Rocky Horror Roto Show 2012/13

[Shoeless]

Well Ward was never making it back to you - he was the most definite pick I had going in for that second round slot. I think Kipper went really undervalued through that crazy run early in round 3 - I was most happy to get him when I did.

I wasn't keen on the Visnovsky pick but in a one year league you swing a little freer I guess - he could be good with those young dogs on the Isle finding their game. Keith was simply the best available at the time I wanted to pull a D guy. I am a little surprised he lasted that long, but happy about it.

As I look at my rounds 4,5,6 picks (Landeskog, Pavelski and Ott), I realize I made them strictly on value with no consideration for how late they might hang around. I know Horrorfan commented that I took Ott too early, but screw that, he is rated for this league as 25th due to his multicat contributions and I got him at pick 75. Yeah there were some decent guys going after him but none ranked higher than him and I was going into the long change in the draft so he wasn't going to be there 19 picks later.

[horrorfan]

I had an interesting decision to make in round 3 based on my draft strategy.

First let me say that I went in with the following view: I am drafting in 10th slot, the big skater dogs will be gone. The 2 top guns in this league last year pulled down dramatically more roto points in the goalie cats than all but one team (that team pretty much sewered in all the offensive cats and finish in the bottom part of the league) - like real estate, goalies are a limited resource , especially in a league like this - you can't go to the wire for a replacement goalie but you can pick up stats from a lot of skaters on the wire. So I figured to wrap up 2 goalies by round 2 which I did.

Yes, I agree that goaltending is important to be successful in this league - last year showed it. Your plan may work, but I don't feel that one needs to get all your goalies early to ensure success. Sometimes it's finding the right situation and a bit of luck is all it takes.

Take a look at both dyz and I last season - I grabbed a stud early to anchor my team and solid #2 in the fourth (I believe - can't access it now), whereas dyz got good value a bit later with Smith (unexpected stud), Brodeur and Anderson (I also believe). He had a good combination of goalies to give him great numbers across the board.

I had prepped by opening the same night tool before the draft, so I quickly threw in the stuff to get a read on his conflicts with Rinne and Ward - very low conflict numbers which means 51 available games for Calgary.

Definitely can't complain about having Kiprusoff as a #3, but I do wonder how the schedule will change if we have a shortened season.

[horrorfan]

One thing that I have been thinking about is the speed of the draft - personally I think I would enjoy it more and likely make slightly better decisions (likely the same for everyone) if it was much slower, say 2:30 per pick. Now that like adds a good hour to the draft time, but when I consider how I am involved in months long off-line drafts, that isn't such a big deal.

I can hear an argument that it comes down to preparation to maximize the draft a 1:30 a pick, and that would be considered a good thing by some. Personally, don't buy that for a minute - a large part of fantasy hockey is the social side and the quality of the draft experience isn't particularly well served by riding the bullet train through the draft.

I wouldn't object to that presuming that people have the time to spend. The social side is important and if managers agree then I will consider it next season. We can keep this suggestion open for discussion later on.

Just a thought - I would slow it down and make sure that participants in the league were able to attend - Smack and Barry autopicked for sure - were there others? Yeah maybe they could have prepped better because they got killed in goal but really - how good is a league when 2 teams for sure are out of it because they couldn't make the draft?

I believe they were the only ones who autodrafted. Benji (Jammin/Army of Subbans) was at work and might have missed some picks but was around for most I think.

Yes it's unfortunate that Barry and Jake missed the draft but there's only so much that can be done to ensure the majority attends. Last year we were very fortunate to have everyone attend, considering schedules and the number of time zones. This year we had 12/14 attending - still pretty good considering. Who's to say that on dates they could make that others would be unavailable? I didn't want to drag this over the coming weeks and then rush trying to get everyone together. Not everyone can plan that far in advance.

You touched on the solution - they should have prepped better. Sure, it's going to be tough for them to compete without goalies and given their value will be hard to acquire in trades. However, as I had mentioned before the draft, everyone should pre-rank just in case, regardless of whether you are planning on attending or not. If you spend enough time preparing, you can still auto draft a good team even when others are live drafting.

[horrorfan]

I know Horrorfan commented that I took Ott too early, but screw that, he is rated for this league as 25th due to his multicat contributions and I got him at pick 75.

Personally I feel that FHG rankings are not the most accurate way to evaluate value as it skews the categories that are more easily found elsewhere. I don't feel that every category is the same so there should be some adjustment. And probably due to his high number of HITS/PIM causes his ranking to be even higher. I could tell that many people were using it to make their picks as it showed how some went earlier than I would have chosen them.

It's simply the easier to find peripherals that makes him valuable and I feel that other, more offensive players were better suited for a sixth round pick. I know he is a solid multiple category contributor and he does has value, just nowhere near as high as FHG suggests and a bit less than where you picked. But it's just one man's opinion.

I know many will disagree and that's fine. We all have different strategies and they can all equally be successful, so it may work for you.

[Shoeless]

Personally I feel that FHG rankings are not the most accurate way to evaluate value as it skews the categories that are more easily found elsewhere. I don't feel that every category is the same so there should be some adjustment. And probably due to his high number of HITS/PIM causes his ranking to be even higher. I could tell that many people were using it to make their picks as it showed how some went earlier than I would have chosen them.

It's simply the easier to find peripherals that makes him valuable and I feel that other, more offensive players were better suited for a sixth round pick. I know he is a solid multiple category contributor and he does has value, just nowhere near as high as FHG suggests and a bit less than where you picked.

This is my personal opinion but I know many will disagree and that's fine. We all have different strategies and they can all equally can be successful, so it may work for you.

Yeah maybe - 270 hits, 175 pims, 600 FOW from the wing, and 40 points seemed like good value in one player at that point in the draft. I could have taken more offense there. Sort of though it was easier to pick up offense later in the draft I guess - something like Purcell's 65 points 19 ppp in the 16th round.

[horrorfan]

Yeah maybe - 270 hits, 175 pims, 600 FOW from the wing, and 40 points seemed like good value in one player at that point in the draft. I could have taken more offense there. Sort of though it was easier to pick up offense later in the draft I guess - something like Purcell's 65 points 19 ppp in the 16th round.

Yeah fair enough - that's one great thing about our league, many of us have differing opinions on values (and many similar ones) and have a variety of approaches on how to build a successful team. And they all can work.

[dyzfunctioned]

Yea, I didn't use HPG this time around. I did last year.

[Pengwin7]

I love the concept of FHG/HPG... and I have no qualms of somebody using it to evaluate players.
But any fantasy draft should be human - IMO.

It would be like playing an online Scrabble match with the Scrabble wordmaker open.
Or playing an online chess match with a computer showing you your best moves.

[Shoeless]

I love the concept of FHG/HPG... and I have no qualms of somebody using it to evaluate players.
But any fantasy draft should be human - IMO.

It would be like playing an online Scrabble match with the Scrabble wordmaker open.
Or playing an online chess match with a computer showing you your best moves.

Almost impossible to use the full HPG draft guru during a Yahoo draft unless you had someone with another computer beside you doing data entry. If you are good and quick you can plug your own team into the guru to get a read on accumulating stats and even then you are in a time squeeze to follow the draft, queue players, etc. If you have a long change between picks, you can use it to catch up on your team but that's about it. So at best you kinda know where you are at for stats but no further ahead on who to pick next, except for that information. You could pretty much do that on a scratch pad though so I don't see a morality issue here at all.

[Maaaasquito]

You buncha nerds... do it the old fashioned way and pick with your heart and not with your head.

[Chili con Carne]

A little bit of action on day one of the waiver wire. Brandon - I got caught up in meetings and you scooped me on Gaustad! Well played sir.

[horrorfan]

A little bit of action on day one of the waiver wire. Brandon - I got caught up in meetings and you scooped me on Gaustad! Well played sir.

I try. But thought I could use a bit of grit on the bench and hopefully he'll continue to play centre on his new team. A few more tweaks being made around the league.

Furthermore, we have our first trade:

To Nightmare on Helm St: Shattenkirk, Reimer
To Recchident Evil: M.Richards
(dropped: Ryan Whitney)

[4T2]

Really hope we can salvage a season. I'm digging my team this year even if I did have to jump early on some lesser goalies.

[horrorfan]

Really hope we can salvage a season. I'm digging my team this year even if I did have to jump early on some lesser goalies.

Speaking of goalies, the second trade of the year has just been made, this one between 4T2 and myself:

To House of 1000 Orpiks (4T2): Josh Harding
To Ville of the Damned (me): Michael Neuvirth

He has Backstrom so thought he'd like the handcuff and gives him insurance if Backstrom hurts himself again. Neuvirth would be my #3 behind Bryz and Varlamov (plus I have Giguere to complete the COL handcuff), and I'm hoping he can at least split starts or take the job outright. So it was an attempt to help both sides - only time will tell.

[dyzfunctioned]

Speaking of goalies, the second trade of the year has just been made, this one between 4T2 and myself:

To House of 1000 Orpiks (4T2): Josh Harding
To Ville of the Damned (me): Michael Neuvirth

He has Backstrom so thought he'd like the handcuff and gives him insurance if Backstrom hurts himself again. Neuvirth would be my #3 behind Bryz and Varlamov (plus I have Giguere to complete the COL handcuff), and I'm hoping he can at least split starts or take the job outright. So it was an attempt to help both sides - only time will tell.

Like this trade for you.

Haven't had any time whatsoever to see the going-ons on the waiver wire so my team remains as it was when it was drafted. I remember the one time I did look though I didn't feel like there was any changes I wanted to make - I saw Konopka had been dropped and went to pounce on that, but then looked at my roster and was like... who do I drop, Hudler?