How To Win

These are some really good tips Tim, I agree with you all the way.

1. Conservative Projections- I read somewhere they picked Ryan Howard for .325 55 145. You have to use some of your gut here but dont just go onto one site and draft guys in that order.

2. Starting Pitching-Cliff Lee and Dempster are great examples. Ervin Santana is another. I cheated this year and took a guy in the 6th, 8th, and 10th and walked away with Webb, Hamels, and Haren. Luck is good too.

3. Power/Speed- Sometimes a guy who only hits 20 HR is great to have if he contributes in 20 SB (see McLouth, Nate). Guys who are 5-Category threats are much better than 2-Category threats (see Dunn, Adam).

4. Saves- Definitely an overrated stat. Pay nothing for saves. There will always be waiver wire closers or closers that are cheaper that will give you a big return.

5. This is pretty much self explanatory...this is why so many SS 2b,and 3B go early in drafts.

6. Waiver Wire- If you havent made at least 50 moves this year, you probably shouldnt be in first place. A team of all waiver pick-ups (think Quentin, Ludwick, Huff, Lee, Dempster, Volquez, Wood) as seen here: http://www.rotoauthority.com/2008/08/the-2008-undraf.html would most likely be winning your fantasy league now. Get the picture?

7. Pitching 4 Hitting- This is usually a great move for any team to make(unless its Furcal for Cliff Lee). Furcal was due for a slowdown but if he picked up Nolasco to replace Lee he wouldnt have been so bad off. I traded E. Santana and Y. Escobar for Reyes this year, then picked up Rich Harden. The next best available SS was S. Drew. The difference between Santana and Harden vs. Reyes and Drew illustrates this perfectly.

And one of my own:

8. Dont Draft With Your (Corey) Hart- So your a Brewers fan...you think Hart projects at .310 35 and 38 SB coming into this year. Full year as a starter, maturing, almost at power age (28). So you take him over proven guys like Sizemore, Berkman, or Beltran. Or you draft Ellsbury too early because you think he is cute (im sure SOME women play fantasy baseball-or at least thats my fantasy). Im a Red Sox fan and I have no Red Sox on my team this year. Its not as fun, but I am in first.

It may seem early to be thinking about this, but if your like me (and Tim it seems), your draft is only 6 months away!

Excellent list Tim but you missed the number one strategy given the agreed upon conditions.

1) Consolidate, Consolidate, Consolidate. Since there will always be breakout players (early) and pitching available on the wire, trade up. (1) Don't draft too many players that you view as a sleeper that others in your league will disagree on. These players represent dead weight, non-fungible assets that take too long to cash in on. (2) Use two for one, three for one, and three for two offers whenever possible to acquire top-tier players. (3) Fill new roster openings with the talent available on the wire. By the time you're done, your team will be vastly improved over the squad you drafted.

No, until he hit for the cycle, Drew was available for picking up. Its only an 8 man league and up until recently he was batting .260-.270 all year. I think a lot of people were scared of Harden's injuries early in the year so he wasnt drafted.

Great list of rules put together. This is basically what I follow, except that I will draft pitchers earlier, but only elite younger pitchers.

In fact, I built my keeper league team drafting Johan Santana, Tim Lincecum, Dice-K, 1-2-3. I much later added Javier Vazquez then got Clay Buchholz with the minor league draft. Then I added on sleepers like Scott Baker, Andy Sonnanstine, Jonathan Sanchez with much later picks, around where most recommend starting to pick up starting pitchers. Not too shabby if I say so myself. I also have Julio Teheran and Henry Sosa in my minors, plus if Adam Miller could ever get healthy...

I always punt closers, sometimes don't even draft one. My first fantasy team, it was automated ranked list selection, and I ended up with one closer who was no longer a closer and a closer who either soon lost his job or was injured, don't recall. Following your rule of being a waiver wire maniac, I voraciously followed every on-line advice column for clues on closers and was able to jump on every switch almost, for the first 3 months. I was aware of an upcoming change long before it actually happened, allowing me to speculatively pick up the most likely replacement closer. I ended up winning the saves title by a landslide that season.

FYI, I was able to do that with steals as well that season, going from the bottom to nearly the top.

Which brings me to my rule that I will add here, which is tightly linked with the rule on being a waiver wire maniac: NEVER GIVE UP!

That team with the lousy closers? The whole team was lousy because I did not follow the rule in the comment above: I put Giants players high on the ranked list and ended up with a team full of lousy (relatively) players. Last time I ever did that (though I do try to snag one good player, whether Bonds or Cain or Lincecum; gotta have some fun!). Plus Bonds required daily monitoring in case he was sitting out and I had to swap in another OF. I also had players who were injured or poorly performing, like Jake Peavy. I was screwed.

Using my roto advice book, I went through all the prospects who were still available and picked up players like Joe Mauer, David Wright, Justin Morneau, Chase Utley, Willy Taveras, Ian Kinsler, Jesse Barfield, players who were unproven at that time but either had a nice call up the season before or did well in the minors and were highly ranked prospects. I looked for power, speed, and particularly combos.

I was also a waiver maniac for any time a new player was brought up who was a great prospect. Sure, it got me duds like Homer Bailey, but I also picked up gods like Ryan Howard doing that. I guess that leads to my next rule: cut losses short, keep the good ones.

As the rule in the original post noted, if you are not swapping out players at a fast rate (say compared to your league), you are not maximizing your chances. Everyone has at least one or three spots that are deadweight where you can swap out to the latest hot streak. I normally filter out players' performance over the past month and then use the league ranking function to find all the hottest players. From there, I either mark them to Watch or if I see an immediate fix, I swap out a deadweight for the new guy.

And you keep the stars, you only swap out the question marks. I've been able to pick up stars like Lance Berkman, Travis Havner, Mark Teixiera (not in same season, I must note) because somebody got impatient. Again, sure, sometimes he's really done or having a bad season, but if you follow my rule above, he's one of your 1-3 swappables stored in case he returns to normal. Again, you churn that portion of your roster like a maniac.

That was also the team where I ended up near the top in steals, I picked up Dave Roberts after someone dropped him (because of injury) and stored him on my DL until he was healthy and stealing again. I also got Ryan Freel via the waiver wire too, and others helped, like Taveras and Barfield.

With all these moves, I went from the very bottom of the league and ended up coming in third overall.

I also joined another league after the season started, with my new found knowledge, didn't select many Giants (Bonds and Schmidt), and was able to win that league. Thus in my first try at fantasy I ended up 3rd and 1st.

I say this not in bragging, but to point out that I was a total novice and able to do well, so anybody can do well, if they follow these rules.

It should be noted that this (like 99% of online advice, sadly), is intended for mixed draft leagues.

I'd love to see a similar piece for traditional leagues, where the strategies can vary greatly, and all be successful.

The other point is trading pitching for hitting. This is highly variable based on your needs, so it doesn't apply to everyone. According to your strategy, you should draft pitchers late, hope their good, then trade the good ones for better hitters. There are 5 pitching categories right?

I would also add these two, which sort of go together... 1) PATIENCE! I panicked in one league this season and ended up trading a top tier SS for a top closer, and I traded away a bunch of guys when they were slumping instead of waiting them out. If I had waited out five or six guys instead of being a nervous nellie, I'd probably be leading my league now, which brings me to my second point...

2) BUY LOW. I was able to trade for Ryan Howard when he was on the downslope, trading Bedard and Fuentes for him early in the season. For every Pronk and Ortiz out there, there are 3-4 Howards and Teixeiras waiting to explode after you buy low on them.

Let me start out by saying I agree with alot of these points but some of you need to challenge yourselves alittle bit more. I agree with bobo, I am in 2 NL ONLY 3 year Keeper Auction Leagues, where actual GM skills are needed. Not these 8 man mixed league drafts, where you see whose superstars have the best year.

It's all about paying attention to detail, patience, picking your spots, managing your free agent budget correctly, and alittle luck.