Let's get the results out of the way first. I had a losing Sunday. It was mostly football fail - I won 5 of 6 NASCAR events and was a slight winner in hoops. With the exception of the late games, I cashed in very few football contests.
I was going to write a strategy post (for daily fantasy projections) on auto drafts, when FSL decided to launch their version. After trying them several times, I can say this: It is NOT a true draft, because you cannot select the order you draft your players.
Even without that option, is it a fair draft? On the surface, it appears so - players take turns choosing in a snake draft fashion.
However, the order of the selections are predetermined based upon who signed up first. This is where the fairness of the draft is skewed. Let me give you some examples:
NASCAR draft: Player 1 is always guaranteed first Sprint Cup pick (i.e. Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, etc.)
NBA drafts: Player 2 is guaranteed first SG (Kobe), SF (LeBron) and C (Dwight Howard).
NHL drafts: Player 1 is guaranteed first C (Crosby, Malkin, etc.) and first LW (Ovechkin).
NFL drafts: Player 1 gets first QB and first RB choices, usually the highest scoring positions.
MLB draft: Player 1 is guaranteed first P selection. This pretty much makes the auto draft not worth playing on nights when a stud pitches.
Now it's possible to get the good slot and still lose. That's just variance. I lost 3 of 4 football drafts yesterday and I picked first.
Here's the rub - if it is OBVIOUS that's it's better to be player 2, why would anyone sign up first? (or vice versa?)
IMO, Fan Duel has superior auto draft because you're allowed to select the order you choose your players. This allows you to be competitive regardless of your draft position.
Fan Duel will get all of my auto draft play from now on.
I still think FSL has a superior ranking cap game and I will continue to play those contests.
2 comments:
First pick is determined by the lower rank cap amount of the (2) 18player teams. First in is only used to break a very rare tie in total rank cap points. Is it a "true" draft? We never said that it was. It is a basic auto draft, no more, no less. All these first pick advantage issues are there with FanDuel as well. So first pick has no advantage at Fanduel for a baseball or football league when they get their choice of Pitcher or QB? Ranking all 18 players in order is simply more difficult and more time consuming that ranking the positions, and we want our drafts to be quick and easy. The average person does not want to spend 30 minutes figuring out the ideal rankings for a one off daily league.
Blinders,
Nowhere on your site does it say that order of draft is determined by total cap points.
If this is true it was not my experience playing these games the last few days.
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