Drafting on Yahoo

General Fantasy Football Talk
#1

I’ve got about a week before my draft on Yahoo. I’ve done some mock drafts there and think the default view will have all players ranked by the Yahoo experts. So for most of my league mates who haven’t done a lot of prep (which will be the majority), they will most likely be drafting pretty much according to the order as presented in the default view rather than, say, ADP.

How can I take advantage of any anomalies I think are in that default view. For example, if my board has Doug Baldwin as WR10, but Yahoo has him ranked as WR16, how can I make it easy to take advantage of that anomaly while I’m drafting? If I take him where I think he should go I might miss out on value because I could have waited another round.

What practical tips can you give so that during the draft I can keep track of all of these things?

#2

I am in a similar situation. I have been trying to put those players in my queue so that I can keep an eye on them as they come up. You have to try and predict what the chances are that they will come back to you the next round. You also have to know your fellow players strategies( I can predict that my league will draft Rodgers/Wilson/Watson in 3-4 round). This year I am thinking of doing a better job of keeping track of others teams needs, too, to help predict if I can get a player after the turn. I have been using the UDK cheatsheet and it helps, a lot. Hope this helps.
It seems with Yahoo that Baldwin and Marvin Jones are undervalued. Have you found any running backs?

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#3

Get in early and order your queue. Don’t expect everyone to stick to the script either… Guys who don’t know better read about a guy like Ballage, who I like late in drafts but get OVERdraftes because Silva talked him up recently.

Depending where you draft, don’t be afraid to reach a little early on guys you really love. I wouldn’t go 3-4 ROUNDS early but a round or two when you dislike the guys in the ADP queue isn’t a bad idea sometimes.

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#4

I went through the top 150 with the UDK rankings and Yahoo rankings and one other ranking. I found only a few RBs that might be considered undervalued by Yahoo. LeSean McCoy is RB21 on Yahoo and RB14 in the UDK. Marshawn is RB27 on Yahoo, RB22 in the UDK and RB20 in the other ranking I consulted. Marlon Mack is RB42 on Yahoo and RB36 in the UDK and the other ranking I consulted.

I think on name value alone, it’s likely that both McCoy and Lynch will be drafted a little early. I like Lynch myself and drafted him last year and then he spent all season on my bench because of how they used him. I will probably avoid McCoy and just don’t feel excited about Mack either.

I have recruited by daughter to help me during the draft. She can keep an eye on the cheatsheet and remind me of where we are on tier breaks and I will keep up with a master list and keep guys in my queue that I want to target. When I’ve done mock drafts 30 seconds for each pick goes fast, especially if there are some auto-drafters. My league is only 8 teams and I’ve set the time as 60 seconds for each pick so hopefully I don’t feel rushed.

#5

I did a little more research this evening. I compared Matt Harmon’s WR rankings (he’s the guy who does the reception perception in the UDK so he’s sort of a WR expert, IMO) with their ADP on Yahoo. Then I highlighted players who he ranks significantly higher than their ADP.

Here are the values that I found. Matt Harmon has Kenny Stills ranked as the #29 WR, but he’s being drafted as the #69 WR. Rishard Matthews is ranked #39, but is being drafted as the #71 receiver. John Brown is ranked #49, but is undrafted (they only go up to 71 on the list) in most leagues.

Others worth mentioning among the bigger names are Allen Robinson (#16 vs. #22), Emmanuel Sanders (#21 vs. #35), Randall Cobb (#31 vs. #48) and Tyler Lockett (#38 vs. #59).

Now I’d like to find someone who is an expert at ranking RBs and do the same exercise to see where the values are. Two weeks ago Marshawn was a great value, but his ADP has shot up since then. It will be interesting to see how high Peyton Barber’s ADP goes up.

#6

FYI: Here’s an article by Heath Cummings of CBS Sports about values he sees on CBS, ESPN and Yahoo. Here’s a link: https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/football/news/2018-fantasy-football-draft-prep-the-best-adp-values-on-cbs-espn-and-yahoo/

#7

Hey, Thanks. How did your draft go?

#8

My draft is this evening and I’ve spent quite a bit of time queuing up players by my rankings. I’ve been toying with using a zero-RB strategy if I draft 4th or later and even if I draft top 3 I may take a RB and then go heavy on WRs.

I feel like I need to read the room early on in the draft to see if league mates will go heavy on RB as expected. I’m sure they will be taking QBs early and often so I hope to keep an eye on that and not get left out completely.

Have you had your draft? How did it go?

#9

Mine is tomorrow night. I agree about reading the room, that is hard for me to do. Last year I reacted to perceived runs on positions and made poor decisions (bad defense early). At least it made me more comfortable taking a defense later, this year, since I streamed all year last year.

Good luck!

#10

Waiting on QB is my bugaboo. One year in a 16-team league I drafted at the turn. After everyone got a QB, I thought it was safe to wait thru the long turn and passed on a QB in something like the 4/5 turn. By the time it got back to me, most had drafted a 2nd QB and I struggled with the dregs until I could make a trade for a better QB.

Last year I thought I was fine when I drafted Luck and picked up Palmer at the end to use until Luck came back. Of course, Luck never came back and Palmer went out for the season. Half the league had 3 QBs and the other half had 2 so pickings were scarce. I look at QB as a deep position, but I hate having to stream a QB every week so I may splurge on someone by round 5 or 6 if they are going fast.

#11

My draft is starting soon and I’m picking 5th out of 8 so that’s a pretty good slot, I think. But I’m really disappointed that all the time I spent queuing up my players as I wanted them is wasted because it didn’t import it. Do you know what’s going on with that?

#12

OK, I figured it out. In the mock draft I don’t think it showed my rankings that I made, but in the real draft it did. But I had the impression for quite a while that I was looking at the same board as everyone else. So a few times I took players that I was targeting because they were high on the board and I was afraid I’d lose them if I didn’t act. So about halfway through the draft I realized I was looking at my rankings and I clicked elsewhere to show me what everyone else was looking at. So I mostly got players I wanted, but just took them earlier than I needed to. And then 5 times I had someone queued up and ready to grab, but one or two spots before me they got snatched. I lost out on Gronk, Tyreek Hill, Emmanuel Sanders, Brees and Wilson that way. Still, I started out with AB, Fournette, Mixon and Fitz.