I still like draft rank as an optional draft list piece and that's another reason it's the last tiebreaker before randomness. A team could skip ranking altogether or maybe just rank the top 10 (it's not advisable, since even a #40 rank beats out no rank). Another option that might give some teams a bit of added control in a blind draft for their roster construction is using draft ranks to determine the order of player awards.
Currently we award players in the order of most popular picks
Then award in order of descending salary
This tries to ensure that all teams have an early equal shot at the most-listed players and for the most expensive players in that grouping (presumably the best players).
But one complaint I get each year is maybe the top-ranked player on your draft list was only picked by 2 or 3 teams...by the time we get to him we've perhaps awarded 125 other players and your only hope here is that by random luck you have the most cap space left.
What if:
We started by pulling out all the players given a #1 rank in draft lists - this might be 5-16 different players pulled out for the first award - and thus the teams giving these players a #1 rank has a better shot than a random draw or the randomness of other awards. All other tiebreakers would be in play, but before too many awards are made, that #1 draft rank holds greater weight.
There are some other levels to this like maybe picking out ranks #1-2. Or awarding until each team gets their highest remaining rank (For example, do all the #1 ranks - then for teams without a player yet, pull all their #2 ranked players and award them - then all #3s for teams without a player - and so on). But on a basic level, should we look at something like this?
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4 comments:
I definitely like the idea of using the ranking to determine who gets the pick. When salary is the primary criteria, it's too likely that by sheer luck a team will get a higher priced player and then get shutout from a number of selections while someone else has a run on prospects. By filtering by ranking, there will be a more even distribution of players and a greater likelihood of getting the players you really wanted anyway.
For me, coming from more standard fantasy leagues, I think there's a lot that could be changed that would be an improvement, some just based on personal preference and some more objective.
I don't really think the popularity of a player in the draft should be the primary consideration. Just because I want Gerritt Cole on my team and 13 other managers do too doesn't necessarily mean I want to use my first pick on him. I like the way that draft rank is used in other fantasy, and I think it's more like a real MLB draft. Just because there's only 4 of us who put in for Kershaw doesn't mean I want Cole more than I want Kershaw. By using draft rank instead of #of teams who put in for a guy, I get more choice and less luck. (I could rank Kershaw 1 and Cole 5, for example).
For the same reasons, then, I like draft rank as a better tiebreaker than salary cap. I understand the purpose is to emulate the way a snake draft makes sure that every team gets a player from a similar round pool every round, and that's good, I just think if I rank Cabrera #3 and someone else ranks him #12, and we both have drafted 1 player, I shouldn't miss out just because my player was a 900$ Cole and his player was a 100$ Tanaka.
While it's true that I wouldn't mind have any of the ~40 players on my startup list and it definitely gives us a measure of control over our team, more use of draft rank would let us be more selective about the players we really want to have.
Agreed. Use the ranking as the first criteria in deciding who gets who
I don't like the idea of using ranking as the main breaker at all. If I rank Kershaw, Wainwright, King Felix, and Strasburg my first 4 players and you have say Puig first and then the same 4, somehow I would get all 4 on Tiebreakers and you would lose out. Doesn't seem right.
However, not sure how this would work with coding or how much extra work this would be, but what if you submitted draft ranks as normal, but before you went with contested picks route, you moved everyone's say 1st pick (or first 3) to the top of the list to be drafted?
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