In the second part of this mini-series, our fantasy league preparation moves on from the creation of personalised ranking sheets to trying them out in some mock drafts

You do have to find a bit of time if you want to complete a few mock drafts. An average Head-to-Head draft takes approximately 60-75 minutes to complete.  Trying to get into a mock draft due to start fairly soon also can be frustrating on Yahoo because they get quite busy, but with a bit of perseverance you’ll be set and getting some drafting practice in really is beneficial. 

From the most basic standpoint, it’s extremely useful to have a bit of practice in using the Yahoo fantasy set-up (or whatever set-up you are using).  This is particularly important if you’re not an experienced fantasy player.  Everything is new and once the ‘bong’ goes and you’re on the clock, those 90 seconds pass extremely quickly. Being familiar with things like how the draft screen is laid out, how you can sort through which players are still available and how you select a player makes life much easier when the real draft comes along. 

Some players will go into a draft with a clear strategy of how they want to approach it and mock drafts can be very helpful in testing such plans out to see how effective they are.  This extends to setting up your own set of rankings and then running some auto-drafts to see how your team comes out.  They can also provide you with some ‘intelligence’ on the sort of players that other people are selecting and when, although you’ve always got to be aware that a couple of people could come along to your draft and throw a fantasy cat among the fantasy pigeons by making some unconventional selections early on.  I’m still something of a fantasy novice, but you don’t have to go through many drafts to realise that it’s important to watch what others are doing and to adapt your selections as a result if needed.

Even in a mock draft, you experience some of the ‘pressures’ that can push you into making a selection that you’ll kick yourself for after the event.  It makes sense to know which player you would like to pick before your turn comes around, but you can’t plan completely for what the other owners might do.  No matter how many lucky charms you line up, if you’re focusing solely on one available player every time your draft slot comes around, some bugger will step in and take the guy you wanted.  If it’s the person drafting directly before you then trouble ensues:

• “xxxx!, xxxxxxx!, xxxxxx!”.
• [Throw/kick the nearest available object – preferably not something that will land you with a conviction]
• “Hang on, I’ve now got less than a minute to make my pick”
• “What do I need”? (TICK-TOCK, TICK-TOCK)
• “Who’s available”? (TICK-TOCK, TICK-TOCK)
• “What should I do”? (TICK-TOCK, TICK-TOCK)
• “Aaaargh!!!”

The biggest thing I get from mock drafts is the experience of giving myself some options as my turn gets close and then practicing making decisions when the ideal guy from my list goes off the board. It’s a bit like football teams practicing penalties during major tournaments.  You can’t completely replicate the exact circumstances you’ll face or the pressure of the situation, but you can make those things much easier to cope with by being comfortable with the Yahoo set-up and having practical experience of making these types of decisions.

Hopefully the other thing you’ll get from completing some mock drafts as a fantasy newcomer is that it’s not as daunting as you may initially think.  Using the player rankings and some common sense, you should be able to draft a decent team every time.  The BGB competition contains 14 teams and is a mixed league (i.e. players from both the AL and NL can be selected), so there are plenty of good players to choose from and you can always pick up some useful pieces via trades or fantasy free agents as the season progresses.

The main thing is: “don’t panic!”.  Completing a few mock drafts will go a long way in helping you to avoid doing a ‘Corporal Jones’.