Part two on draft order. A reader on the Facebook page was asking about the "Third Round Reversal" format, and whether that was any better than a regular serpentine draft.
I looked into it some, and I believe it is.
You are familiar with a serpentine draft, of course. You draft 1-12, and the order is reversed to 12-1 for the even-numbered rounds.
With the "Third Round Reversal", you basically eliminate the third round. So it goes 1-12, 12-1, 12-1, 1-12, 12-1, 1-12, etc.
I looked at the first nine rounds of a 12-team draft, using my player projections and assuming every team drafted perfectly. Scoring system was standard.
In a serpentine draft, the No. 1 team can expect to be 47 points ahead of the worst team after nine rounds. That's a big difference - over 10 percent.
In the 3RR format, that difference gets whittled down to 27 points.
I've added one additional option. I've called it the "36 Double Reverse". In that one, you go 1-12, 12-1, 12-1, then that 36-pick order is repeated until the draft is over. It moves the team with 12th pick up into the top spot, but overall, the results aren't much different from the 3RR.
SERPENTINE DRAFT
No Pts Pct
1 423 100%
2 404 96%
3 403 95%
4 387 92%
5 385 91%
6 384 91%
12 383 91%
9 382 90%
7 380 90%
11 380 90%
8 379 90%
10 376 89%
THIRD-ROUND REVERSAL
No Pts Pct
1 408 100%
12 398 98%
3 393 96%
11 393 96%
2 391 96%
9 387 95%
10 387 95%
8 383 94%
6 383 94%
4 382 94%
7 381 94%
5 381 93%
36 DOUBLE REVERSE
No Pts Pct
12 405 100%
1 401 99%
11 395 98%
3 391 97%
10 388 96%
2 388 96%
9 388 96%
8 386 95%
6 382 94%
7 382 94%
4 380 94%
5 378 93%
^aEUR"Ian Allan
Ian Allan
June 01, 2013