- INTRODUCTION
Fantasy sports is like life, in that we learn far
more than we ever need to know, yet no one ever educates us on the
most important thing of all. A solid fundamental approach! While I
can’t tell you how to live your life, I can provide some strategies
for approaching this year’s fantasy baseball draft.
- PRE-DRAFT TIPS
Research, research, research. Nothing can replace research.
Find sites with player news, read columns, and use Rotokingdom's draft guide to help you prepare.
When you think you have done enough, do some more. Trust me, you’ll learn
something you didn’t know.
Don’t overvalue spring training. Every year,
a few players come out of nowhere to post monster numbers in spring training.
Scott Hairston is a good 2007 example of this. After an awesome spring training
of 7 HRs, 18 RBIs, 26 hits, and a .426 avg, Scott followed up with a season of a
.243 Avg, 11 HRs, and 36 RBIs. Rarely does that carry into the regular season.
I’m not suggesting that you disregard spring stats altogether. They are useful
in determining potential sleepers if you know what to look for. Generally, highly
regarded prospects who put up numbers like Ryan Braun's 5 HRs can be accepted as
useful information.
Know your league’s settings. What categories count
in your league’s scoring system? How many pitchers do you start? Does your league
include a DH? These are vital questions in determining your draft strategy. For instance,
if you only start two pitchers, but half of the categories are pitching-related, a good
hurler suddenly becomes more valuable.
Rank players by tiers. While ranking players IS a very
imprecise process, it is an essential component of draft preparation. If you skip this
step, you’ll be lost when you’re on the clock. In addition to ranking them in one all-inclusive
list, rank them by position and divide them into tiers. For example, at third base, your top
tier will consist of Alex Rodriguez alone. Your second tier might include David Wright,
Miguel Cabrera and Ryan Braun. Come draft time, the tiers will help guide you with your
selections. For example, if all of the second-tier third basemen are off the board at the
time of your third-round pick, you may decide that you can afford to hold off on that position.
That way, you can use the pick to get a top-tier guy at another position and still probably get
one of those third-tier third basemen in the eighth or ninth round.
Develop a draft strategy. Maybe you are foregoing wins
and strikeouts for ERA and WHIP. Maybe you are disregarding steals and concentrating on power.
Maybe you’re waiting on pitching. Or, maybe you’re just going to take the best player available
and worry about trading for position players later. Whatever the case may be, the important
thing is that you have a plan. Otherwise, you’ll be as lost on draft day.
- GENERAL TIPS
Don’t take sleepers too early. Perhaps the most invigorating
aspect of any fantasy sport is the panning for those precious jewels we call "fantasy studs".
So, being overly anxious to scoop up your sleeper picks before anyone else is totally
understandable. However, you must be patient. Remember, the benefit of nabbing a good sleeper
is that you get a potential star at a point in the draft where others are settling for scrubs.
If you draft your sleeper too early, you’re forfeiting a potential steal down the road.
Where to take a sleeper is an inexact science. As a very general
rule of thumb, target your guy somewhere between where you think he should be ranked and where
you expect him to actually go. Ideally, you want to grab him just before someone else does.
You know you got it right if fellow owners say things like, "I was going to take him this round!"
or "I knew I should have grabbed him last pick!"
Temper your risks. Fantasy baseball is not an X Game. It’s
not about proving how crazy you are. If it was, you might take Gary Sheffield, Pedro Martinez,
Ben Sheets and Ken Griffey with your first four picks. And, hey, it might pay off big time if
all those guys stayed healthy and had career years. A more likely scenario, however, would
have Junior going down in week one with a season-ending injury, Sheets straining an oblique
muscle in his 3rd start, Sheffield's balky elbow robbing him of power, Pedro leading your team
in DL stints, and you suffering a season of ceaseless humiliation at the hands of your
trash-talking buds. As glorified as risk-taking is these days, what wins fantasy leagues is a
conservative approach backed by superlative knowledge. The good owner plays it safe early on
and sets his team apart by getting quality players in the later rounds. With that in mind, you’ll
want to stay as far away from question marks as possible — especially in the first few rounds.
By question marks, I mean injury-prone players and potential one-year wonders.
Injury-prone players – This one is pretty self-evident. Some
injury risks (in addition to those mentioned above) include Francisco Liriano, Manny Ramirez,
Ramon Hernandez, Bobby Crosby, Chipper Jones, Brad Penny, A.J. Burnett, Travis Hafner and
Jason Giambi.
Potential one-year wondersThese are basically guys who had their
first good year last year. There is a history of ballers who had one great season only to fade
into oblivion (Jose Lima, Rich Aurilia, Jarrod Washburn, Pokey Reese, and Jorge Cantu to name a few).
For this reason, you should be leery of players coming off their first good year — especially
veterans with less-than-spectacular career numbers. Last year's biggest potential one-year wonder
has to be Carlos Pena. Be careful not to confuse potential one-year wonders with breakout candidates.
The latter are young, up-n-comers who seem like they are just starting to realize their vast potential
— guys like B.J. Upton, Fausto Carmona and Corey Hart.
- DRAFT-TIME TIPS
The Early Rounds
Play it safe. It has been said that you can’t win a league in the
early rounds of a draft, but you can lose it. To that end, you’ll want to use those initial picks
on reliable studs that produce year-in and year-out — guys like A-Rod, Pujols, Beltran, Holliday,
Reyes, Utley, Ortiz, H.Ramirez, Santana and Cabrera. Tempting as it may be, lay off risks like Roy
Oswalt and Pedro Martinez. In fact, given all the question marks at SP, I’d suggest holding off on
pitchers altogether until the middle rounds. The arms you can snatch up there (like Aaron Harang,
John Smoltz, Javier Vazquez, Matt Cain and James Shields) could very well outperform many of their
higher ranked counterparts.
Go where your sleepers aren’t. One sensible approach in the early
rounds is to shore up positions you’re not confident you can fill in later rounds. If you’ve got a
boat load of sleepers at OF but none at 3B, for example, you might want to use an early pick on
David Wright, Miguel Cabrera or Ryan Braun. Consider position depth. While first basemen and
outfielders are as plentiful; second baseman, shortstops and third basemen are about as scarce.
Hence, filling those shallow positions is a priority. For this reason, if you’re faced with a choice
between Utley and Teixeira, you should take Utley even though Teixeira is the better player.
The Middle Rounds
Solidify shallow positions. If you haven’t filled 2B, 3B, or SS, you
had better get on that before you end up with a year of Bobby Crosby in your starting lineup..
Be on the lookout for slippers. Every year, certain guys slip for
whatever reason. Make sure you don’t miss out on the chance to get a 3rd round guy in the 6th, if
the opportunity presents itself. Potential slippers this season include Ryan Zimmerman, Justin Morneau,
Kelly Johnson, Vernon Wells and Chone Figgins.
Pull the trigger on high profile sleepers. While this is not the time
to start stocking up on sleepers, you can use the middle rounds to grab some high profile sleepers
that could make a big impact. Ben Sheets, Rickie Weeks, Alex Gordon and Jeremy Hermida come
to mind.
The Late Rounds
Sleeperville, USA. I’d take a potential star over a sure-thing
marginal producer every time. You can almost always find someone on the waiver wire that is just
as good as the marginal Mark Ellis-type guy anyway, so why not take a chance on a kid with upside?
That’s why I say the late rounds should be a sleeper frenzy: Mark Reynolds, Evan Longoria, Clay Buchholz,
Justin Upton, Jacoby Ellsbury, Yunel Escobar, Joey Votto and so on.
Backup your weak spots. In all likelihood, your league does not
have enough bench spots to carry a backup at every spot. So, in the late rounds, you’ll want to
reinforce the positions where you are weak or injury prone. For example, if your best shortstop is
Khalil Greene, you might grab Yunel Escobar for security.
Good luck on draft day!
- Bruce Quinto - RotoKingdom Staff Writer
A baseball fan since 1976, Bruce has been playing fantasy baseball since 1992. A winner in numerous competitive leagues, and an annual participant in thr RK Die Hard leagues, Bruce is also a Moderator for the baseball forums where his years of experience will benefit our readers.