Sadly, the NFBC team building fun comes to a close. To go along with my splendid $14 offense, I attempted to assemble a $246 pitching staff using NFBC average auction values from Feb 1 and on. Although I succeeding in spending all my money when buying a dominant offense to go with my $9 pitching staff, I left two bucks on the table here for my ultimate pitching staff, only spending $244 of the $246 I had available.
Often, when an analyst reviews his or her draft, it is typically ahead of the season about to be played. That makes sense! We are planning for 2021, not 2020. It might behoove us, however, to review how drafts actually went. I’m guilty of doing the former and not the latter! With the dawn of the second annual Razzball RazzSlam best ball tournament upon us, I figured now is as good a time as any to rectify this.
Last year, I entered the inaugural RazzSlam having played, and subsequently bombed, in a couple of best ball drafts on Fantrax. I wanted to dip my toe in, get my feet wet, and other joint-aquatic/podiatric idioms, so I entered a couple of low-stakes leagues, figuring I could wing it. As foreshadowed, I fared poorly. I, in fact, could not wing it.
Having failed somewhat spectacularly for a guy who fancies himself at least somewhat knowledgeable and/or adept at fantasy baseball, I wanted to right my wrong by taking my preparation for RazzSlam seriously. I finished 15th out of 216 participants (18 leagues of 12 teams each), somehow not winning my league but ending up one of the highest 2nd-place finishers above some league winners. I’m proud! Because I expected another unmitigated disaster.
Hence, I figure it might be worth reviewing, with hindsight, one of my rare successful drafts. We played out the season already, so instead of trying to outline tips and tricks up front, it might be easiest to simply show you the draft results, each player’s stats, and the clear takeaways from my strategy — some intentional, some not.
Last week I decided to have a bit of fun by building various starting hitter rosters and pitching staffs based on NFBC average auction values (AAVs). One of those exercises was building a $9 pitching staff. It’s something I always wanted to try in my local 12-team mixed league, but have never really come close to executing on. It’s very difficult to do because you’ll likely end up overpaying for your offense just to spend that $251, since the top players’ prices typically get pushed higher than the value they are projected to earn. Sure, your $9 pitching staff is likely to be projected to earn more than $9, but overall, you’re not going to leave the auction with a roster forecasted to earn anywhere near the profit you could if just playing it straight as a value-based auctioner.
With draft season upon us, it is important to monitor where players are being drafted on a regular basis. Throughout draft season, I will be doing that work for you with regular updates on the Average Draft Position on NFBC up until Opening Day. You can find all the pieces in this series here.
The Relief Pitcher Episode of the Beat the Shift Podcast – a baseball podcast for fantasy baseball players.
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With drafts beginning to ramp up, it is important to monitor where players are being draft on a regular basis. Throughout draft season, I will be doing that work for you with regular updates on the Average Draft Position on NFBC up until Opening Day. You can find all the pieces in this series here. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday, I assembled a 14-player offense from the hitters who weren’t bought in NFBC auctions since Feb 1. Today, let’s flip over to the pitching side.
With drafts beginning to ramp up, it is important to monitor where players are being draft on a regular basis. Throughout draft season, I will be doing that work for you with regular updates on the Average Draft Position on NFBC up until Opening Day. You can find all the pieces in this series here. Read the rest of this entry »
On Monday, I built a $14 offense using only $1 players from the NFBC average auction values starting Feb 1. My player pool to choose from for that exercise was 59 players. But what about those that weren’t purchased at all? Surely they could have been had for a buck, too! That group is now my pool to choose from for this thrilling offense. As a reminder, there were seven auctions run since Feb 1, so this 14-player offense will be solely composed of hitters who failed to be bought in any of them.
With drafts beginning to ramp up, it is important to monitor where players are being draft on a regular basis. Throughout draft season, I will be doing that work for you with regular updates on the Average Draft Position on NFBC up until Opening Day. You can find all the pieces in this series here. Read the rest of this entry »