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11 Feb 2009 |
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| First off, I want to thank Joe Lano for all of his great work that he has done in his time with FantasyPros911.com, and I am proud to announce that for now on I will be writing the Fantasy Baseball for Beginners column. Feel free to send any questions my way:
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and I will get back to you as quick as possible. I am a frequent mock drafter on both MockDraftCentral.com and CouchManagers.com so be sure to let me know if you want to set one up. Now let’s get to the goods: Now that the Super Bowl is over, the snow is melting, and pitchers and catchers are beginning to report, it only means one thing, its mock draft season. Some of you have participated in mock draft’s with Joe Lano and a cast of other Fantasy Pros one of which may have even been myself. I have to warn you though; mock drafts aren’t always a good thing. Now before I go any further, it’s important that I point out that mock drafts are a very useful tool and you will find me participating in at least one every day. I am all for everyone going over to CouchManagers.com (also known as CM, which now features auctions) or MockDraftCentral.com (also known as MDC) and participating in mock drafts for the purposes of practicing drafting, strategies, and entertainment, but don’t base all of your player values off of mock drafts. The biggest misconception with mock drafts is that they are the best way to prepare for your real draft. I believe otherwise. In the coming weeks multiple websites will begin to open up their fantasy leagues including CBSSports.com, ESPN.com, FanTrax.com, Yahoo.com, and each site will have their own set of player rankings and each one will be different. The problem with drafting at MDC or CM is that they both have their own set of rankings, which are also different than the aforementioned sites. At this point you are probably wondering why this matters, and the answer is that people draft off of rankings. Sure, you may edit your rankings before each mock draft or have a list of players that you try to grab, but the truth is that others do not. Many people will pull up the draft and take the best guy available out of the six guys visible on the available players screen, because they do not alter their rankings. Because of this, it skews results of drafts, and it’s likely that your league won’t host its draft on MDC or CM (not always though) therefore, the Average Draft Position (also known as ADP) of players is different than it would be with other rankings.  For example, on MDC has Ryan Braun ranked at #14, when on other sites I can guarantee that he will be ranked much higher, and should be going in the middle to late first round. This has even more impact on late round picks like Wandy Rodriguez (whom I love) for instance. MDC has him ranked at #341 overall, when on other sites that have updated their rankings more recently, he will be ranked much higher (and hopefully ahead of Gio Gonzalez and Jeff Francis). Again, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be doing mock drafts, but take them lightly at this point in time until ESPN and CBS release their mock drafts (I’ve heard ESPN will release theirs on February 17th). Then you can take the rankings of the site that you will be drafting on come game day, and at the same time become familiar with the software. By no means am I putting down CM and MDC, but you must be aware of both the pros and cons. Until that time, keep enrolling in drafts at MDC and CM and talk with others and try new strategies, no matter how crazy they may be; I am looking at our Editor right now... In the coming weeks I will be discussing some of my favorite strategies for 2009 are and anything else that you would like to discuss. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I’d love to help you out.
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Tags: Kevin Orris FantasyPros911.com mock draft fantasy baseball advice beginner FP911 ryan braun mock draft central gio gonzalez jeff francis espn fantrax yahoo
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