Wondering how intense people get with their draft boards. Do you rank players up until your first pick? Beyond?

I have the 17th pick in an upcoming draft and then don't draft again until 57. I can see ranking players up to 17, but beyond that, seems like a crapshoot. Thoughts?

I usually rank my top 100. Remember to set your draft settings BEFORE you rank players.
If you rank your players first, the draft rankings will default back to the original rankings when you change your draft settings.

even at 17, you'll get a top 10 guy on your board. if you rank 25-30 guys ...one will be there at 57

I manually rank every prospect I think has an outside shot at making the majors... even if just as a defensive replacement or long reliever. That usually ends up being between 40 and 70 prospects, depending on the quality of the draft. Aside from the first pick, I'm trying not to waste the second and third on players who are obviously going to end up in the Rule 5 draft, and the middle rounds on players who will never get out of AA ball.

Posted by damag on 11/22/2020 9:41:00 AM (view original):
I manually rank every prospect I think has an outside shot at making the majors... even if just as a defensive replacement or long reliever. That usually ends up being between 40 and 70 prospects, depending on the quality of the draft. Aside from the first pick, I'm trying not to waste the second and third on players who are obviously going to end up in the Rule 5 draft, and the middle rounds on players who will never get out of AA ball.

Yeah, this is my approach too. I also rank any sub 60 OVR guys I think are DITR crapshoots.

Posted by damag on 11/22/2020 9:41:00 AM (view original):
I manually rank every prospect I think has an outside shot at making the majors... even if just as a defensive replacement or long reliever. That usually ends up being between 40 and 70 prospects, depending on the quality of the draft. Aside from the first pick, I'm trying not to waste the second and third on players who are obviously going to end up in the Rule 5 draft, and the middle rounds on players who will never get out of AA ball.

Same here. I’ll spend about an hour ranking, then go back a day or two later and ‘tweak’. Eventually I’ll get to players (usually around ranking 30-40) where I just go ‘UGH’ because their projected ratings are so abysmal and then I’ll stop.

I rank all players that have a shot at making the majors. If they don't have a shot, they are not on my board. In a poor draft pool, I might be ranking as little as 10-15 players. In a great draft pool, I might be ranking 30-35 players. I do this regardless of if I am the first overall pick, the 32 overall pick or even if I lost my first round picks due to signing Type A free agents. As stated above, there is always a shot that one of your top guys falls to you. I can't tell you how many times that somebody that I had in my top five fell to me at pick 20+.

In regards to higher end talent, another thing I have noticed is that the sim generates certain types of players and often times there is a drought of [high-end] players of a certain type (i.e. the RF/LF that hits really well, but is defensively underwhelming at RF/LF, the defensive premium infielder (SS) that has an OPS over 750, the CF that hits really well, the C that bashes both L & R handed pitching, etc.). I have noticed that often times, players like the above don't show up for three or four straight seasons, then all of a sudden, they show up in bunches -- six of them over the course of three draft pools. However, it seems like those tweener 2b type players seem to be in every single draft class. I have the toughest time ranking the tweener 2b type of players. There are so many of them and I just don't know where to put them.

Thanks, everyone. I decided to rank the top 100 in a different world than the one mentioned above, where I am a new owner this season. Came up with a ranking system and sorted with a spreadsheet. Draft is tonight, so I'll let ya know how it goes.

Last thing I can say (which seems obvious but isn’t) always rank the higher talent higher on your board if they fit your ‘sign-ability requirements’ years ago in a draft a far superior player went 10 spots below where I drafted because I didn’t think I was going to get him so I ranked him lower. Rank every player as if you have the chance to get them. Sometimes you never know.

My input to this, having participated in a grand total of just one Amateur Draft, is I really wish I spent more time on specific rankings in the 30-50 range. I kinda just said "this guy is in the 30s", "this guy is in the 40s"...got a few of them and others were available when I picked. Really wish I fine-tuned it such that the guy I had a 42 I wanted more than guy at 43, and so on...it meant I didn't get 3-4 guys who were just a tick better than the ones I got.

Maybe this is overkill, but it left me disappointed in the whole draft.