I need to win so my friends won't laugh at me

March 13, 2008 10:41 AM

FantasyBaseballFilter: I want to know your fantasy baseball strategies!

I've been playing fantasy baseball for the last 5 years, but have never finished higher than third. I've seen all the different theories out there like LIMA, position scarcity, etc.

So, I ask you MeFites: What strategies do you use to finish in the money every year? I'm looking for draft strategies, player valuation techniques and in-season strategies. Links to blogs, websites and books would be helpful too.

posted by reenum to sports, hobbies, & recreation (17 comments total)

Here are some tips I use. I win fairly often.

1) Draft the best possible players. Use position scarcity to break ties (3B, SS, 2B and C have the weakest players.
2) Draft pitchers later in the draft. They are more unreliable than hitters.
3) Closers can be drafted late. Watch position battles and injuries throughout the season to gain these positions if you miss out on the draft. The closers for the Royals and Devil Rays are never worth very much.
4) Find sleeper pitchers by looking for a good K/9 innings and WHIP
5) Get speed and power during the draft, these are hard to trade for in season.
6) People like rookies and young players, but take proven guys first. Use these guys to fill your rosters.
7) Watch for good players on teams like Milwaukee -- they often fly under the radar since they don't get press like say the Mets or Yankees.
posted by Deep Dish at 11:01 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]

This depends soooo much on what type of league you're in. I assume from your list it's both AL and NL, but is it head-to-head or do the stats accumulate for the season? What specific stats are counted (the most common being a 5 x 5 league). Are you trying to shoot the moon, or just put in a good showing (everyone wants to do as well as possible, but there are safer strategies and riskier strategies). Another factor is how deep your bench is.

You're right that pitchers are more unreliable than hitters. The Conventional Wisdom is that there are always some "lock" pitchers at the top who are worth taking early, though. At least one of these locks always ends up blowing his arm out, but the odds are still good if you can grab one of them.

Strikeout rates are much more consistent from season to season among starters than ERA, so it's probably better to take a high strikeout pitcher with a mediocre ERA than a good ERA pitcher with a mediocre strikeout rate.

"Proven" guys are nice, but they're also old. Look at players' careers (not just their last season) to be sure they haven't peaked and are heading the wrong way.

Speed and power are hard to trade for, but speed (in most leagues at least) only affects one category. Power affects multiple ones.
posted by aswego at 11:15 AM on March 13

It's a bit dated, but I absolutely love McSweeney's Expert Help for your Fantasy Baseball Franchise column, though it's not very helpful.

My personal strategy is to take players that I have personal affection for, plus Alex Rodriguez. I tend to do poorly.
posted by 1 at 11:17 AM on March 13

Middle relievers are often overlooked--the right ones can give you good ERA and WHIP numbers, and might luck into a few saves and vulture some wins. Don't lead with them, obviously, but they're worth more than lousy relivers who happen to be closers (e.g., Todd Jones of the Tigers). It's a good strategy at the back end of the draft or auction.
posted by stevis23 at 11:18 AM on March 13

One thing that has been successful to me is to not keep mediocre pitchers on the roster. I try to get 2 dominant starters and the rest of the rotation is by committee. The #4 and #5 starters on the the top teams are usually living in the free agent pool, so I add them when the match up strongly favors them and then drop them after the start until I need them again. Obviously this only works in a league with unlimited transactions.
posted by COD at 11:49 AM on March 13

"Proven" guys are nice, but they're also old. Look at players' careers (not just their last season) to be sure they haven't peaked and are heading the wrong way.


This is good advice. Guys in their late 30's or 40's can go downhill pretty fast (ie: Matt Stairs), but keep in mind that for example Coco Crisp will probably play more games than Jacob Ellesbury.

Also remember to watch for guys in the draft who are normally good players but fell off because of injuires or off years ie: BJ Ryan, Pedro Martinez, Andrew Jones, Paul Konerko and you may be able to snag in later rounds.

Keep in mind too some things about differences between the AL and NL, and that some parks play better than others (ie: Bedard and Andrew Jones are going to better pitcher's parks.
posted by Deep Dish at 12:01 PM on March 13

Draft skills, not roles. Roles can change at any time on a manager's whim, and skills usually win out.

The most valuable stat to look at for both hitters and pitchers is, in my opinion, strikeout rate vs walk rate. For a pitcher, this is called a Command ratio, for a hitter it is called Batting Eye.

For a hitter, a healthy Batting Eye ratio (>.50) is not alone enough to make them valuable, they also need power and/or speed.

The best info: http://www.baseballhq.com/ , publishers of the Baseball Forecaster, which is required reading.
posted by daser at 12:03 PM on March 13

Certainly look at Baseball Prospectus. They have some heavy stats stuff in the fantasy section - including all their PECOTA ratings.

Fantasy baseball is tough to win. It's a lot like the real thing - you can put together a great team on paper . . . but a few injuries or off years and suddenly you're in 3rd place.
posted by ChrisManley at 12:15 PM on March 13

Subscribe to BaseballHQ.com. Ron Shandler is a genius. Bill James himself said that Shandler is one of the three greatest sabermetricians.
posted by tiburon at 12:43 PM on March 13

I should have specified that this is a mixed roto league. Our categories are R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG, W, SV, K, ERA, WHIP. Pretty standard stuff.

Thanks for the advice so far. Please keep it coming.
posted by reenum at 12:54 PM on March 13

Draft for scarcity. For example, decent outfielders are plentiful, but decent catchers are not. I often draft a bunch of 3B, C, and middle infielders, and then trade some of them to get strong players in other positions.

If your league gives a lot of points for wins, then consider drafting starters on teams with great offenses. These guys often can be taken a little later in a draft. For example, Cleveland's pitchers from the '90s weren't that good, but they won a lot because the offense scored so much. A few more hits/runs could be offset by the bonus from the W. Conversely, a dominant pitcher on a team with no offense might not score as well because he might give up 2 runs and lose.
posted by pandanom at 1:00 PM on March 13

Lots of good advice here. I like daser's point about K:BB ratio, especially for young pitchers, and what everyone says about baseballhq.

Primarily, just stay informed. Read Rotoworld, and maybe RotoAuthority. Getting Albert Pujols and Mark Prior off the waiver wire as rookies helped me win yearly leagues.

At the draft, remember you're building a team. I had an innate bias against little skinny guys with little power, so I had no steals. That was dumb. Rotoauthority has looked at "what it takes to win"-- what you need to get in each stat category to finish in the top 3. Look at projections (CBS Sportsline and RotoAuthority have free ones), and try to build a coherent team.

I like to go into a draft with rankings, and take best available player for the first 6 or 7 rounds, then

Also at the draft, go ahead and take a couple sleepers (depending on how big your rosters are). Corey Hart, Yovani Gallardo, and Frank Thomas have been low-cost, high-value guys for me in the past few years (two of them are Brewers, as Deep Dish points out).

And know your league rules! Know which stat categories the league uses, how many catchers you're starting, how deep your bench is, etc. I've played in keeper leagues with ten bench spots, and yearly leagues with 0 or 1 bench spot. Those rosters look very, very different from each other. In a league with holds, Scot Shields is almost as valuable as Francisco Rodriguez.
posted by ibmcginty at 1:01 PM on March 13

... um, that's, take best available player for the first 6 or 7 rounds, then start to go for sleepers and draft for need. Also, be aware beforehand if there's, say, a 2B you'll be pleased to have who you can get in the 11th round. That means, don't reach for one in the 6th round if there are other players available that you think are more talented.
posted by ibmcginty at 1:04 PM on March 13

When my friends talk about sports I just smile and nod. Frequently, I don't even know what sport they're talking about. I've never won the fantasy league that I participate in but I've come in 2nd a couple times and just missed coming in second again this year. I think the best advice for the things is the same as the best advice for betting on the stock market. Don't try to beat the market with clever strategies. Find some website that has average draft positions from some large dataset. I can't imagine why they wouldn't have this for baseball since they have it's easily available for football.

Here's some general advice I think I came across in a poker discussion. Play your game and let everyone else make mistakes. Just use the ADP data to fill in whatever roster positions you need in a given round. I just read that some simple algorithm beat a collection of recognized experts at picking winners in football games. Really brain dead simple. It might have been "pick the underdog against the spread and the home team in case of a tie." The point is that for the strategy to work you can't fiddle with it.

The other thing which may apply only to me is that you should be organized. You need some way of keeping track of which players are still available, which positions you need to fill. In football, you need to be aware of bye week conflicts. There must be some analogous pitfall in fantasy baseball. When you're a walking sports encyclopedia like some people in my league then you have spare brain cycles to use on this stuff. I generally use a computer draft assistant although unfortunately I haven't really found a great one.
posted by stuart_s at 1:54 PM on March 13

In addition to scoring idiosynchrasies as explained by pandanom, a lot depends on the character of your league, and your roster rules, too. In a league where trading is easy/common, I'd at least consider deliberately drafting players that other people need. While catchers are not very good for points, for example, a team that has all three of Victor, Mauer and Russ Martin will get some phone calls.... and that can be a way to get your pick of the litter later. If there is only one good 3B left available, and four teams don't have one yet... take that last guy, even if you don't "need" him.

In a league where waiver wire pickups are cheap or free, the biggest difference I've seen between doing well and doing poorly is aggressive use thereof. Pitchers have good matchups some weeks. Hitters get hot. Riding guys through very cold spells is slow death. The teams that make the most moves seem to win.

But really... if you are finishing third now, you're probably already doing enough. No matter what, there is a lot of luck involved, and a couple of injuries can make or break a season.

Personally, I never draft for need, ever. I take sleepers and BPAs and sort it out later via trade or free agency or other adjustments. My roster changes so much over the course of six months that there's no point trying to make a team in March.

As for web help, this recent AskMe had some suggestions. Sometimes having more, better, faster info than your competition helps a lot.
posted by rokusan at 1:58 PM on March 13

Draft skills, not roles. Roles can change at any time on a manager's whim, and skills usually win out.

I agree with that, to a point, but if you're playing in a 1-year-or-bust, redraft league, this particular season might not be enough to "win out". Opportunity is a huge part of "success now", which means a player who'll have a chance to play is worth more than one who will rot in the minors or on the bench, even if the latter will be a bigger star in 2010.

Just something else to keep in mind when reading all the advice and projections.
posted by rokusan at 3:22 PM on March 13

stuart_s, you're exactly right that a formula like that will work pretty well if you stick to it and don't meddle. Of course, meddling is the whole fun of "playing", especially in baseball where you have six months and 162 games to meddle with, rather than just 16 in football.

If you stick to a nice reliable averaging system, you will do fine. You'll end up finishing third or fourth pretty much every time.

But to finish first, in my experience, you have to take risks. That means you may finish ninth, of course.

This is a lot like life.
posted by rokusan at 3:24 PM on March 13