*** VD 7 Commentary Thread ***

[johnnya24]

Mind blown...

I can't edit the pick since lizzy posted it for me, but 1985 was my intent.

"... all words are made up"

[johnnya24]

[TS Garp]

So what are we thinking for the next draft? Couple of possibilities that have been raised:

* Re-do of this one with a couple of tweaks.
* 1920-2012 draft using only players who weren't drafted in this one
* 1920-1969 draft

I'd vote for the third option.

[johnnya24]

Seriously regretting some of the lackadaisical decisions I've made in this draft. I just assumed I had no chance:

1. Punting BA is this draft ... stupid decision. A quick look at the player pool tells you that your BA punt players will start to look attractive to everyone sooner or later.

2. Underestimating the career pitching ratios. I mistakenly believed the average career ERA and WHIP would be a lot higher than they ended up ... and ended up wasting mid picks on players who made little or no impact on my team totals.

3. Over-cooked the BY hitting totals too early (around the Jim Rice pick), again hoping / expecting the low BA would hold on a bit longer (I saying hoping, because you can't go bailing on a strategy ... you gotta ride that ship to the end come-what-may or you're dead-in-the-water anyway)

4. Jay Bell. That was the pick I took Trammell by mistake. I knew by that late stage that Bell was serious overkill on my BY stats, but since I had Jay Bell earmarked from early on, I picked him anyway after the Trammell pick went all Heyelander. I just assumed I couldn't win after all the above errors and said screw it ... should have waited and looked properly. The correct pick appeared the second I looked at my team. Bad rush pick ... cost me second place possibly (and surprisingly).

Anyway ... that's my draft. Catalogue of errors (oh ... and Hacko jumping on all our picks too soon! ).

[heyelander]

I thought I could dump career W and K's (which I did) and be solid with late picks for BY W, K and ratios all around. I knew early on that that inning requirement was going to screw me and I was forced to take pitchers early just to get innings and decent career ratios. I miscalculated the BY numbers from many of the studs though and could never get my BY WHiP under control with a bunch of one hit wonders. The innings also screwed me on taking enough closers and I ended up chancing saves at the end when I wanted to take David Price (who I thought I was picking when I took Prior). All my fretting over my punt pitching strategy never let me go about accumulating hitting numbers which is what I wanted to do.

basically I heyelandered my draft yet again...

[johnnya24]

I thought I could dump career W and K's (which I did) and be solid with late picks for BY W, K and ratios all around. I knew early on that that inning requirement was going to screw me and I was forced to take pitchers early just to get innings and decent career ratios. I miscalculated the BY numbers from many of the studs though and could never get my BY WHiP under control with a bunch of one hit wonders. The innings also screwed me on taking enough closers and I ended up chancing saves at the end when I wanted to take David Price (who I thought I was picking when I took Prior). All my fretting over my punt pitching strategy never let me go about accumulating hitting numbers which is what I wanted to do.

basically I heyelandered my draft yet again...

Well it's better to go down with a strategy, even if it doesn't work. I imagine it could have worked well if you got the IP limit under control with one or two key early picks.

As far as the right strategy for this draft ... Slasher nailed it. Seems obvious in hindsight. I blindsided myself by focusing too much on getting all-round points on pitching, and then lazily adopted the worse hitting punt for this format.

[heyelander]

More than anything I think I just didn't notice how scarce good pitching would be and guys like Verlander and Kershaw went a lot earlier than I expected them to.

[frae]

Well I won't win, no surprise there, but I did do better this time. Once I got Eck I decided to try what I think I tried before with him in a full VD, dump career era and try to do really well in WHIP. I apparently underestimated where we would go with the save total and while that may not be the only reason I don't do better, it sticks out to me now. Anyway, happy to have not embarrassed myself for a 2nd time in a row

[johnnya24]

Well I won't win, no surprise there, but I did do better this time. Once I got Eck I decided to try what I think I tried before with him in a full VD, dump career era and try to do really well in WHIP. I apparently underestimated where we would go with the save total and while that may not be the only reason I don't do better, it sticks out to me now. Anyway, happy to have not embarrassed myself for a 2nd time in a row

Yours was one of the teams I was looking at as doing really well. I didn't do projections this time (aside from the fact it would have been really difficult with no handicaps), but I figured you'd be in the hunt for one the top 4/5 places.

[hacko]

Here - working on pick

[Controller Jacobs]

pick text was edited, but pick itself (Hernandez 1984) was not, as presumably revo or johnny can confirm

[TS Garp]

Completely undervalued massive CY hitting numbers.

[johnnya24]

pick text was edited, but pick itself (Hernandez 1984) was not, as presumably revo or johnny can confirm

I never considered Hernandez as I thought he was taken a while back

[johnnya24]

Completely undervalued massive CY hitting numbers.

CY?...

[TS Garp]

CY?...

Oops -- meant career hitting.