My Live Draft Team Sucks

[motherscratcher]

So far I've played mostly $80-100mil leagues. I've had some good and some bad teams. Made a few playoffs. I feel like I'm slowly working my way toward something resembling competence.

So I decided to try a live draft. How hard can it be?

I'm lost. I have no idea what makes a good team. When all of the players are all stars, how can you even tell what will be good? The whole thing is perplexing. It vexes me. I'm terribly vexed.

Here's the team. What in the world is wrong with it?

[url]http://fantasygames.sportingnews.com/stratomatic/team/team_other.html?user_id=349227[/url]

I can't make heads or tails of it. I feel completely lost. It must be how Manny feels all the time.

[Proverbial Psalms]

A few things jump out at me..

- too many lefty pitchers... especially for non-lefty ballpark

- terrible defense... especially for 200M/Live... Kiner in LF, Tubby Scales at 2B, Ruth in RF...

- a couple players are way over-priced which equates to underperforming vs. expectations, especially in 200M/Live... applies to Fisk, Cedeno, Thome.

Agree it is difficult to translate 80-100M experience to live drafts, but hopefully you can study other teams in your league to learn for next time... I like live format

[The Last Druid]

Not so much Thome. I don't think he's overpriced. But Fisk can't hit at this cap. I've offered you a trade that may help -- Fydrich and I-Rod for Guidry and Mackey. Or Guidry and Fisk, your choice. I haven't used the Bird at all and you've pitched Guidry 1 inning so far. Helps address your excess lefty starters issue that Bill pointed out. I-Rod's good for 40 hrs and will hit around .300. He's actually underpriced IMHO. I'm just not using him because I have Mauer catching and I'm in Dunn.

I would start Whitaker at 2nd instead of Scales. But you still lack a legitimate second basemen at this cap. Actually, I'd
probably start Lloyd at second vs. righties.

I'm 12-18 myself, but I've had Griffey injured all year so far. Hopefully when he gets back... I actually like my team.

Your defense is a disaster.

[The Rivs]

play Pop Lloyd at 2b. Kiner at DH. Give Fisk away for a six pack of Blatz, Play Biz everyday. Clemente everyday in RF, Cedeno if you can't get a slugger, keep his D in CF, Ruth in Left ok. Do not ever use a 3 defender anywhere except 1b, 3b or LF. As far as the pitching goes, look for low home run totals and get some righties, I know he's not a righty but is Plank available? Try to work a trade with someone in yer league who is also having a bad start, usually a pitcher swap can be arranged. Don't worry. Be happy. :wink: 8-)

[Proverbial Psalms]

To quote sschu... for what it is worth... i.e. coming from my perspective here is an analysis of how you drafted relative to common tendencies, rig or wrong...

You took Kiner in round 2 which is early for him in Live drafts.. mostly because he is DH not LF and thee are a lot of DH options that can be taken much later in the draft.. you passed up on Aaron, Collins, Musial, Walker, Walsh among others with that pick.

You took Marichal in the 5th round, which is still early for bulk of pitching in many drafts and even at that Marichal is taken few rounds later... Mathewson, Clemens, Randy Johnson were all available at that point, better options, but also players like Griffey were still undrafted at that point.

In Round 6 the wheels further came off when you draftd Cedeno, passing on many other options... e.g. Paige, Gehringer

In Round 10, having already drafted 3 SP's (Marichal, Santana, Hubbell) you wnet back to the pitching well and drafted Guidry... which was too many lefties and no where near enough quality for either the 10th round pick or your fourth starter...

Next three rounds you drafted Pop Lloyd (too early for third tier SS's at least for Live)... and two RP's... Nenn and Willie Hernandez which wouldn't be the end of the world if you didn't already have 4 SP's drafted.

In round 14 you picked Fisk, who is not a very good 200M/Live option, let alone drafting that early.

So by round 14 when many teams have solid core... you had Ruth, Kiner, Honus, and Sisler.. all of which are good picks/options... but also 4 SP's, 2 RP's, Pop Lloyd, Cedeno, Fisk.. which were not the best use of the mid-round selections.

Hope the feedback helps... I have a .500 record but have a ton of data on live dafts and my input is based more on that macro assessment than my own less than stellar track record (I like to draft favorite players perhaps too much)... am glad to see some live draft guru's have already weighed in.

[The Last Druid]

Your draft was shaky at times. Ruth is okay as the second pick, personally I prefer Bonds but no biggie.

Kiner in the late second was ill advised. Plenty of dh's not so many rf's or Musials around. I would have taken Aaron there. The guy you got in the third, Honus, was a great pick.

Sisler in the fourth was a bad pick. Poor fit for your team and just too early in any event.

I would have taken Griffey in the fifth or even Matty. But I'm glad you left him to me. :wink: I think Bill's point about Marichal is specious because it doesn't take into account his new card.

Cedeno and Santana in the next two rounds were disasters. Santana is not good in your park and Cedeno often goes in round 13 or lower.

Hubbell in the 9th was so so, but Guidry in the 10th was a good pick. I had planned on taking him myself next. Lloyd in the 12th was very bad, just too early and you had Wagner. You should have your first reliever by round 11 at the latest. I started a bit late with Gossage in the 10th but I was busy collecting some of the new .400 hitters for Dunn (probably too early but they were very new at that point and I wanted to try 'em).

You took two relievers next which was okay despite what Bill thinks. But then Fisk and Newhauser. I took I Rod myself in the 16th despite having Mauer. I usually grab my second catcher quite late, sometimes as the last pick. I was quite pleased with that one and you shouldn't have left him. Hell I would have taken Elston Howard before Fisk. Newhauser you can get late but no way for you to know that.

Just a few thoughts on your draft, especially in comparison to Bill's analysis.

[motherscratcher]

Thanks for the feedback. I accepted one of your trades Petro. :) And I laughed my *** off at the "your defense is a disaster" comment. Just struck me wildly funny. No beating around the bush.

One of my problems in the draft was I didn't know what park to take. I've had the most success in singles parks so far. That's why the Kiner pick. He seemed like the kind of guy that can hit bombs anywhere, not just HR parks. That's also why I took Sisler.

But as the draft progressed I didn't know what the heck to do. There was no real plan (obviously) The Marichal pick was honestly because he somehow ended at the top of the draft list and I froze. I had no idea who to pick or what to do. About 87 seconds later i panicked and just hit "draft". I immediately regretted not drafting Johnson.

Everything else was just reactionary. I drafted the 2 relievers because that's what other people started drafting. I drafted Fisk because I needed a catcher and he was one of the more expensive ones left. I drafted Lloyd because I thought Wagner was an injury risk. Etc...

At the end, I had no idea what type of team I had (still don't) and I couldn't a ballpark because I had no idea where I'd fit. I ended up letting Hal assign me my park.

This is supposed to be fun, not stress inducing.

I guess I better figure out a way to better prepare for my next one.

[DonFESQ]

The lefty starters and Fisk don't bother me (although Fisk never hits anywhere it seems). However, the defense thing is a killer - you better bring a great defense if you want to win a live league. No Hack in CF, no Kiner in LF things that sound fun but really aren't. Any more than one 3 in a corner OF spot is probably losing level. Scales can't play the field.

I have really soured on Kiner and he basically hardly ever ends up on my teams and when he does I regret it. When I take him I've passed on something that no doubt would have helped me more and now I have a hole that can't be filled.

You overdrafted alot of players i.e. Kiner, Cedeno, and Marichal. There's just no recovering from that. Cedeno is not a 10.55m value, Kiner is not a 10.94m value and hence not a 2nd or 3rd round value where he gets taken. Pitchers with lots of BP HRs are killers in live leagues as well because you will typically be up against a majority of bomber parks. Marichal is about a 10th round value with all those BR HRs. There's a reason Denny McLain and Mike Scott go much later than their price would seem to indicate.

Basically, you are going to get rolled in live leagues until you do it enough to develop a feel for what real values are in that type of league. For example, you have 5 10M+ players to my 4 so you have more superstars and one would think you have a stronger team because of that but that's not necessarily the case. Have a plan from the very beginning and stick to it unless you have to change it.

[The Last Druid]

I'd love to have Marichal on my Dunn team. I think he's way better than a 10th round pick for a small ball team or any lefty park. Of course in a bomber park...I have him on several 200M/live teams. Basically with the current distribution of parks after the new cards got released, he is fine for 2/3 of the games. Just need a back up in righty parks and straight bomber parks.

[Proverbial Psalms]

My Marichal comment was more based on him going with pick #50 in high home run park than standalone value judgment in Dunn/smallball parks. Similar with Guidry, just because Petro was going to take him for Dunn doesn't necessarily mean it is OK at the same spot when he is lefty #3 in a 200M high HR ballpark. Wondering if anyone has good Guidry results in that scenario. Also didn't realize you were undecided on ballpark and thus let it go with HAL's random selection.

As i mentioned before, better to listen to the Dons and Petros of the trato world, but of course in the right context.