“With such a depth of talent in this draft,” began Donahue, “We felt we didn’t have the analytical capacity to ensure we’re picking the best players. So we hired Manuel here, to bring that mindset to the draft room. Maybe he can say a few words about our draft strategy this year.”
Manuel in the draftroom
Pyck, a slight man with a pencil mustache and rimmed glasses, apprehensively approached the microphone. “I have graphs,” he said. “If you look at these graphs, you’ll see that we’ve got all 1,080 amateurs ranked, so we’ll know based on the data who to pick in every round.”“Some teams will call it a day after the first or second round,” Pyck continued. “Like in Chicago, where they let my dumb cousin hang out in the war room, rolling dice all day. But not us. Our scouts and analysts will be working hard until the 25th round, trying to identify any hidden value we can.”
Pyck went on for a while, pointing to unsigned Spuds' draft picks Brent Strom (4th round, 2050) and Victor Mueller (1st round, 2048) as recent examples of when the Spuds clearly didn't know who to draft, ultimately changing their minds after the fact and wasting valuable picks. Pyck stressed that none of the Spuds' 25 picks this year would be wasted. All this was backed up with detailed charts.
“In fact, you’ll be surprised by who we’re taking with the eighth overall pick this year. You see, based on the standard deviation curve—“
“You’d better go get to work,” Donahue cut him off. “The draft starts in a few hours, and we don’t want to give away all our secrets, do we?”