Today's Fantasy Rx

We've attended the AFL Symposium for the past three years, coincidentally the same years in which the Arizona Challenge competition occurred. In both 2000 and 2001, we drafted teams for the following season, always using the pool of all major leaguers, 4x4 scoring, a time limit on the draft, no draft materials other than a list of eligible players to draft, and a player panel that nominated players instead of owners. I finished first in the 2000 draft, and after we drafted separate teams for this past season, Jess finished second and I finished seventh.

Since this year was a retro draft, using statistics from this past season, we saw no reason we shouldn't return to first place, especially since we suspected few owners would actually run retro stats.

Prior to leaving for Arizona, we compiled the stats for everyone in the majors and plugged them into our normal draft value calculator. We knew that unless there were less than 18 owners, a very unlikely event given the number of attendees participating in the last two years, we would draft 360 players and spend a total of about $4000. Per the rules, we expected a breakdown of 220 hitters and 140 pitchers.

For the baseline averages in ERA, WHIP, and Batting Average, we simply used the lowest logical numbers from last year's draft since we were essentially redrafting the same league.

Finally, we also realized that while we should use a 50/50 split of allocated salary between batters and pitchers since the 65/35 pre-season split reflects the additional risk involved in drafting pitchers, most owners likely would draft based on the salaries they believed players earned. So we split the difference, assigning a split around 58/42.

After inputting these standard, we determined the following guidelines at each position:

(Note: These are not the values we computed for standard leagues; the following dollar values only apply to the Arizona Challenge.)

Ellis Burks, Aubrey Huff, Brad Fullmer, and Randall Simon qualified first at DH, and while all ranged between $12-17, we didn't expect to draft any of these four players.

Catcher: Only IRod($14), Piazza($13), and Kendall($10) were in double digits, and Benito Santiago, Posada, LoDuca, Pierzynski, and Lieberthal were between $5 and $10. Our target was Santiago, but we were prepared to draft any of the others for around $7-10.

Third base: We were quite surprised to see no third baseman above $17, and only Chavez, Aaron Boone, and Hinske were over $15. Hillenbrand, Rolen, Alfonzo, Lowell, and Glaus were the only others that even broke double digits. Despite a good amount of media attention, we felt we had a good chance at Aaron Boone.

First base: These values surprised us even more than the third baseman. We found more value in second baseman and shortstops above $15 than at first base. Helton and Jason Giambi led the list at $25, closely followed by Sweeney($24), and Thome($23). Players at $15 or above included Klesko, Bagwell, Derek Lee, Konerko, Raul Ibanez, Rafael Palmeiro, and Olerud. We targeted Olerud for the relatively inexpensive 100+ RBI.

Second baseman: Alfonso Soriano finished second among batters at $39, but then only Luis Castillo($29), Jeff Kent($25), and Durham($20) earned $20 or more. However Bret Boone slotted at $17 and posted an extremely quiet 100+ RBI season like his teammate Olerud, so he looked like a potential steal.

Shortstops: ARod finished fourth among position players at $31, but I doubt many owners realized that Jeter($27) posted better 4x4 numbers than Tejada($26). Nomar and Renteria, both $22, also cracked $20, and we felt that either Jeter or Renteria would go for a reasonable price.

Outfield: Vlad($46) led all players by a healthy margin, and after Bonds at $33, Magglio Ordonez, Bobby Abreu, Ichiro, Beltran, Bernie Williams, and Chipper Jones all finished in the high $20's. As we planned to spend on infielders and some pitching, we instead targeted more surprising values like Juan Encarnacion($18), Kenny Lofton($14), Eric Owens($11), Todd Hollandworth or Timo Perez(both $10), and even Chris Singleton($9).

For saves, we wanted either one top reliever, meaning Eric Gagne($38) or John Smoltz($34), or one of the fifteen closers that earned $21-$29. We weren't looking to add any of the third tier of sub-$18 relievers, including Kelvim Escobar, Jorge Julio, Jose Acevedo, and Mariano Rivera.

Among starting pitchers, we hoped to add one of the six aces valued between $36 and $25: Randy, Schilling, Pedro, Derek Lowe, Zito, and Odalis Perez. We also hoped to add a starter around $20 like Halladay, Oswalt, Moyer, Colon, or Millwood.

Unfortunately we only half-succeed on our plans. We bought our first player, Todd Hollandsworth at $3, over a half-hour into the four-hour draft. Then we added our second player, a $4 Pedro Astacio, a little before the one-hour mark.

Forgetting that we've always seen fantastic bargains in the last few minutes of the draft, I ignorantly mentally went back to look at potential dollar pitchers who could give us 10 wins. I unfortunately recalled Astacio as one of the pitchers even though I later discovered we'd valued him well below zero.

Over the next hour-and-a-half we overpaid for three offensive players, securing Lieberthal($9), Jeter($34), and Aaron Boone($23), while also adding two largely useless $1 pitchers in Rick Helling and Danny Wright.

While none of these were bad moves, and we were happy to lock in top performers at three positions, the Helling and Wright bids really hurt when David Wells($14) and Brian Lawrence($7) sat unclaimed at the end of the draft.

Fortunately we picked up Bret Boone at $17, Olerud at $14, a $14 Ramon Ortiz for $5, and a $23 Garrett Anderson for $14. However, even filling out our pitching staff with Zito($21), and both Danny Graves and Armando Benitez for a total of $21 didn't compensate for our qualitative problems. Plus, drafting Carlos Delgado($16) and Richard Hidalgo($1) hurt our BA.

So thanks to a combination of impatience and slightly faulty memories, as again we weren't able to use any outside material during the draft, we wound up in a virtual dead heat for first, finishing at 106 points, .5 ahead of The Lip and 1 points behind 2002 Arizona Challenge winner Dave Conradt.

Breaking down our finish by category, we accomplished our objective by dominating the quantitative categories. Out of the 20 teams, we finished third in homers at 218, first in RBI at 870, third in steals at 146, second in wins at 82, and eighth in saves at 65.

Of course, we didn't even finish in the top dozen in batting average(.276), and our 3.96 ERA and 1.365 WHIP, almost entirely due to Astacio, Helling, and Danny Wright, left us with a total of eleven points between those two categories.

What can we take away from this experience, other than my shame at poorly executing a very solid draft strategy and costing us free registration to next year's AFL Symposium?

First, I'll repeat a point I've stressed in the past: know your league rules perfectly. Both mastering the loopholes inherent in most league constitutions and understanding the mundane general information like reporting deadlines for transactions gives you a nice advantage over less studious owners. In talking with John Zaleski of Ultimate Fantasy Sports in Phoenix, he stressed that his leagues focus more on knowing and acquiring the best talent than gaining any edge by knowing the rules. We're definitely beginning to see the appeal of these leagues, especially since we can think of a few players we'd like on our rosters in these "lifetime" leagues.

Second, know your fellow owners. We certainly should have known by now that all the best bargains occur in the last forty-five minutes instead of the first half-hour when ARod sold for more than $70. However I keep forgetting that drafts are fun, and we perpetually blow one or two leagues because I wind up bidding instead of heeding my own advice on waiting for bargains. Perhaps in the future, instead of bidding aggressively to drive up prices, we just shouldn't bid at all until we can lock in players using "optimal bidding" strategies.

Third, continue to look for value where you find it. By targeting the second-best shortstop and third baseman, we'd overpaid while filling slots we wanted available when Renteria sold for about half of what we paid for Jeter. If we'd at least waited for pitching bargains, we might have pulled a Top 5 finish in almost every category.

Finally, for anyone drafting in a league that doesn't allow outside materials in a draft, find a partner with a photographic memory for player values. As one of likely only a couple teams that computed dollar values specifically for the Arizona Challenge before leaving for Phoenix, we probably could have won if I had remembered not to bid on Astacio.

Today's Fantasy Rx: Now that I've completed my recollections of our experiences at the 2002 AFL Symposium, we'd appreciate reading any comments you might have on the usefulness of the articles. Would you like to see more of these features in the future for fantasy events such as the WCOFB next spring? Also, we're curious if these articles make you more or less interested in attending these excursions in the future?