Sample Draft Prep (Part 1)

Over the last couple of weeks a few of my fellow writers here are FanGraphs have been going over some draft strategies. This week, I am going to step through my exact process for a draft. On Thursday night, I will be joining a few fantasy writers for a 15 team mock draft. Over the next few days, I will go through the exact process I normally use to set up for a draft. If one of the other drafters steals borrows my info, fine. This is actually more a way to show you my process for drafts.

First off, I will be following the procedure I set out last season in this three part series. There is quite a few good links in those articles for the procedures I use.

The first key is to find the league rules. Here are the basic rules for my draft:

Teams: 15
Rounds: 23
Min games: 10
Rules: Roto 5×5
Player Pool: Mixed

Catchers: 2
1st Basemen: 1
2nd Basemen: 1
Shortstops: 1
3rd Basemen: 1
Middle Infielders: 1
Corner Infielders: 1
Utility Players: 1
Outfielders: 5
Pitchers: 9

The next key is to find last year’s results on a similar league. While this is a fairly standard league, I haven’t played in a similar one. I use the standing gain points (SGP) method for determining player value so any baseline is helpful. NFBC runs similar leagues (with a bench tough), so I will use their 2014 leagues for a bench mark. Here are the average final 2014 rankings for 28 of the leagues.

Rank	AVG	Runs	HR	RBI	SB		ERA	Wins	WHIP	Strikeouts	Saves
1	0.274	1038	259	1023	184		3.10	110	1.14	1508	108
2	0.271	1014	247	986	168		3.23	105	1.17	1457	97
3	0.269	994	239	967	158		3.29	100	1.18	1423	90
4	0.267	981	233	948	152		3.35	98	1.20	1400	87
5	0.265	965	227	936	146		3.40	96	1.21	1373	82
6	0.264	952	223	921	141		3.46	94	1.21	1357	77
7	0.262	945	217	906	135		3.51	92	1.22	1339	73
8	0.261	930	211	897	131		3.54	91	1.23	1320	70
9	0.260	918	207	879	128		3.58	89	1.23	1300	65
10	0.259	908	201	867	123		3.63	87	1.24	1284	60
11	0.258	896	196	854	119		3.67	85	1.25	1264	55
12	0.256	884	189	840	114		3.73	83	1.26	1241	50
13	0.255	861	183	825	110		3.80	80	1.27	1213	42
14	0.253	837	174	797	103		3.90	76	1.29	1179	33
15	0.249	795	162	759	90		4.05	70	1.32	1112	20
Actual Slope	0.00155	14.8	6.2	16.1	5.6		0.057	2.39	0.0102	23.7	5.40
Adjusted Slope	0.00135	12.5	5.5	13.8	4.7		0.048	1.97	0.0082	20.0	4.63

The slope value is needed for the SGP formula. Now, one value I need to explain is the Adjusted Slope. In leagues, owners will completely tank a category like Saves or Steals if they see they have no chance of winning the category. Their value is so out of place, it is useless for determining the slope of the line. Using, the above values, here are the the average Save totals.

Usually Saves and Stolen Bases get the this ‘S’ type curve, other categories can also. The top teams won by 12 Saves, while the middle rankings differed by an average of 5.4 Saves. To remove any out of place values which were too high or low, I only got the slope value for the middle 11 positions. This is the ‘Adjusted Slope”.  Finally here are the two equations I am going to move forward with.

Pitcher SGP = W/1.97+SV/4.63+SO/20+((3.55-((ER+524.2)*(9/(IP+1329))))/.048)+((1.229-((1633+H+BB)/(IP+1329)))/.0082)

Hitter SGP = HR/5.5+R/12.5+RBI/13.8+SB/4.7+((((1846+H)/(7058+AB))-.2616)/.00135)

Now it is time to find some basic projections. Well, I do write for FanGraphs and we currently have Steamer projections available for download. I got both the pitcher and hitter values and put them into a spreadsheet (found here) and calculated and ranked by SGP using the above two formulas.

Note: Don’t change the yellow columns. They are calculated from other columns.

Now, it is time to sit down become intimate with the projections. Which players do I love? I will bump up the stats on those players to what I think they will be. Which players do I not like.?Move those players down by changing their projections. One player who immediately sticks out is Billy Hamilton and his 68 stolen bases. I am thinking ’14 may be about as good as it gets for him and move the number down to 55. This is the time I reach for players I like, not during the draft. I may think Mike Moustakas’s post season performance is his true talent level so I will bump up his value now. This will give me time to see how his new value compares to other players.

Even if a draft is a couple months away, all these steps can be done right now. If I think a player changes his talent in some way, I will change the projections as I go along. Usually, I wait for a couple of projections to become available and average the pair, but I can just track the players I see as being off.

After this step is done, there are three more items to accomplish: position adjustment, looking for tiers and comparing my rankings to the ADP. I will go over those three before my draft on Thursday night. For now, I need to go and privately massage my projections.