Being Prepared for the Fantasy Draft
by David Luciani
Published March 22, 2002

With many fantasy drafts and auctions occurring over the next several weeks, it's important that participants in leagues actually know what it means to be prepared for the draft, both mentally and physically.  Whether you're a subscriber to our member's section, you can't just print off a series of lists and expect to go into a fantasy draft or auction as a successful GM unless you have the pieces in place to succeed.

With that in mind, let's focus on ten critical aspects of success in any fantasy auction or draft:

1. You must be emotionally ready:  This is not to say that you need to spend the prior evening doing mental exercises nor does it mean you need to find some sort of version of inner peace.  The key here is to remain focused that you have a task and that task is to assemble a team capable of crushing your opponents.  Anything that distracts you from that is going to be a certified ticket to mediocrity.  If you haven't heard it before, let me remind you:  Get a good night's sleep before the draft!  I know that a good majority of fantasy GMs are up the night before staring at lists, surfing the net for that extra bit of late news.  Let me say this:  If you're not ready by two days before, you're not ready to win.  Having said that, wake up several hours earlier than you need to, fresh and ready to go.  By virtue of the fact that you're reading this, I know you're an Internet user so take advantage of the latest info.  All it really takes is a last look at the baseball news early on the morning of the draft and you'll probably be set.  With a good night's sleep, you're poised to be relaxed and patient in the draft.  Believe it or not, I have attended auctions/drafts where one owner was in a rush to assemble his team so he could "finally go get some sleep."  That's not a winner in the making.

2.  Be organized:  Being organized does not mean coming in with a small library of materials and plunking them down on the table where you know where each volume can be found.  Being organized means that you are able to consolidate your information in such a way that you can quickly make decisions about players whose names come up.  In a straight draft league as opposed to an auction, it's less important to know about every player but you still have to be ready.  I can't emphasize enough that if you're printing ranking lists (such as the ones from our member's section) that alone is not going to win you your league, no matter how good you are.  The key is to get a sense of what types of players are worth what types of value.  If on your lists, all the base-stealers are coming out in the mid teens, then chances are good that you should be thinking that way.  Searching through lists for a player name can be difficult and though I do not recommend that you alphabetize your value lists (the reason will follow in item three below), I do recommend that you have ways to quickly find players and assess what they are worth to your team.

3.  Don't fall into the "Alphabetizing Trap":  I call this the alphabetizing trap because I've seen it in action so many times.  To expedite consideration of all players, an owner brings an alphabetically organized list of all the players to the auction.  When I spot an owner such as this, especially one who has money to spend on players, all I need to do is announce the following:  Tony Clark, $1.  What happens is this owner looks down at his list and lo and behold, in his alphabetical sort, Clark is listed as being projected to be worth $5-$10, for example.  The owner promptly raises the bid to $3 or $4 or even $5, everyone else remains silent and suddenly, this owner has picked up Tony Clark.  What happens is he just filled up his first base slot because he just looked up a player's name and saw he had positive value.  The key here is to organize your lists by position and within each position in descending order of value.  The reason this is important is because when a player's name comes up, you will be able to find them quickly, assuming you know what position they play (and that's when it doesn't hurt to have an alphabetical reference to help you quickly find out what positions a player qualifies at if you don't know).  The idea here is that when a player calls out a name, you need to be able to quickly consider who's left at that position before bidding.  Especially if you're not drafting using a computer and draft software, you need to be able to see the quality of players left.  I always use positional lists as opposed to alphabetical lists.  When a player gets taken, I simply cross him off all the spots he qualifies at and move on.  It has made a world of difference and enables me to recognize that there are still many superior players at that position who are still available and thus, I often can pass on positive valued but inferior players.

4.  Auctions Require a Calculator:  There's nothing worse than falling behind in an auction because you can't quickly calculate how much to bid for a player or worse yet, how much money you have left.  If you don't have a good calculator (we're not talking a microscopic calculator watch here that requires the use of a needle to press the buttons), go out and buy one today.

5.  Make a Single Sheet to Track Positions Filled:  This is so easy to do that it's not fair but don't make it complex.  You need to know which teams have which position filled.  Much of your success in both drafts and auctions will come about by knowing where the other teams are already filled up.  Several years ago, I was at a straight draft with 10 teams in the league.  Late in the draft, every team but one had their catcher slot filled and thus, were unable to add any additional catchers.  Sleepy, as I'll call him here, wasn't tracking which positions were filled on each team.  Six other owners still needed a second baseman but he was the only one who needed a catcher.  When his turn to select a player came up, he selected the best remaining catcher.  That was a wasted pick and by the time the draft came full circle to him again, four more second basemen were taken.  Sleepy should have known that since no one else had room for catchers, he should take a second baseman.  The best catcher would be waiting for him right until the last pick if he wanted.  The same applies to auction leagues too.  If no one has room to add a certain player, then don't bring his name up until all your other positions are full.  I go an extra step and track how much money each team has left but reasonably, that can be tough unless you have a lot of auction experience.  Basically, just make a small grid with each team's position across the top and the names of the owners down the side, preferably in the order the draft rotates.  If you want to be advanced and are quick with a pen, you can write in which players fill which position but a sheet such as this can be just as effective if you just box out the other team's filled slots.  Though it's possible they can move players in the draft, it will give you a better sense of the other teams than if you did nothing at all.

6.  Don't Get Personally Attached to a Player:  This is an excellent way to lose.  Let's say your favorite pitcher is Roger Clemens.  You've owned him in every league you've ever played in and if he were still pitching at fifty, you'd have to own him.  Let's say the bidding reaches or even exceeds what you think he will be worth to your team.  Let him go.  If your goal is to have your favorite player on your team, rather than win, by all means, have fun and bid $60 for anyone.  You'll meet your goal then and will be quite happy when you lose.

7.  Be Comfortable:  You're not going to the draft/auction for a social call, where you expect to find your future spouse (though it can happen).  Go in ready to spend anywhere from four to twelve hours assembling a fantasy roster you're happy with.  Wear the tie at the year end party.

8.  Have a Plan:  A plan doesn't mean you plan to win.  That's a goal.  A plan is that you're going to go in and get $333 worth of value for $260, for example (which was the subject of an earlier essay in these pages).  The plan relates to the goal and must be flexible but you have to have some sort of method by which you're going to assemble a winning team.  As experience and statistics has taught me, if you get a team for 80% of its eventual value, you're probably going to be a strong contender, if not a dominant team.

9.  Don't Overemphasize Balance:  Balance is important in fantasy baseball but don't let a 40 home run guy go to another team because you'd rather add an extra 10 steals.  You can trade the 40 homers for 10 steals later.  Balance, while important, should help you focus your trading efforts and should also be a tie-breaker when it comes to tough decisions but in general, go after the player you think would have the most value.  Sometimes, perceived value can be important and the nice thing about an auction (and many veterans even miss this) is that everyone else in the room is telling you precisely what they think of a certain player.  If a guy bid $41 for Alex Rodriguez and wouldn't go higher than that when the bid was raised, then A-Rod to this owner is a $41 player, at least at that moment in a time.  That means that if he bid $43 for Pedro Martinez, he sees Pedro as more valuable than A-Rod.  That's useful information down the line, especially in trade negotiations.  Obviously, values change constantly but don't sleep through the draft while other owners are giving you valuable information.

10.  Be a Winner:  What I mean by being a winner is that you don't tout your team immediately after the draft.  So often I have attended drafts where an owner shakes his head with a semi-cocky swagger, speaking loudly about acquiring Randy Johnson or anyone else with a big name who has obvious value to everyone.  I can virtually guarantee you that at every draft, there's someone who wants to be awarded the trophy right there.  This is the same owner who at year end will be complaining about injuries or how the "best team" didn't win the league.  When the draft is over, be relatively silent, say as little as possible about your team and then let the standings do the talking.  The key here is not to talk like a winner but to be a winner.  The year-end standings will speak for themselves and at least from my experience (and I like to think of myself as what you could call 'privately confident'), it drives your opponents crazy to see a winner who doesn't talk up his team.  They always think you fluked your way into first place... and then you do it again next year.