Real Draft: Embracing Injury Risks
Last night I participated in a 12-team mixed draft. A few things you need to know before we get to the roster. First, I share this team with another owner. Second, our starting lineup each week consists of nine hitters and six pitchers. Third, there are six hitting categories and five pitching (don’t ask). Finally, this is not an expert league. We had the sixth pick and ended up with this squad
Joe Mauer
David Wright
Jose Reyes
Adam Lind
Dan Haren
Brian Roberts
Ubaldo Jimenez
Nelson Cruz
Cliff Lee
Lance Berkman
Michael Cuddyer
Denard Span
David Aardsma
Jay Bruce
Jason Heyward
Roy Oswalt
Johnny Cueto
Ted Lilly
Joe Blanton
Ervin Santana
Octavio Dotel
Rafael Furcal
Jon Garland
Given the uncertain power output of both Mauer and Wright, along with the health concerns with Reyes, we were concerned about having too much risk on this team. But every other owner in the league seemed to be avoiding risk at all costs. Higher ranked players with the red box next to their name were being bypassed, regardless if the injury was going to keep them out a month or whether it was a day-to-day thing.
Starting with round nine, we embraced people who may or may not be ready to play the first week or first month of the season. Here are the walking wounded and the reasons they fell in this draft:
Lee – Suspension and abdominal strain
Berkman – arthroscopic knee surgery
Oswalt – hamstring injury
Lilly – shoulder surgery, knee injury
Santana – inflamed bursa sac
We also just missed on Carlos Beltran and Brandon Webb, who were selected on the round we were going to draft them.
With this many injury concerns on the team, we are bound to have some players miss extended time. But given the shallow nature of our starting lineups, we determined that they were all risks worth taking. It is not the plan we entered the draft with, but it is an example of how you have to remain flexible and be willing to shift gears during your draft.
You picked Mauer 6th overall?
Not willingly. Such are the pitfalls of sharing a team with another owner. Razzball projected Point Shares has him as the 10th-best player, so hopefully it does not end up as too much of a reach.
Saw a so-called expert league where Mauer went 2nd!!! I wish the same happened in my league as I had the 3rd pick.
I did an auction last night in an ESPN roto league with slightly expanded rosters and scoring (still 260 budget though), and Mauer ended up going for 30$ when guys like Pujols hit $38 and Hanley was at $35.
A lot of people are buying into him and the talk that Target field may be perfect for his opposite-field home run power.
And, honestly, it seems like a decent risk to take, to me. He’s worth $23 million a year to the Twins so obviously they think he’s good enough, and if he puts up something close to his triple slash stats this year for a full season he’s going to be an absolute monster, like having a top 1st round 1B like Miguel Cabrera but on C.
Seems like a bargain for a 2nd round pick, although granted, there is quite a bit of risk.
I just finished a 14-team snake draft, my first ever, as I am in auction leagues, which I prefer. I embraced a similar risk strategy, though not to the same extent as you did, as our league is much deeper, with 10 position players, 8 pitchers and 5 bench players. I too ended up with Reyes, who dropped to the 56th pick, as well as Vlad Guerrero and two Padre starting pitchers who I plan on activating only when the play at home.
Here is my team and where players were taken:
C Suzuki (12th round 12th pick)
1 Adrian Gonzalez (2nd round 12th pic)
2 Scott Sizemore (18th round 12th pick )
ss Reyes (4th round 12th pick)
3b Arod (1st round 3rd pick)
of Cruz (5th round 3rd pick)
of Carlos Gonzalez (8th round 12th pick)
of Borbon (9th round 3rd pick)
u Reynolds (3rd round 3rd pick)
u Guerrero (14th round, 12 pick)
bench –
Ordonez, 19th round 3rd pick
Snider 20th round 12th pick
Everth Cabrera 21st round 3rd pick
Kyle Blanks 23rd round 3rd pick
P Kershaw 6th round 12th pick
P Vasquez 7th round 3rd pick
P B. Anderson 10th round 12th pick
P J Sanchez 15th round 3rd pick
P M Latos 16th round 12th pick
P Matusz 17th round 3rd pick
P R. Soriano 11th round 3rd pick
P Aardsma 13th round 3rd pick
bench – Chris Young 22 round 12th pick
I like taking injury risks, as long as they tend to miss periods of time instead of random days. Filling in with a rep player make a combo that’s worth more than the injury risk appears to be worth. Of course, missing more time than expected hurts you (and vice versa).
Plus, in a league where finishing 3rd is not much better than finishing 3rd to last, you WANT risk.
I grabbed Harden, Sheets, and Bedard in my main auction yesterday. One will surprise (awesome) and one will crap out (hello, replacement) for (hopefully) an overall net gain.
Brian – Jay Bruce in the 14th round??? that’s a true steal, no? his adp is 120, which pegs him for mid 10th round. you got him in the mid-160’s.
is the non-expert draft to explain? i have a draft tomorrowand i’m planning on targeting bruce with my 97th overall pick. i know that’s a bit early, but my next picks are 109 and 112 and i don’t want to risk him being selected by some other horny owner.
i think bruce is good for 260-35-95.
Yeah, I think that’s why Bruce went so low. Also, this league starts only 3 OF, so that played a role, too.
In an auction for a shallow mixed league, as opposed to your draft, I don’t want to be “flexible and be willing to shift gears during your draft.” It confuses you and you’re relying on extremely volatile “values” provided by the fine folks at a website near you.
Instead, I target a small group of guys I really like (Tex, Kemp, Holliday, etc) and pay whatever it takes to get them. Then I have a list of upside guys I expect to get for $1 to $3. That apporach prevents you from ending up with guys you didn’t really want because your sheet said it was a $2 discount.
Its only one of several strategies, but there you go….
I think the team as a whole looks like, barring the injury bug to bite at the same time, a solid team. I can definitely see a little Razzball-esque players thrown into the mix, and I like it! I had read that both Grey and Rudy (correct me if I am wrong Rudy), suggest that even though Mauer is that high on the point shares, it still might be best to pass on C and target others. It is tough to pass on a .350 hitting C with 20+ hr power.
For anybody that has a roto draft left, and hasn’t yet seen Rudy Gamble’s Point Shares on Razzball, I highly encourage you to check it out. Razzball.com
I’d like your team a lot more without Brian Roberts. Too much risk with that balky back, not enough reward. I’d rather take any number of 2B options before or after Roberts.
Mauer with the 6th overall? Talk about risk and reward! Hope that works out well for you.
I don’t mind drafting currently injured players if they produce like a top 100 player when healthy. Someone like Roy Oswalt or Ervin Santana, however, is probably a 100+ ranked player now, so the reward isn’t big enough to bother assuming the risk and accompanying roster inflexibility.
I actually think this is a bad strategy to go this heavy on injury risk. Unless you have lots of DL spots or deep benches, you’re handcuffing your team for a big portion of the season. Needless to say, I speak from experience on this. If 3 of your guys hit the DL at the same time, you’re in quite a position. If you paid a lot for them, you can’t just drop them. And if the rest of your roster is worth anything, you can’t drop them either.
So when that perfect streaming start comes along or you lose a player in a position you’re thin in (see: your whole infield in this case, except 1B), you’re stuck. You end up not being able to just replace people, which forces you to lose value by trading away valuable players at a loss to fill your holes without losing full value by dropping guys. Basically, you start losing useful guys from your roster because you had to dump them in order to get anybody to fill your starts or innings.
So then, a few caveats to using this strategy:
1. If you use it, getting multi-position guys is a must. Having a durable multi-spot guy like Zobrist can save you from having an oft-injured guy like Reyes.
2. Figure out how much dead-weight your roster can survive, and if you get within 1 injury of that level, start trying to trade to mitigate risk by adding depth or by trading away some of those injured/injury risk guys. That way, when the next injury happens you aren’t stuck between dropping Lilly or not fielding a SS for a week until you can work out a trade with a healthier team.
3. This can play out very badly in H2H. Especially when playoffs roll around, injury prone players are a major liability. If their team is out of contention, they won’t play- putting your team out of contention. What do Reyes, Berkman, and Roberts all have in common? Answer: If they have so much as a sore toe, they’re going to be sitting the last two weeks of the season.
4. Even outside of H2H playoffs, the stat-swings from too much injury risk can lead to crooked numbers. As is usual with H2H, you’re best off lumping a lot of your risk into a couple of categories rather than spreading it. So draft lots of injury prone pitchers only. That way, even if your pitching is toast on a given week, you’ll still pick up offense points. Or vice versa.
I should note that for this team however, I wouldn’t worry too much. Even though it’s far too big on injury risk- Garland and Blanton are so replaceable that I’m not even sure what the point of rostering them was in the first place. Not to say I dislike Garland. Had I been in my 14 team league this year with its 1450 IP count, I’d be seeking out those workhorse innings. But in a 12 team mixed? Was there really nobody with more upside? Chris Young (SP), Lowe, Zito, Wade Davis, Morrow, and maybe even Oli Perez would seem like better picks and I can’t imagine all of them were drafted. While I guess rostering unremarkable, stable low-upside guys is a good way to keep roster flexibility when other guys get injured, I have to imagine it’s a bit of a waste.
Hi I was just wondering do you do all the writing yourself or do you have guest writers. I’m loving your blog. Thanks.