League Retrospectives: Draft & Hold Breakdown Procedure

I enjoy participating in some early season draft-and-holds because they allow me to dive deep into the player pool before FAAB drafts start. Also, the extra time between picks allows my partners and me to work out our differences before any timed drafts. This past season, my results varied from winning the league to not even being competitive. I’m going to go through my process for dissecting leagues to find any possible future improvements (full drafts at end of the article).

I’m going to focus on the procedure of breaking down a league after the carnage. I know people don’t want to read about my leagues, hell I don’t even care about them as I get ready for 2021 but I need to stop making the same mistakes. Here are the four steps I use to investigate and improve my leagues.

1. Start with the final standings

The pitcher-hitter mix can be an issue to fix. Here are the results from the four leagues (full draft results at the end of the article)

I’m not surprised at all seeing the slightly higher hitting totals. It was a theme among all my leagues since I found more values from hitting as suspect pitchers got pushed up.

The truth is that I didn’t have a major split between the two. When I sucked, it was consistent.

2. Hitter-Pitcher draft balance

In previous season’s draft-and-holds, I seemed to always run out of pitching so I drafted more this past season. My general approach was to take one pitcher for each hitter drafted. While I didn’t always follow it, it worked for a couple of the leagues. And not for two others. Here the draft splits with a focus on pitching.

In the two winning leagues, I took fewer pitchers and focused a bit more on closers. While I will consider taking fewer overall pitchers (more on that later), I should refine my approach to closers. In the leagues where I took two safe closers, I stayed away from throwing darts at Saves in the middle rounds. While some of the early picks missed (Kennedy, Osuna, Robles), I focused my later resources on known bankable quantities. While I hate paying for early Saves and did hit on Britton in one league, I think I should have two “safe” options rostered and maybe draft a couple of talented non-closers to stream. If it means drafting two closers in the first eight rounds, it’s a reasonable option based on these results.

3. Landmines

Besides the complete lack of closers in one league (already addressed), the biggest issue I had was taking on too much early risk. I should have been more focused on eliminating any risk with no available waiver wire.

The two normal major downside risks are injury and sucking. In the early draft-and-holds, I need to include not being signed to the mix (e.g. Kimbrel and Puig). I went through the first 10 rounds and found the instances where I added known downside risks (orange in draft lists). In the leagues I won, I only added one risk and they were in the 8th round or later. In the other two, it was three to four risks with the earliest being taken in the third round (Sale).

Normally I’m not the most risk-averse owner, but when building a base for my non-FAAB teams, I need safe reliable production from my early picks.

4. Late-round strategy

I drafted almost not late-round contributor, especially on the hitting front. From 28 pick and on, the only two contributing hitters were Isiah Kiner Falefa (who I drafted in both winning leagues) and Wilmer Flores. Maybe Cedric Mullins was the next best. Alex Gordon? Lewis Brinson? Of the 37 hitters taken, three picks contributed.

The pitchers weren’t a ton better, but better. At least there were usable like Turnbull, Mahle, Gant, Cobb, Webb, Smyly, Drake, and Valdez. It seems like if anything, I should use late darts on pitchers instead of hitters.

I could see the late-round strategy change depending on who is drafting. While I seem to find late pitcher values, someone might be able to value hitters better. Maybe their results are more mixed. It’s a barren landscape so try to get any value possible.

5. Combining the observations

A simple improvement is for me to take fewer early risks. Another one should be based on how I target my hitter-pitcher mix. The points collected are

• Not over 24 pitchers.
• At least two earlier closers.
• No more than 6 relievers including closers and they must be talented/streamable.
• Take as many hitters before round-30 as possible.

To meet all the criteria, here are the rules I ended up with:

• Two high-end starters
• Two high-end closers
• 24 hitters before round 30
• Two pitcher deals before round 30
• 18 pitchers after round 30
• A late catcher (hand-cuff) and outfielder

I might be going too far with the late pitchers. I wonder if I need more like 22 early hitters and I would end up with eight pitching anchors and then stream the other spot. I really need to nail the early pitching.

I feel I’m deviating too much but I can’t wait to give the approach a try.