Author: Brant Tedeschi

On the surface this sounds like a pretty dumb question, but how important is your fantasy baseball draft?  Many of us go into drafts thinking it’s do-or-die and a mistake on draft day can cost the fantasy season.  Others spend money on draft tools to help them draft the ultimate team. But is all of this really necessary?  The truth is that roughly 40% to 60% of your drafted team will no longer be on your roster.

The Set Up

In order to talk about the importance of the draft, we must first define the parameters we are looking to compare.   A very basic way of deciding how important the draft is to compare how many drafted players are still on the roster by the end of the season.  Additionality, we want to look to see if there are any patterns that may explain which type of players don’t seem to stick around.  Perhaps there is a possible correlation between an auto-drafted team’s player retention and a manually drafted team?

For this specific example, we will be using what I’d like to call the “typical league“.  This is a league that has at least one person who doesn’t show up to the draft, or misses the first few rounds.  This type of league is a mix of players who take it very seriously and those who think of it as a fun hobby.  The league I am describing just so happens to be the official FantasySP 5×5 roto mixed league that has 28 rounds with 10 teams.  The drafting style is a snake draft with a randomly set order.  Many of us are in similar leagues like the one I described, and I think it applies to a large portion of fantasy baseball leagues out there.

The results I find here could vary greatly across public free leagues and private leagues with $500 buy-ins and varying types of drafts, rules, and number of teams.  However,  my findings should shed some light on the usefulness of draft tools and the importance of the draft itself.

The Teams

We will be using three types of teams: an active team present on draft day that finished in the top 3, an autodrafted active team, and an active team present on draft day with a bottom 3 finish.

Top 3 Team

The first team I will analyze is a team that placed 2nd in the league and was present on draft day to select their entire team.  At the end of the season, 14 players (50%) were no longer on their roster.  The first player to be ousted on the team was Jose Bautista, which was a 3rd round pick and was obviously dropped late in the season due to injury.   The next player to be dropped was a 10th round pick of Will Middlebrooks.  As you may recall, he was sent down to the minors and lost his job to a rookie last year by the name of Jose Iglesias.  Both Bautista and Middlebrooks proved their worth at various points in the season.

The first player who was truly expendable was Ben Revere, who was drafted in the 12th round.  Of the drafted players no longer on their roster, 12/14 occurred on rounds 12+.

Autodrafted Team

The autodrafted team obviously missed the draft, but they remained active in the league up until September.  Their team finished 6th of 10 teams, which is near the middle of the pack.    By the end of the season, team autodraft dropped 15 players  from draft day, or 53% of their total roster.  The first player dropped on the team was James Shields, who was autodrafted in the 7th round.  Next up was Chase Headley, drafted in the 8th round which was followed up by Jason Motte in the 10th.

The dropping of James Shields makes little sense to me and probably explains the teams 6th place finish more than anything.

Chase Headley did not perform very well in 2013 compared to his previous season.  The dropping of Jason Motte was of no surprise and the fact he was autodrafted is not surprising either.

Of the drafted players no longer on their roster, 12/15 occurred on rounds 13+.

The Bad Team

This team finished the season in 8th place and was active on draft day and throughout the season.  By the end of the season, this team dropped 11 of their players from draft day, or 39% of their original team.  Amazingly, their first dropped player did not happen until round 14 who happened to be Ichiro Suzuki.  Their next dropped player, Josh Willingham, occurred in round 15.  Neither of these two players are too surprising considering it was a 10 team league, especially the drop of Willingham.  However, Suzuki had his moments and was a productive player in some categories.  The 3rd player dropped, Marco Scutaro, was drafted in round 16 and dropped due to his poor performance

Of the drafted players no longer on their roster, 11/11 occurred on rounds 14+.

Making Sense of the Results

Are these results what you expected?  A whopping 88.5%, of the players no longer on these teams were drafted in rounds 12+.  There is no question that having an autodrafted team puts you at a disadvantage compared to other teams, so it is absolutely critical that you attend the draft.  However, you probably already knew that.

The biggest surprise I’ve found is that 40% to 60% of your drafted roster will not survive the season.  It doesn’t matter if you are a bad team, a good team, or an autodrafted team. 

So is the draft important?  Yes, without question it is important to attend your draft.  However after the middle of your draft things get blurry and those drafted players could easily be auto-drafted and have the similar chances of sticking around.

Knowing this information, does it make sense to spend money on draft tools since half of the drafted players won’t be on your team? That depends.  Chances are, a player drafted in the 1st half of your draft will likely stick around for the whole season.  The question is how much better of a player would you draft if you listen to a draft tools advice?  I would hazard to guess that the difference is negligible.  Most draft tools are based on projected stats and average draft positions that we all have access to.  Nothing magical is going on here.

Quite frankly, if you are a veteran fantasy baseball player then the first half of the draft should be a breeze for you.  You should not need a draft tool to help you whatsoever.  If you are a newbie, then I think a draft tool will make sense for you.

I think my findings can be applied to a large portion of leagues out there, even if they vary greatly from the one I used.  I do not know what happens when you add 14 or 16 teams to a league or if it becomes an NL or AL only league.  Is the second half of the draft less important or more important in these scenarios?  These are questions that will have to wait for another day.

Based on the data, you will win or lose in your league by how you perform on the waiver wire.  If up to 60% of your roster will no longer be on your team by the end of the season then it is imperative to pay close attention to the waiver wire.  Luckily, keeping tabs on your players and dominating the waiver wire is what FantasySP specializes in.

Worry less about the draft and worry more about the daily fantasy baseball grind we all love.  It’s going to be a long summer, and FantasySP has you covered. Go ahead and sign up.

Nearly a year ago, the Trade Research Center was released to the public.  At the time I didn’t realize how popular the feature would be!.  To this day, we are still the ONLY fantasy site the offers trade suggestions. Over the past year I’ve had lots of feedback from users and lots of opinions on how it could be improved.

The Feedback

Before we get to what has changed, let’s start by talking about the feedback from users.   The trade research tool started all because users kept requesting the feature.  I knew it would be a big undertaking and would take some time to perfect, but it had to start somewhere.  In May of 2013, the tool was released in BETA because I knew it need more work.

Once people had the tool in their hands they let me know their thoughts on how to improve upon it.  Their initial thoughts were helpful and cool to use, but it was a step away from being great.  Their concerns can be summed up by this REAL comment from “User X”:

An enhanced Trade Research tool would make the difference for me.
Instead of just having a few suggested possible trades and listing how in your favor it would be- maybe have the option to select the players on your team you’d be open to trading then have possible suggestions based on that.

This user echoed a lot of what others said, except his thoughts were very concise and to the point.  The people wanted more trades, more customization, and better accuracy.  My job was to make sure it gets done right and works for the NBA, NHL, MLB, and NFL.

Customizing Trade Suggestions

The first step to more accurate trades would be directly asking the user who should be traded and what they are looking to improve upon.  Previously, our research suggestions would automatically try to figure this out and the user had no way of changing it.  Things are much different now.

The trade suggestions area still makes mention of weak/strong areas of your team, but it’s now completely up to you to select which players you are willing to give up and which positions you want in return.

You can add as many players and select as many positions as you’d like and the Fantasy Assistant will automatically generate possible trades (shown below).  Customizing your trades are now extremely easy and only take a few clicks.

Viewing Trade Suggestions

Viewing the trade suggestions are just as easy once you’ve selected the positions.  Trade Suggestions are now presented for ALL the teams in your league and we offer up to 3 possible trades per team.  This is a huge difference from before, where we would pinpoint one team and then offer up to 3 trades.  For this particular trade we are offering up Will Myers and Jimmy Rollins and want outfielders and infielders in return.

Trade suggestions will work for 1v1, 2v2, or 3v3 trades.  If you select more than 2 players, then we will determine what players to select and whether or not it should be a four player trade or six player trade.

At the top are all available teams in your league with a number next to each team.  This particular example shows that all teams in the league have 3 trade suggestions each.  However, this varies greatly depending on how you set up the trade.

With “deadzone 1” selected, we can see three possible trades for you to consider.  The green boxes next to each player indicate their FSP rating, which we use to gauge the overall rating for each player.  Since today is March 1st, expect these ratings to change quite a bit before opening day and throughout the season.

Underneath each trade is the “Analyze Trade” button.  This button will take you directly to the trade analyzer and show you exactly how this trade would break down for both teams.  Because this is a baseball trade, the trade will break down categories such as batting average, home runs, runs, etc.  Have a look at our blog post that describes how the trade analyzer works.

If you’d like to see a different set of trades, then click on the “Refresh Suggestions” button underneath shown in the previous picture.  The Fantasy Assistant will revise its suggestions and present a new set of trades for you to view.

Wrap Up

This update is already live and available for all four major sports.  A lot of planning went into this update and great strides have been made in improving the quality of trades.  The combination of the Fantasy Assistant and Trade Analyzer are great assets to have for all fantasy sports players.  Go ahead and give it a spin and expect more tweaks and changes as the weeks and months go by.

Still not a member of FantasySP?  Sign up!

Fantasy baseball season is quickly approaching and many of you are close to league drafts.  Once your team is drafted, the fear might start to creep in as you wonder if you made the right picks.  Luckily FantasySP has you covered as I present you with the top 5 fantasy baseball tools we have to offer for the new season.

Trade Analyzer

A lot of hard work has gone into improving FantasySP for this baseball season.  The trade analyzer is the best example of that.  On the surface it may seem like not a whole lot has changed.  You add players to a potential trade and try to find out who gets the better deal.  Simple right?

For this baseball season the trade analyzer is much smarter.  It can now show you the impact of a fantasy trade based on the league(s) you have synced.  You can easily see how a trade improves your batting categories for outfielders or pitching categories for starting pitchers.  And so much more!

In addition to that, you can also share these trades with leaguemates and have a mobile version of the tool for fast load times.

Player Alerts

Player Alerts is the perfect feature for a sport such as fantasy baseball because the season is so long.  FantasySP will keep track of your players and automatically update the rosters behind the scenes.  If we detect a major news trend, such as a suspension or an injury, then we will email you immediately to let you know.  You can set Player Alerts to a setting of Low, Medium, or High depending on how often or how soon you would like to be alerted.

So go ahead and stay out late on those Friday or Saturday nights and let us worry about your fantasy baseball players.  Have a look at an example Player Alert email.

Waiver Alerts

If you thought Player Alerts were cool, just wait until you check out Waiver Alerts.  As you might have guessed, Waiver Alerts will work similar to Player Alerts, except Waiver Alerts are specifically tailored to your synced leagues.  Do you really want to miss out on another minor league call-up?

Waiver Alerts will automatically analyze the waiver wire for significant trends relevant to your teams and send you an email when we find something interesting.  Plus, the email will have relevant OWN/Start Trends, Player Stats, latest player news, and your fantasy team ratings/rankings.

I don’t have a fantasy baseball example to show you since the season hasn’t started, but I do have a fantasy football example to show you.

As an added bonus, we also offer a list of waiver wire trends based on the week or day.

Fantasy Assistant

You’ve never heard of the Fantasy Assistant before?  This is the swiss-army knife of fantasy baseball tools.  It has been designed to make your life a lot easier and works in conjunction with the trade analyzer, player alerts, and waiver alerts.

The Fantasy Assistant does tons of number crunching and analysis to see where your team ranks in comparison to other teams in your league.  We rank and compare Full Rosters vs Starting Lineups to determine depth as the season progresses.  We compare position based ratings so you can see how your Outfielders or Starting Pitchers rate throughout the season.  You can even use this data to research potential trades.

New this year also includes category based analysis and team projections.  You can compare any player on your roster to team averages to determine if a player is outperforming or underperforming in over 10 categories.

The best feature for the Fantasy Assistant is how it saves you time with the waiver wire.  You can easily compare your player vs the free agent pool to determine the best available player based on “High Risk” factors or a more refined search such as stolen bases or a lower ERA.

Check out the full overview of the Fantasy Assistant with plenty of pictures and videos as I explain its features.

Start or Sit Tool

Last but not least, we have the start sit tool for baseball.  Throughout the season we will often find ourselves struggling to figure out who deserves a spot start and who should be benched.  The start sit tool will give you all kinds of data to help make the decision a little bit easier.

Some key metrics might include the latest performance trend comparisons, own/start trends, expert ranking comparisons, split stats to see how well a player performs on the road vs at home, and much more.

As an added bonus, we also offer a mobile version of the start/sit tool to help you out while you are on the road.