Post Draft Questionairre

[Fade2White12]

In leagues past, I've always done or been part of one of these. Not only do I find them enjoyable, but especially in a roto league, there is almost always a lack of chatter/smack talk throughout the year. Being able to look back at predictions, I think that it generates more discussion, and makes the league more enjoyable than just the daily setting of lineups and add/drops. There's no pressure, so if you're not interested in participating that's just fine - but you do not need to write a lot (unlike some of us ), so give a minute if you have one.

Pretty standard set of questions:

1. What was your overall draft strategy, and who are the keys to your success?

2. What are the best and/or worst picks that you made?

3. Who were the steals and/or reaches of the draft?

4. Who do you think will finish in the top 3?

5. Who do you think will finish in the bottom 3?

6. Any other thoughts?

[Fade2White12]

1. What was your overall draft strategy, and who are the keys to your success?

I generally approach most of my drafts the same way - go big or go home. I try not to draft "safe" players because they just aren't exciting. When playing fantasy for fun (rather than for real jelly beans), I want my team to be filled with those that I consider "my guys" so that the season is entertaining. This can sometimes mean that I end up with way more busts than booms and wind up towards the bottom of the standings, but at least it will be fun, right? Plus, having Prince, Miggy, JUp, and CSantana as keepers allows me to take a few more liberties.

So with that in mind, for my offense I concentrated on young players (this is a keeper league afterall) who I believe are poised for breakouts (Belt, Cain, Marte) or who are working towards proving their breakouts were genuine (Espinosa, Seager, Altuve, Moss). I also sprinkled in a few proven veterans coming off of injury who I believe can recapture some of their past luster (Crawford, Youk, McCann). I also wanted to make sure that I was not dependent on any 1-2 persons for steals and instead picked dual threats - almost every offensive pick I made fit this mold. Despite not having 1 player projected for more than around 30 steals, I'm still projected to be top 2 in the category.

My pitching is my biggest question mark and key to my success. I tried to take the same approach that I did above, albeit with less young players and more injured veterans. I'm banking hard on strong bouncebacks form by Waino , CJ, and last year's Cafe darling - McCarthy. Throw in a very scary closer lineup and the uncertain role for Chapman, it may get hairy.

2. What are the best and/or worst picks that you made?

My favorite pick is Brandon Moss in Rd25. I'm a believer. There is a BA regression coming, but I don't mind playing his splits if need be. After that, I think Youkilis will provide a lot of value in Rd19, especially as he bats cleanup for the first month or two while Granderson and Teix are on the mend.

I think my worst pick was Carl Crawford. It's not that I don't think he'll rebound nicely, but that I think I may have been able to get him a round or 2 later. At least he fits my draft strategy though.

3. Who were the steals and/or reaches of the draft?

This is somewhat hard to evaluate when you have 70 players kept and littered all throughout the draft results, but there were a few picks that stood out to me.

For reaches, I remember thinking Red taking Jean Segura in Round 10 was interesting considering his general ranking and ADP. I also was surprised Ender picked Papelbon in Round 3. I pegged him as a "don't pay for saves" kinda guy, so taking Paps over some of the players taken after him until his next selection in Round 5 threw me a bit.

For steals, someone I really like this year is Andrew Cashner. When my pick came around in Rd18, there were two SP I had way above the rest available. I went for McCarthy, hoping Cashner would make it back. Squints was able to grab him in Rd19. Pretty tough to find a pitcher that late who can throw 100 and plays in that cavernous park.

Other picks I really liked - Lincecum Rd 7 (Ender), Aoki Rd 9 (Zepfan), Morneau Rd11 (ggs), Estrada Rd15 (BigLebowski), Carpenter Rd 24 (ggs)

4. Who do you think will finish in the top 3?

RedBullVodka - He may be the team to beat again this year. Keeping Trout and McCutch for as cheap as he did is a very nice starting point. Offense looks strong in practically all categories, although if Trout doesn't run as much as he did last season, SB may be lacking (pretty easy thing to fix, however). Pitching looks great as well, but may be light on SV. Again, this is maybe the easiest pitching category to fix and may be no problem with some active managing throughout the year.

Ayebatter - Maybe the strongest pitching team in the league. He has two of the top 3 SP and 3 CL that I expect to stick all year long. Obviously there are questions considering he probably also has the oldest offense in the league, but he doesn't have to finish with a top offense if his pitching turns out as dominant as it appears on paper.

Zepfan - From one of the worst to first? He had some very strong keepers coming into the draft which has allowed him to build arguably has the most well-rounded offense. He's got maybe the two best SS, the likely HR king, and a lot of young players that I really like. His pitching looks solid enough.

Honorable mention: Ender - I feel like we have very similar philosophies on evaluating talent. I found myself cursing a few times when you sniped a target of mine a few picks before me. j24jags - Teix injury is tough, but had great keepers coming in. Me - I like my team.

5. Who do you think will finish in the bottom 3?

Amazing Oopah - Oopah came in with a pretty tough keeper situation, and although I doubt he makes much of an impact this season, I do at least give him props on his draft strategy. What this league has shown is that a few good keepers can turn a team all the way around. He's taking advantage of this by drafting young almost across the board. I think it is a good strategy given his situation.

Third Day - Ditto to the above, although I actually think that you have a chance to finish much higher. I think you did well to achieve what Oopah also set out to do - but I think that you executed it even better. So although you may finish towards the bottom this year, I think you'll improve tremendously over the next few seasons.

RedHopeful - Knowing how active Red is on the WW, I doubt his team looks the same by season's end. But regardless, I think it'll be tough to replace the power that is missing in that offense. You have some HR hitters, but beyond Pujols, they're high K, low BA, lower batting order guys. Although BA can vary wildly, I think it may be hard to recover from those BA liabilities. Now there is also a lot of upside here with Machado, Harper, and those young arms, so it also wouldn't surprise me if things broke for you and you finish much higher.

6. Any other thoughts?

I just wanted to also say, as others have stated, that it was nice to have everyone working together to keep up a nice pace to the draft. We only had a few skips, and we were able to finish almost 2 weeks before the start of the season. Well done!

Also, I'll be doing my best throughout the season to stay active and talk some shiz. Please do what you can to do the same. Good luck everyone!

[zepfan]

1. What was your overall draft strategy, and who are the keys to your success?

Last year was the first time I had a horrible season in pretty much any of my cafe leagues and I remember deciding when I couldn't get the guys I had targeted, that drafting a "proven consistent vet" was not a bad fallback strategy. Well my vets mostly sucked and then I wondered why I ever strayed from my original strategy, which was this:

Target guys in their mid-to-late 20's who seem to be on the upswing to get the best value and (fingers crossed) hopefully get a couple guys in their breakout years.

I think I did that well enough in this draft. The other less important part of my strategy was to mostly fill out my batting lineup first and then focus on pitchers afterwards since they are not usually as reliable as hitters from one year to another.


2. What are the best and/or worst picks that you made?

I like the Freddy Freeman and Moustakas picks as far as upside goes. Moustakas is a wild card but better to get 'em a year early than a year late.

Chris Tillman doesn't have huge upside but I was pretty surprised that he still hadn't been taken at round 23, so I think that was probably my best late pick.

Jose Reyes in the first seemed like a no-brainer. Not only am I securing my middle infield spot but I've got a nice backup for when Tulo gets hurt and I've also prevented the rest of you suckas from getting your greedy hands on one of the better players at a somewhat scarce position.

I'm not a big fan of my Grienke pick in round 2 but I wanted an "ace" pitcher and I thought he had the best upside. In hindsight, I think Cliff Lee was still available at the time and probably would have been a better pick. I think in this particular case a proven vet would have been safer than Greinke.

3. Who were the steals and/or reaches of the draft?

I only know that I was disappointed when I realized that the Japanese (would-be) closer who is backing up Marmol had been taken a few picks before mine. I thought I was I was the pimp G when I typed in that pick only to have my world come crashing down in the form of a PM advising me that he had already been taken.

Other than that I didn't really pay too much attention to the guys that other people were drafting.

4. Who do you think will finish in the top 3?

zepfan
Potrzebie
yours truly

5. Who do you think will finish in the bottom 3?

people other than myself

6. Any other thoughts?

Now I just need to stay on top of my team throughout the year. A good draft is helpful but only about half the proverbial battle. The other half is staying on top of closers and keeping an eye out for available streaking players who look like they have the opportunity and skill to keep it until the season ends.

I would offer more insight into other people's teams but I rarely pay attention to anyone else's team unless it's late in the season and I'm competing with them directly.

Also holy crap this league is deep. Josh Donaldson as my backup CI? I don't even know if he's gonna have a starting job on his team...

That is all for me. Good luck in the season folks!

[Ender]

1. What was your overall draft strategy, and who are the keys to your success?

I didn't have a big plan going into the draft. My keepers were more value picks instead of top end talent and it was pitching heavy so I just wanted to go offense early. I have 4 kids, work 3rd shift with no access to yahoo so I know I don't have as much access to games as many others so I felt it was very important that I get a solid closer early since getting saves off the FA list gets a lot harder when you are always busy during the games. Other than that early on I like to go after established good players who are young enough to have upside still, middle rounds I just try to get solid boring guys instead of chasing upside and late rounds are all about upside and gaming the system. I wanted to be sure to not invest much in my OF since the 4 OF format and daily league makes OF extremely low in value in this league.

2. What are the best and/or worst picks that you made?

I was really happy with Denard Span in the 17th round. I don't see any difference between him and Aoki who goes many rounds earlier. I was also really happy to get Scutaro as my Mon/Thu guy since he has such a wide range of eligibility and when you mix him with Zobrist it covers almost every position. I probably reached on Ackley who I think has some breakout potential but I'm sure I could have gotten 3 or 4 rounds later.

3. Who were the steals and/or reaches of the draft?

With the keepers it is hard for me to judge this but I think Melky Cabrera in round 5 is pretty bad and I wasn't a fan of Crawford so early either.

4. Who do you think will finish in the top 3?

Daily league with relatively shallow offensive positions, hard to say anything to be honest. I know RBV is supposed to be the favorite with the great keepers but I did not like a large chunk of his draft at all so I don't see anyone being the clear favorite to be honest.

5. Who do you think will finish in the bottom 3?

The teams with the most injuries or the least active during the year. The draft doesn't determine this. If I had to pick one team I would never want it is j24jags. Teix's injury scares me to death. I'm not a Bautista guy especially after the wrist. I think Reynolds is a platoon player by mid season in that park and I don't think Bonifacio starts full time either. Brantley and Martin are also really iffy to me. Beckham is below replacement level as is Bud Norris. He just managed to pick almost an entire roster of guys I don't like at all. But who knows, I've been wrong before.

6. Any other thoughts?

Leagues aren't won in the draft. You build a good base to make you competitive but the leagues themselves are usually won during the season, especially in daily roto where you can turn a bunch of scrub SP into the same value as Justin Verlander or two mediocre OF into an elite one if you just manage things well and get even a little luck.

[ayebatter]

With the keepers it is hard for me to judge this but I think Melky Cabrera in round 5 is pretty bad

Melky was the 28th OF off the board, name 27 better please.

[Ender]

Sure if you count keepers. He is my 30th rated OF and OF is devalued in this league by a good amount. I liked the next 2 OF you picked more than Cabrera to be honest. With the keeper league it is kind of hard to know where guys should go but I like the majority of the next 3 rounds of players more than Melky. I'm sure we just value him differently, I think he is a .285 15/15 guy off the juice, I'm guessing you value him significantly higher.

[ggs]

melky is a tough one to gauge coming off a ped year. wouldnt surprise me if he hits .290 with 20/20 upside this year at all in that loaded lineup.

[Fade2White12]

I kinda like Melky this year, more so now that he's in that lineup and park than when he was on the juice in SF.

But aye, ggs - if you have the time to post, you have the time to answer the questionnaire.

[ggs]

1. What was your overall draft strategy, and who are the keys to your success?

1. Don't leave value on the table - I try to draft BPA as much as possible and within reason. Of course, if there's a reason guys aren't getting drafted you have to recognize that as well.

2. Get the guys you want - goes against #1 but don't leave your guys hoping you'll get em next round. If you don't think they'll last, grab em. In the end we do this for entertainment and if you've got a good gut feeling about certain players, the season will be more fun if they're on your team.

3. Recognize runs - know when a certain positional run is occurring and don't be left out. Not good to be at either the beginning (starting a run) or end (left without a player).

4. Try to anticipate what other managers will do - especially important if you're drafting at the tail end of a round and you've got a swing pick coming back in 2 or 3 picks. If a 3B is on the board and you need one, and the guy after you with back-to-back picks already has 2 guys on the corner, you're likely safe waiting until it comes back around to grab that guy.

2. What are the best and/or worst picks that you made?

Worst: Nakajima in the 15th. Thought he'd transition a bit better but doesn't look like it. Was a gamble but so far not looking like it will pay off. Eaton in the 13th was early too, and a case where real game doesnt translate well to fantasy.

Best: Carpenter in the 24th. Makes up for the Nakajima pick as it looks like he'll get his 2B eligibility.

3. Who were the steals and/or reaches of the draft?

Steals:
Logan Morrison by j24jags in the 23rd could be useful if he can stay on the field
also Dunn in the 15th by alpha was a good pick.
teheran in the 17th by red is another good one
i also like veras in the 18th by lebowski

Reaches:
All the kids drafted in the mid-teens! It's a keeper but the inflation each year really raises that price tag.
also adam lind. cuz he's adam lind and sucks.

4. Who do you think will finish in the top 3?
I really like Ender's pitching staff and that could propel him to the top. i like alpha's bats as i think he's got some good breakout potential there if all goes well. RBV just might be the most well-rounded roster so he'll be in the mix as well.

5. Who do you think will finish in the bottom 3?
Dangerous question. Everyone has a shot at it and it will really be who can avoid injuries and who's picked the right guys to break out.

6. Any other thoughts?
now comes the boring part.. the rest of the season!

[ayebatter]

But aye, ggs - if you have the time to post, you have the time to answer the questionnaire.

What questionnaire