OT: How Do You Come Up With Your Fantasy Draft Orders?

Submitted by Tate on

Fantasy Football season is quickly approaching, and I assume that majority of you are either a Commisioner or a member of a Fantasy Football League.

Some leagues come up with creative ideas on how to set their draft orders.

So, I'm coming here to see how you guys run yours.

For example, I think that this season I am going to have everyone in our league take a mock Wonderlic test to decide our draft order.

What're some of your league's ideas?

Galapula

July 22nd, 2014 at 11:19 AM ^

We just did it by getting the whole league to participate in a March Madness pool. It worked out for everyone except for myself (and it was my idea) as I got 11th place. Oh well.

4roses

July 22nd, 2014 at 11:20 AM ^

We just assigned post positions to the teams by order of finish in the past season and then used finish order of the Derby. very exciting, and a great excuse to have another drunkfes.... er "get together". 

boliver46

July 22nd, 2014 at 11:21 AM ^

Knock those bastards off until I get first pick:

/s

Seriously though - I am also interested in how people have their formats setup for the draft...snake, reverse snake, auction??  I personally like auction drafts but haven't found a league to do that in a while. 

taistreetsmyhero

July 22nd, 2014 at 1:05 PM ^

if you have 1 or 2 people in your league who don't know shit about fantasy and don't put in the same amount of prep time as everybody else, does it make the auction terrible? 

my fantasy league consists of my old college roommates, and 2 of them only do it for the sake of the rest of us being able to stay in touch. it's still a fierce league and the worst part is they've both won the league before, but i'm worried an auction draft with them would be a nightmare.

boliver46

July 22nd, 2014 at 1:52 PM ^

having 1-2 owners not really "in it" is realistically like the real draft...owners/GMs who make reaches despite their best scouts...so you will have guys spending WAY too much money on AP and have to fill out the rest of their roster with scrubs...l

The coaches that are in it to win it, will research auction values and make it fun by bidding up a player they have NO interest in!  It's a lot of fun!

Space Coyote

July 22nd, 2014 at 11:28 AM ^

Random number generator.

I'm an engineer, I utilize Excel when I can, and both love it and curse it regularly. It's not creative. That's how I like it. If I wanted it to be creative, I'd use MATLAB. Because I'm crazy like that.

Monocle Smile

July 22nd, 2014 at 11:45 AM ^

I make it cry big crocodile tears on the regular. MATLAB can handle so much more abuse.

The middle management types are obsessed with spreadsheets and don't know what the word "matrix" means, so I'm forced to use Plebian tools regardless.

Space Coyote

July 22nd, 2014 at 11:51 AM ^

Which is why people like it. It can make tables, flow charts, spreadsheets, and do pretty much everything with it. That's why it's great.

But it's bad because people want to use it for a bunch of things it isn't actually intended to be used for.

MATLAB is a miracle code, I use it whenever I can. Until you start writing massive amounts of code and doing a bunch of matric manipulation and suddenly it takes you 16 hours to get results; then it's time to use another program.

60blue

July 22nd, 2014 at 11:32 AM ^

The first Umich game is typically the weekend before the NFL starts so we do something in that game. Favorite one from the past was "How many total yards will Denard have?".

BeileinBuddy

July 22nd, 2014 at 11:49 AM ^

All night drink fest at the previous season's champion's house, first person to stop drinking, fall asleep, or puke gets last pick, and so on. Last man standing = #1 pick.

MGoStu

July 22nd, 2014 at 11:51 AM ^

We go reverse order of finish from the previous year. Love the wonderlic idea, but with our group we already know who'd be drafting last

Valar Morghulis

July 22nd, 2014 at 11:51 AM ^

Not relevant to the OPs question, but I absolutely love doing auctions.  I have a league that has been together for over 10 years and it's not even a question of how we are going to draft.  We've been doing an auction draft for amost that long, and with the way the websites (yahoo or espn but I think we use espn for the draft) have it set up these days you can customize your settings to make it run smoothly and quickly.  

I like the fact that everyone has a chance at any player.  I would highly recommend an auction for anyone that hasn't tried it, especially if you're looking to spice up a league or try something different.  

Valar Morghulis

July 22nd, 2014 at 1:10 PM ^

One of the things I really like about an auction is that you never know how it's going to turn out. Some people will spend an outrageous amount of money on certain players and you can find great deals later in the draft.  The thing is, you never know which players those are going to be until the clock is ticking.

As a general rule running backs always go the highest, you'll even see people spending a lot more on a RB3 or rookie RB than starters at other positions.  You can get a second or third tier QB later in the draft (Romo, Eli, etc.) for cheap, and most of the time the same holds true for WRs.  I wouldn't personally spend any more than the minimum amount on a K or DEF, but if you do only spend a dollar more.

My normal strategy is to expect to spend a lot on a stud RB and then sit back a little and see how things unfold.  I don't like to be too aggressive or too conservative; I find I do better if I'm in between those.  Some people won't have any money after 30 minutes, and some will have all or most of their money after 30 minutes.  Another thing I like to do is to drive the price up for players early on by bidding for people that I don't want.  You just have to be careful because sometimes others are doing the same and you may end up stuck with that person for more than you wanted.  I especially do this on hometown players.  AP (we are all from MN) will go high in any draft, but especially ours.  My guess is that someone this year will spend more on Patterson than most WR2s, so I'll try to drive him up a little higher also.  

Good luck with your draft, I really think you'll enjoy it more than a traditional snake.  Sorry I'm probably not much help but I always feel like if I go into it having a clear-cut strategy things always change regardless.  It may be a bit scary at first, but afterwards I've always found I enjoy the process a lot more and have a lot of fun trying to figure out a strategy on the fly.    

 

Edit:  I'm not a big mock draft person (I think there's better ways to spend fantasy-prep-time), but if you are doing an auction for the first time I might try a mock or two.  They didn't have mock auctions back when we started but I think it would given me a better feel for the process if they did. 

Valar Morghulis

July 22nd, 2014 at 2:12 PM ^

I think that's generally what happens for first time auctioners.  It might depend on how many first-timers there are in your league.  Some people think that the values assigned by their favorite fantasy magazine or website have to hold true and they go off of that instead of the flow of the auction.  For some reason it was the opposite for our first auction draft.  People wanted to hold onto their money thinking we could all get steals later.  Second year there were huge spendings, and then after that we all found a nice balance.  

Takes a little bit of experience to get the hang of it, but even then sometimes it's a crapshoot (I had Doug Martin, Larry Fitzgerald, and Lamar Miller last year.  Let's just say I didn't do as well as most years).  

Best of luck to you, I hope you find the auction as enjoyable as I do.

BrewCityBlue

July 23rd, 2014 at 11:55 AM ^

I would NEVER go back to a snake style draft. Auctions are so much better. I've been the commissioner of an auction league for the last 8 years. Although it's tougher on a commish if he's running the auction and trying to draft for himself as well, I still personally prefer it over snake style drafts. They are so boring after having done an auction. 

Some general strategies I've used (or gone in to auction planning on using) in the past:

1. Be the last guy with a few dollars and a few roster spots left to fill. The people who use up all their money early are going to have to wait til everyone is out of money (or out of roster spots) and then whoever has roster spots left will fill in their rosters via snake style drafting. If you have the last $3 and 3ish roster spots left, you can fill in your roster with the best 3 players available (Unless you have a $200 auction with $2 minimum player cost - do the math and figure out based on your league what you need to have left at end for this strategy). 

2. Figure out what your starting bankroll is (most leagues do 100 or 200), then divide that by number of QB, RB and WR starters to figure out what you will pay for really good but not great top of line guys. My league we have $100 and 1 QB, 2RB, 3WR.... So with 6 spots for $100 I try to spend approx $15 on those 6 spots and have a deep productive reliable starting lineup - then fill in the rest with a few bucks at end of draft and a couple snake picks. You won't be the guy paying $40 for AP or Manning, and you also won't be the guy who ends up making the most critical mistake you can make in auction drafts....

3. Never end the auction with excess cash reserves!!! (Barring the $3 for 3 players strategy listed above)  If your team is filled out and you have $15 left, you either got the most amazing values on players all over your team, or you were entirely too conservative and did not adapt to whatever crazy crap ended up happening in your auction and your team sucks. 

4. We have an auction keeper league. You can keep up to 3 players from your previous roster for 110% of their auction cost the previous year. There are pros and cons to this, but overall it is awesome and makes league even more fun. Only reason I mention this is if you do indeed have some type of keeper system in your league, the values on rookies and potential breakout players change drastically. Imagine having Aaron Rodgers for his whole career because you picked him up at $1 at end of auction before Favre retired. 

 

On a sidenote - most auctions work like this... everyone pays $X to join the league and gets either $100 or $200 in fake money to do auction with. I was thinking about finding a good way to do something where everyone shows up with $100 real cash and when you buy a player you are actually going over to auctioneer and paying him the cash value for player. If you leave the draft with $, that's $ in your pocket. There would be some downsides to this with variable cash pools for paying winners. Has anyone done auctions more like this where I could learn from you how it went?

 

HAIL 2 VICTORS

July 22nd, 2014 at 12:00 PM ^

I have been in the same league with the same 10 guys and this is our tenth year.  Worst record and fewest points makes the pick and even years we have cookoffs judged blind by our wives (Chili, Steak, Ribs and Hamburger) and odd years some sort eating contest (Peppers, hot dogs, ribs, crab legs, steak) at a buffet or home.  

This season is a lemon wedge eating contest-most in one minute.  I have to find my inner Rafi for sure.

 

The Baughz

July 22nd, 2014 at 12:00 PM ^

We bought a software program last year called Fansoft. It is pretty awesome. Everything is generated at random. You hook up the software/computer to your tv and will announce everyone's picks and keeps track of everything in a round by round format. That way you know who has been picked. It is very user friendly. You can dictate the number of rounds and choose whatever time you want in between picks. You can also input any pictures you have saved on your computer of whoever is in your draft. When that person is drafting, his/her pic will appear and it will say "insert team name" is on  the clock. It's pretty cool. 

swdude12

July 22nd, 2014 at 12:02 PM ^

I used a program called " The Hat". Once the order was generated I made a video of funny pics taken from the years in the draft order.  I would play this before the draft started.

 

The Hat is a simple-to-use software application which generates a list of items placed in a random order. These can be either numbers or text.

 

 

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Others/Miscellaneous/The-Hat.shtml

bronxblue

July 22nd, 2014 at 12:47 PM ^

If you're manly I'd say a very painful game of rochambeau, but alternatively I do enjoy auctions.  While I kinda doubt leagues are won or lost with draft order, forcing everyone to be creative with his/her money tends to make them more enjoyable, even if it can lead to two camps forming - guys who pay big money up front and then stuck with dregs vs. guys who wait and snipe cheap good players but also take a bunch of fliers on guys.

taistreetsmyhero

July 22nd, 2014 at 1:02 PM ^

40 yard dash, shuttle, etc. etc.

our time keeper for the 40 forgot to start the clock for my buddy, and on his second try, he blew his hammy. was on crutches for a couple of weeks. pretty funny but we all felt bad.

winner of the combine got to choose his spot first, and so on.

this year we're thinking something the exact opposite, like an eating challenge. either those disgusting white castle shit-in-a-buns or chicken mcnuggets.

Benoit Balls

July 22nd, 2014 at 1:14 PM ^

and the Commish asks the lowest returning member from the previous season to pick a number between 1-12.  The commish takes whatever number selected, and runs the random draft order generator that many times, and broadcasts the results of each drawing to each of us via email. Whatever the order is on whatever the prescribed number was (4th drawing, 7th drawing, whatever) is the order we end up with.

It actually works pretty well, insofar as this league is pretty competitive, and over the years loopholes have been exploited and repaired, and people eventually will find fault with every thing under the sun, but no one has any qualms with this system.

 

Gucci Mane

July 22nd, 2014 at 1:58 PM ^

My favorite pick is number 1 followed by 2 then the last pick (assuming snake) so if it was some sort of competition like many of you guys are saying if purposely do terrible to get the last pick since that would be much easier to get than top 2. And the reason the last pick is so great is because you can grab 2 very good guys right away. This year I might go with 2 rbs and likely get the last 2 top end backs.

thee1jersey

July 22nd, 2014 at 2:01 PM ^

Reverse order of standings but with a catch. The person who finished last picks where they want to draft from, and so on and so forth till you get to the league winner from last season. Usually you'll see the beginning and end if the order fill up before the middle.

Wolverine In Iowa

July 22nd, 2014 at 2:42 PM ^

My two non-money leagues' draft orders are done randomly.  One of them has a live draft, and the other is an auto-draft (a ton of foreigners in it, and no one can agree on a live draft time).

My money league is done with a pot of each member's name randomly (and verified to be random) picked out.  Then once the order of this is set, each member states where he wants to pick (we do a snake live draft).

jaggs

July 22nd, 2014 at 9:30 PM ^

Ping pong balls in a bucket, with a vaccum inserted to suck them out. We intercept each ball near the handle where there is a release hole of some sort.

Non-playoff teams go in the lottery, with last place getting 6 balls, 2nd last getting 5 balls etc. Each ball is written on with a sharpie. The goal is to have your ball selected first obviously.