources to have during draft?

[RugbyD]

A healthy understanding of leaguemates' preferences, faults, proclivities, and favorite players. Its great for forcing up bids on players I don't want but I know that someone else does.

[Dan Lambskin]

Tiered SS FTW...if it's an on-line draft i'll keep the Cafe and some other site open to check for any last minute news

[Yoda]

Mainly I use my position tiers list during the draft. I want to make sure that I don't have too many glaring weaknesses. I also like to refer to an overall ranking (MDP), projections and historical stats as well when trying to decide on a few players.

I also like to keep track of picks so that I can quickly see who still needs to fill a position, lacking stats, etc and try to anticipate whether certain group of players will be available by the time I pick again.

[MissingOakley]

Yoda, your draft tracker spreadsheet is awesome. But does keeping track of every team's picks and scanning the spreadsheet -- in addition to thinking about your own team's development and needs -- take too much time in a draft with 90-second picks? I always feel like I'm running out of time (probably because I don't really do mock drafts).

[RedSoxNation04]

I like to keep a tiers-based spreadsheet which I have adapted from Rookies' Median Draft Report. I will also keep J35J's spreadsheet open which has also been adapted to fit my league and my tiers. The 90 seconds can go by fast sometimes especially when other teams do not take their entire time. Planning ahead is key, IMO, and I like to stack guys in my queue especially in the later rounds.

Someone else mentioned paying attention to the preferences of your league mates and while you won't catch everything, I do this as well. We have a few homers in our league that you can count on like clock work to reach for certain players and there is also one guy who always starts to load up on rookies near the 10th round. Last year, between picks 10 and 19 he took, in order:

McGowan
Soto
Bruce
Buchholz
Longoria (I was stoked when he dropped him two weeks into the season because he was in AAA)
Chamberlain
Rasmus

He's the reason why I may not get Wieters in my league but if history repeats itself and Wieters starts the season in AAA....

[Snakes Gould]

lots of Beer for your leaguemates

fixed!

Pencil and paper. Yoda and R&C's DraftTracker. J35J's spreadsheet.

this.

[The Artful Dodger]

For slow drafts, I'd use Yoda's draft tracker sheet.

I'd like to do live drafts as late as possible, once I've had a few slow drafts finished. That way, I don't have to glance at my cheat sheets while drafting.

[rotoquest]

#1 is an MDP spreadsheet that includes a value I assign to every player based on projections. This way if I am at a spot like #45 - #50 overall, then I can easily choose the player that gives me the most value.

#2 is tiered positional rankings

#3 A few mock drafts that I respect.

#4 I keep a running total of hitting & pitching projections of each team in the draft to assess my draft needs.

[j24jags]

#4 I keep a running total of hitting & pitching projections of each team in the draft to assess my draft needs.

This is the one thing I like to have that has not been mentioned by other people. I use my tier by tier rankings to take BPA for the first ten rounds. Then after that, I may not necessarily pick the best player within a tier according to my rankings. I take according to need within tiers later on. If I need speed, I may take Felipe Lopez over Ian Stewart for example (even though Stewart is slightly above Lopez in my rankings).

[RedSoxNation04]

#4 I keep a running total of hitting & pitching projections of each team in the draft to assess my draft needs.

This is the one thing I like to have that has not been mentioned by other people. I use my tier by tier rankings to take BPA for the first ten rounds. Then after that, I may not necessarily pick the best player within a tier according to my rankings. I take according to need within tiers later on. If I need speed, I may take Felipe Lopez over Ian Stewart for example (even though Stewart is slightly above Lopez in my rankings).

I think this is the key to any draft...you can do all the rankings you want, but in the end you have to be able to adjust to your needs the deeper you go into the draft.