Frailties of the Draft Season

[DOUGHBOYS]

We are, basically, stupid during drafting season. We play the drafting game as if it is part of our seasonal game.
If getting Jonathon Villar in the third round, his drafter yelled "VALUE!" as if already winning something.
And if over drafting Charlie Blackmon at the 9 spot, instead of his normal 15 or 16 adp spot, some drafters will say, "Oooh, that's a little early for him!"
Almost as if we have to stay close to a script.

During the last draft season, I got into a give and forth with Todd Zola about where Benintendi would hit in the lineup.
Todd was sure he would hit second. I thought that he would hit 5/6.
As it turns out, there has been no set spot in the lineup for Benintendi.
And it doesn't matter.
We approach each season as if things are going to be set in stone.
If Benintendi starts the year hitting second, it is hard for us to fathom that he'll hit in any other spot.

We are also KORB's.
Kings of Recency Bias's.
After the year Kris Bryant had last year, he was picked in the top five of most drafts.
Not this coming year.
Oh, he is still Kris Bryant. The same guy that shined and played MVP ball in 2016.
We get that.
But being KORB's, we punish players for not having that same greatness last year.

Same for injury, we gave Clayton Kershaw a mini-pass last year when finishing the season with a balky back.
This coming year, after two years with a balky back, he'll have drafters thinking about his back more than his arm.
Chris Sale?...Shiny
Max Scherzer?...Shiny
They may be taken ahead of Kershaw, especially by the more conservative drafters.

And what about Madison Bumgarner?
We don't have to worry much about him getting on another 2-wheeler for awhile, but have the wheels fallen off for drafters?
Bumgarner has looked like a normal pitcher since returning from his dirt bike mishap.
(Is it me or would it have sounded a lot cooler if he had crashed a Harley)
Nobody wants a normal pitcher in the second round.

We go into the year thinking one thing and it gets reversed.
We all knew that if we drafted a Nationals Starter that their bullpen would offer them little help.
BUT, they were in an easy division and they had an offense that featured Eaton, and Turner, and Werth, and Harper.
Yummy.
Now, the Nationals have a wonderful bullpen, but Eaton, Turner, Werth, and Harper are gone.
The only thing that remained the same was that Godawful division.

Since July, Aaron Judge has hit like we all thought he'd hit.
Sporadic, lots of strike outs, and power surges.
April, May, and June surprised the shit out of most of us.
If Judge goes into the drafting season continuing with his meek hitting, where does he get drafted?
The first half Aaron Judge or the second half Aaron Judge?
The homer hitting Judge who swings a big stick or the master of missing a ball as if swinging with a gavel.
That's the decision we'll all have to make.

Does Giancarlo Stanton rise up the first round because he has regained his mashing powers or because he stayed healthy a year?
Either way, the KORB patrol will make sure he is taken high.
Cody Bellinger?
Unlike Judge, he hasn't gone into a funk.
Ron Shandler would write an article about how he couldn't do it again.
But then Mike Trout would tweet him and remind him of the days of yore.

Young pitchers, for the most part, have not had good years.
Nola and Severino have bucked that trend.
Most all other pitchers that have come up through the minors this year have been sent back from whence they came.
I have a feeling that a lot of the same pitching names that were at the top of last years drafters list will repeat this year.
What happens to Rick Porcello?
Some drafters took him in the sixth round last year.
KORB's will make sure that Porcello does not see the light of single digit rounds.
Same for Kyle Hendricks too most likely.
The year after Hendricks finishes third in the Cy Young award voting, he has won four games.
A dropper.

The year after Dee Gordon was suspended for PED's, he dropped from the second round to the fifth round.
I can see that happening to Starling Marte too.
In a year where everybody is hitting home runs, Marte is demonstrating why he needed PED's.

Seven of the top 15 players (according to adp) saw the disabled list.
That includes the best hitter in Mike Trout and the best pitcher in Kershaw.
When drafting we pretend that injuries will not occur. We base our roster construction on the present.
Some drafters even go through each name on their roster as if that roster will hold up over the long season.
The truth is that half of our roster will turn over due to injury or under performance.
I have a team that is second in my Main Event League. I consider it a major victory that my top 12 choices are still rostered.
Just six of my other 18 original players are still around though.
Looking at it, I am reminded of how freakin smart I was to draft Cody Bellinger.
And how overwhelmingly stupid I was for dropping him before he was called up.

Draft season is coming upon us.
For 15 of us, it'll start in about six weeks.
Each drafting season, I have to remind myself to not try and win the draft, but try and put a competitive fantasy baseball team together.
Especially later in the drafting season when ADP's are treated with reverence.
That ADP is built on Draft Champions leagues. 50 team leagues with no faab.
Yet, we put the apples and oranges together and just have a universal adp that somehow applies to all teams.
I still get a kick when a Yahoo Kid calls Greg or Tom and references NFBC ADP for their 10 team points league.

I mostly write this to remind myself of the pitfalls of the drafting season.
There are many.
Too many to count and too many for me to re-count here.
I've listed the main traps here.
Now, all I have to do is follow my own advice.
Hard to do.
You see, when we surmise that we've outsmarted all fellow drafters, that is the time that we've probably outsmarted ourselves.
It is then that I remind myself of the first sentence of this post.