WHAT IS YOUR STRATEGY - Fantasy Sports Forums

chuckles · #1 09-07-2007, 09:59 AM

i\'ve been running a hockey pool for about 13 years now. it\'s always been for single regular season, draft style (first to last-last to first), counting points only, with teams comprised of 3D and 7F. with the advent of the salary cap, the pool has now become a salary pool for the last 2 years. the reason my pool is so simple is because there are a lot of people who are not all that knowledgeable about the nhl\'s comings and goings. the cap is set at 25 million. my question is this: what would your basic strategy be for how you make your picks in this type of pool? when do you go for D? how much do you spend on a single player? how many superstars do you try to get? anything else? thanks in advance! B)

The Comish · #2 09-07-2007, 03:53 PM

I\'m probably the worst guy to give advice in a salary cap type pool. My first thoughts are that you can\'t replace talent, the points have to come from somewhere. Usually the more expensive a player is, the more consistent he should be. It\'s like you\'re buying an insurance policy!

I would take the top talent for the first few rounds, regardless of price. Then it becomes all about your bang for the buck.

As for when to take defencemen, tough to say. With only 3 D, you likely could wait for a while before taking one. Identify the top 10 or 12 defencemen and try to grab at least a couple of them before those top guys are gone.

Don\'t know if that helped or just caused more questions!

Post edited by: The Comish, at: 2007/09/07 17:01

Shoeless · #3 09-07-2007, 04:46 PM

How many teams in the league?

Chadosaur · #4 09-07-2007, 05:03 PM

I\'m going to say exactly the opposite as The Comish. I\'m assuming here that you\'re going by the actual NHL salaries and not simply bidding.

My general strategy would be to look for value in the first couple rounds. The trick is not to hamstring yourself cap-wise. Let the other GMs put themselves in a corner by spending too much $ too early. If you fall into that trap, then the bottom half of your lineup will be garbage. By keeping your cap down in the first couple rounds, particularly if other GMs haven\'t done so, you give yourself way more leeway to drop big $ on a player later on in the draft who\'s only there because the other GMs can\'t afford him.

Keep in mind a couple things. First, your average player will cost approximately $2.5 mil. Second, every bit you save beneath that can be used to get superstars. Third, and maybe most important...a superstar who makes $7 million takes up the cap space for 3 average players, but it does not mean that you get 3 times the production!

As far as players I would look for in the first round, it should probably be a forward because they score more points than d-men. Crosby/Ovechkin/Malkin...crazy awesome value, at least until their next contracts. Cheechoo could be a legit 1st rounder because he only makes about $2.5 mil (I think). Semin should also be considered because he makes a pittance. Radulov still isn\'t a first rounder, but in early/middle rounds he\'s a spectacular bargain. Same with Milan Michalek, Parise, etc., to a lesser extent. Point-producing d-men are a bit of a different story, because they are generally rare and pricy. If you can\'t get any of those 1st 5 forwards with your 1st pick, I\'d think seriously about picking up a bargain d-man, even though I would not normally draft D in the 1st round. Phaneuf, Bergeron, Visnovsky and Whitney are all good value, also Boyle (I think about $3.5 mil) isn\'t bad for the production you get.

As far as general drafting strategy, I\'m a fan of bargain-hunting for the 1st half(ish) of the draft, but it depends largely on how many teams are in your pool. Having a large number of people in your pool will generally mean that a lot of top players will be picked early, regardless of expense, which means that you may have to pluck an expensive sniper or d-man before you\'re ready. In contrast, fewer people means that there\'s no way all the big $ players can be taken, and bargain-hunting early will let you leave picking those big $ players to even later rounds just because of others\' lack of cap space.

It is also very important that you keep tabs on what the other teams are spending. If they\'ve all drafted an expensive forward and d-man in the first 2 rounds, then they may be left with only $13-15 mil for their other 8 players, meaning their remaining players can average no more than $2 mil each...big difference! To take it a step further, say that a team drafts Lecavalier, Pronger and Gagne in the first 3 rounds, thinking he\'s getting away with murder...he\'s not! That\'s over $18 mil with 7 players to fill out his roster at less than $1 mil each!

Ultimately, I think it\'s a huge mistake to pick big $ players in the first couple rounds. A final example: Semin at $1.2 mil or Kovalchyuk at $5.5 mil. Say Kovy is good for 90 (50/40) and Semin is good for 80 (40/40). The 10-point difference costs you $4.3 mil...almost 2 average guys! In the later rounds when there are 60-point forwards to be had for everyone else, you\'ll have the space to spend $5 or $6 mil on an 80-point guy that nobody can afford. Or when guys are scrounging for 30-point d-men, you\'ll be able to drop the $ on a guy that could break 50.

Sorry for the length...I think that\'s a little more than 2 cents worth...

Chadosaur · #5 09-07-2007, 05:03 PM

Oops...double-post.

Post edited by: Chadosaur, at: 2007/09/07 17:07

chuckles · #6 09-10-2007, 09:09 AM

Shoeless wrote:

Quote:

How many teams in the league?

there will be 18-25 teams in this draft.

chuckles · #7 09-10-2007, 09:22 AM

Yeah, Chadosaur, i\'ve generally held the same viewpoint as you for the first 2 salary drafts we\'ve done. last year i took phaneuf in the first round (at .5 mil), the year before i looked for guys that were all around the 2-3 mil range. even some of the more serious poolies seem to not care about slapping down 6mil in the first round, and looking for bargains afterward. the first season (with avg 2-3 mil picks) i was at the top of the pool for a good portion of the year. last year, scrimping at the start then increasing my spending later i fared well, but not great; i was middle of the pack most of the year. something niggles me that i think i\'m going to try to have a 100 point player on my squad this year, regardless of the cap hit. thanks for the time you all took to reply.

Post edited by: chuckles, at: 2007/09/10 09:23

Shoeless · #8 09-10-2007, 11:46 AM

So you are basically going to pay the amount for a player that he is hitting the cap in real life I take it? This isn\'t a bid thing as I am understanding the first post in the thread? When it is your turn to pick then you choose the player you want that is left and you pay his cap hit and the draft moves on.

I feel that I am missing something here because otherwise this would not be a difficult problem to develop a draft strategy for.

Post edited by: Shoeless, at: 2007/09/10 11:57

Post edited by: Shoeless, at: 2007/09/10 12:09

chuckles · #9 09-10-2007, 12:03 PM

yup. 0.5 million regardless of actual salary. i have a gigantic markerboard that i write the draft onto as it happens, and i track everyone\'s maximum allowable expenditure for the round (because they will need at least .5 mil/round to fill their squad). it\'s pretty chaotic.:S very loud, smoky, and a lot of yelling. :silly: i\'m pretty pumped as we\'re set for 9/29. it\'s a really good time.:blink:

Shoeless · #10 09-10-2007, 08:20 PM

This topic absolutely intrigues me. I am coming back to it later today or tonight. Start of fall semester here, so keeping with my tradition I use this day to meet my new students and cook for them - breakfast for some and lunch for others - so no time right now.

I did discover however that Crosby will cost roughly $76,000 for each point he gets and Roenick will cost about $12,000 per point. The only cap hits I know from memory - need to dig for more info.

Post edited by: Shoeless, at: 2007/09/10 20:22

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