My Drafts So Far

figured a little 'money meet mouth' was in order

This summer I’ve done four full league drafts, with one of those (The IEFSA) draft a two division, 20-team league thing with different kinds of scoring and rules (plus keepers), salary caps and in-season Cup tournaments. Let’s agree we’ll leave that one out, eh? The rest of these are home leagues that I’ve been invited into and the point isn’t to be like “look how smart I am” - mostly because I’ve never won any of them! - but to show how drafts unfold differently depending on the managers involved.

There is also the slight interesting aspect that these leagues - unlike the expert leagues I also play in - aren’t filled with people who publish their own stuff and I don’t know them as well, which keeps me on my toes. I’ll give a short update after each roster and some of my strategy. I didn’t always stick to my own ranks just as I don’t think anyone should - they are a guide to determine where value is as you’re moving through a draft. But as you’ll see there are some similarities and some differences. Typically, you have a better chance of landing the players you like late in drafts when the tiers of player stretch giving you the ability to make picks based more on feel or preference. I’m obviously high on Tariq Lamptey and Junior Firpo and knowing you can get them both late - and cover with the deep FA pool of defenders - let me concentrate on my attacking seven early. That worked out well.

10-Team Snake; Drafting 7th (1-7; 2-4)

jw @FantasyGaffer

My current first choice XI in this 10-team league is: Doherty - Lamptey - Firpo Mount - Buendia - Barnes - Alli Mahrez - Firmino - Jiménez B: Veltman (D) Townsend Fornals Gallagher (M) Wilson Maupay (F)

August 8th 2021

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This team is stacked front to back with a couple of question marks standing between an A draft and a B+, which is what I’d grade this. That’s like a 90/100 but Doherty, Lamptey and Firpo could all flop for different reasons: playing time, injury, new league. The front seven are one of the best I’ve ever been able to select with Firmino falling to Round 5 and Raul Jimenez falling to Round 7. You can’t plan for that but you need to be prepared to capitalize. It meant that I wasn’t taking Leon Bailey or Said Benrahma early and I watched them both come off the board just before the round when I would have taken them as value plays. C’est la vie.

There are some significant questions surrounding the collection of talent which drove West Ham to a top half finish last season. Jesse Lingard is still at Manchester United and in Covid protocols after testing positive. That may hamper a move away. Pablo Fornals continues to drop in drafts after a season where he made 31 starts and score 8.5 points per match. I got him in Round 15.

This draft also highlighted a massive problem with Fantrax. One of the managers was on auto draft and rather than selecting players based on last season’s points, or points per match, or anything remotely reasonable, it drafted by Average Draft Position. Wait, you say, surely the meritocracy of the draft would help an absent manager get the players the most people think are good!?

Fantrax does not appear to weight for % of leagues selected in, only the round/pick a player was taken. So if Benchy McGrointear is drafted with the 10th pick of the first round of one draft as a placeholder for Romelu Lukaku, and isn’t selected in any other drafts, Benchy has an ADP of 10. Miss your draft and in Round 1 you are getting Benchy selected for you. This is how one team ended up with this roster (in order of selection):

Son, Raphinha, Christian Walton, Luke Cundle, van Dijk, Richarlison, Coufal, Ethan Galbraith, Tarkowski, Targett, Pepe, Jesus, Regulion, Fofana, Stipe Perica, and Caleb Watts.

Look, I spend literally hundreds of hours looks at stats, rosters, depth charts, scouting reports and more. I haven’t heard of four of those guys, Fofana is proper fucked, and whatever a “Luke Cundle” is it is not a 4th round pick. So stay awake and set a queue of several hundred actual players or else draft a team filled with the Henry Cain, Rodrigoina and Walker Peters of the world.

10-Team Snake; Drafting 3rd (1-3; 2-8)

The commissioner of this league tweeted the whole draft so I feel like it’s fair game for me to include it here. Two quick things to keep in mind here are: managers are allowed to pick their draft spot (there is a ‘draft order’ order and so the person with first choice can take any spot, second choice any remaining spot, etc). I ended up selecting the third spot after giving serious consideration to drafting 7-8th. Given how my other drafts stuck me at 7th, I’m happy I got some variety. MORE important: the waiver order is NOT set as the inverse of the draft but is the reverse of the previous seasons playoff seeding (not final results, seeding). So I knew I had WW1 and Lukaku in the bank when drafting this team.

Operation Rescue Bobby looks like we’ll lineup this way most weeks:

BENCH: Matip Saiss (D), Cantwell Lees-Melou (M), Bailey Benrahma Martial (F)

I’ll need to drop two players to accommodate the signing of Romelu Lukaku and my starting GK, with Matip/Saiss and Martial the most likely to make way. If I can get a 2:1 deal done before the first waivers I might be able to upgrade one of those slots and have an opening.

This draft did not have may unexpected auto drafts, but that doesn’t mean it was uneventful or a chalk draft. The commissioner set two full minutes per pick which was great early on because I was able to live tweet the full rounds of picks through Round 7; and it was excruciating late on when my queue was set and I just wanted to get through the end. But especially if you play with a mixed live/online room (which this was) it can be helpful to give managers more time.

Some value discrepancies between the two drafts: Raul Jimenez (RD4 v RD7), Andros Townsend (RD7 v RD11). I ended up with both players in the later rounds where the value just looked too good to pass on.

12-Team Snake; Drafting 7th (1-7, 2-6)

This was my first proper draft of the season, non-auction, redraft using Togga style scoring. This is my second year in the league and last year was tough after I reached for Trent early in the first round and saw a couple of my other signings crap out early. I did finish in the top half in total points but my match-ups were pretty unlucky and I believe I had the most points scored against me. I missed the playoffs by a game or two.

This draft has one glaring issue which I can’t correct in any real way, so I just have to hope that my RD3 pick of Timo Werner is at least a push of a pick. I don’t need him to outperform his draft slot but I really do not want him to become a super-sub, or heavily rotated option. Landing him this early, in this league, also factored in my passing on him - even when I felt he was outstanding value - in my other two drafts. There is something to be said for diversifying the risk and having multiple shares of Timo isn’t something I’m prepared to handle this season.

BENCH: Matip Matsuaka (D); Towsend Lingard Gallagher (M); Kean (F)

I’m bullish on Mahrez, Sterling and Grealish this season and not just because they’re some of the best footballers on the planet. KDB and Foden are still dealing with injuries; Pep has said Bernardo “and others” are going to be allowed to leave”; and even if they’re rotated the PPM is huge. I did mistakenly believe this league had an INJ spot, so I’ve already dropped Eberechi Eze and added Moise Kean. Kean is not ranked on the sheets because until the Messi news broke it was a foregone conclusion that he was headed back to PSG. Now that is cloudy, Italian and French (non-PSG) clubs are facing financial turmoil, and Rafa might be able to convince him to stay and star in Liverpool.

A quick word on Arthur Matsuaka. He was excellent in the 12 games he started before injury, scoring over eight points per match. For a 15th round pick, I’m not sure what else you want. I’m happy to use him in the streaming spot or play him in the DEF3 spot as a match-ups play. And if he (or Matip, or Saiss) look like they’re not starting regularly or getting the kind of points I want, they’re straight out the door and I’m onto someone else (if not someone better).

How’d I do? What picks are you surprised by? And which players are you seeing get significantly higher or lower draft day valuations than you expected?