Inaugural Draft Strategies

[endgame]

Nothing is certain or foolproof, I understand, but thought I'd inquire of those who have recently started leagues (fictional or not) with an initial inaugural draft. Strategies? What do you consider? How or do you factor in the number of teams and what real pick# you'll have come round 4, for example? Do you set your first few picks, e.g. SP, SP, SS, 3B? Or do you lean towards PITCHING, POWER, DEFENSE, SPEED when you factor your picks? Do you even use a strategy, or is 'best player available' the theme every time you pick?

Curious, as I'm about to embark on mine shortly, and I generally layout my 25 picks by position and attempt to compile my active roster first, review all players available, and if an extremely good candidate is available - and not at a fortune, because I'm in the lower tier of the draft budgets allowed - I'll jump a slot or two, but try to stick to a plan, if I can.

Thoughts? Thanks in advance.

[Charlie Hough]

I always handle an inaugural draft the same way, regardless of the league size, number of rounds, or other factors except the players and positions that happen to be available or trending when I pick.

I don't do any advanced planning.

The emphasis is always on starting pitching above all else. I have never played a game of OOTP in which I had a top flight starting staff and didn't dominate the league, no matter what sort of offense I had.

That being said, I might occasionally use my first pick on a field player, especially if I pick early. Most of the time I will take a starter, but if I get an earlier pick or teams are generally not selecting starters before my selection, I might go with a field player. But it has to be a five-tool type of guy with no weaknesses.

I have never done a draft and not picked a starter with my first or second pick. I usually pick a second starter almost immediately after. So I have two starters within my first three picks. Usually they're with picks #1 and #3 or with picks #2 and #3.

I keep an eye on the talent levels at each position as the draft progresses. So, if the pool of catchers suddenly gets weaker, then I have to start thinking about taking one. If center fielders with good offense and great defense are disappearing, then I'd better take one soon.

I check my roster page and review my depth and selections as I go. I try to make sure that I've drafted a good starter at each field position along with at least three or four excellent starters before I get into relievers and depth or utility players.

I look for pitchers with good ratings but high GB%, good holding of runners, and good stamina.

I look for catchers with good defensive ratings. If I can get good offense too, that's great, but I need a catcher with a great arm and fielding ability.

I look to have a good middle infield and center field. This is always the focus of my approach to defense. But I don't accept weak defenders at any position. I will go with a player with a bit less offensive ability if he has an excellent arm, range, and error avoidance. I have never accepted any player who didn't have at least average defensive ability.

I like to have speed and base stealing if I can, but I can go with lesser ratings in those areas. If I have to take a slow player, I at least try to get one who has decent base running instincts.

That covers it. This formula ALWAYS wins in OOTP.

[Ambermonk]

Originally Posted by endgame

What do you consider? How or do you factor in the number of teams and what real pick# you'll have come round 4, for example? Do you set your first few picks, e.g. SP, SP, SS, 3B? Or do you lean towards PITCHING, POWER, DEFENSE, SPEED when you factor your picks? Do you even use a strategy, or is 'best player available' the theme every time you pick? ...

Thoughts? Thanks in advance.

Here is a thread from 2 years ago which may interest you...

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...-approach.html

[endgame]

Originally Posted by Ambermonk

Here is a thread from 2 years ago which may interest you...

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...-approach.html

Big thanks, 'monk. I recall a lot of that now, but it certainly becomes now a day's worth of considerations. I didn't notice anywhere in those threads a link to your spreadsheet, only screen shots. Do you have that available anywhere for download and review? Guess I'd like to see the workings up close and personal to determine whether I have the ambition to utilize it.

[Ambermonk]

Originally Posted by endgame

Big thanks, 'monk. I recall a lot of that now, but it certainly becomes now a day's worth of considerations. I didn't notice anywhere in those threads a link to your spreadsheet, only screen shots. Do you have that available anywhere for download and review? Guess I'd like to see the workings up close and personal to determine whether I have the ambition to utilize it.

Unfortunately this forum does not allow the posting of spreadsheets or Word docs (probably to avoid viruses), however, check out this link...

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...available.html

[endgame]

Originally Posted by Ambermonk

Unfortunately this forum does not allow the posting of spreadsheets or Word docs (probably to avoid viruses), however, check out this link...

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...available.html

I've been able to post my spreadsheets, but it always requires me to change the format to an older - I think it's the 2003 - version. But thanks, I'll check it out.

[luger]

I'm wanting to export the inaugural draft class to Excel based on what I was reading on those other threads. But, when I choose the Report option with draft pool open, it will only show one page. I've tried making sure the setting is set to display Scroll Bars instead of pages in the Preferences but it doesn't seem to make a difference. Any ideas that I may be overlooking on how to export the draft class to a report?

[endgame]

Originally Posted by luger

I'm wanting to export the inaugural draft class to Excel based on what I was reading on those other threads. But, when I choose the Report option with draft pool open, it will only show one page. I've tried making sure the setting is set to display Scroll Bars instead of pages in the Preferences but it doesn't seem to make a difference. Any ideas that I may be overlooking on how to export the draft class to a report?

Yeah, I wondered the same thing. I thought I'd done it before, but maybe I'm thinking about the first year draft which would have a lot less players. Regardless, it'd have been nice to at least do a position at a time and review them.

[luger]

Originally Posted by endgame

Yeah, I wondered the same thing. I thought I'd done it before, but maybe I'm thinking about the first year draft which would have a lot less players. Regardless, it'd have been nice to at least do a position at a time and review them.

Yeah, I tried filtering it to a smaller group (only those with high potential at certain positions) but it didn't seem to make a difference.

[rjl518]

The addage is simple: Pitching wins championships...Hitting wins games!

[luger]

Originally Posted by endgame

Yeah, I wondered the same thing. I thought I'd done it before, but maybe I'm thinking about the first year draft which would have a lot less players. Regardless, it'd have been nice to at least do a position at a time and review them.

Monk: How do you do it for your spreadsheets? Or is there something different in 13 than 12 as far as exporting reports?

[Ambermonk]

Originally Posted by luger

Monk: How do you do it for your spreadsheets? Or is there something different in 13 than 12 as far as exporting reports?

I'm close to doing my first draft in OOTP-13, so I can't say about that yet, but as I look over my last draft in OOTP-12 I see that I didn't have any quantity problems.

For batters, I limited myself to the top 13 players at each position (which nicely fits into two pages in my spreadsheet, but these were the top 13 players at each position.

There is a 3-step process that I use to get the results that I want...

1] I use a sophisticated Custom View to identify the key traits that I need (see the link listed in post# 3 in this thread).

2] Then I sort the position by the key trait. For example, hitters were sorted by Contact Potential and pitchers were sorted by Movement Potential. Then I import only the players over the minimum number (slightly modified by availability) that I am willing to accept (for batters, the Contact Potential had to be 40+/100; for pitchers, the Movement Potential had to be 35+/100. I doubt that I ever had to import more than two screens for each position.

3] Once in the spreadsheet, I crunched the numbers to get the 4 summary totals columns. Then I manually re-ranked the players according to their T+12 column totals. Any batters who's T+12 totals were outside my top-13 were simply deleted. For starting pitchers I see that I listed 36 players - but I had room for more, so that means that I imported all the starters who were 35+/100. For the relief pitchers, I only had 26 players listed, and I believe that I imported all the closers in the draft (just 5) with the lowest Movement potential being 27/100. The closers draft was so bad I didn't draft any of them (instead, I converted a MR into a closer).

I have a 16-team draft and have found that the top-13 players at each position is more than enough to get me through the draft. If worst came to worst, I could always view the remaining undrafted players with my custom view and make a selection from there.

To summarize, all my position players are squeezed onto 1 sheet of paper (front & back), and all of my pitchers are squeezed onto another sheet of paper (starters on 1 side, relievers & closers on the back side). So with these two sheets plus my draft-day worksheet I'm ready to go.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions.

[Mjrstorms]

Ambermonk,
1st time playing the game on the PC. I picked it up on the Ipad and loved it and I have not started a season yet because I have been reading all your posts about your spreadsheet. I want to do my 1st draft using it and was wondering if you could send it to me Please Please Please.

[Ambermonk]

Originally Posted by Mjrstorms

Ambermonk,
1st time playing the game on the PC. I picked it up on the Ipad and loved it and I have not started a season yet because I have been reading all your posts about your spreadsheet. I want to do my 1st draft using it and was wondering if you could send it to me Please Please Please.

Hope you find them useful. Let me know if you have any questions.