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The Genius Draft

I've blogged in the past about the two styles of drafting - either the genius method where you target certain players almost regardless of what it takes to get them, or the agnostic method, where you are indifferent to which players you get so long as they're good values. Well, after two largely agnostic auctions, I went full out "genius" in the 14-team Yahoo Friends and Family League.

Here are the results:

Pos.PlayerRound
CJorge Posada19
1BAlbert Pujols1
2BRickie Weeks10
3BAlex Rodriguez3
SSDerek Jeter5
CIMike Jacobs17
MIMike Fontenot23
OFCarl Crawford2
OFJustin Upton7
OFJayson Werth8
OFChris Young9
UGary Sheffield18
UKosuke Fukudome21
PRoy Halladay4
PJustin Verlander11
PUbaldo Jimenez13
PJonathan Sanchez15
PGil Meche16
PPaul Maholm20
PMariano Rivera6
PTrevor Hoffman12
PBrian Wilson14
BPhil Hughes22
BAndy Pettitte24
BBrett Gardner25

A couple notes:

It's best to do this in a relatively shallow (though this is 14 teams) mixed league because if your home run swings miss, there's plenty of help on the waiver wire. It also means that when they pan out, they can become monsters. And winning shallow leagues isn't about solid and steady - it's about having four or five guys who went nuts.

I picked second, so I had two picks in a short span, then a long wait. In that case, if you want to execute this strategy, better to reach and pick the guy you want a round or two early, then have him get taken two picks before you (25 picks later) on the way back.

I mostly targeted young players with power and speed who could plausibly take a big leap forward at this stage of their careers. Even the old guys like Fukudome and Sheffield were coming off bad years or injuries and contribute in the power/speed categories. I  largely waited on pitching because it's the least predictable position from year to year. I tried to get a couple guys with strikeout potential (Verlander, Sanchez, Jimenez), all of whom have some risk.

I actually think this team is pretty good - even though it's probably the worst one if you were to run median projections for all the players and compare them to the rest of the league.

But that's kind of the point - I paid the vig for the guys I wanted, and I get to see if I can beat the market.