Comfort In Players & Comfort In Our Game

[DOUGHBOYS]

Some players trandscend our usual thinking.
Do we care that Giancarlo plays in Yellowstone Park?
Do we care that Aroldis Chapman plays in a home run park?
Do we care that Kershaw is on the road against a tough opponent?

Players like these give us a commodity that is scarce in fantasy baseball.
Comfort.
Every draft starts out with a high comfort level.
Mike Trout can be taken to the bank. So can most that follow. As long as staying healthy, they provide comfort.
Well, what if we screwed with that comfort?

I have an idea for two new drafts. I only have the concept. Maybe somebody smarter like KJ can take it and run with it.
Off the top, I have to say that I love it when both ends of a draft are rewarded, not just the top end with the number one pick.
Football has 3rr which helps out both sides of a draft and these two concepts would do the same, without using 3rr.

In the first draft, we take away the players that have an adp of 1-75. Not available to be drafted.
Drafter number one starts the draft off with Devin Mesoraco and the draft is off and running.
At the end of 9 rounds, players 1-75 are brought back into the draft.
This affords the number 15 drafter the 'real number one pick. It'll also jumble some thoughts for team construction.
If a Closer run has taken place in the first nine rounds, Closers like Chapman or Kimbrel could be taken higher than usual.
If speed is a need more than power, Bautista may be bypassed for Billy Hamilton or Dee Gordon.
At the least it is intriguing.
At most, it'll keep us from getting too comfortable in drafts. In some drafts this year, I felt like I was on 'auto-pilot.
Nobody should ever be that comfortable.

The second draft idea is one I've had for years and may try to start this coming year.
The trick with this draft is to find 14 other players that will play within the perameters and have a good time with it.
Pretty easy, since most NFBC'ers fit that description.
This would be the 'Hit and Pitch' Draft.
To begin the draft, all pitchers are removed or their is an agreement that nobody takes a pitcher.
The draft continues for 15 rounds. Each team taking hitters only. They would NOT have to fill their required positions within these first 15 selections.
Round 16 begins, the number 15 drafter gets first pick of the pitchers and it snakes down to number one.
After ten rounds of pitchers are completed, the draft is open to any players.
In a 30 round format, drafters would have to have their required posions within those next five picks.

These are both fairer drafts.
I can see problems for the first draft and doubt it'll take flight.
Some won't agree with the top 60 itself.
Some would pick from the top 60 by habit and the draft would have to be stopped.
It may be hard to find 15 players that buy into the concept.

The second example is better than the first.
My only regret from this past drafting season is that I did not try to implement the 'hit and pitch' draft this year.
Our game needs change. Not only in drafts, but in rules we have gotten accustomed to.
We are stodgy in change.
We have two catchers because it has always been that way. No other reason.
Some will say they like it because it is more strategic. It really isn't.
Most second catchers are taken well beyond the 15th round of a draft. The best afterthought is chosen.
It'd be just as strategic in starting one catcher, rostering two, and deciding which catcher to start.
Sometimes our game relies on tradition to a fault.

I'd also like to see us 'start' 10 pitchers. We wouldn't ACTUALLY be starting all ten.
With rainouts and arm problems, it seems most rosters take a zero every week from some pitcher that is started.
The 10th pitchers stats would ONLY come into play if one of the previously nine pitchers gets a zero for the week.
The 10th pitcher would be an 'emergency pitcher'.
Baseball is changing. Season long fantasy games are slow in keeping up with the changes.
I fear that if we get too comfortable, the hobby will suffer.

[viper]

I actually like the first concept a whole lot more than the second. The top 75 is easy. Just use the NFBC top 75 for some recent period of time. I'm sure at least 65 of those players will be on everyone's top 75 list. The others will be each owner's "value picks". The second concept defeats one of the beauties of fantasy baseball. At the draft, we actually engage in two simultaneous drafts, one for hitters and one for pitchers. Each owner must make decisions based on his beliefs of importance in each of these areas but also in how other weigh them. The complexities of drafting a fantasy baseball team are the most difficult and subtle of all fantasy games. With five categories in each of the two totally independent areas (hitting & pitching), the permutation are endless. There is no best method. Some methods are clearly destined to fail but many can work and they have. You have to love it.

Truth be told, I am sitting out this season. Other priorities made the time needed to prepare properly just totally unavailable. I started the year ESPN started fantasy baseball. But I still read all your posts. There are no better reads on baseball anywhere.