Great discussion. A few notes --For the draft, the VBD form works great (put your league rules in) but keep in mind that you don't have to follow it slavishly. If there are 5 WRs available within 5-10 points of each other, the difference is statistically insignificant (they're projections, after all). Before the draft, using the VBD list, try to draw lines segregating blocks of players who are clustered numerically. It's sort of an arbitrary cutoff so you can think of first rank, second rank, third rank players, etc. I usually do them in 10-15 player breaks. If one of the groups is emptying fast you may need to fish in that pond sooner than later. Or, if you are thin in one ranking, you may need to grab a couple from the next tier, but you'll have a sense where you are short. When you see a story on a player you think is a breakout candidate, mark his name with an asterisk on the VBD list. Basically you are reminding yourself that if you are picking in that cluster, go for the marked players first. Probably he is not moving up to another tier but he's moving to the head of that cluster. Go for a QB on a good team or a team that throws a high volume of passes (west coast offense style) over other QBs in that cluster. I took Brad Johnson late following that theory, luckily. Our league leader this year took Hasselback following that theory. When looking at the free agent pool, try sorting the stats for QBs by passer rating or yards per attempt, to see how the rankings change. It helped me spot Pennington as a free agent last year. Obviously stud RBs are gold dust but if you only have one and are on a RBBC for the #2 spot, I like to look for guys who catch passes too since that's a sign of speed and versatility, and even if he's shut out by a tough D Line, he may get yards on receptions. It led me to grab Marcel Shipp last year and again to draft him this year. And, if a team has a starting RB whose YPC sucks, look for the backup, esp. if his YPC is pretty good. I was lucky again to grab Domanick Davis this year after his 7 carry game, right before the breakout. Try sorting the free agent pool by YPC instead of total yards gained. Look for WRs in the free agent pool with fairly high yards per catch since obviously that's a sign of speed -- but check if that's distorted by a single long catch. I sort WRs in the free agent pool very heavily by the target stats. Make up a small list of the guys you are interested in then study those players -- you can't waste time studying everyone. Get the list by using the top 10-15 free agent players in targets then add anyone you've seen a writeup on that you think might be worth considering if they are not already included. It helps you to sort out who you want to concentrate on. Once you've narrowed the list to a few WRs, you can look at the strength of schedule and see if that gives one of the top choices an edge.No doubt luck plays a huge role but depth is not a product of luck, but diligence. You can't control if Marshall Faulk broke his hand but you can control whether you've been constantly backfilling your roster with the best players available. Assuming you've filled your starting positions, always try to throw a couple of roster spots at breakout candidates -- you can always pick up a journeyman to fill a spot if you are short but if a DeShawn Foster type gets the starting nod it'll be too late to get him when the news is out, unless you are drafting first in the waiver claims. He should already be tucked on someone's roster.
We have a team or two, in our 10 man keeper league (keep 2) who add/drop like breathing air. Some of their free agent aquisissions don't stay on their roster for more than 5 minutes (usually because they have found someone else they feel has better value.) Even then said players never see the starting lineup. We have a 20 man roster. One of our owners at points in the season had 10 RB's on his team. Max playable at one time is 3. To pick up a player for the sole purpose of blocking someone else from said player knowing you could never use him in your lineup is bad form IMHO. Will use the $100 rule next year. Once you spend all your money you cannot add/drop anymore. Believe this will help some teams think and give other teams the ability to add/drop players they could use.Our rules right now; waiver wire until 8 pm Wednesday night (worst team, record wise, gets first choice each week.) From then on it’s free agents until game time.
