Week 9: Who crushed it at the draft?

 

Brian got engaged this weekend! He and Cassie can be seen here with all the bling. Smiles all around for the happy couple. Congratulations!

2021 Year to Date Power Ranks
TOTAL			HITTING			PITCHING				Manager	Team
1	Michael	3.00	1	Michael	2.88	1	Paul	2.83		Michael	G and RE
2	Paul	4.43	2	Dean	3.75	2	Michael	3.17		Dave	Small Legs Big Balls
3	BJ	4.57	3	Carl	5.00	3	BJ	3.67		Keith	Bourbon Street Blues
4	Dean	4.79	4	BJ	5.25	4	Keith	5.00		Dean	Who's your daddy?
5	Carl	5.79	5	Paul	5.63	5	Dave	5.50		Arthur	[ALL CAPS TEAM]
6	Dave	5.86	6	Arthur	6.00	6	Dean	6.17		Carl	Boston Running Sox
7	Keith	5.86	7	Dave	6.13	7	Arthur	6.50		Cory	Hebrew Nationals
8	Arthur	6.21	8	Keith	6.50	8	Cory	6.50		Max	Small Legs Big Stomach
9	Cory	6.86	9	Max	6.63	9	Carl	6.83		Paul	2nd Act
10	Max	7.43	10	Cory	7.13	10	Max	8.50		BJ	Smoak That Ish

Three tiers have emerged with Michael leading the way; Paul, BJ, and Dean following next; and then the field falling behind a bit right now. The only other observation I have is that a 7.43 power rank for last place is a highly competitive number. It’s been a tough few weeks for Max and Cory in the standings, but their power rank still shows them being competitive on a week to week basis….or maybe they should start thinking about a keeper trading deadline. Either way.

One time through the league’s matchups, and we have a pretty good picture of who the higher end teams are. At this point, that is still mostly driven by who nailed it at the draft. Our league history shows that it’s around the 2 month mark that the draft starts mattering less than in-season management. With that in mind, who did crush it at the draft?

Looking back, let’s take a minute to remind ourselves what the league was projected to be coming out of the draft:

	R	HR	RBI	SB	BB	K	AVG	SLG		W	SVH	QS	K	ERA	WHIP	SUM	Equivalent Power Rank
BJ	9	9	8	8	8	2	3	7		1	3	3	2	5	5	73	5.643
Dave	8	7	9	5	5	3	9	8		2	2	2	1	4	4	69	6.071
Arthur	6	2	1	7	7	9	8	3		3	10	1	3	1	1	62	6.571
Dean	3	1	3	9	3	10	10	2		10	5	8	10	7	7	88	4.786
Paul	5	5	7	2	1	6	6	4		4	5	6	5	8	8	72	5.714
Carl	7	8	4	6	9	1	1	6		8	4	9	8	3	3	77	5.500
Keith	4	3	2	10	2	4	2	1		7	9	6	4	6	6	66	6.500
Cory	1	4	6	4	4	8	4	5		6	8	5	6	9	9	79	5.357
Max	2	6	5	1	6	7	5	9		9	1	10	9	2	2	74	5.429
Michael	10	10	10	3	10	5	7	10		5	7	4	7	10	10	108	3.286

 

Michael was the heavy favorite coming out of the draft with his high end keepers, and this has mostly played out, but the surprises have come behind him. Here is how the standings look today:

TOTAL
1	Michael	3.00
2	Paul	4.43
3	BJ	4.57
4	Dean	4.79
5	Carl	5.79
6	Dave	5.86
7	Keith	5.86
8	Arthur	6.21
9	Cory	6.86
10	Max	7.43

 

So, what happened? Well, breakouts and busts happened. The draft projected standings are just projections, which we know are only accurate to +/- 25%, which is a pretty big error band when considering how tightly packed some of these stats can get. Also. Managers have been streaming pitchers and evolving their rosters as injuries happen or bust players get cut.

I went back to the drafted players and did a calc for what a breakout or bust player looks like. Generically a player is being considered a breakout or bust if their performance is +/- 10% of their projection on a per stat average. It’s a tight number, but it helps us paint a picture. Here is how everyone’s draft went with stats as of June 1st:

Manager	Breakout	Bust	Flat
BJ	11	9	1
Dave	8	10	2
Arthur	8	8	3
Dean	6	12	3
Paul	8	9	3
Carl	5	14	3
Keith	9	10	2
Cory	7	14	1
Max	4	12	1
Michael	10	11	1

The biggest thing that stood out to me was that BJ’s first 6 pitcher’s drafted have broken out: Burnes, Berrios, Pressly, Sims, Flaherty, and Woodruff. That’s panned out very well for them with what had been best power ranked pitching staff through the first 8 weeks before falling flat in week 9.

Cory busted on all but two of his hitter draft picks: Will Smith and Trey Mancini, Mancini now being on Dean’s team...naturally. “Max” too busted all of his hitter draft picks other than two which were actually his keepers: Acuna and Vlad Jr.

What we can also see here is busting the draft isn’t the be all, end all. Carl busted on 14 of his draft picks, but sits well in the power ranks. He’s had quicker cut decisions than most of us would have had on names like Cavan Biggio and Luis Castillo, and it’s worked very well for him; sniping Corbin Burnes from BJ in the Walsh trade is likely to help out as well. Conversely, Cory has busted on 14 of his draft picks, but has not been as proactive cutting the underperformers as Carl. That in addition to minimal day to day activity has led to an underwhelming year for General Meyer.

The difference between 7-8 breakouts and 10-11 breakouts really isn’t much. As we all know, one or two players isn’t enough to carry a team. Max has two of the best three ranked players in the game and…well…that hasn’t resulted in a good Win/Loss record for him. My intent for pointing this out is to frame how this should be thought of looking forward. There is a long way to go. The draft was 9 weeks ago but how you handle the free agent wire or trades the next 13 weeks will matter a lot more than who you picked at the draft table.

It was a week of blowouts highlighted by Dean skunking Cory. We had a longer breakdown this week than recent weeks, so we’ll just leave it at that.