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How Much Do You Mock? (1 Viewer)

Hot Sauce Guy

Hot Sauce Guy

Footballguy
I do most of my research the old fashioned way - lots of googling, discussions on here, using information & gut feels about certain players/situations to target or avoid them. But at some point I have to know how the draft is likely to unfold, for my format. 

So as much as I don't love CBS Mock Drafts, since this year we're doing it online, I had to get familiar with their default rankings (because I know that's how some in the league will draft as a reference point). 

I'm about to do my 5th mock today - I have the luxury of being self-employed so I scheduled me week to be light today/tomorrow - and it got me wondering how many of y'all mock? 

Do you use the FBG Dominator to self-mock to try out different strategies? Do you mock anywhere specific like Yahoo or CBS or ESPN (ew) or ?

How many mocks do you do? Do you mock from your expected draft position, or from all positions? 

Just curious... 

 
I don’t do any but I’m not in any redraft. When I did redraft I’d do one or two on draft dominator just to see what would happen but I don’t take them too seriously. There’s always one or two fools that throw things off. I’ve gone the “buckets” route rather than “targets”

 
None. I generate adp rankings 3 maybe 4 times between late July and drafting, note the market fluctuations, then continue on with what I normally do. Which is primarily just a lot of reading.

I really only spend a week or two actually doing draft specific prep and none of it is mocking.

 
MAC_32 said:
None. I generate adp rankings 3 maybe 4 times between late July and drafting, note the market fluctuations, then continue on with what I normally do. Which is primarily just a lot of reading.

I really only spend a week or two actually doing draft specific prep and none of it is mocking.
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Interesting. Where do you get your ADP? Here? Fantasy Football Calculator? Yahoo? ESPN (lol), other? 

 
A ton the last two weeks.Fantasycalculator and Draftsharks. I factor in league tendencies but it’s critical to give me probable timing of position runs and optimal strategy each round 

 
Dammit. This will be the first time in one leagues history (est 96) where we are drafting online, and it’s CBS. I never thought to mock there. I used to use antsports (yes I’m old), then ESPN, then all over the place. I have mostly done DD and FP recently since you don’t have to wait for anyone and avoid the deuschenozzles that bomb a draft deliberately. Thanks for the h/u on CBS. 
 

ETA I also remember mocking on message boards and also agree with @I-ROK that real drafts rarely transpire like a mock does. 

 
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Judge Smails said:
A ton the last two weeks.Fantasycalculator and Draftsharks. I factor in league tendencies but it’s critical to give me probable timing of position runs and optimal strategy each round 
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That’s where I’m at. Plus I’ve had so much bad luck with draft position that I haven’t drafted in the top 5 in years. I’ve tried a dozen strategies (elite TE, stud WR, Stud RB, Zero RB) 

I finally feel comfortable with a strategy. 

Besides, player analysis, projections and ADP alone just doesn’t get my draft juices flowing like picking with real people does, even if they often pick ridiculously. 

i feel like mocking is necessary.. 

 
-jb- said:
Dammit. This will be the first time in one leagues history (est 96) where we are drafting online, and it’s CBS. I never thought to mock there. I used to use antsports (yes I’m old), then ESPN, then all over the place. I have mostly done DD and FP recently since you don’t have to wait for anyone and avoid the deuschenozzles that bomb a draft deliberately. Thanks for the h/u on CBS. 
 

ETA I also remember mocking on message boards and also agree with @I-ROK that real drafts rarely transpire like a mock does. 
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I highly recommend doing some CBS mocks. You can get to them from your league home page.

Yes, people do dumb things (I do a ton of them while trying new strategies  myself) - but it gets you familiar with how the default rankings go. 

My league has drafted live in my living room for 20 years. This is our 1st online draft. It is what it is. 

 
I have approached mocking from a different point of view over the last 4 years. I've been doing live best ball drafts in lieu of and for the same purpose as actual mocking. 

In 2017 I did nine $10 bestballs and turned it into $130. 

In 2018 I did $240 (10s and 35s) worth of bestball drafts and cashed $315 plus one $350 FPC entry token.

In 2019 I did $455 worth and cashed $1025 and one more of those tokens. 

This year because of COVID I have only done a couple hundred worth. 

I'm not beating my chest but the point is I've been getting paid to mock. And the main point of mocking is what? Research. Live drafts give much better data than fake mocks where half the room is on auto or doing something crazy they won't do live.

This is a strategy I recommend. Treat cheap bestball drafts like mocks. 

 
barackdhouse said:
I have approached mocking from a different point of view over the last 4 years. I've been doing live best ball drafts in lieu of and for the same purpose as actual mocking. 

In 2017 I did nine $10 bestballs and turned it into $130. 

In 2018 I did $240 (10s and 35s) worth of bestball drafts and cashed $315 plus one $350 FPC entry token.

In 2019 I did $455 worth and cashed $1025 and one more of those tokens. 

This year because of COVID I have only done a couple hundred worth. 

I'm not beating my chest but the point is I've been getting paid to mock. And the main point of mocking is what? Research. Live drafts give much better data than fake mocks where half the room is on auto or doing something crazy they won't do live.

This is a strategy I recommend. Treat cheap bestball drafts like mocks. 
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I would draft differently for a BB format. 

 
Walking Boot said:
I used to more than I do now. My prep is pretty refined at the moment.

We're going into year 18 of my league.

Maybe six or seven years ago, I got the bright idea of looking at the league history and exporting all the draft results. I keep track of them in an Excel spreadsheet. Excel then automatically figures out each guy's tendencies.

It looks at each owner's draft and analyzes when they picked each position. So I know if Owner A takes his QB1 at 3.05 on average, and Owner B takes his QB1 at 7.08 on average. Same for RB1, RB2, WR1, WR2, etc. 

It then sorts by the current year's draft order and exports a single list of when every position is expected to be taken. I adjust it for keepers and then import the whole thing into Draft Dominator.

I maybe mock it through a few times in DD just to see where the guys I need (handcuffs for keepers, etc) go and that's about it. It ends up pretty close. Every year some hype guy will go a half round early or so. If I miss a guy, I don't sweat it. It's never by more than a few picks anyway and the guy I get in the round before is usually worth it. It's really, really good at knowing about how many guys at each position will be taken between my picks so I can tell when a tier is going to run out.

It takes maybe an hour of Excel work to set up the analysis by updating with last year's draft, then adjusting to account for keepers. Then an hour or two reading a few articles, catching up on injuries and news, etc. Scanning /r/fantasyfootball. Then three/four/five mocks in DD and I'm fairly confident I'll smoke everyone at the draft. We usually draft around 6PM so I do all the prep I need that day.

I have a running thing with a friend in the league where we trash talk the other owners. I usually text him after lunch on Draft Day to let him know "I'm actually going to start doing my research and prep now, see you in a few hours." I think it unnerves them a little when they know I've done 10% of the "research" they've done and I still come out way ahead.
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I did this for a while and it was effective at first, but over time there was less consistency with the way people drafted. When it worked, it was awesome though. 

 
Walking Boot said:
I apply a "multiplier" that reduces over time. Currently, for someone I have 16 years of draft data on, it applies a weight of 100% to last year's draft, 75% to the one from two years ago, 50% to the one from 3 years ago, 25% to the one from 4 years ago, etc. The farthest 6 years back bottom out at 1%.

When an owner leaves, I'll use the numbers from his last 2 or 3 years and give that to the new guy in his first year. Then as I gain info on the new guy, I'll adjust those multipliers to heavily favor the data since he took over.
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:headexplode:

 
-jb- said:
I would draft differently for a BB format. 
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Of course. But this is raw research. It's never going to be a perfect analogue for the draft(s) you're preparing for. The differences in the early rounds aren't negligible but you're definitely getting a good picture of trend. The variance of build types does factor in with BB vs non, but for this strategy to work as I'm describing, it has to be BB. I'm not spending a second managing these teams. 

 
I also have moved away from mocking and I'll do some BB drafts instead. Real drafts are just ..... real drafts, there is no substitute.

I did use fantasyfootballcalculator in the past and even use the ADP at times, but not this year, something is off with their setup.

 
Walking Boot said:
I apply a "multiplier" that reduces over time. Currently, for someone I have 16 years of draft data on, it applies a weight of 100% to last year's draft, 75% to the one from two years ago, 50% to the one from 3 years ago, 25% to the one from 4 years ago, etc. The farthest 6 years back bottom out at 1%.

When an owner leaves, I'll use the numbers from his last 2 or 3 years and give that to the new guy in his first year. Then as I gain info on the new guy, I'll adjust those multipliers to heavily favor the data since he took over.
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I've considered something like this and kudos for putting in the effort. Just don't think it's worth the time, especially since the quality and quantity of guppy drafting have kinda gone by the wayside over the last few years. Once identifying potential value buys at QB and TE I'll go back through the last 3 drafts and try to determine when I need to jump in to beat any snipers - when do the first TE's go? the 7th? do these guys back there's up? when do backup QB's start to get drafted? etc. Generally if I figure out what I intend to do at QB and TE then the rest falls into place. I'll still adjust on the fly if something I didn't anticipate happens though.

 
I do a couple to assess how aligned / misaligned the host rankings are with DD. If players I am targeting in later rounds rise up the draft board earlier, I need to decide if I can live with the premium price or not.

 
barackdhouse said:
Of course. But this is raw research. It's never going to be a perfect analogue for the draft(s) you're preparing for. The differences in the early rounds aren't negligible but you're definitely getting a good picture of trend. The variance of build types does factor in with BB vs non, but for this strategy to work as I'm describing, it has to be BB. I'm not spending a second managing these teams. 
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Which site do you prefer

 
-jb- said:
Which site do you prefer
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I don't think I have an actual preference but I play in a couple big redrafts on ESPN (this weekend - haven't even looked at ADP yet and done zero mocks or BB there). 

Mostly I play in the FPC, so I will do a handful of the $35 BB drafts as "practice". It is TE premium. Most of my BBs come from either there or the MFL10 stuff. 

 
My league draft on ESPN, so I've just been doing multiple mocks a day for about a week now. I've even done about 10 real leagues on there just with strangers. It's a good way to kinda recognize if the little tendencies you've been noticing in your mocks are actually happening in real drafts or not. 

For me, it definitely helps me figure out my strategy, but my league randomly generates our draft order a week ahead of our draft so that helps a ton. 

I got the first pick so I get to mock with that knowledge for a whole week. 

 
habsfan said:
I do a couple to assess how aligned / misaligned the host rankings are with DD. If players I am targeting in later rounds rise up the draft board earlier, I need to decide if I can live with the premium price or not.
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This is exactly why I’ve been mocking CBS.

doesn't matter where they are on my list if CBS spoils it for me. 

everyone in my league is using their own rankings to draft, but that damn list is sittin there.  It’s why I hate having to draft online this year. 

 
barackdhouse said:
I don't think I have an actual preference but I play in a couple big redrafts on ESPN (this weekend - haven't even looked at ADP yet and done zero mocks or BB there). 

Mostly I play in the FPC, so I will do a handful of the $35 BB drafts as "practice". It is TE premium. Most of my BBs come from either there or the MFL10 stuff. 
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ESPN has consistently had the worst rankings every year. Lots of value to capitalize on from their default rankings for sure, so good to familiarize yourself with them. 

 
Hot Sauce Guy said:
ESPN has consistently had the worst rankings every year. Lots of value to capitalize on from their default rankings for sure, so good to familiarize yourself with them. 
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Well actually I should clarify. One of my two redrafts on ESPN is an auction, and I'm *way* dialed in on that one. The other is always done in person so we're going to do it Sunday on Zoom and a Google spreadsheet. I suppose a couple people might use ESPN rankings for that one but it's really just more about us guys that have been doing it together for years now. 

But the ESPN auction rankings are kind of misleading and interesting too. Because we do that one online and the suggested prices absolutely have an impact on how much they go for in reality. 

Anyway yes you should be trying to mock *where* you're playing or close to it. I like looking at a variety of sources.

 
-jb- said:
I tried mocking on CBS today, and it was brutal.  Lots of bounce-outs and autodrafts.
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Yep… For every good draft, there are five crappy ones.I don’t understand what the point of auto drafting yes unless those people are actually going to be auto drafted otherwise it just waste everybody’s time. 

 
I used to mock more when I was in a more standard scoring redraft........my two big money leagues are long running, live redraft, weird scoring, so there's really no way to mock for them......and those are the only ones I'm doing this year....but, for cookie cutter redraft leagues I believe mocking is a great tool, especially for the later rounds to see how your team will fill out.

 
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especially for the later rounds to see how your team will fill out.
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This is why it’s so dumb that people bounce after 1-2 rounds. 

everyone knows who’s going in those rounds. You only gain value by mocking when you can learn about the late round tendencies.

to @barackdhouse’s point maybe that’s why cheap BB leagues might be a better option. People will stay until the end. And as he said, there’s no in-season maintenance. 

 
Usually not much...this year having done way less looking into things before drafts...i utilized the DD mocks to get an idea of what I liked better when i went with a WR in one of the first 2 rounds vs RB RB (from the 9 spot)

 
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