#11 - Kopitar Prefers Amps That Go to Eleven

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This is the eleventh post of Deke Dangle RPF Anon, a community for all your ice hockey anon meme needs.

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Comments

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

I'm tweaking my draft rankings atm, and I was wondering: say my absolute favourite player is Victor Hedman, who's ranked at 55, would it be smart to put him at the very top of my list or just slightly above 55?

Also, on the draft rankings screen there's 3 columns, right: do not draft, default rankings, and preferred players. I'm assuming ALL my preferred players will get picked before the computer will start picking from the general rankings? So if there's a player I like in the 100s I'd also have to put ALL the players who are better than him in my preferred players list?

These all sound like super obvious questions now that I've typed them out but I just want to make sure I fully get the system.

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

If your fave is substantially lower ranked than the round the computer is picking, my mocks drafts suggest that the computer will come back for them. No harm in puttin a fave in the second round or so (you'll want the very top to be the superstars bc what if you go first and then kick yourself because you didn't get Ovi/Sid/Benn?)

Your assumption is generally true, but the computer autopicks by weird algorithms by determined need of position so if your list isn't done but you desperately need defense, it'll skip to the next highest ranked dman in the general rankings.

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the info, anon! I'm definitely going to do some more mock drafts to get a better feel of it.

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

Commish!Nonnie

Nonnie above gave you sound advice. You could likely put Hedman in your rankings at about the second or third round and have no worries about getting him. I totally agree with above nonnie that you want to leave the superstar forwards at the top as they will help you the most pointswise.

It's really up to you whether you place Hedman in the second or third round tier. Conventional wisdom would probably have you take another excellent forward or maybe a stud goalie there, but Hedman is a pretty great D-man (is he the PP1 D on TBL? If so, totally appropriate for 2nd or 3rd round, because he'll rack up a lot of points and PPP), so it's entirely up to you.

The algorithm Yahoo uses isn't that arcane. It takes your top players unless your roster spots are already full. If you have no D and two centers, it will jump over any centers on your list to go for a D-man.

And, yes, tedious as it is, your selections are given priority over the Yahoo standard rankings, so if you want to lift a guy up from, say 250 to say 100, you do have to migrate all the guys from 1-100. That's why we have so long to construct our lists, it can be a pain if you have to do it all at once. ;)

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you too! That's really helpful insight.

Another really obvious question: there's 10 teams in the league I'm in, which means there'll be 160 players chosen, right? Should I bother ranking beyond, say #200?

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

I'd say 200 would be a good amount to rank. /sees own list of 90 names

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

C!N

I agree, 200 is good.

There is also something to be said for ranking only, say, 100, and going with Yahoo's selections for the remainder, especially if you don't know a ton of players and aren't up to researching 100 players who are foreign to you. That way, you can do your research only on the guys Yahoo picks for you once the draft is done. There will be plenty of good players in the free agent pool after we're done, especially for bench slots/sleeper picks.

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

Another question! (Sorry, I've been messing around with this on and off all afternoon.) Will we know what our draft position is before the draft happens?

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

I want to know this too! Also if it should change my strategy -- i.e. at 10, I probably won't get Ovie or Crosby, so I should look at other good forwards to move up, plus take advantage of having next consecutive pick.

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

We're not getting our draft positions. I think Commish-non already said we were doing an randomized autopick draft.

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

It's possible that yahoo lets you know what the draft order is once you've established a draft date, isn't it?

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

C!N

I unfortunately don't know if we will know our draft positions beforehand.

I could schedule our draft and then cancel it to see, but it might draft us. We'd all have to agree that we are cool with allowing Yahoo to maybe draft us in a draft we completely throw out afterwards.

Is that something you all would like to do? Kind of our own version of a mock draft? We could do that, say sometime midweek (or perhaps next weekend if that works better for folks, but I'm going out of town, so my time will be more limited), and that will serve as a more "actual" mock draft, as well as answering some questions for me like whether we'll know our draft positions and how long it will take them to schedule an autodraft for us after I say we're good to go.

Unfortunately, I can't do this in the DDHLB league, because I'm still in there as an extra person and it won't let us draft with an uneven number, but I can do it in the DDHLA league. The info gathered would be applicable to both leagues.

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

da

Just a question -- when is the absolute last day to sign up (if there are still spaces)?

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

There are still places in both leagues. I believe we're planning to draft in the last week of September, probably somewhere around the 26th or 27th? So, we'd have to finalize and lock the league right before then. I'd recommend joining at least by the 20th, though, to give yourself time to set your draft list, etc.

If you can't do it before then, you can certainly just go with the main Yahoo player ranking list, which will still give you great players, just maybe not players you especially want.

Please do join us! It's fun! :D

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

Is there any chance at all you would consider not autodrafting? I know setting a time might be tricky but I'm soooooo bad at setting things up for an autodraft and always end up missing some key pieces.

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

I'm definitely good with that. Though I think I'm in league B, so maybe I don't get a vote, haha.

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

Not necessarily! If another person joins, I'll stick them in DDHLB and then we will have an even number and can do our draft dry run. :)

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

I believe it will randomize the draft order right before it does the autopick, so there won't be any way to know draft position ahead of time.

I was going to suggest that there be a 24-hour warning before autopick is turned on, so that people can put the finishing touches on their lists. Also, I think you said you were planning to do the drafts the fourth week of September? Can I suggest we do it the third week instead? That will give people time to think about and complete trades and stuff before the start of the season.

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

C!N

That's what I was afraid of re: draft order. It makes it a little more uncertain as far as how one arranges tiers of players within the rounds, but that seems that it makes the tiers of rounds themselves more important. It appears to be a tradeoff.

I was absolutely intending to give ample warning for everyone to finalize their lists!

As I said above, I was planning on the weekend of the 26th/27th, which would leave a week and a half before puck drop on the season, but if you think we need more time than that, I'm open to moving it up.

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

I do think we need another week. A day or two for people to look at their teams and figure out who they want to trade with, a day or two for the person who they asked to trade with to consider and say yay or nay, a day for the league (unless it's going to be set up so the approval process doesn't happen? is that a setting that can be changed?) to not object, a day for the traded players to become active (because in my experience you can't use them until the next day) all adds up fast, and that's assuming everything goes smoothly and there aren't counter offers or rejections.

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

Last year I played in a yahoo public league and we didn't find out the random draft order until about 30 minutes before the draft. However, that was a live draft so auto pick might be different.

Have we decide what scoring categories we're using for sure? I was waiting to finish tweaking my predraft list until that was settled. If we're going to do an in-league mock draft I'd like to finish ordering my list first.

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

C!N

I don't even recall how my public league drafts went in the past. For friends leagues, we did an autodraft the first year and a live draft the second, but we picked the live draft time. Weirdly, I can't recall how order was decided then, either. It was probably standings from the year before, so I didn't pay a lot of attention, since I won the league, so was last. ;)

If anyone can think of a good way to randomize it ourselves, I just discovered it is possible for me to set the draft order. I have no idea how I would go about randomizing that, though, and I don't want to cause any upset in that process. It is something to consider if knowing the order beforehand is important to everyone. I am open to suggestions on fair and anonymous ways to make the order totally random.

As for categories, there hasn't been a lot of discussion, but it seemed that a desire for SHG or SHP was expressed, and I know someone else besides me liked hits. That would seem to make our categories:

Skaters:

Goals, Assists, Power Play Points, Short-Handed Points (or just Short-Handed Goals), Plus/Minus, Penalty Minutes, Shots on Goal, and Hits

Goalies:

Wins, Goals Against Average, Save Percentage, and Shootouts

That gives us 12 categories, which is an even number, but with two categories that are only occasionally scored in (SHP and SOs), so ties shouldn't happen that often. We can add or drop a category if you all would really rather have an odd number of categories.

Also, remember the Cook Rating web site! It will help you rate your lists based on our specific categories.

http://www.beerleagueblog.ca/cook-rating/

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

I like blocked shots. SHP are almost a novely item to me but I don't feel particularly strongly about it.

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

I like Short-Handed Points rather than Short-Handed Goals, because the other one is Power Play Points.

I'm fine with even categories. I assume ties would be minimal over the course of a season.

Re: Fantasy Hockey

[(Anonymous)]

C!N

Don't apologize for asking questions or for playing around with the draft stuff. I'm happy to answer any questions, and this one you've asked is one I've been wondering about myself...