Archive of SportingNews.com's old SOM Baseball forum

A couple of draft strategy questions:

1) Does it make more sense to submit a draft of high priced players at every position and then to offset their salaires with a lot of bottom feeders, and hope to get a couple or a few of the high priced players. Then during the initial waiver signing period, cut some of the high priced players you received that you did not list on your raft sheet and replace them with middle of the road type guys. OR Should you structure a draft where you have a mixtuter of high price, middle priced, and low priced players with the idea you are putting down guys you think you will get and then only have to supplement through the initial waiver period. OF course this second way means you may not get any high upper echelon players.

Also, in an unrelated question:

2) Is it better for a fielder to have less range and commit less errors or more range and commit potentially more errors?

Thanks.

The only thing I can tell you is draft who you want. You wont get everyone you want anyway.

I don't think people are going to give you much draft advice. Consider what ballpark you want to play in and draft players you think will do well in that park. I can tell you the top pitchers go fast.

Good luck,

Chief

I tend to draft a card that makes a good team. If I get them, great, if I lose a few I'll only have a few whole to fill. I think you need to draft some studs and some usables. If you don't have a balanced card your team will end up unblanced and take some work to recover, but that is just me.

The range and errors thing depends on position. The middle (SS, CF, 2B) range is king. The difference between 1 and 2 is big. The corners (3B, LF, RF, 1B) range is nice, but errors tend to be more imporant. The E rating and arn are the big numbers for C (look at both E and T ratings)

This page [url]http://www.strato.berce.us/[/url] has a link under Extras that explains some of this..

This page [url]http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/btf/pages/basesim/stratfldg.htm[/url] has it expressed in total bases or something, but I don't really understand it except to say the 19 is worse than 12.


Another draft tip is to build your draft card in Excel. You can sum the saleries and then sort the order around till it is just right. Then come draft time, just type the names.

[quote:93ee38ae95] I can tell you the top pitchers go fast. [/quote:93ee38ae95]

That is true and the value players go quickly also.

I think it pays to go after Clemens with the first pick no matter what. If you don't get him, though, it seems to be "Hello Soto" (for me, at least).

I'm not sure many people do this, but I'll use some of my middle picks on low-priced players that perform well (a #10 on Ken Dayley, for example). There always seems to be a lot of decent hitters left over after the draft, anyway, so I'd use top picks for pitchers. After that, I'd try to snag a 1 at 2B or SS who can actually produce offensively.

I used to think that about Clemens until I ended up with Ryan two drafts in a row. That is NOT GOOD.

Yount is another risky top pick because if you miss him you get a CF (usually Eric Davis but sometimes much worse)

Good SS and 2Bs go real wast. Dont expect Randoph past 4 or Ozzie past 3. Hendeson, Rains and Butler go real fast too. There are few good fielding/hitting 2Bs and SSs and the quality of lead off men drops off real fast after the above 3 guys. The top power guys still get picked high but you can always find more decent Power Hitters

Here's the biggest tip I can give (although I don't know much). You want a 4 man SP* rotation. Avoid SPs without the *. A 5 man rotation could work, but dont go there yet.

Let me put it this way, both times I got Ryan I tried to trade him and could not. I could not give him away. You can dump 2 position players prior to waivers but you can't dump pitchers. If you end up with overpriced pitchers you dont want to keep, it makes it a little more difficult during waivers

Yount is risky b/c of the CF thing. When I don't get him, which is often, I end up with Dave Henderson 95% of the time, although I do think I got ED once (nice consolation). With Clemens, Soto would be a nice consolation, but it often falls to Langston, which just ain't right.

Re: Ryan, he's simply over-priced. He can work, but he costs too much - kinda like if Carlton were $9M. There are a # of good threads re: 5 man rotations. Some go that route do so out of necessity (bad autodraft or bad cards during the year), although others swear by it. I've done it a few times, generally combining an * or two and three non *. I have one league now where I pitch good every 4 days and the other 4 pitchers every 5 (even though a couple of them are * guys).

If you do use a five man rotation, you will have access to a lot of pitchers you would not usually. The theory says that the * pitchers cost more, but you get to use them every fourth day. Five man rotation guys cost less but you dont get as many starts out of the.

I personally like to have five starters, I don't care if they are * or not. Then one starter/Reliever just in case a starter gets injured. The rest are relievers.

I like to go cheap on pitching. They are too erratic to draft high, and everyone else will be gunning for them. I have seen some of the best pitchers have bad year and get dropped. "Gee, did I waste a #1 pick here?" I usually go through a lot of pitchers throughout the season to find someone who can pitch. I just perfer not to spend too much on any one person hitter or pitcher. You have to remember though, I have only been doing this for five seasons. I may be totally wrong in my approach. I try to draft five guys around five mill. Drop a couple who have bad cards and find replacements. Sometimes you get a guy for under two mill. who has a great year, and can pitch with anyone.

Hitting should be suited to your park. I play in Tiger stadium, and tend to favor left handed power hitters. You may play in the astrodome. My guys would not work for you. My park is another reason I favor cheap pitchers. Nos sense in spending a lot of cap space on pithers who are bound to get shelled. :)

The first time out, draft your favorites. This is supposed to be fun. Get guys you like. Try to have good defense up the middle. If you like a guy who has bad defense, play in the kingdome. Defense doesnt matter because the ball will not stay in the park. :wink:

You will see quickly the "value" players. You are not going to get them on your first draft probably. There are a lot of "hidden" platoon guys who can produce stats above what is shown on their card just be being platooned. The discovery is part of the game, it is a very enjoyable process.

If you played strato, you should have a clue. You should be fine. I just got done playing in a league with all the big guns. I learned a lot, and you will too. Keep your eyes open and have a good time. You are paying twenty five bones. That much money could feed a kid in Ethiopia for a year. You shoud enjoy yourself.