Developing a plan, Part 1

Maybe some of you out there in reader-land don’t realize this, so let me take just a brief moment to point out something very important. SPRING TRAINING GAMES BEGIN TODAY! That’s right, the Phillies take on Florida State in an exhibition game this afternoon, officially kicking off the 2011 spring season. Yes, I know that it’s only an exhibition and that actual Cactus league games begin tomorrow, while the Grapefruit league begins on Saturday. Still, starting today there will be live updates online to follow and the all-important box scores to pore over once again.

It really is a beautiful thing.

The beginning of spring games means we’re into the home stretch for our fantasy draft preparations. Most of you will be drafting in the next several weeks, and the time is now to start developing a plan and formulating a strategy on exactly how you want the draft to go. The more time you spend working on this strategy and exploring what to do with each situation that could arise, the better off you’ll be.

I can’t count how many people I’ve seen go into a draft without a well thought-out plan in place, thinking that they know the player pool and they can freelance their way to greatness. They have no real idea of proper team construction. They often get flustered as the one-minute clock ticks down, pressuring them to make their pick. If a player they have their sights set on goes with the pick before them, they go “tilt” and make a forced, last-minute decision, rather than knowing ahead of time which direction to go. I’m here today to spell out a little of what I’m doing in building my draft plan, in the hopes that it will help some of you as well.

I’m no expert on this game. I don’t claim that how I build my draft plan is the best way—it’s just the way I’ve had the most success. I’m also always looking for new and better ideas, and strive to learn from those who are truly experts in fantasy baseball. I’m also aware that until you find out your draft spot, you can’t accurately predict which players you’ll target in each round. This is more of a basic overview of what I’m doing to set my plan in place before I have my draft slot. The league I am preparing for is a national competition, which is broken down into 15-team leagues. We roster 30 total players, 23 starters (two catchers, first base, second base, shortstop, third base, five outfielders, a utility man, a corner infielder, a middle infielder, nine pitchers) and seven bench slots.

By this point, I have my player rankings updated and broken down into tiers of value. The first thing I look for is where the most severe dropoffs are, and make sure I target a player in that tier.

For example, I believe that shortstop is the weakest overall position this year. According to my rankings, eight players are a class above the rest of the field. Hanley Ramirez and Troy Tulowitzki are in a tier to themselves. Jose Reyes and Jimmy Rollins are a cut below them, then Derek Jeter, Alexei Ramirez, Elvis Andrus and Stephen Drew are all serviceable options. After them, everyone has serious questions, downside or both.

I know going into my draft that I want one of the top eight shortstops. Let’s say that it’s the seventh round, and Drew is the last of these players available. I have him lined up and ready to go, and the person drafting in front of me takes him just before my pick. What do I do now? Unprepared for such an instance, some people would just grab the next best shortstop on their list, maybe Rafael Furcal. Knowing of the tremendous falloff after the top eight, I know that once Drew is gone, I’m not looking for a shortstop until at least the 15th round, and I look for value elsewhere with the current pick.

Another position where I see this top-heavy inventory is at first base. The top couple of tiers are very solid, but it goes downhill quickly after that. Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera make up the top tier on their own. After that, Joey Votto, Mark Teixeira and Adrian Gonzalez are firmly in tier two, with Ryan Howard and Prince Fielder right behind them. After these seven, Kendry Morales, Justin Morneau, Adam Dunn and Paul Konerko would all be quality additions, but come with more risk. After Konerko, other than maybe Billy Butler, there isn’t a whole lot that entices me. Especially in a league that starts a corner infielder and utility player in addition to a first baseman, I’m making sure to target one of the top seven here as well. If I happen to miss on the top group, then I’m making sure I get one of those next four.

Another area I focus on is what I want to do with my catchers. In a 15-team, two-catcher league the talent at this position gets thin very quickly. Some people like to acquire top talent early and have two “plus” catchers on their team. Others like to punt the position completely and draft two players in the 20th round or later. My preference falls somewhere between these two extremes.

I believe that although the top tier of catchers is great, they aren’t worth the price you pay to get them. Therefore Joe Mauer, Victor Martinez, Brian McCann and Buster Posey in all likelihood won’t be on my teams. Just below this top group lies Carlos Santana, who I love this year and will consider, depending on how far he falls. The next tier contains Mike Napoli, Jorge Posada, Geovany Soto, Kurt Suzuki and Miguel Montero. It’s in this group that I see the most value currently, and if I miss on Santana, I’m looking for my No. 1 catcher out of this group. I prefer to take my second catcher as a mid-late round pick and look for someone who’s getting full time at-bats and won’t be a complete drain on my average, like Carlos Ruiz or Yadier Molina.

You should also be giving heavy consideration to where you want to draft your closers. Some prefer to wait on closers, drafting a couple of guys who have a job in the mid-late teens and then working the free agent market all year, but I’m not a fan of this strategy. When doing this, not only are your closers speculative and a potential drain on your ratios, but you also end up wasting a good portion of your free agent budget chasing saves. In a national competition like this, you generally need between 90 and 100 saves to compete for the title. That’s roughly 2.5 closers over the course of the year.

My strategy starts with locking up one of the elite closers early on. This means getting one from the group of Mariano Rivera, Heath Bell, Brian Wilson, Joakim Soria, Carlos Marmol and Neftali Feliz. I prefer to lock up my second closer in the 11th or 12th round, to make sure that I have someone with a stable job. When doing so, I also look for a player with limited competition for the role so I can handcuff his replacement in the reserve rounds.

I’ve heard from numerous people who think the most important thing you can do is build a team with all hitters early on and then use your knowledge of the player pool to fill out your rotation in the mid-late rounds. While this can be a viable strategy in smaller leagues, in this 15-team format, it’s insanely difficult. You would literally need to hit on every pitcher you took, which seems highly improbable. You need to find a couple of the top arms to build your rotation around.

Currently, I am trying to identify who I want the ace of my rotation to be, and figuring out where I want to draft the rest of my pitchers. The way I’m leaning at this moment, my ace would need to be selected in round three, and I would follow up with my second starter in round eight. This would leave me with seven hitters and three pitchers through my first 10 rounds, and allow me to build my rotation in rounds 11-20, where I see the most value. However, if another pitcher I like as a No. 2 starter falls to the ninth or 10th round, I could always deviate from the plan and push back my corner infielder or second baseman to the spot where I would normally grab my No. 3 pitcher.

These are a few of the things I’m looking at as I develop my plan of attack. If you have questions, comments, concerns, insight, etc. feel free to let me know!

A Hardball Times Update
Goodbye for now.

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Freddie
13 years ago

great article, always provides useful information and insight. looking forward to see the next one!

Will Hatheway
13 years ago

Dave –

I’m guessing you’re playing the NFBC Classic, no?
If so, I’d be curious about your strategy regarding the “Kentucky Derby” draft order selection procedure, as well as how you might imagine managing your FAAB dollars in various theoretical situations.

Regardless, this is really intriguing stuff you’ve started here. I particularly agree that if you miss out on the last player before a dropoff that you pretty much punt on that position until you get to the latest guy before the next dropoff… which means you’d also want to consider, in this example, how far down you are willing to go. Uribe? Peralta? Hardy? Something better, or even worse? And that those questions should go in sync with deciding at what point the benefit of using earlier draft picks for other positions returns less than picking up the best remaining SS on the board at a given point, etc.
I hope that makes some sort of sense, though I’m not sure.

Another thing to consider is how much to value your reserve spots. In some cases is it ever worth it to pick a guy who will start on the bench than taking a starter who is no better than a number of remaining options? This could be a prospective call-up SP, say, or the RP handcuff you mention, perhaps. In the case of NFBC, I myself would consider taking extra RPs, since I don’t think the active pitching spots stipulate SP or RPs so you could make use of them for buffing up your Ks and ratios when you don’t have a starter going who needs the slot (though that would only work if you got daily changes).

A couple final thoughts (I could bore you on this subject for far too long) is that you are spot-on about being flexible in when you take however many pitchers vs. hitters based on whether a really good player falls far enough that it makes sense to deviate from your original allocation plan, and finally that for that “half” closer you want that you might target RPs who are the clear next-in-line to an initial closer who has a shaky grasp on the role.

Anyway, just some crap that shot to my head when I read your piece…

-Will

Dave Shovein
13 years ago

@Will

Thanks for the response, it’s always nice to hear that people actually read the articles and take some of what I say to heart!

Now to try to answer your questions..

Yes, I am playing in the NFBC classic. This will be my third year competing in that event, with mixed results the previous 2. Year one placed 4th in my league, a point or two out of the money. Last season, I took far too many chances/injury risks and paid the price for it.

As far as KDS settings go, I think it’s important to look over the inventory as thoroughly as possible and decide what players you want to build your team around.  I try to look at each draft position and plan out the first 4-6 rounds to see what kind of team I would end up with. Personally, as of now I see a clear cut top 4 players that are an advantage over the rest of the field. There is a chance that one of those top 4 players falls to pick 5, so I’d factor that into my KDS as well, worst case scenario being I get to choose the best of the rest at 5. After that, the next 10-15 guys could go anywhere from 5th to 20th depending on your personal preference. A few of those guys I like better than consensus and current ADP, which means I wouldn’t need to take them until the back end of round 1. So for now, I’m looking something like 1-5, 11-15, 10-6, but that will probably change numerous times before draft day.

Managing your FAAB dollars over the course of the season may be one of the most challenging aspects of the game, especially for newcomers who have no experience doing so. I’d suggest that people try a satellite league or three before jumping to the main event, just to get a feel for how this system works. Some players assume that they can just fix draft day mistakes through FAAB, but there are very few impact players that present themselves during the season, and they generally command top dollar. To be really successful, you have to be extremely proactive and snatch players up a week ahead of time at a discount, rather than paying the market premiums.

As far as shortstops go, I’m just not in love with the depth at the position after the top 8 guys (possibly Ian Desmond as well). My personal preference if I miss out on them is to wait until rounds 17-20 and grab one of those Uribe, Hardy, Peralta, Alex Gonzalez types. While they won’t contribute anything in average or steals, you’ll at least get solid power contribution and hopefully can make up those other two with the player you’re taking where most are settling for Furcal, Tejada, Yunel Escobar types.

I value my reserve spots more than the average player I would say. I would definitely take a bench player before I have my starting positions filled if value dictated it. As an example, in the 21st round lets say I still don’t have my 2nd catcher or middle infield positions filled. There are 6-8 players at each of those spots available who I value similarly, while there’s an outfielder who I value in a tier above the rest, a solid 1B/DH type getting full time AB’s and a couple of solid starters who are a notch above what’s remaining. I would definitely pull the trigger and take those players before filling my starting spots. 162 games is a marathon season and you’ll experience numerous injuries. I’m a huge proponent of building the best depth possible.

I also believe in taking a closer in waiting or two with my reserve rounds. The NFBC is a weekly change league though, which means that you can’t sub them in daily to replace starters who aren’t pitching, but they’re still valuable commodities.

Hopefully this helps!

Eddie
13 years ago

I’m in a 16 team keeper league and I’ve got an outstanding base held over from last year: Votto/A. Hill/CarGo/C. Crawford/Stanton/Halladay/Gallardo/D. Hudson.

My biggest areas of need are SS/3B/C, which are pretty shallow. There won’t be great options available when I begin to draft. My question is, should I take the best of those three positions with my first draft pick regardless of what else is on the board? Or if there is a player that is clearly better at the top of the draft list when I take my first turn in round 9, should I grab that player and hope to fill my needs later on?

Dave Shovein
13 years ago

@ Eddie: It’s really hard to make that call without knowing what’s available. If the positions you are weak at C/SS/3B have multiple options of similarly valued players on the board, to where you could pass on them and get someone of equal value a couple of rounds later, then by all means take the best available player. Awesome start to your team by the way.

Jimbo
13 years ago

One exercise I like to do each year is a bottom-up approach. Instead of just focusing on where the tiers end, I’ll look at positions with ample sleepers to tell me which positions are strategically best left until the end.

Last year I overdrafted Granderson and Borbon (yes, I was on tilt a bit), yet wound up with Chris Young and Brett Gardner on my roster later on—basically contributing what I had picked the first two for. Boy did I miss out on value where they were drafted!!

So OF and SP are the most likely spots for me to find quality free agents. Of course I don’t want to wait on taking ANY of these players, but in years gone by if I have a full OF there’s a lot of waiver talent I can’t benefit from—all while I may be in need of an upgrade at SS.

This can help me prioritize positions, such that there are two generally equal players left in my SS/2B top tier…which one should be a priority? From a bottom-up exercise, I know there are far more sleepers/value pick at 2B. Simple example, but extended across all positions it winds up a rather helpful excercise.

Where I feel the most anxiety in a draft isn’t between players of the same position…but knowing which position is the biggest need/best choice. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a sterling plan GOING IN, only to fall victim to tilt. And once you’re there it’s hard to recover.

Any advice on actually IMPLEMENTING a good plan come draft day would be great! Although perhaps that is the idea for part 2…