Katie has been an active UTH listener and reader. Here is her story of an in-season dynasty startup draft, beginning in the middle of December, 2014:
Since starting my dynasty career later than most (July 2014) I wanted to own a startup team and invest a small amount of money, I knew I was ready to jump in and take on the challenge the UTH way. I found a league in one of the dynasty forums and the setup was exactly what I was looking for: 12 teams, $75 each.
The draft was set to begin on December 10, 2014. It was an email draft using MFL for the selections and allowed the trading of current and future picks. The commissioner randomly selected an order, but this was the order in which we got to choose what draft spot we wanted. This draft would be a snake draft, but the 7 round rookie draft in the spring was going to be a reverse order straight draft. My first strategic move was to select the 10th overall draft spot in order to get the 3rd overall rookie pick in each round for 2015.
The Format:
- 12 teams, .5 ppr, IDP tackle heavy scoring, 6 pts passing TD
- 40 man roster
- Start 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex (R/W/T), 1 K, 1 DT, 1 DE, 1 LB, 1 CB, 1 S, 2 IDP Flex
*My selections in green*
Opening Strategy:
We had a ‘get to know you’ thread on our message board, the usual who’s who, I was surprised to hear several say they were doing dynasty or IDP for the first time. Many gave their phone number for texting and email to facilitate trading. I knew that an email draft of a 40-man roster was going to take the better part of two to three weeks. Looking at the makeup of the league, I predicted that most would pay attention during the first 15 rounds and then start to lose interest. I targeted rounds 15-30 as the rounds in which I would have a huge advantage over the rest of the teams, and that this would be the time to deepen my bench with the highest upside players.
The IDP requirements for this league are not very demanding and the scoring system does not lend itself that these players will have a huge impact. The only position of real scarcity, even knowing it’s a start one player, is the DT. A good tackle heavy DT is hard to find, so at some point that was going to be my first IDP target. Other than that my goal was to ignore the IDP as long as I could, and treat the CB and S like kickers ie: draft the highest upside toward the end of the draft and churn them through the season based on matchup.
One extra facet to the strategy of this draft was the luxury of knowing that I had the 3rd pick in the rookie draft and that those seven players would be on my team before this team had to hit the field in September. I slotted those players into my draft scheme so I could figure who would be a cut or package up candidate. I also could feel free to stay the course on my strategy of gaining as many strong WR assets early and often in this draft, and shore up my RB with supplements from the 2015 depth.
Last but not least, I took the UTH rankings of dynasty players for a “win now” team and pasted them into an excel spread sheet. I assigned my own rankings to them and built an overall group of tiers and targets by position. I bookmarked the pick trade calculator from Mockdraftables so that I could figure out what a reasonable offer of picks to move up or down would be. I have an app on my iPad called Draft Dominator, by entering my scoring system and lineup settings it is an easy way to visually see who is left on the board at any given time during the draft. It doesn’t take dynasty into consideration when it ranks the players, but it does help see which players are also involved in the punt and kick return game, and since we get points for that, it can help make the choice between two players in the same tier.
Note: MFL allows players to make comments on their draft selections, I will share some of the comments from time to time.
*My selections in green*
ROUND 1
- Dez Bryant WR1
- AJ Green WR2
- Leveon Bell RB1
- Antonio Brown WR3
- Julio Jones WR4
- Demaryius Thomas WR5
At this point the draft was going exactly how I had pictured it, no surprises. I expected Luck to be taken in the next couple of picks as well as Calvin Johnson. My #1 target was Gronk and I didn’t feel that I needed to move up for him and that he would fall to me at 10.
- Andrew Luck QB1
- Aaron Rodgers QB2
- Calvin Johnson WR6
- Rob Gronkowski TE1
At 26 years old next season, having the best tight end in the game made too much sense in a startup dynasty to me, and gave me a real positional advantage. I love ASJ and think he will be great, but having Gronk allowed me to target ASJ a little later and let him take the time to develop.
Team 11 “Missed Gronk by a pick!!!”
- Odell Beckham Jr WR7
- Alshon Jeffrey WR8
ROUND 2
- 2.01 TY Hilton WR9
I was one pick away from being on the clock and my two targets were Mike Evans and Sammy Watkins. I received a trade offer from the team that was on the clock: his 2.02, 3.11, and 5.11 for my 2.03, 3.10, and 5.10. I looked at my targets in the 3rd and 5th and felt that I could still get them, it was a fair offer and instantly accepted it.
- 2.02 Mike Evans WR10
- 2.03 Sammy Watkins WR11
Team 2 “I had no real preference between Watkins and Evans so I traded the pick and let Katie decide”
- 2.04 Jimmy Graham TE2
- 2.05 Randall Cobb WR12
- 2.06 Eddie Lacy RB2
- 2.07 Josh Gordon WR13
- 2.08 Jordy Nelson WR14
- 2.09 Lesean McCoy RB3
- 2.10 Jamaal Charles RB4
- 2.11 Demarco Murray RB5
- 2.12 Matt Forte RB6
We had a nice run on running backs to end out round one. No real surprises in the draft so far.
My Roster
WR Mike Evans
TE Rob Gronkowski
