How to NOT suck at your draft (part1 preparation)
Rank your players: If you want to pull rankings from your favorite anyalist or go by ECR (expert consensus rankings provided by fantasypros) That's fine but there's a more custom feel when you rank players on your own and you always get "your guys" as you'll likely have them higher than most people. Be sure to take your leagues scoring into account when printing out or doing your own rankings. Whether your league is full or half PPR, Passing TDs are worth 6 or 4 or whatever the case may be always check the scoring of your league before ranking players for that particular draft. If you play in 3 leagues with 3 different scoring systems you need to have 3 separate rankings. Same goes for starting lineups. "Why would starting lineups matter" you ask? That's because of position scarcity. The more players of a certain position that are required to start every week the more those position players are worth in drafts so the higher they should be ranked. For example:
A league that requires you to start 3WRs opposed to 2WRs would result in bumping up value on WRs opposed to other positions to match the increased demand on that particular position. Same as you would for QBs in superflex or 2QB leagues.
A PPR league would lend increased value to RBs that catch passes like Ekeler and WRs that catch more passes like Edelman opposed to big play guys like DJax or Tyreek
These bumps in value are usually moderate to minimum so don't go crazy taking Ekeler as the overall RB1 because it's a PPR league unless you truly believe he will outscore everyone at the position. Spoiler alert (he probably won't)
Compare your rankings against host site rankings or ADP: If you are drafting on a host site like Yahoo or ESPN you can gain a huge advantage by comparing your rankings against the rankings on the site being used. Say for instance you have DJ Chark ranked in the mid 3rd round about 30th overall. Yahoo has him currently at 45. That's over a full round later. You'd know that by your calculations you're getting a value on him at where Yahoo has him ranked and you'd be willing to take him anywhere in between pick 30-45. On the contrary of you have say Mixon down at 18 while. Yahoo has him at 11 you can pretty confidently say you probably won't be drafting him this year. You're giving yourself an advantage doing this because you know a majority of casual players will use the host site rankings as a crutch to guage value and won't take thiers or other site's rankings into account. If you know how your opponent is going to think you can beat them to the punch. This really gives you an advantage in the later rounds. Say you find a rather large disparancy (2-3 round difference) between yours and the host site rankings. You really like this player and you can almost guarantee you will be able to draft him by reaching a round or 2 before the other people in your league even see him on thier screens. This is usually only recommended in the later rounds when you see defenenses and kickers start popping up. Now if it's a live draft it's more dynamic as people will be working off all different rankings. This is where you use Fantasypros ADP to compare against your rankings. Also, try and read the room a little. Knowing what teams they are fans of and how they view certin players will help you get maximum value out of every pick in your draft.
Separate your positional players into tiers: This allows you put clear dividers between groups of players. Rankings are the foundation of how you value players but positional tiers is the blueprint to your draft. You'll want to hit the end of the tiers or a guy you particularly like in each tier. Your tiers as your rankings should vary based on scoring projections and always be fluid and willing to move guys based on new information. You can grab tiers off a website like Fantasypros or create your own. When making your own feel free to have as many tiers as you want. Reflect most accurately how you view players.
Mock draft from your draft position: If your commissioner is kind enough to set your draft order a few days or weeks ahead you can take advantage. Run a few mocks at that position with your rankings and tiers and see what players you need to grab early and what players you might be able to wait on. This way you can get maximum possible value out of your draft by not taking guys too early. Mocks are pretty accurate for the first 6-7 rounds but I wouldn't rely on anything after that. Mock drafters tend to bail after the big names are gone and some site ADP is driven by mock drafting. Regardless it gives you a general idea of the type of team you can build from a certian position. Especially in the first few rounds.
Doing these 4 things will vastly improve your situation come draft day and will put you at an advantage against unprepared competition. Remember to keep your rankings and tiers up to date and move guys up or down based on recent info. Drafting off old rankings/tiers is just as bad as being unprepared. Next blog will get into how to use this prep at your draft along with some other tips to give you a further advantage on draft day.
Thanks for reading! Follow me and feel free to contact me on twitter @Chris_Cianci
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