2011 Draft Slots Analysis Aug 3, 2011 | More
More articles from Walter Collazo

Welcome to a post lockout edition of the Brew Crew Corner draft slot analysis. This is the fifth year of analyzing slots. Each year you learn interesting things about how successful each draft slot is. The majority of you will soon be drafting for the 2011 season. Some of you might have a choice when you draft. I play in a league where we pick draft spots at random and we then have the option to trade that draft spot straight up with another owner for a different spot. The rest of the owners might have a draft spot selected for them or are placed in a draft spot according to their 2010 record. In any case, you won’t lose or win a championship based on your draft slot, but the chances of finishing with the best record for good seeding is certainly tied into your position. We will look at draft slot results for 14,566 live drafts on myfantasyleague.com provided by Kevin Austin from that site.

Everyone has their preference of how they like to draft. The majority of owners would love to have that first selection while others would rather draft in the middle to have talent fall to them. Then there are owners who think they have a better chance at end of the draft order. These owners that are at the elbow need to check the statistics below because those owners in the 11th slot had the least success of any other draft slot. Mainly due to the average draft position (ADP) of Peyton Manning, which was 11th. I’ve always been of the opinion that you can’t win your league when you draft a quarterback in the first round and the numbers support that.

For 2010, the success rates of the draft slots were high for the first two positions and then dropped off until pick No. 8. The second draft spot, which had Adrian Peterson with an ADP of second, had the highest increase of success from the 2009 draft. The ninth draft spot had the highest dropoff rate.

For those owners that would rather have draft slots at the elbow of the draft in slots 11 and 12 should consider that these two positions offer the lowest success rate of any other position every year. For the past five years, the 11th spot has finished last and the 12th spot has finished right behind it. This is not saying that you can’t win your league from the 11th spot but you have to make those early selections count. For the third year in a row the eighth spot had the second-highest success rate. Last year’s ADP of eight was Michael Turner. I would say the third draft spot is the most deceiving draft spot to be in because there is always a debate about who should go in the Top 3 and sometimes people either select the No. 3 person and that selection disappoints or they overvalue a player that should be selected third overall. It’s the second year in a row where the third position had dropped off compared to two slots before it.

Preparation is always the key. Over the past week there have been so many signings, trades and free agent acquisitions that you have to take into account when setting up your draft board. Don’t always go by the ADP of a player if you don’t feel that player will help your team. You control your team and you pick the players.

Good luck to those who haven’t drafts yet and have a great 2011 season.

Follow @BrewCrewCorner