H2H Strategy? Have I been gloing about it wrong?

[4Pack]

Been playing H2H (normally standard 5X5) for 8 years. While I go into each draft prepared for the most part...I normally do not pay a ton of attention to projections. I would say I draft based on 70% name value/30% projections. My standard routine has been to draft offense the first 5-6 rounds...then draft SP's for the next 3-4 rounds. It has worked well and I have won my league the past 2 seasons (regular season and WS).

Well...I am more determined than ever to go for the threepeat. Soooo...I went back to the past 2 season and figured out my team season average's per category (i.e. 10 batters..250 HR's total..25 HR per batter average, etc. etc.). I then have proceeded to do a few mock drafts with those numbers in mind as to what I want my team's final numbers too look like.

To my suprise...when I draft based more or less a 40/60 split name value/projections...I have been able to improve on the average numbers from years past while still drafting a couple stud SP's with the first 5 picks (drafting SP's in the first 5 rounds had been almost taboo for me).

Do you think that putting more emphasis on projections is the way to go? On paper...it looks great...but...it makes me nervous considering I have had success with the way I have been doing it until this season.

Any thoughts?

[Neato Torpedo]

Put 0% emphasis on name value. Maybe even negative percent if possible. It's name value that has Derrek Lee drafted ahead of Votto even though Votto will almost certainly outproduce him in every category.

[Matthias]

Name = Common wisdom of the average fan
Projection = Wisdom of people who crunch baseball numbers for a living

Now, projection systems aren't perfect and have their flaws. But the only place that they're inferior to Name is if you're drafting in order to do a trade. People would feel better trading for Derrek Lee over Joey Votto, even if Votto was projected to out-produce him this year.

[Ender]

Weekly transactions or daily, innings limit or not? With H2H the league settings vary a lot more. If you are in something like daily H2H with no innings limits the value of pitching drops a lot.

[CadensDad]

If you can land a stud SP in the early part of the draft don't let them get by because they are a pitcher.

In Yahoo Halladay/Lee/Sabathia all 3 finished in the top 10 players.

There was 13 pitchers in the top 50. Thats the first 4 rounds. While pitching is harder to guess at guys like, Santana/Sabathia/Halladay/MoRivera are always in the top 50. You take players like Sizemore/Reyes/Holliday in the first 4 rounds because you know they will produce. Well to me the same thing applys for pitching. If you know they will produce why not grab them?

[smoovethug]

Never will I draft a player because of name value.

[4Pack]

Just finished another mock where I pretty much ignored the name...and I hit all my numbers again. In the draft before this I was able to grab Lincicum and Peavy in the first 4 rounds and still hit my numbers. In the draft just completed I was able to grab Santana and Peavy in the first 5 rounds...and hit my numbers.

I certainly do not have a boatload of sexy name bats....but if the projections are anywhere close...I will be very happy. Any suggestions on some other semi-reliable projections I can check out? I have been using the projections from the "353J" thread.

BTW...thanks again for the insight....

[Ender]

There was 13 pitchers in the top 50. Thats the first 4 rounds. While pitching is harder to guess at guys like, Santana/Sabathia/Halladay/MoRivera are always in the top 50. You take players like Sizemore/Reyes/Holliday in the first 4 rounds because you know they will produce. Well to me the same thing applys for pitching. If you know they will produce why not grab them?

Because you don't know they will produce. For every Santana there was Carpenter or a 2006 Peavy etc. Also in H2H pitching just isn't as valuable. In weekly leagues you go with a lot of 2 start guys which somewhat devalues single start guys and in daily leagues people stream pitchers which completely destroys the value of single pitchers.

I wrote a post last year showing the top 20 pitchers according to cafe rankings and how many of them repeated the next year and the number was a fraction of what the hitters was. Something like 40% of the top 20 pitchers wont' finish top 20 at the end of the year. Something like 20% won't even make the top 50 because of W variation, ERA spikes or injuries.

[CadensDad]

There was 13 pitchers in the top 50. Thats the first 4 rounds. While pitching is harder to guess at guys like, Santana/Sabathia/Halladay/MoRivera are always in the top 50. You take players like Sizemore/Reyes/Holliday in the first 4 rounds because you know they will produce. Well to me the same thing applys for pitching. If you know they will produce why not grab them?

Because you don't know they will produce. For every Santana there was Carpenter or a 2006 Peavy etc. Also in H2H pitching just isn't as valuable. In weekly leagues you go with a lot of 2 start guys which somewhat devalues single start guys and in daily leagues people stream pitchers which completely destroys the value of single pitchers.

I wrote a post last year showing the top 20 pitchers according to cafe rankings and how many of them repeated the next year and the number was a fraction of what the hitters was. Something like 40% of the top 20 pitchers wont' finish top 20 at the end of the year. Something like 20% won't even make the top 50 because of W variation, ERA spikes or injuries.

How many hitters fall into that category tho?

[kab21]

Last I added up the projections for every team after the draft and was disappointed to find that every team in my league was going to finish in the top 5 of every category (20 teams). So I would be cautious about using projections to determine if you have enough offense. You will undoubtedly have a couple players that suffer injuries or disappoint in ways that couldn't be projected.