Finding Your Gauge Player

[Schwks]

I am in the 10th round of a Draft Champ League Draft. I, like many drafters, like to plan where I will draft my first sp, first closer etc. before the draft begins. I do that by figuring out what tier of sp I want and where they are likely to go in the draft. Based upon draft position, I then try to figure out where the tier might start to be cracked and which pick I have to expend to select one myself.

My draft that is ongoing, taught me a lesson though. That lesson is to get a "tell" player. A player who, when drafted, will serve as an indication as to how that position is flowing in the individual draft. In sp this year, I think you can use the last of the big 3: Strass, Kershaw and Verlander. Those three guys all have ADPs in the first round but will go anywhere from mid first round to the end of the second round.

I had identified a tier of Cueto, Latos, Gallardo as guys I wanted two of in my draft, to form the basis of my pitching staff. All three had ADPs in the top of the 7th round. I was drafting at the 9th slot, so I figured going into the draft that I would probably need to grab them at rds 5 and 6.

In the first round of the draft not one SP went. Kershaw went at 2-1, Strassburg at 2-6 and Verlander at 2-10. This should have been an indicator, a tell if you will, that this was going to be a hitting heavy draft and that sp draft slots were going to slough downward. This ended up being the case as many of the top pitchers were pushed down a half a round or so off their ADPs.

Latos went earlier then usual, in the 6th, but my other two guys, Cueto and Gallardo were both pushed into the latter portions of the 7th round, which would have allowed for drafting my two guys at 6-7, instead of 5-6. Other guys like Price, Cain, Felix also were all down half a round or so.

I think in the future, I am going to be setting my "tell" players for each position, so I have a sure-fire method for assessing the cumulative preferences of the draft in general, which will allow for more educated decisions on where positional tiers of players need to be taken.