NFBC Message Boards

We are in that crossover mode right now. We are slowly moving from our drafting wave length to our real season way of thinking. Now, we don't care that Manaea, Matt Moore, Taillon, McCullers, and Paxton were in the same group that 'we'd be happy with'. We now care, that we rostered one of those pitchers out of that group and only care how HE does.
Perception is paramount in what we do in a draft and our in-season moves.

During drafting season, we judge drafts in how we think categories have been covered. We even look over positions in doing this. An example...

C- Blah blah
C- Blah blah
1B- Freddy Freeman
2B- Dee Gordon
3B- Kyle Seager
MI- Blah blah
CI- Mike Napoli
OF- Giancarlo Stanton
OF- Carlos Gomez
OF- Dexter Fowler
OF- Blah blah
OF- Blah blah
U- Blah blah

P- Clayton Kershaw
P- Jose Quintana
P- Kenta Maeda
P- Sean Manaea
P- Blah blah
P- Blah blah
P- Blah blah
CL- Sam Dyson
CL- AJ Ramos

We look at this draft and in our minds we click off categories...
Power...check
Speed...check
Average..check
K's...check
Ratio's..check
Saves...check

We've barely seen over half of the offense and Starters. Almost like we give up on the rest of the draft as being one of luck.
Yet, we give it our seal of approval.
Catchers.
We think of Catchers as a luxury. Sure, we can grab one of those top four catchers. BUT, it would hurt the looks of my team.
Taking one of those top four Catchers means taking away the Big power of Stanton or Big speed in Gordon.
The fact that we drafted a catcher who will hit 25-30 homers (Sanchez, Contreras, Lucroy) pales in comparison to Stanton's possible 40 homers or Gordon's 50 bags.
Realistically, one of those catchers may be beating a later drafted catcher by 15 to 20 homers. Stanton will not beat a lot of outfielders drafted later by that margin.
Still, Stanton or Gordon is more pleasing to our eye.

Let's go to Starters. We are all suckers for the strike out. Our pitching drafting world is predicated on the almighty K.
Jansen and Chapman are not the first Closers drafted because they will lead the league in Saves. As drafters we give up when it comes to who will get the most Saves. Heck, Aroldis Chapman has never even come close to getting the most Saves.
So, we draft with K's in mind.
Every top pitcher taken in the first two rounds are pitchers that should garner 200 K's.

This year in drafts, the leading ERA pitcher of 2016, the same pitcher who was second overall in WHIP, who throws for a great team, was not taken till the fifth or sixth round in most drafts.
The reason?
'Only' 170 strike outs.
Kyle Hendricks is not a hard thrower which NFBC drafters also seem to gravitate.
I did see in some drafts in chat that a drafter would take Jeff Samardzduh and state, "I don't trust him, but he is a good source of K's."
Samardzduh does throw hard, but Hendricks had more K's in less innings.
In fact, Hendricks had a tick above Carlos Martinez in k/inn, yet Martinez perceived as the harder thrower was taken a tick above Hendricks in drafts.

Despite calling ourselves the best fantasy players in the world, we fall into the same traps.
Perception rules the day.
Most, would still like 75/75 from their first three players drafted even though that was a bygone era.
Sometimes, I don't think we are as good at this hobby as we think we are.
We should be evolving. The game is evolving, but we don't seem to be following its trends.

Here is one last thought about perception.
Mark Trumbo.
Mark Trumbo is a nice power piece. He led baseball in homers last year and had nice power stats.
I don't have the exact numbers. Somebody smarter than me will have to look at it.
Anyway, Mark Trumbo was drafted earlier in online drafts than live drafts.
I spoke with several live drafters who spoke of Trumbo going in the sixth or seventh rounds.
In online drafts, Trumbo mostly drafted in the fifth round.
Why?
Because of the default online.
When drafting live, we are free from prompts, defaults, or adp.
It is us.
When online, we stare at the default for many picks. We do this in order to see how close we are to picking again. But, our minds are also calculating who is falling or rising, not by our lists, but by the default.
It plays on our minds.
Trumbo becomes more of an option because he has been at or near the top of a default list so long. The perception being that a great power source will be picked up by another drafter if we don't draft him first.
Hopefully, one of you can figure out all the Main Events and figure out where Trumbo went in Live as opposed to online drafts.
I'd be willing to bet that Trumbo was taken a half round higher in online than live drafts.
It's just our perception.

ME LV April 1, Trumbo was the 97th pick (that is 7th round, 7th pick for those mathematically challenged). I shouldn't be telling you this because...



...but it was a real value pick!!!

DOUGHBOYS wrote:Let's go to Starters. We are all suckers for the strike out. Our pitching drafting world is predicated on the almighty K.

Yes, we are, but we need 1,375 or so K's in order to just get 80% of the available points. Say you do pretty good and get about 150 K's out of your two relievers, your starting pitching positions have to AVERAGE 175 k. Grabbing one or two potential 200 K starters seems necessary as you will not find K's so easily for your last two or three starter slots.

So not to lose ground on K's, we are suckers for the strike out. But don't we have to be?

Edwards Kings wrote:

DOUGHBOYS wrote:Let's go to Starters. We are all suckers for the strike out. Our pitching drafting world is predicated on the almighty K.

Yes, we are, but we need 1,375 or so K's in order to just get 80% of the available points. Say you do pretty good and get about 150 K's out of your two relievers, your starting pitching positions have to AVERAGE 175 k. Grabbing one or two potential 200 K starters seems necessary as you will not find K's so easily for your last two or three starter slots.

So not to lose ground on K's, we are suckers for the strike out. But don't we have to be?

You're taking averages, Wayne.
Your head is still in draft season. THAT'S OVER!
In the real season, it is all about piling on K's. Hoping for more Wins and not too big of a hit on ratios along the way.
We FAAB double starters to enhance our strike outs.
We'll start a sub-standard two start pitcher, that probably should be benched, over an average one start pitcher, hoping for better to come from quantity over quality.
We throw eight Starters.
We'll even throw nine Starters.
THAT is how we reach 1,375 K's.
Most teams do not have two 200 k guys. This is how they combat that. In most cases, it's the ratios that take a hit.
After all, those pitchers are available on FAAB for a reason. Most for good reason.

A batter has five walks and one strikeout.
What is your first thought?
Probably that the hitter is pretty good. That he protects the plate.
That pitchers don't mind walking him to avoid the wrath of his swing.

It's all bunk. At least in this case.
The batter is Jason Castro.
Is Castro a good hitter for having the 5/1 bb/k ratio?
No.
The truth is that Castro has seen 38 pitches this season. He has seen 15 strikes.
Without knowing that, the perception would be that Castro has changed his approach. That he is waiting pitchers out.
Reality is that he has had two four-pitch base on balls and three others against a KC staff that is finding it hard to throw strikes.
These two days will be thrown in with all the other stats at the end of the season and Jason Castro will look like a better hitter than Jason Castro really is...at least sabermetrics-wise