As any regular follower of mine will know, I play in a lot of mock drafts. Mocks are fantastic practice for the real thing, in addition to being a lot of fun.
And, invariably during a mock, someone will ask, “Why don’t we play this out?”
This is generally my worst nightmare, for often stretching oneself with too many teams results in a sort of “divide and conquer.” That is, no matter where I turn, I see my hitters going against my pitchers, ultimately leading to mediocre teams everywhere.
But, while participating in the Rotoballer “Friends and Family Draft,” right around last Valentine’s Day, during the second round it was suggested we actually play the league out as “Best Ball.” Since the Friends and Family League was stacked with some very fine fantasy players, like Ray Flowers. Howard Bender, Scott Engel, and Tim Heaney, along with Rotoballer’s Pierre Camus, playing the season out was readily agreed to across the board.
My problem was that I have not yet played “Best Ball,” hence my knowledge on how to actually construct a successful roster was derelict.
The optimal information I was given at the tim — just as Round 3 began — was we each build a “draft and follow” squad, and the computer will optimize our lineups on a daily basis thus removing the dicey portion of weekly roster setting along with potentially frustrating regular team management.
Of course, none of this has much of anything to do with selecting the “correct” roster or assemblage of players; however, the success/failure pill is a lot easier to swallow, at least for me, when to a large degree the management of my team is out of my hands.
The Friends and Family League, operated by our friends at RealTime Sports, allows for no moves after draft day and is playing out the season on our behalf as a 5X5 league, with the basic rules spelled out.
For this league, I tried to simply draft younger players whom I thought would stay healthy. Despite just 10 teams within the league, I went heavy on closer with Kenley Jansen, Alex Colome, and Dellin Betances, trying to guard against the potentially erratic holding of said job.
But, for the most part I simply tried to draft a solid squad of steady guys with histories — at least thus far — of playing a full season of games. And I similarly tried to grab several multi-positional players — Marwin Gonzalez, Wilmer Flores, and Corey — to hedge bets against injury. You can see the entire draft board here
Oddly, a few weeks later, Sirius/XM decided to play out a similar contest, this time with 10 teams, sponsored in part and hosted by Greg Ambrosius and yet more friends at the NFBC. And, again, this contest was presented as “Best Ball,” though with a slightly different wrinkle.
The league is still essentially “draft and follow,” save two FAAB periods over the course of the season, allowing us to at least swap out the injured if not the ineffective.
However, this equally tough contest features H2H points, rather than the more traditional roto parameters the Friends and Family League presents.
If you look at the rules of the league, you will indeed note that the setup is quite different, and since this time I had some advance warning, I tried to tweak how I was approaching my draft in consideration of the computer determining my “best roster” on a day-to-day basis.
To my way of thinking, though, that meant making sure I had a full a complement of players that could gather points as possible on a daily basis. Of course, that is what we all want, as there is no production without at-bats or innings logged.
So, I conjured my roster around a few thoughts:
- Get as many everyday impact guys as you can: This sort of goes without saying, but with just 10 teams, it was a lot easier to simply draft the next best available player in such a shallow format, however.
- Work handcuffs: I drafted Craig Kimbrel , but also Matt Barnes as the potential replacement should something happen to Kimbrel.
- Work Platoons: I went cheap on catchers, drafting near the end, grabbing Chris Ianetta as well as Tony Wolters the Rockies pair, along with Bruce Maxwell and Josh Phegley, the Oakland platoon. Additionally, I nabbed Caleb Joseph (as a hedge against something like the subsequent Athletics signing of Jonathan Lucroy). Irrespective however the stats accumulate, I should have someone to call pitches every day.
- It is ok to gamble on some erratic players: I drafted Mike Fiers, not necessarily the steadiest of hurlers on the hill. However, Fiers can get in a groove and become a good strikeout source. So, depending upon the parameters by which the system chooses my “best lineup,” I could get some good starts while theoretically ignoring some bad ones.
Now, everything I just wrote might be completely fallacious. As I have never played this format before — and the most detailed rules I could find were those I shared above. So, for sure this is a learning experience for me.
It is, however, the kind of league and learning I like.
Tune into the Tout Wars Hour on the FNTSY network, hosted by me, with Justin Mason and featuring Lord Z every Sunday, 2-4 PM ET/11 AM-1 PM PT, and you can follow me @lawrmichaels.
