This is the draft experiment wrap up for the Best Player Available draft. If you’re unfamiliar with the premise, go back and read the original post: the great draft experiment.
This team was drafted with an emphasis on grabbing the “best” perceived player possible at every single spot, regardless of positional depth differences. In terms of a personal strategy, this is one that I would never utilize for one of my own teams, because positional depth (and balance) are very important to me. That being said, this BPA team did the poorest in the standings in its league, out of all the experimental teams. Although this is not that surprising, considering the BPA strategy was perceived as the weakest going in, this team did have its fair share of injuries. Due to the initial draft strategy, when players start going down to injuries, positional depth comes into play. For example, if a center goes down, it is ten times easier to replace a C than it is a strong goalie. This team happened to have injuries at pretty much every position, though, and on top of that there were some underachievers, especially in net, all of which amounted to an 11th out of 12th place finish.
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The first row is the ranking in each category (this is a roto league) and the second row is the total year-to-date accumulation for each category.
The strongest category for this particular draft experiment team was shots on goal and that’s pretty much it. In every other category, this team was around the middle of the pack or worse. It was dead last in both GAA and SV% and also second to last in assists, all pretty important categories.
Final Roster:
Looking up and down the roster, there are certainly some good players on this team, especially at the forward positions, but at the same time, they all seemed to have weak seasons compared to what they could’ve had.
The obvious X factor was injuries on this team, without a doubt. Jokinen missed a lot of time. Briere missed a lot of time. Nathan Horton and Tomas Kaberle were both dropped due to injuries. A lot of the other players missed games here and there, like for example, Hossa missing a few games down the stretch. Aside from the injuries, though, the more insidious issue that ate away at the production for this team was underachieving players. Two major culprits were the Detroit stars on this team, Zetterberg and Hossa, who were the first and second round picks, respectively. Both Wings had extremely disappointing seasons, from a strictly statistical standpoint compared to past seasons, as they were both under a point-per-game in terms of scoring pace, much less than was anticipated. They were both drafted early and were expected to absolutely carry the team in terms of offense, and while they weren’t total bums, by any means, they certainly did not warrant the high draft choices in retrospect.
The other big disappointments came early on from Biron and Turco. Biron had a very poor start to the year but finally started getting it going after the all star break. Huet was picked up mid-season and he got lucky that Khabibulin got injured, otherwise he would’ve had an even worse year. Marty Turco was dropped before the season was over because he simply was terrible all year long. This was not entirely his fault on an individual basis, as the Stars were anticipated to be a relatively strong team this season but were completely decimated by injuries. However, at the same time, Turco certainly was not doing himself any favors by playing poorly on a consistent basis. Honestly, Turco should have been dropped much earlier in the season to save the headache and some bad stats; to use some poker lingo, sometimes you just have to know when to fold ‘em.
Dan Boyle carried the defense on his back for this team for sure. He was the man for the Sharks this season and one of the best d-men in fantasy. Dennis Wideman, a later pick, was a very good value pick. Unlike some of the early picks of underachievers or players who eventually got injured, Dennis Wideman had a pretty good season and certainly produced at a nicer clip than his draft choice would have otherwise predicted at the outset of the season.
There were some decent pick-ups down the stretch, especially at trade deadline time where Whitney was traded for Kunitz. Both players just happened to be available and were promptly snatched up. This certainly helped boost production a bit, as both players helped their teams make really strong playoff runs where at one point they were on the outside looking in.
Drafted Players Retention
This best player available team ended up with only 10 transactions total, so there was not that much player movement overall, which was a goal of the overall draft experiment. The only bad thing is that there probably would have been more movement, if the free agent pool wasn’t so incredibly weak all season long.
Zetterberg and Hossa were the first two picks and were retained from draft day to the end. Where the trouble starts is with Turco, since he was the 3rd round choice and was dropped. Any time you are forced to drop a 3rd round pick, whether it’s due to poor production or injury, it’s not a good sign for the team overall. The other two picks of the top 5 were Jokinen and Boyle, who both were also retained.
The number six pick was Horton, who had to be dropped due to his injury and the timing of it. The season was nearing its close and there is just no room for non-producing players, so Horton had to be sacrificed. Had his injury came earlier on, then obviously he would not have been dropped. Biron was the 7th rounder and he finally panned out by season’s end but the damage was done early on, and the poor stats accrued by Biron and Turco at the beginning of the season really could not be compensated for down the line.
Briere, Gomez, Wideman, and Brown are the next few picks that are still on the team at the end. Kaberle, who was the 11th pick, was dropped due to injury. The last four picks of the draft were all dropped at random points in the season, mostly due to low productivity. Overall, this means that there are 9/16 still hanging around from the draft, which is not that bad. The goal of trying to retain as many players as possible was more or less achieved, considering the fact that there were so many injuries throughout the season and still over 50% of the initial draft class is still around.
Overall, seven out of the sixteen total draftees were retained through to the final day of the season. If not for logistical issues, Kopitar and Elias would have also been retained, so fudging it to 9/16 is not too out of line. Either way, it is around half retention, which is mediocre, but certainly not a gigantic roster overhaul.
The biggest disappointment is that this team looked to take at least 8th place only a couple weeks before the end. It was sitting in 8th out of 12 and then it just slid down and could not recover. Eighth place obviously isn’t very impressive, but it certainly would have been a lot better than 11th–second last place. All in all, with all the injuries and underachievers on top of the fact that this was probably (easily) the weakest draft strategy going in, it is not a surprise at all that this team did so poorly.
Injuries happened to all four draft experiment teams, so the blame doesn’t fall squarely on that. The problem comes from the whole package of trouble from the team, including the very draft strategy itself. The best player available strategy usually just goes by quality (or even worse, name value) of players and disregards positional depth considerations and tiers and even other teams’ drafting. It’s not as versatile a strategy if done like it was done here in this experiment. Also the fact that trades were voluntarily disallowed here certainly exacerbated any problems there are with the basic strategy. Really, though, there were just a lot of little issues that all added up by season’s end. The somewhat inflexible draft strategy when it comes to positions is more vulnerable when injuries come on, especially the amount that this team happened to face. Couple this with the fact that the injuries came to some key players and were not extremely long term (where they could easily be dropped) and also the fact that there were so many underachievers on this team really tells the story for this BPA team. Second to last place is not really what this roster deserved but that’s how the cookie crumbles in fantasy hockey sometimes.
There are still two more draft experiment teams’ wrap ups to come, and they both ended up with much better outcomes. Then afterwards, there will be a couple more posts, comparing and contrasting the teams against each other and their leagues. Check out the original post: The Great Draft Experiment and also the main page with links to all the teams: http://saucerpass.com/draft-experiment/
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