OBSESSED BALLERS FANTASY BASEBALL LEAGUE

By Sean Chard

It’s OBFBL draft week!  A time that all OBFBLers look forward to every year. A weekend filled with great events, a chance to get together with friends and have a great time, an intense fantasy baseball draft that we all spend weeks preparing for, and the unofficial kick off for us to the upcoming baseball season.

It would be interesting to know how much time we collectively put into preparing for the single most important part of the Fantasy Baseball year – THE DRAFT.

In preparing for my own draft this year, I decided to take a look at how the draft went last year. Upon a quick scan of the first few rounds from 2012, I quickly became astonished. The 2012 DRAFT SUCKED!
The early rounds last year are littered with injured players, underperformers and closers that were quickly tossed onto the scrap heap. So I began to wonder “well just how much did it suck?”.  And that is when I decided to do what I normally do, and crunch some numbers.

In theory, the first several rounds are the most important in the OBFBL drafts as teams look to build their winning team, or for those in build mode they look for keeper replacements or players that will be trade bait to others.

For this analysis we’ll take a look at the first 5 rounds from 2012, or the first 60 players. Below is the table showing the player, their draft spot and team, and then their actual rank last year from the ESPN player rater.

PICKS ANALYSIS FOR FIRST 5 ROUNDS

ROUND 1:
1.1 – Overall approx. 105 (after the 96 keepers and high ranking RKs are factored in) – Mike Napoli   (Fisher) – actual 2012 rank (AR) is #354
1.2 – #106 overall – Michael Young    (Ellis) – AR #242
1.3 – #107 overall – Kendrys Morales    (Riley) – AR #178
1.4 – #108 overall – C.J. Wilson    (Cheese) – AR #451
1.5 – #109 overall – Ian Kennedy    (Pepsi) – AR #263
1.6 – #110 overall – Mat Latos    (Conley) – AR #69
1.7 – #111 overall – Kevin Youkilis    (Ferreira) – AR #258
1.8 – #112 overall – Jonathan Papelbon    (Ferreira) – AR #104
1.9 – #113 overall – Dee Gordon    (Chard) – AR #511
1.10 – #114 overall – Brandon Beachy    (Gunn) – AR #429
1.11 – #115 overall – Rickie Weeks    (Dickie) – AR #174
1.12 – #116 overall – Mariano Rivera    (Conley) – AR #298
Total picks: 12;  Outperformed (their overall draft slot): 2;  OK: 4;  Busts: 6
Average Actual Rank: 277.6

ROUND 2:
2.1 – #117 overall – Heath Bell    (Chard) – AR #731
2.2 – #118 overall – Alexei Ramirez    (Mazgay) – AR #266
2.3 – #119 overall – J.J. Putz (Gunn) – AR #193
2.4 – #120 overall – Shane Victorino (Cheese) – AR #129
2.5 – #121 overall – Cory Luebke (Ellis) – AR #489
2.6 – #122 overall – Howie Kendrick (Conley) – AR #158
2.7 – #123 overall – Jose Valverde (Mazgay) – AR #394
2.8 – #124 overall – Michael Cuddyer (Pepsi) – AR #230
2.9 – #125 overall – Matt Wieters (Chard) – AR #207
2.10 – #126 overall – Andrew Bailey (Riley) – AR #1051
2.11 – #127 overall – Sergio Santos (Fisher) – AR #1122
2.12 – #128 overall – Jordan Walden (Ellis) – AR #659
Total picks: 12; Outperformed: 0; OK: 5; Busts: 7
Average Actual Rank: 469.1

ROUND 3:
3.1 – #129 overall – David Ortiz (Fisher) – AR #71
3.2 – #130 overall – Chris Young (Fisher) – AR #238
3.3 – #131 overall – Miguel Montero (Riley) – AR #124
3.4 – #132 overall – Joel Hanrahan (Cheese) – AR #646
3.5 – #133 overall – Jason Motte (Pepsi) – AR #44
3.6 – #134 overall – Joe Nathan (Mazgay) – AR #204
3.7 – #135 overall – Brandon League (Ferreira) – AR #474
3.8 – #136 overall – Kenley Jansen (Ellis) – AR #39
3.9 – #137 overall – Daniel Hudson (Chard) – AR #1020
3.10 – #138 overall – Cameron Maybin (Gunn) – AR #234
3.11 – #139 overall – Lance Berkman (Dickie) – AR #405
3.12 – #140 overall – Rafael Betancourt (Chard) – AR #136
Total picks: 12; Outperformed: 5; OK: 2; Busts: 5
Average Actual Rank: 302.9

ROUND 4:
4.1 – #141 overall – Jayson Werth (Conley) – AR #135
4.2 – #142 overall – Huston Street (Dickie) – AR #115
4.3 – #143 overall – Alex Avila (Gunn) – AR #317
4.4 – #144 overall – Kyle Farnsworth (Chard) – AR #422
4.5 – #145 overall – Carlos Marmol (Ellis) – AR #894
4.6 – #146 overall – Corey Hart (Gunn) – AR #77
4.7 – #147 overall – Ike Davis (Mazgay) – AR #254
4.8 – #148 overall – Chris Perez (Pepsi) – AR #255
4.9 – #149 overall – Andre Ethier (Cheese) – AR #96
4.10 – #150 overall – Matt Garza (Riley) – AR #383
4.11 – #151 overall – Delmon Young (Fisher) – AR #244
4.12 – #152 overall – J.P. Arencibia (Conley) – AR #553
Total picks: 12; Outperformed: 4; OK: 2; Busts: 6
Average Actual Rank: 312.1

ROUND 5:
5.1 – #153 overall – Brandon Morrow (Main) – AR #402
5.2 – #154 overall – Brett Myers (Fisher) – AR #365
5.3 – #155 overall – Josh Beckett (Riley) – AR #385
5.4 – #156 overall – Matt Capps (Cheese) – AR #476
5.5 – #157 overall – Logan Morrison (Pepsi) – AR #559
5.6 – #158 overall – Ryan Madson (Dickie) – AR – Not Rated – didn’t play in 2012
5.7 – #159 overall – Erick Aybar (Ferreira) – AR #160
5.8 – #160 overall – Greg Holland (Ellis) – AR #310
5.9 – #161 overall – Matt Thornton (Chard) – AR #339
5.10 – #162 overall – Emilio Bonifacio (Gunn) – AR #426
5.11 – #163 overall – Frank Francisco (Dickie) – AR #942
5.12 – #164 overall – Grant Balfour (Chard) – AR #125
Total picks: 12; Outperformed: 1; OK: 3; Busts: 8
Average Actual Rank: 468.5

SUMMARY OF FIRST 5 ROUND PICKS:
– So in total, out of the 60 players drafted, only 12 outperformed their overall draft position, another 16 were OK, and 22 were all out BUSTS, some huge busts due to injury (i.e. Madson, Hudson, Santos), or just being terrible (i.e. Marmol, Bell).

FIRST 5 ROUNDS – KEEPERS DRAFTED

Another way of measuring the strength of the draft is looking at the number of players drafted that became keepers at the end of the year.  Let’s take a look at the numbers for the first 5 rounds of the drafts over the past several years:

2012 DRAFT:  60 players picked, ONLY 4 became keepers (7%), 2 from first round
2011 DRAFT:  60 players, 10 became keepers (17%), 4 from first round
2010 DRAFT:  60 players, 14 became keepers (23%), 6 from first round
2009 DRAFT:  60 players, 13 became keepers (22%), 6 from first round
2008 DRAFT:  60 players, 13 became keepers (22%), 4 from first round

Of course, there is more to the draft than just the first 5 rounds, and rounds 6-10 in particular yielded 9 players that became keepers.
Take a look at the OBFBL draft history document to see the full results. The players kept are highlighted in Yellow.

OVERALL SUMMARY
How could a group of 12 savvy fantasy baseball owners collectively butcher the most important rounds of the annual draft?
Was this a phenomenon that was consistent across fantasy baseball last year, or did we just screw it up?
Was 2012 an outlier, and we’ll revert back to the regular percentages for “hit rate” early in the draft? OR is this the new trend that we’re seeing based on direction our league is taking?

And finally, does this data potentially change the way any of us approach our 2013 draft planning?  Well we’ll find out the answer to these questions by next offseason.