Drafting by postion or best player available?

[wizworm]

What’s everyone’s opinion on draft strategies? Do you take the best player available or do you draft by position? Does it change depending on what type of league you are in (keeper vs. one year, head to head vs. rotisserie, points only vs. multi-categories) or do you stick with one strategy?

I generally draft by position but within reason. I won’t pass up a top line forward for a backup goalie just because most of the starting goalies are gone. But I took Ovechkin over Crosby in my keeper league because I find LW is a harder spot to fill with fantasy studs.

[BrianSTC]

wizworm wrote:

I took Ovechkin over Crosby in my keeper league because I find LW is a harder spot to fill with fantasy studs.

When the best player available IS THE BEST PLAYER, take the best player! Crosby is potentially two Ovechkins. I don\'t care if LW is harder to fill...
If you had a chance to get Crosby, you should have...

[Loki]

Wiz - I usually go with the best player.

However, I am conscious of position since we have limits on the positions.

I\'ll usually leave room at a position for a prospect later on in the draft if I think that player will eventually be better than the ones I already have. I also map out my competitor\'s rosters for positional needs or strengths.

Another GM in our league lost Crosby in an entry draft when he already protected 4 C\'s from the year before. He was forced to another position and selected Ovechkin.

I knew that and traded Kariya for the 2nd overall pick to an owner who didn\'t know that Crosby would slide due to the max positions. He actually maxed out his C slot by trading to get Radek Bonk.

Don\'t be too disheartened...Ovechkin is an awesome consolation prize.

[hockeylifer]

Hello Wizworm:

I think that you have it right when you identify the various considerations in pools. You would draft differently on forwards if there was a scoring differential for goals and assists, with goals earning more points than assists. In that circumstance you would prefer to own the goal scorer rather than the set up guy.

If you are in a pool where there are no positional requirements then it is all about best players for their respective position.

At the end of the day you will have the guys that you like and want to have on your team. Other guys/gals will think that you are crazy but you will have your reasons.

[lanky522]

BrianSTC wrote:

When the best player available IS THE BEST PLAYER, take the best player! Crosby is potentially two Ovechkins. I don\'t care if LW is harder to fill...
If you had a chance to get Crosby, you should have...

I disagree brian... There is a HUGE shortage of great LW in the league. Outside of Ovechkin, Kovalchuk, and Vanek, who else is young and has the potential for 100+ points on the left wing? No one.

Use last season as an example. Last season, Ovechkin had 92 points while Crosby had 120. Seems like Crosby is the better pick, however, consider that the next best LW had 84 points (Sedin, Vanek), and there were 9 other centers that had more than 84 points: Thornton, Lecavalier, and Sakic all had more than 100 points; Savard, Briere, and Jokinen all had more than 90 points; and Malkin, Spezza, and Datsyuk all had at least 85 points.

There were 9 centers other than crosby that had more than 85 points. There were ZERO left wings other than Ovechkin that had more than 85 points.

If your league counts Left and Right wing positions (and not just wing positions), you should seriously consider Ovechkin over Crosby. There are other fantasy stud centers out there that will consistantly get you 100 points, but there is NO ONE other than ovechkin that will get you that production consistantly from the left wing spot.

Good move taking ovechkin over crosby in this case wizworm

Post edited by: lanky522, at: 2007/07/22 10:57

[hockeylifer]

I tried to edit but was to late.

I didn\'t explain myself well in the previous thread.

Paragraph 2 as it relates to \'there being no positional requirements\'. What I was meaning is that you don\'t have to own a specific number of lw, rw, c, d, g. You simply have a maximum roster and dress so many players, fowards/ defence/ goal, each week. In that circumstance you are going for best player.

I go for the best player. I like to take risks and I prefer youth. I am often considered wrong but I have fun with it.

[Egon]

Hey if you arent having fun then its not worth spending your free time doing it.

[BrianSTC]

I disagree brian... There is a HUGE shortage of great LW in the league. Outside of Ovechkin, Kovalchuk, and Vanek, who else is young and has the potential for 100+ points on the left wing? No one.

Use last season as an example. Last season, Ovechkin had 92 points while Crosby had 120. Seems like Crosby is the better pick, however, consider that the next best LW had 84 points (Sedin, Vanek), and there were 9 other centers that had more than 84 points: Thornton, Lecavalier, and Sakic all had more than 100 points; Savard, Briere, and Jokinen all had more than 90 points; and Malkin, Spezza, and Datsyuk all had at least 85 points.

There were 9 centers other than crosby that had more than 85 points. There were ZERO left wings other than Ovechkin that had more than 85 points.

If you were talking about those other nine centers, I would fully agree...take the LW...
But, you are talking about Crosby...
Crosby is not just another center...he is like having two players contribute in one spot...
There might be a shortage of 100 point left wingers, but there is more of a shortage of potential 200 point players!
Sorry lanky, not drafting Crosby in favour of any other player makes no sense at all...

[Thieving Giraffe]

In my mind, if Crosby\'s available, you take him. No ifs, ands or buts.

But generally speaking, my strategy evolves with my gameplan. This may evolve after the first few rounds. If I find myself in a position to potentially win right off the bat, then I strongly consider positional requirements as I go forward in the draft. If I don\'t have a shot at the title, I don\'t give it as much thought. After all, such issues can often be addressed through trades.

I would suggest that you could probably have drafted Crosby first overall and then traded him for OV plus a fairly decent second player or pick.

[Nehithaw]

BrianSTC wrote:

I disagree brian... There is a HUGE shortage of great LW in the league. Outside of Ovechkin, Kovalchuk, and Vanek, who else is young and has the potential for 100+ points on the left wing? No one.

Use last season as an example. Last season, Ovechkin had 92 points while Crosby had 120. Seems like Crosby is the better pick, however, consider that the next best LW had 84 points (Sedin, Vanek), and there were 9 other centers that had more than 84 points: Thornton, Lecavalier, and Sakic all had more than 100 points; Savard, Briere, and Jokinen all had more than 90 points; and Malkin, Spezza, and Datsyuk all had at least 85 points.

There were 9 centers other than crosby that had more than 85 points. There were ZERO left wings other than Ovechkin that had more than 85 points.

If you were talking about those other nine centers, I would fully agree...take the LW...
But, you are talking about Crosby...
Crosby is not just another center...he is like having two players contribute in one spot...
There might be a shortage of 100 point left wingers, but there is more of a shortage of potential 200 point players!
Sorry lanky, not drafting Crosby in favour of any other player makes no sense at all...

I\'m with you on this one Brian, There is no other player like Crosby in the NHL. He is the exception to any rule, strategy etc...

Don\'t mind Lanky, he\'s in draft mode, he\'s got the 2nd overall pick in our upcoming draft, he\'s probably just trying to sucker the guy with the 1st overall pick into taking Ovechkin over Sid :whistle:

Granted AO will get more points with a legitimate C this year, but Sid could get close to 140-50 pts, as soon as this upcoming season. On another note, Sid\'s trade value is sky-high. One can probably get two very good LW for Sid alone, if that\'s the way one would want to go (not that I would).

By the way.... I don\'t know if you could call him young, but Heatley, for the most part is a left winger. Whenever Alfredsson plays with Heatley and Spezza, he plays on the right wing, same goes for Eaves.

[big_dl]

I think you have to draft the best player available until you need to draft by position. Even then usually you have time between the draft and the start of the season where you can make trades to fix any positional shortages. I\'m not suggesting ignoring positions all together. I\'m saying screw position until you absolutely cant ignore it anymore.

To me the better question is do you draft a young who could be better in the long run but isnt better this year or do you draft the veteran who\'ll have a better year now but may only only have a couple years left in him.

[lanky522]

Nehithaw wrote:

I\'m with you on this one Brian, There is no other player like Crosby in the NHL. He is the exception to any rule, strategy etc...

Don\'t mind Lanky, he\'s in draft mode, he\'s got the 2nd overall pick in our upcoming draft, he\'s probably just trying to sucker the guy with the 1st overall pick into taking Ovechkin over Sid

Granted AO will get more points with a legitimate C this year, but Sid could get close to 140-50 pts, as soon as this upcoming season. On another note, Sid\'s trade value is sky-high. One can probably get two very good LW for Sid alone, if that\'s the way one would want to go (not that I would).

By the way.... I don\'t know if you could call him young, but Heatley, for the most part is a left winger. Whenever Alfredsson plays with Heatley and Spezza, he plays on the right wing, same goes for Eaves.

HAHA, I doubt that anyone will skip taking crosby in our league since we don\'t count LW and RW separately... But that\'s a different matter than what we have at hand

Also, Heatley is a right wing... he may play left wing sometimes, but he is considered a right wing in 90% of fantasy leagues out there.

Lets break this down for all of you. I understand that Crosby is an amazing talent that has oodles of potential... I\'m by no means saying that he isn\'t worthy of a 1st overall pick. I am saying that if you have left wings, right wings, and centers as your positions, you should consider the following:

Crosby has 170 point potential give or take.
Ovechkin has 130-140 point potential give or take.

Crosby looks like the best bet from this alone... but consider this: there are maybe 2 left wings other than ovechkin that have 90 point potential... there are at least 10 centers other than crosby with 90 point potential.

The top ten left wings excluding ovechkin last season totalled 797 in points. The top ten centers excluding crosby last season totalled 946 points. The average points for the top ten left wings (excluding ovechkin) is therefore 79.7 points. The average points for the top ten centers (excluding crosby) is therefore 94.6 points. The top ten centers (excluding crosby) therefore have a 15.7% higher point production rate than the top ten left wings (excluding ovechkin).

That means that even if crosby gets 170 points someday, as long as ovechkin gets more than 15.7% less than crosby (which in this case would be 143 points) he\'d be the better option, despite the lower point total.

I personally think that ovechkin can get that sort of production, just as I also think that 170 points is in the cards for crosby. But if you look at the next available alternatives at each of the positions, I think you can see that taking ovechkin over crosby is justifiable in some instances.

In leagues that count goals more heavily than assists, the gap closes even further.

I don\'t however object to TG\'s suggestion of always drafting crosby and then (if ovechkin is more valuable in your specific league) trading crosby for ovechkin and some baggage. I think that\'s a great suggestion, but I really do think that everyone out there who says, \"take crosby no matter what sort of league you\'re in\" isn\'t thinking things through properly.

It\'s crucial to assess what the next best alternative is when taking any player at any position. Should you take luongo or pass him up for another player? Well... if the next best goalie that you see coming along is say... curtis joseph, then you should probably take luongo while you can, even if it means giving up on say... danny briere. The amount that you gain by taking briere, no where near offsets the amount you lose by downgrading your goaltending.

Plain and simple to me... I don\'t know how else to explain it to make it any clearer.

[lanky522]

whew... sorry for the double post... I\'m just glad it went through...:P

Post edited by: lanky522, at: 2007/07/22 23:04

[wizworm]

lanky522 wrote:

It\'s crucial to assess what the next best alternative is when taking any player at any position.

Excellent post Lanky, you deserve some Karma! You summed up my thought process better than I ever could (I’m no good with the stats). In hindsight, I probably should have named this thread “Drafting by position or by best player available BY POSITION?”

Besides, I’m starting to think I should have left out the fact that I had the first pick in the draft and took Ovechkin over Crosby in my original post. It seems that because of that example this thread is dealing more with a Crosby vs. Ovechkin debate which wasn’t what I was intending. I included that point because I wanted to give an example of drafting by position as opposed to by best player available. In hindsight, I probably should have come up with a different example since Crosby is in a league by himself and not choosing him is automatically looked at by many as a mistake.

Anyways, I choose Ovechkin over Crosby for the reasons that you so excellently pointed out: LW is a harder category to find elite talent at than center. In a league where you have defined positions (C, LW, RW, D, G), the best players at their particular positions become more valuable, especially when you are talking about positions that don’t have that many true “fantasy studs” to begin with (such as at the LW spot). I knew that I would be able to draft a center later that had potential “fantasy stud” value so I took Ovechkin first.

Post edited by: wizworm, at: 2007/07/23 03:02

[lanky522]

wizworm wrote:

Excellent post Lanky, you deserve some Karma! You summed up my thought process better than I ever could (I’m no good with the stats). In hindsight, I probably should have named this thread “Drafting by position or by best player available BY POSITION?”

Besides, I’m starting to think I should have left out the fact that I had the first pick in the draft and took Ovechkin over Crosby in my original post. It seems that because of that example this thread is dealing more with a Crosby vs. Ovechkin debate which wasn’t what I was intending. I included that point because I wanted to give an example of drafting by position as opposed to by best player available. In hindsight, I probably should have come up with a different example since Crosby is in a league by himself and not choosing him is automatically looked at by many as a mistake.

Anyways, I choose Ovechkin over Crosby for the reasons that you so excellently pointed out: LW is a harder category to find elite talent at than center. In a league where you have defined positions (C, LW, RW, D, G), the best players at their particular positions become more valuable, especially when you are talking about positions that don’t have that many true “fantasy studs” to begin with (such as at the LW spot). I knew that I would be able to draft a center later that had potential “fantasy stud” value so I took Ovechkin first.

That\'s good... and it shows that you are more of an individual thinker than a lemming.

Nothing against guys that go with the trend, but I normally find that the guys that buck the trend and think things through fair better sometimes than the guys that just pick the \"name\" player or the \"player they are supposed to pick.\"

Don\'t get me wrong, sometimes you lose out, but fantasy is a game/hobby/pastime where mistakes don\'t cost you anything more than stress. Making such decisions is a high risk/high reward situation in my eyes. Yes, by taking crosby, you may have had a darn good team, but if by taking ovechkin, you were able to follow up with savard, briere, lecavalier, datsyuk, etc... your team will probably be really darn good.

Winning (and Losing) is all about the chances you take... like I\'ve said before, without taking chances, you don\'t win. I\'d rather lose miserably because of a chance taken that didn\'t pan out than play it safe and finish in the middle of the league. That\'s not everyone cup of tea though, so take my previous posts in this thread with a grain of salt. They (the other posts) are just how I see and analyze the situation. I\'m sure people will disagree with me (they already have), so it\'s really no big thing. Just a matter of preference.

===============
A quick story:
A few years back I coached a 13-14 year old basketball team. The league had 8 teams, and I was the youngest coach. All the coaches got together and \"assessed\" each player with a grade that they agreed on. There were 8 A players a bunch of B\'s and B+\'s, C\'s and so forth... It was pretty much understood that the A players would be split among the top eight draft picks.

Well... come draft time, the only A available to me (i had last pick) was this hot shot kid that annoyed me and that I knew I couldn\'t coach, wasn\'t a team player, and would be a land mine on my team. I didn\'t pick him. I picked two quality B+ guys in a row instead. Well the A player fell to the 3rd round (like 20th overall) before one of the guys realized he was still out there and picked him. Immediately you\'d think that this coach had an advantage over the rest of us because of his 2 \"A\" players. I\'ll tell you that the other coaches were pissed when they realized that I was the one that didn\'t pick him up. They wanted to start the draft over saying that I made a mistake and that my team would suck. Turns out, my team finished 3rd in the league and was darn competitive. The team with the two \"A\" players? You guessed it... last place.
===============

It just goes to show that the best option isn\'t necessarily the one everyone else considers to be the best option. Run your team like you want it run, and don\'t listen to anyone who thinks you are stupid for making up your own mind.