In life, it can often be useful to look back on the past and contemplate how we might have done things differently to inform future decisions. The draft game is no different. Looking back at the previous season's draft might hold the key to drafting well this season. In this article, I will highlight opportunities to make ourselves better drafters through the lens of a round-by-round analysis of a "Perfect Draft" from the 2021/22 season and a quick look back at previous years' data. Click here for details on how you can access our 22/23 Draft Kit.
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For this experiment, we have used Fantrax Default Scoring as our go-to metric for overall points and Pre-Season ADP (Average Draft Position) to determine which player would have gone in which round of a draft. In this simulation we are considering a 12-team league, where all players were taken around their ADP. We'll highlight players who were perfect picks overall, as well as those who represented strong Wins Above Replacement (WAR) value.
The Early Rounds
Round 1 - "Take the well-trodden path"
Round 1 features 7 of the top 12 scorers from the end of the season, with Mount and Mané just missing out, meaning you had a 9 in 12 chance of getting a stud in Rd1. Notable flops from the first round include Jadon Sancho, Jack Grealish and Ollie Watkins. Going into the draft, these were the riskiest picks to take in the first round; Sancho and Grealish were new arrivals to their teams, while Watkins was coming off his maiden EPL season where he performed like a seasoned vet. Our main takeaway for Rd1 is to go with the safe bet. No new signings (Haaland, Nunez) and try to avoid potential banana skins. Perfect Pick: Son Heung-Min (Overall) / Trent Alexander-Arnold (WAR)
Historical Analysis:
20-21 brings a similar story as Werner's first round ADP seems to underline a similar notion of staying away from new players. Auba's precipitous fall from grace and Jimenez's injury were relatively unpredictable instances, and besides those, most round 1 players provided decent value.
19-20 delivered a first round devoid of new signings, but household names remained the flavour of the round as Pogba proved to be the runt of the litter.
Round 2 - "Health is not valued, till sickness comes."
It gets pear shaped very quickly. In round 2, we only have 4 players who can be considered good value. Only JWP and Maddison managed to reach 400 Fpts from this round, and with those scores they scrape into the top 12 for overall scores by the end of the season. DCL, Marcus Rashford, Patrick Bamford, and Jamie Vardy all fall into Rd2 territory, making this round the undoubted Injury Round. Most of those injuries were only predictable in hindsight, but Vardy's age, Bamford's gung-ho BielsaBall and Rashford coming into the season already injured could have raised some red flags for the potential drafter. Foden, Mahrez, Havertz and to some extent Sterling (who ended up delivering the points) were always rotation risks with high upside. As for this season, Foden again will end up with Rd2 ADP but represents a risk, and the Chelsea duo of Mount and James should be flagged either for rotation concerns or at the other end of the spectrum, susceptibility to injury due to being overworked. Either way, I would flag them both. Perfect Pick: James Ward-Prowse (Overall and WAR)
Historical Analysis:
20-21 - Round 2 continues to echo the main conclusion from rd1, as Havertz and Ziyech prove to be shiny new toy flops, whereas Aguero and Martial struggle with injury to round out a similarly unimpressive round to 21-22.
19-20 - Trent's breakout year blows the whole of round 2 out of the water as he brings about the era of rd1-2 Defenders. Pepe flops big time to hammer home the point about new signings.
Round 3 - "City Boyz for Life"
We might as well call last year's Rd3 the Joao round as Cancelo absolutely obliterated the competition here, providing top 5 value from an ADP of 36. Obviously nobody could envision what happened to his backup, Ben Mendy, and similarly nobody could perceive that someone would be immune to Pep Roulette. However, we have seen glimpses of Cancelo's brilliance in the season prior to last, so picking the player with the highest potential upside is definitely our takeaway from round 3. Looking at current ADP, that would look like Jack Grealish ahead of Ivan Toney and Diogo Jota ahead of Martin Odegaard. This round seems to represent a shift in focus, as Rd 1 and 2 reinforced playing it safe with your picks, but 21-22 data shows that riskier picks represent value in this round. Perfect Pick: Joao Cancelo (Overall and WAR)
Historical Analysis:
20-21 numbers look to be more in line with data from the first 2 rounds, as new signings Doherty and Willian flop hard, whereas Digne, JWP and Robertson make drafters reconsider what the 21-22 data seems to have shown.
19-20 seems to be more aligned with last year's numbers, as traditionally mega-safe picks Milivojevic and Townsend flop after stellar seasons previously, but digging deeper into the data suggests that over excitement about Palace's 12th place the previous year may have been the actual cause of the aforementioned flops.
Round 4 - "Rise of the Fallen"
Diogo Jota comes in as the stud of Rd4, with Richarlison the only other player providing some value in this round. A mixture of pre-existing injuries (Neto, Pulisic), potential transfers away (Aubameyang, Rodriguez) and just being generally out of favour (Ings, Firmino, Barnes, AWB) make the round mostly a dud. The previous season's underperformance has allowed Liverpool players Jota and Virgil Van Dijk to fall to round 4, making them amazing value. Rashford, Watkins and Neto could fit a similar mould of previous season's underperformance allowing traditionally valuable players to fall, meaning the three attackers have a good chance of providing better value than what their ADP suggests. Perfect Pick: Diogo Jota (Overall) / VVD (WAR)
Historical Analysis:
20-21 definitely puts an asterisk behind last year's conclusion as Pepe and Dele Alli continue their descent into the abyss after following up a hugely disappointing 19-20 with an even worse 20-21.
19-20 provides no help in clearing up the anomaly from the previous years as it does not feature a player of a similar mould.
Mid-Round Studs
Definitely after round 4, but even as early as 3, round-by-round trends are much more difficult to look at as players start to pop up in very different rounds in the middle stages of the draft. Rounds 5 to 11 feature a mix of expected value players who have been undervalued in last season's draft and surprise overperformers who were written off for a whole host of reasons.
Round 5 Perfect pick: Ivan Toney
Round 6 Perfect pick: Leandro Trossard
Round 7 Perfect pick: Jarrod Bowen
Round 8 Perfect pick: Bernardo Silva
Round 9 Perfect pick: Sergio Reguilon
Round 10 Perfect pick: Declan Rice
Round 11 Perfect pick: Pablo Fornals
Our Perfect Picks for Rounds 6-8 definitely teach us a valuable lesson for the upcoming draft. After the early rounds, it is definitely worth investing in big names who have slight concerns surrounding them, but without those concerns would be considered premium talent. Bowen's off year, Silva's transfer speculation and Trossard's fluctuating form all made them slip to the mid-rounds, yet without those asterisks next to their names, all these players would have been considered Rd2-4 talents. Do not over-analyse historical potential, though, as it might lead you to go for players with even bigger asterisks next to their names, like Lingard (ADP: 57.44), Dele (76.51), Riccy P (88.73), Todd Cantwell (101.61), each of whom significantly disappointed managers who drafted them.
Late Round Madness
Round 12 Perfect pick: Rodri
Round 13 Perfect pick: Bryan Mbeumo
Round 14 Perfect pick: Vitaly Janelt
Round 15 Perfect pick: Demarai Gray
Round 16 Perfect pick: Joel Matip
With an ADP of 162.14, Joel Matip towers over all other late round picks as he ended up being the 5th highest scoring defender (.25 behind VVD) and 20th overall highest scorer. It is not always the case that you manage to get a top 20 player this late in a draft, so it is worth looking at what made Matip a great pick. After the dreadful 20/21 season, most Liverpool defenders were undervalued (TAA ADP: 12.65 vs Overall: 3rd, Robertson ADP: 25.38 vs Overall: 14th, VVD ADP: 49.79 vs Overall 19th), so it was only natural that the most uncertain spot in the back 4 would fall dramatically. Matip got injured early enough in the 20/21 season to recover fully for a full pre-season, yet he missed enough time to be forgotten by most. He has not been able to complete a full season without a major time loss injury since he signed for Liverpool, so expecting him to start 31 games was never on the cards.
So, will there be a Joel Matip this season? Here are some potential candidates to break out from the last round:
Kurt Zouma. ADP: 165.92 - West Ham have been relatively quiet on the transfer market so far, but if Zouma can put his personal issues behind him and the team can strengthen in defence around him, there is good reason to be optimistic about the big Frenchman's chances.
Momo Salisu. ADP: 155.57 - A Draft Society favourite mid-season, Salisu fell victim to Southampton's fluctuating form down the stretch. He is definitely worth a punt in the last round.
Harry Maguire. ADP: 151.27 - How the mighty have fallen. Once considered a DEF1, now teetering precariously close to undraftable territory. He is one of those players who everyone knows has it in him to perform to a premium standard (at least for fantasy purposes) but will not touch due to the toxicity around him. I would gladly take him and hope for the unlikeliest of resurgences.
Callum Hudson-Odoi. ADP: 172.17 - Long gone are the days when Bayern were willing to offer eye-watering sums of money for the English youngster. CHO has remained a perennial prospect about to hit it big. With big-name changes around him at Chelsea, he could benefit from a vote of confidence from Tuchel or potentially a loan to an EPL team where he could get starts every week.
Cesar Azpilicueta. ADP: 189.67 - It is still unclear whether club captain Dave will be on roster when the first ball is kicked in the 22/23 season, but if so, he is the cheapest route into one of the top defenses in the EPL.
Besides speculating on who the next Joel Matip will be, it is also worth noting that the team with the combined most players in the 21/22 Perfect Draft is Brentford. This shines a light on a very interesting phenomenon we have been observing in the last couple of seasons. We have been producing content for a few seasons now and, along with other Draft EPL content creators, we have been focusing a lot on promoted teams and players in the off-season. This increased focus creates a bubble among Draft Society staff and Inner Circle members to an extent, that suggests that we as a community are overvaluing promoted players. But ADP data suggests otherwise. Brentford are actually one of the most undervalued teams in drafts, statistically speaking. What can we take away from this heading into this season's draft? The best strategy regarding your approach to promoted players is to absorb the data available, but consider players’ ADP when drafting them. Even though the increased exposure might make you overvalue promoted players in your personal ranks, you do not have to draft them much earlier than their ADP suggests.
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