NFBC $150 Draft Champions - Big Tymers

[Big Tymer]

Thanks guys! Quite the haul with $5K for 4th in the overall and another $1K for the league-win, netting $6K in total from my $150 investment.

I'll try and write a recap up with any additional takeaways for those looking to do this next year. Lot of fun but clearly you need a lot of things to break your way for the overall. I'm glad I wrote this up though as I do think the approach I took is one I'll employ again next year. For now, I'll just keep checking the site to make sure there are no changes and then I'll take the time to recap

[TranaGreg]

Yeah, congrats, looking fwd to reading the recap

[Gregg]

Thanks guys! Quite the haul with $5K for 4th in the overall and another $1K for the league-win, netting $6K in total from my $150 investment.

I'll try and write a recap up with any additional takeaways for those looking to do this next year. Lot of fun but clearly you need a lot of things to break your way for the overall. I'm glad I wrote this up though as I do think the approach I took is one I'll employ again next year. For now, I'll just keep checking the site to make sure there are no changes and then I'll take the time to recap

Congrats!!

I too am looking forward to reading the recap.

[chancellor]

Thanks guys! Quite the haul with $5K for 4th in the overall and another $1K for the league-win, netting $6K in total from my $150 investment.

I'll try and write a recap up with any additional takeaways for those looking to do this next year. Lot of fun but clearly you need a lot of things to break your way for the overall. I'm glad I wrote this up though as I do think the approach I took is one I'll employ again next year. For now, I'll just keep checking the site to make sure there are no changes and then I'll take the time to recap

Wow, that's great! Excellent job.

[Big Tymer]

OK - here would be my "lessons learned" if you will based on my experience and observations with regards to the overall:

1. SKILL + LUCK: I think it takes skill to win the league and luck to get any kind of overall finish. Just too many teams competing so in order for any kind of good overall finish you need a lot of things to go right.

2. THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE: Premium picks need to deliver. Simple but true as the old adage of "you can't win or lose your draft at the top" just isn't true in an overall competition.
(a) # of Top-10 Players to MEET OR EXCEED Expectations: 7 (Betts, Tatis, Giolito, Kershaw, Machado, Jansen & Fried)
(b) # of Top-10 Picks to DISAPPOINT: 1 (Amed Rosario)

3. SINGLES BECOME DOUBLES: Core of a team is built in rounds 11-30 and this is where you need both depth and things to break right. Whether that be a veteran bounce-back season or breakout speculation, the "good" player drafted needs to become "great".
(a) # of Picks 11-30 That FAR EXCEEDED Expectations / Draft Slot: 8 (Perez, Maeda, May, Grichuk, Hernandez, Miggy, Kim, Davies)
(b) # of Picks 11-30 That Were Key Contributors: 14
(c) # of Picks 11-30 That Went Bust: 4 (Will Smith, Senzel, Chirinos & Stripling)

4. DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH: After round 30, it becomes a crap-shoot and especially after round 40. Truly think this is where you just need to throw speculative darts and not waste picks on middle relievers. Sure, MRs seem like a good idea but I didn't use one at all despite having some quality ones like Chris Martin. MRs with chance for Saves = sure, all day. MRs that are just good for Ratios = pass. Prospects are really the place to go here as you just never know who will get a chance and their variation is high which is what you want at this stage of the draft.
(a) # Picks After Round 30 That Became Starters (beyond injury Fill-In): 2 (Hayes & McKenzie)
(b) # Picks After Round 30 That Never Played For Me: 12

5. SP DEPTH: You need starters. And good ones. And they get hurt so you need a lot of them. Simple, right? I kind of like the piggy-back approach I took with LAD and think I may actually do more of that next year pairing 6th starters I like with or 4th or 5th from same rotation. Depth matters and this way if you have one pitcher go down you have a backfill likely ready to go.

6. DRAFT SPEED DELIBERATELY: I was very conscious of speed at the draft and even then I still didn't get what I thought I'd need. How does Amed Rosario not even get 1 SB? Hate that guy now but I digress. Speed is a HIGHLY variable stat as sometimes guys just choose not to run or conversely choose to run wild. Not to mention effect of coaching and their preferred style of play. I think my process was correct here, just didn't get the result but chalk that up to chance and thus will employ the same approach next year.

7. DRAFT SLOT DOES NOT MATTER: For the top-10 overall teams, here was their draft slot: 12, 10, 12, 8, 11, 4, 2, 6, 1. We all tend to overreact I think to where we are picking but reality is that you can win from any slot as 12 in particular seemed to do VERY well with 6 of the top-20 teams drafting from this slot. A slot I hated at the draft so goes to show...

Hope this helps. League is a lot of fun so already looking forward again to next year!!

[frae]

Thanks guys! Quite the haul with $5K for 4th in the overall and another $1K for the league-win, netting $6K in total from my $150 investment.

I'll try and write a recap up with any additional takeaways for those looking to do this next year. Lot of fun but clearly you need a lot of things to break your way for the overall. I'm glad I wrote this up though as I do think the approach I took is one I'll employ again next year. For now, I'll just keep checking the site to make sure there are no changes and then I'll take the time to recap

Awesome that will pay for like 100 more dynasty leagues congrats!

[revo]

Thanks guys! Quite the haul with $5K for 4th in the overall and another $1K for the league-win, netting $6K in total from my $150 investment.

I'll try and write a recap up with any additional takeaways for those looking to do this next year. Lot of fun but clearly you need a lot of things to break your way for the overall. I'm glad I wrote this up though as I do think the approach I took is one I'll employ again next year. For now, I'll just keep checking the site to make sure there are no changes and then I'll take the time to recap

Wow, congrats Rick!

[Pauly]

OK - here would be my "lessons learned" if you will based on my experience and observations with regards to the overall:

1. SKILL + LUCK: I think it takes skill to win the league and luck to get any kind of overall finish. Just too many teams competing so in order for any kind of good overall finish you need a lot of things to go right.

2. THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE: Premium picks need to deliver. Simple but true as the old adage of "you can't win or lose your draft the top" just isn't true in an overall competition.
(a) # of Top-10 Players to MEET OR EXCEED Expectations: 7 (Betts, Tatis, Giolito, Kershaw, Machado, Jansen & Fried)
(b) # of Top-10 Picks to DISAPPOINT: 1 (Amed Rosario)

3. SINGLES BECOME DOUBLES: Core of a team is built in rounds 11-30 and this is where you need both depth and things to break right. Whether that be a veteran bounce-back season or breakout speculation, the "good" player drafted needs to become "great".
(a) # of Picks 11-30 That FAR EXCEEDED Expectations / Draft Slot: 8 (Perez, Maeda, May, Grichuk, Hernandez, Miggy, Kim, Davies)
(b) # of Picks 11-30 That Were Key Contributors: 14
(c) # of Picks 11-30 That Went Bust: 4 (Will Smith, Senzel, Chirinos & Stripling)

4. DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH: After round 30, it becomes a crap-shoot and especially after round 40. Truly think this is where you just need to throw speculative darts and not waste picks on middle relievers. Sure, MRs seem like a good idea but I didn't use one at all despite having some quality ones like Chris Martin. MRs with chance for Saves = sure, all day. MRs that are just good for Ratios = pass. Prospects are really the place to go here as you just never know who will get a chance and their variation is high which is what you want at this stage of the draft.
(a) # Picks After Round 30 That Became Starters (beyond injury Fill-In): 2 (Hayes & McKenzie)
(b) # Picks After Round 30 That Never Played For Me: 12

5. SP DEPTH: You need starters. And good ones. And they get hurt so you need a lot of them. Simple, right? I kind of like the piggy-back approach I took with LAD and think I may actually do more of that next year pairing 6th starters I like with or 4th or 5th from same rotation. Depth matters and this way if you have one pitcher go down you have a backfill likely ready to go.

6. DRAFT SPEED DELIBERATELY: I was very conscious of speed at the draft and even then I still didn't get what I thought I'd need. How does Amed Rosario not even get 1 SB? Hate that guy now but I digress. Speed is a HIGHLY variable stat as sometimes guys just choose not to run or conversely choose to run wild. Not to mention effect of coaching and their preferred style of play. I think my process was correct here, just didn't get the result but chalk that up to chance and thus will employ the same approach next year.

7. DRAFT SLOT DOES NOT MATTER: For the top-10 overall teams, here was their draft slot: 12, 10, 12, 8, 11, 4, 2, 6, 1. We all tend to overreact I think to where we are picking but reality is that you can win from any slot as 12 in particular seemed to do VERY well with 6 of the top-20 teams drafting from this slot. A slot I hated at the draft so goes to show...

Hope this helps. League is a lot of fun so already looking forward again to next year!!

This is great, thanks. So impressive and happy for you getting that finish!

Luck is a huge factor in this format but even more so this season at only 60 games. At least over a full season, more people get hurt, more players have a chance to turn things around, and you can play the slow game. This year it was crazy, you either hit on your picks or you were dead, at least it seemed. No time for turnarounds.

Totally agree with your take on MRs - if they arent going to get saves, they are just useless. Starting pitching is king in draft champions, but I got into this pickle on both of my teams where I was so good in pitching that I had no room to really improve...then my hitting went into the tank and let me down.

Congrats!

[Pauly]

Also did you see that this Tyler Jung guy put three teams in the top 10? Avoid that dude next season. Nice to see that crazy Heberlig guy only had 2 teams in the top 25 (he had an insane amount of entries).

[Big Tymer]

Yeah - Tyler had one team near the top all year. Looking at standings he placed 14 teams in the top-200: 5, 8, 9, 13, 57, 59, 60, 73, 108, 134, 173, 179, 188 and 191

As discussed earlier in this thread, not sure the point of entering so many teams. Probably worked out ok for Tyler but not the other obsessive-players.

[Big Tymer]

Alright, think I'm going re-invest from LY and do 3 leagues this year. Seems early, but if I'm doing 3 leagues I probably need to get going and thus will probably get an entry in this weekend to start. Figured I'd bump this as a means to promote the NFBC (since if I can place high a lot of us can with the right breaks) as we'll as re-share the flow and recap since I suspect key themes will be similar.

Let me know if there is interest in me doing the pick by pick updates or if not I'll just update along the way with explanations of any key decisions made.

[Big Tymer]

Oooh - I get a badge now

NFBC Badge.JPGNFBC Badge.JPG

[BigJonEmpire]

Definitely want to see your pick upates.

[Big Tymer]

Ok - cool. Happy to do so. I'll likely stick with the same format in a new thread once the league fills (4/15 right now) and KDS runs.

[harmon]

Ok - cool. Happy to do so. I'll likely stick with the same format in a new thread once the league fills (4/15 right now) and KDS runs.

What pick # are you jonesing for?

In my drafts so far closers have gone pretty early, but as we get closer to ST and additional signings there is a bit more clarity with certain teams so the panic for top closers may be somewhat less now.

Tons of depth at MI.