Yahoo Draft Questions

I got a number of good comments and questions about the draft results I posted yesterday, so I thought I'd answer them in a post where more people would see it.

Adam: "Did you regret not pre-ranking all your players? I'm curious. I have opinions and feelings about each player - it seems to me to be a waste of time to go through the formality of pre-ranking."

Alex: In this case, I have no real regrets. But that doesn't mean I did the right thing. Maybe 5% of the time, you're going to have some kind of technical difficulties when you draft online, or you're going to get interrupted by an emergency of some sort. Pre-ranking can prevent those problems from being a draft disaster. To say that "its ok, because I didn't get burned this time" is the kind of results oriented thinking you should try to avoid. Also, if you're in a league that you view as 'must win' you should be doing something to quantify the relative value of each player, and once you do that, the rankings have more meaning than they do in a draft where you're justing 'winging it', as I did in this one.

Dave: "Alex, I'd be pretty happy with that. Maybe a little short on speed, but probably enough brute force to compensate in other categories. A real offensive juggernaut.

The string of Davis-Cruz-Napoli-Giambi seems like a fun group of players to own.

I think your pitching is fine. You were able to get strikeout potential at a low cost (Myers, Kershaw) and insure it with Dempster and Slowey. None of these pitchers are rockstars but 1-2 of them should come through with flying colors, and as you say, the rest can come off the waiver wire.

Phil Hughes is kind of an interesting pick. I hardly hear anything about him these days."

Alex: Couldn't have said it better myself. Hughes is likely to end up as the Yankees #6 pitcher. I think he's still an outstanding prospect. The truth is though, I rotate so many players onto my team during the season that I'll almost certainly drop him...possibly even if he makes the Yankees rotation.

JR Ewing: "Nice draft. How many teams were in this one? If it was 12 teams, some of those late pitchers you got were absolute thefts where you got them.

Not to nitpick a nice draft, but I thought the Mike Napoli pick was likely a reach. The OBP instead of BA helps him out and he'll out HR probably any C that was on the board at the time and give you a few steals. However, I don't know if the margin in those two categories between him and some other guys likely available is worth a 9th round pick. Also he won't contribute any more in the R+RBI than a lot of baseline catchers will.

Wasn't a "terrible" pick but I wonder if getting Sandoval a lot later made you think about who else was there for you in the 9th round."

Alex: Thanks. 12 teams. I actually like the Napoli pick for a few reasons. Obviously, using on base percentage is a huge advantage for him. Also, I've read several places that the Angels are aiming to get him 400+ at bats this year, even if it means using him as a DH sometimes. If that happens, he could hit 30 home runs and put up some nice RBI and runs totals as well. Ianetta had a already been picked, so there was a VERY large drop off at catcher if someone else took Napoli first.

DT: "No way dude. this might be the worst starting pitching I have ever seen. I would be very impressed if you were competitive in this league.
I do recognize that you won rotohog last year, and that def makes you the guru in my mind, but hey, I guess everyone can have a bad draft."

Alex: I would be SHOCKED if I'm not competitive in this league, and will be disappointed if I don't win. That doesn't necessarily mean I think I had a better draft than anyone else, but I think I have one of the top three or four teams, and better in-season management should put me over the top. These pitchers are probably better than you think (I'll profile several of them in the next few days) and rotating middle relievers with good match-ups into my roster should at least put me in the top half of most pitching categories. With my offense, that's probably all I should need.