Sunday, April 11, 2010

'Draft Champions' Strategy

One thing that became clear on Opening Day is that the key to strategy in the format that my slow draft team uses (which is called 'Draft Champions') is getting enough depth. Not only is there no trading (like all NFBC contests), but there’s no free agent pool either. You play the whole season with the original 45 players you drafted. I was aware of the hitting depth I’d need, but definitely underestimated what I’d want for starting pitchers. I think that drafting 8 or 9 pitchers would be more than enough, and I’d even be able to rotate some of them out of my lineup on weeks when they had an unfavorable start. Things haven’t worked out that way. Smoltz retired rather than finding a team to sign with. McDonald and Miller were sent down to the minors, as their teams apparently weren’t as high on their potential as I was. And Rzepzynski was injured…leaving me with only five starting pitchers. Not good…and lesson learned for next year.

Speaking of which, there’s talk of NFBC organizing next year’s slow draft/draft champions leagues into a larger overall contest with a prize pool for overall standings. That’s a GREAT idea, and terrific news for people without a lot of time to participate in a normal draft and plan FAAB acquisitions all season. All you’d do is participate in the slow draft, and then set your lineup (among only 45 players) each week. Count me in!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hear that your team is in last place. You quitting that league too?

Alex said...

Nope. All three of my teams are pretty close to last place, but I'm not quitting any of them. If you're refering to my post on the NFBC forum, that was talking about possibly not playing next year, because of the tech problems they've had this year...although I suspect that their superior customer service will win me back.