The Z Files: A Meeting of My Mind

I understand, we all still have work to do. But I have a draft commencing in just over two weeks, and I need to prepare. Don't worry, the site has you covered down the stretch as always.

I've written about this before. It's an NFBC private satellite, beginning the final weekend of the regular season. It's a blast for several reasons. Best of all, I partner with Derek VanRiper. We've been sharing a team for a few years. I'll be honest, this year, DVR is doing most of the heavy lifting in team management, helping to get "The Athletic and Non-Athletic" into contention for a bit, though we've since faded. We talked a bit a couple weeks ago... pre-planning. We'll likely Zoom, or at minimum G-Chat in the next couple of weeks. However, before then, I need to do some introspection.

When you play in over 10 leagues, you're bound to find the acorn in one or two, which is the case for me this season. However, big picture, I'm disappointed. Be it Tout Wars, LABR, TGFBI or my handful of NFBC entries, it's not good. Before I'm comfortable sharing with Derek how we should handle the 2022 Premature Edraftulation League, I need to reassess my own approach.

Normally, this exercise takes me to risk aversion and how to draft pitching. Yes, both will still be elements of this season's postmortem, but there are two more pressing matters: roster construction and the ubiquitous paucity of pilfers on all my rosters.

Arghh, where to begin…

Risk assessment is easy – I can say I want to take more chances, but when the clock is ticking, Lord Wuss has the last word. However, I think I can address some of this in roster construction, to be explained in a bit. That said, one of the chief reasons for doing this league with DVR is he's more of a riverboat gambler so it's a nice balance. At minimum, I enjoy learning his reasoning for a pick I'd normally never consider.

Pitching is going to be tricky. In 2019 and again this season, we put together one of the top staffs in the league. FWIW, we drafted for 2020 but the league opted out. Anyway, one line of thinking is since we seem to be able to assemble competitive pitching in this league, we should wait a little and not expend an early pick. The counterpoint is to keep on crushing the arms and do a better job with the sticks. Looking at this season's draft, the latter makes sense. We started with Juan Soto at 1.08. OK, that worked. We grabbed Max Scherzer in the second. So far, so good. Then came Adalberto Mondesi and Luke Voit, adding speed then fortifying power. Here is a tease to the roster construction analysis. On paper, this looked perfect. However, the question is whether we were just unlucky both had poor seasons, or if we made a mistake by focusing too much on roster construct and left better players on the board. Sure, I can review the draft, but using 20/20 vision to say "we should have drafted him" doesn't really answer the question.

I know the above was supposed to be about drafting pitching, but it isn't done in a vacuum. Looking at what we did with hitting helps decide what to do with pitching.

I suspect one of the reasons DVR and I have drafted arms well is there is no ADP, there is no market to drive rankings. We've been able to grab some arms before the rest of our brethren have them on sleeper lists. I think I'm talking myself into, "Keep getting an anchor early and draft better hitters."

Let's turn to speed. In the 2021 Premature League, the plan was obviously for Mondesi to provide a foundation, then fill in the blanks. Not only did he miss most of the season, but we also did a terrible job supplementing as we only added Jon Berti in the 19th round and Jared Oliva in reserve. To be fair, with Mondesi out, it became clear chasing steals in free agency was an inefficient use of our assets so who knows, maybe we would have taken a shot at some speed on Sunday nights if he was healthy and running.

With regards to my other teams, it was bad planning, poorer draft execution and even worse in-season management. Yo, Lord Dumbass, virtually ignoring steals, then drafting Edward Olivares and Oliva in reserve is not going to 'ship in any leagues. To be honest, I don't know what I'll do next season. One of my chief approaches is grabbing one of the top end guys offering both power and speed. You know, like Ronald Acuna, Mookie Betts, Fernando Tatis or Christian Yelich.

Hmm, three of those guys will be having offseason surgery and the other is Yelich. Maybe a Plan B is in order.

The point is, finding steals will be even more of a chore next season. That said, I haven't actually broken down the player pool yet. That segues well into the 400 lb. gorilla – roster construction.

By means of background, a bunch of us got together in April/May of 2020 and drafted several retro leagues. That is, we picked a season and held a draft, crowning a champion that evening. It was mostly for fun and a means to stay connected with some buds, but it also served as a laboratory for those of us so inclined.

My favorite experiment was when we ran the same year twice. Two different groups drafted players from the same season. One of the winners drafted the most "value", derived from calculating earnings using conventional valuation. The other winner finished middle of the pack in terms of conventional earnings. However, the winning roster was constructed in such a manner to convert stats most efficiently into roto points. This involved cleverly punting certain categories while focusing on others.

Please don't misinterpret; I'm not advocating punting in regular leagues. There are reasons why this is effective in a retro scenario. However, it does emphasize winning comes from more than value. There needs to be a balance between drafting "value" and assembling a roster best designed to maximize rotisserie points.

My task is to get a better handle on that balance. After all these years, I'll admit it; I lack the finesse displayed by others in this regard. That is, drafting is a skill unto itself. Of course, it helps to have a deep understanding of the player pool. The thing is, if you don't know what to do with that knowledge, your projections, rankings, or cheat sheet alone won't get it done.

Drafting involves not just having a solid foundation of draft materials, but also an idea of what is needed at the end as well as the ability to read the room to best navigate how to get there. I may have solved the maze now and again, but it's personally frustrating not to have done it nearly as often as I feel I should.

While I don't know exactly why, I have a couple of ideas. I'll use a few 2021 examples with the understanding there are similar scenarios each season, just with different names. These will be specific with the notion it's more than these exact thought processes; it's the general approach leading to these particular strategies.

One of my primary drafting tenets in the spring was to wait on second baseman and, to a lesser extent, first baseman. The reasoning was there was a group of each I favored well ahead of the market, so if I was patient, I'd fill each spot with someone from a late tier. Examples at the keystone were Kolten Wong, Cesar Hernandez and Jonathan Schoop, while C.J. Cron, Carlos Santana and Christian Walker comprised the target first sackers.

To be honest, I don't think it matters if I was "right" about the players. I'm questioning the general process. The theory is to not using an early pick on a position where I expect a later positive return on investment. However, by doing so, a better player is left on the board.

This is a myopic example since it is never as easy as this, but let's say there is a $28 second baseman and a $26 third baseman available for my second-round pick. Last March, I would have passed on the second baseman since I was confident I would get a $10 second baseman at a point others are drafting $5 third basemen. Passing on the "better" second baseman resulted in adding $36 of potential earnings while doing the opposite totaled a lesser $33.

Completely ignoring the flaws in projections and valuation, I'm a left-brained individual, and waiting on a second baseman made sense. In retrospect, I'm wondering if this was optimal. Why not take the player with more potential and let the right side creatively figure out how to make the rest of the roster work? I mean, my brain has two sides, and while I can't sing or draw, the right side must have some usefulness, right? Maybe I should use each half together when putting together a fantasy roster.

I'll have my first chance in just over two weeks, though I'm pretty sure DVR won't want to hear how the left side of my brain wants this guy while the right side wants that guy.