Awesome analysis. We debate these topics every year and I haven’t seen as comprehensive a writeup yet. It still isn’t definative one way or another, but this work is great. I’ve never drafted a catcher early, but may consider it for the right value this year…

With your permission I posted a little writeup about your article with a link at http://bleachergm.com. Hope you enjoy. Again, great work!

@Chris: Thx and you’re welcome.

It’s very interesting that it doesn’t really matter what position you draft from. That’s comforting because I spend far too much time worrying about that.

I firmly believe that unless you are incredibly unlucky or incredibly stupid, chances are you will come out of a draft with a chance to win. I’ve never been able to look at anyones roster after a draft and say, “that’s a great team that will certainly win so let’s not bother with the regular season.” What I usually see is almost every team has some great players, some good players, some question marks, and a couple of holes. I believe in-season management and luck together are more important than the draft.

Regarding drafts, it’s always good to draft someone late, who gives you lots of value. Duh. Now, figuring out how to find that is a different question.

Even if you knew the best theory of drafting, because it is a draft, one wild pick that totally screw up your strategy. So I have always have a plan going in, but adjust based on opportunity and/or good or bad luck.

Finally, I prefer ESPN because you can make transactions that are valid the same day. I prefer the Yahoo interface because I have more experience with it. However, I like playing ESPN because it has different pre-ranks which totally affect the way I draft. Plus, since it’s my only ESPN, it allows me to mix it up a little.

Bottom line, we all have to play by the same rules, so as long as the league isn’t too shallow, and the other players are active, I don’t really care where we play.

But the deeper the league, the bigger the role of the draft.

@swpayton: Agree on RPs – although Marmol’s K-rate is really tempting.

The 2B phenomenon probably won’t happen again. I think it happened b/c there was such a flameout rate at 2B last year. 2B is really deep this year compared to SS.

3 of the top ten are RP’s…each taken late or pickup up as FAs. 7 of the top 20 were RP’s…again all but 2 have adp’s over 200 (with Dotel at 189) If this is isn’t proof of the “load up late” theory on RP’s I don’t know what is. My hunch is that this trend will continue year after year.

3 of the top ten are 2B…I’ll be interested to see if this trend continues. I don’t think it will ’cause each of the 3 has a completly different set of circumstances: Cano has had an upward trend and 2010 was at least somewhat predictable…though I’ll admit he outperformed even optimistic expectations. Uggla did what he always do…95/30/95 is what you get with this guy, though the average boost was nice. Weeks finally exploded after several underwhelming seasons.

I think the RP trend will continue as it’s a strategy that can be replicated while the 2B situation from 2010 will, I believe, turn out to be an anomaly…next year it could be SS, 3B…who knows?

Ultimately, the draft is not critically important. You can pre-rank auto-draft and win, I’ve seen it, well… twice. When competitive leagues are routinely decided by 1 HR, 1 steal, 1 win, or .01 ERA you need to do a helluva lot more than just draft a good team.

you weren’t the only one who “no-showed” .
4 others also missed the mock .

Are there any Razzball mocks scheduled for tomorrow with open slots?

C: Napoli
1B: Votto
2B: Hill
3B: Betemit
SS: Tulowitzki
OF: Holliday, Heyward, R. Davis
UTIL: Dunn

EDIT: Word.

In your face, Figgy.

@Rudy Gamble: If they did it, Berry’s head would explode. Another reason!

Been a 10 year keeper league so things get intense.

@Mr2Bits: Depends on how savvy owners were on where CarGo was drafted. I think in friendly office leagues where people don’t look at draft prep until the night before, CarGo probably went much later. I’m assuming here, nothing to back it up.

The CarGo thing makes me laugh as he went 5th in a keeper league last year. Think he was 20th picked by the time everyone got skipped with keepers. His value was good but not 5th round flyer good. I hope he is kept and tanks this year

Yes it was true for football (and has always been), but not baseball. It’s a big deal in football with players being ruled out at the last minute that teams can make that change the same day. Baseball you have to wait the extra day in Yahoo.