Introduction
One of the best ways to have a great draft is to do some personal mock drafts using your draft list and draft strategy. In an ideal world, you will know your draft position well in advance of the actual draft. Knowing where you will be drafting can allow you to plan on using a certain strategy more effectively, than if you were to find out your draft slot just before the draft.
Being prepared for any draft slot
Many of the expert and big money leagues, like the NFBC, inform you of your draft slot at least one week in advance. For example, I will be drafting in an NFBC On-line draft on March 7, in preparation for the main event. I have been granted the honor of having the first overall pick in the draft, something I haven’t had in a while, so once the draft is done, I will post my results as an article.
In many local leagues, you will usually select playing cards to determine the draft order, right before the draft. This makes it a little tougher to plan out specific strategies, because you aren’t sure if the players you are targeting will even be available. This year, a lot of draft guides and experts are advocating the need for drafting speed in the first 3 rounds. But, if you are in the top 5 draft slots, you won’t likely see any of the top speed guys make it back to you in round 2, which could really distract you if you planned on drafting speed early. In most cases, I just use my position scarcity list and do a best available draft strategy, and I usually field a very competitive team.
If you are really serious about being a contender in 2006, but your league doesn’t determine draft positions until draft day, then you should do some mock drafts to simulate the type of draft day decisions you’ll likely have to make.
To simulate your draft, you only need to draft your team. Don’t worry about filling out a potential roster for every team. If you want to see how your draft list plays out for all teams in your league, then you should buy RotoRank and use my Mock Draft feature, which selects the best player available that fits into your team lineup.
There is no reason for you to do a mock draft for slots you feel comfortable in making the early choices. There is no need to mock the first or second draft slot, unless you have time, because you are most likely taking Alex Rodriguez or Albert Pujols.
To determine the draft slots you need to do a mock draft for, run through the first round, and select two or three slots where the player to be drafted is practically a coin-flip. For example, this year I will mock a lot of drafts in the 4th slot. I am currently torn between selecting Johan Santana, Mark Teixeira, and Derek Lee. Each offers their own strengths, which will influence rest of your draft picks. Another position that I find tough will be picking 10th, where I could select from Miguel Tejada, David Ortiz, Bobby Abreu, Carlos Beltran, or Manny Ramirez, depending upon who falls to me. If you play out an entire draft using each of your possible picks under consideration, you can see how your team turns out. And as each round passes, try to select the worst players in your draft list between picks. Usually, some good players that you wanted will slide to you in each round of the actual draft, because everyone has their own preferences and projections, but if you look at a worst case scenario, you’ll be in a better position to tweak your draft strategy and targeted players/positions for each round in the draft.
Conclusion
After you complete a round of mock drafts, you may decide to adjust your overall draft list in order to account for what you expect to see during the draft. I am continuously tinkering with my draft list, and it never drafts exactly the same way anyway, because each set of owners is different! The ultimate goal is to be completely confident in your draft list and your strategy. If you panic on draft day, you will likely make poor decisions that could prevent you from contending.
One of things I noticed about really competitive leagues is that the teams that can avoid the costly injuries, likely end up in the top of the standings. It doesn't matter if you are drafting 1st or 15th, if you select players that are injury prone or are not worth their value based on realistic projections, then you will likely end up near the bottom of the standings!