Fantasy Baseball Strategy

Prospect Prospectin'

I want to start this week’s “Prospect Prospectin’” by talking about Roberto Hernandez, formerly known as Fausto Carmona, formerly known as Prince. I might want to hide my true identity as well if I was the owner of a career 4.64 ERA and 5.33 K/9.  Sure, he’s a sinkerball pitcher with an outstanding defense behind him, but the Rays have approximately 1,353 prospects who are better pitchers than Hernandez, namely:

Chris Archer
Archer will be up, and he’ll be up soon. Jeff Niemann just went under the knife, and he was the only player besides Hernandez blocking Archer’s path. Let’s weigh Archer’s pros and cons:

Pros:
- Strikeouts
- Tends to strike opposing batters out
- Lots o’ K’s

Cons:
- Control
- Tends to walk too many batters
- Lots o’ BB’s

That’s Archer in a nutshell. If he can get his walks down, he’s got ace potential. In his first Triple-A start this year he only walked one batter in 5 innings, which is promising. A few more starts like that and we’re going to see Archer blowing big-league hitters away with his nasty stuff like he did during his cup of coffee last year (11.05 K/9 in 29.1 IP). And fantasy owners can start Archer with confidence knowing that the Rays handle their pitchers better than any team in baseball (last year they led the majors with a 3.34 ERA), meaning they won’t call him up until he’s ready. Stash him now, then reap the rewards when Faustberto Carmondez inevitably blows up.

Buy-Curious

Julio Teheran

Okay, so his first start was bad. Like gave-up-five-runs-to-the-lowly-Cubs-and-only-struck-out-two-batters-bad. But he’s still the same pitcher that was one of the most highly touted prospects going into 2012, and looked like freakin’ Bob Gibson in spring training this year, posting a 1.04 ERA in six starts and showing a glimpse of what his potential could be. Okay, so spring training stats are meaningless, and he could absolutely be a bust again this year, but isn’t he worth taking a chance on? If someone in your league dropped him after his rough first outing, he’s definitely worth picking up and stashing away, and I’d even put out a few low-ball trade offers out there for him. The reward could be huge, plus who would you rather hold onto that’s on your roster? Dillon Gee? Phil Humber? I didn’t think so. Fantasy baseball is all about taking risks, and Teheran is a risk worth taking at this point, especially if you can get him for dirt cheap or off waivers.

Drop It Like It’s Cold

Leonys Martin

Before the season started, Ron Washington said of Martin that he was going to “turn him loose” on the basepaths this year. This would be great for fantasy purposes...if Martin could reach the basepaths at all. In a platoon with Craig Gentry in center, Martin has struggled mightily, to the tune of 1 hit and 1 walk in 13 ABs. Small sample size, sure, but unless you’re in a deep league with daily roster changes, you can drop Martin for a hot hitter and pick him up down the road if he finally starts to get it going.

Aaron Hicks

The guy isn't ready for major league pitching. Period.

Third Base Studs You Should Stash Now, Brag Later 

Nolan Arenado

Arenado was the talk of the town last year, but was never called up since the Rockies were out of the playoff race by, well, May. Now all he has in his way is Chris Nelson, who is only batting .261 and has virtually no upside. Meanwhile, Arenado is picking up where he left off in spring training, hitting .438 with 2 bombs in 18 plate appearances. Arenado is not long for the minors.

Anthony Rendon

There was talk of Rendon being promoted last year, but the injury-prone Texan finished yet another year on the DL. With the also oft-injured Ryan Zimmerman and Danny Espinosa already playing through a shoulder injury, it seems like only a matter of time before the now healthy Rendon makes his way to the show. Pick him up now before someone else has the foresight to.

No Longer a Prospect But I’m Mentioning Him Anyway

Garrett Richards

With Jered Weaver out for at least a month, the Angels’ top pitching prospect Garrett Richards will take his spot in rotation. If you’re a Weaver owner looking for a replacement, or in dire need of wins or K’s, Richards could be a worthy add with his strikeout upside (but be forewarned, he has struggled with control). Even if he doesn’t pitch lights out, he’s in line for some wins with that lineup backing him up, and it’s worth mentioning that Richards had the best spring* of any Angels pitcher, posting a 1.45 in 6 games.

*I know spring training stats are meaningless and I keep referring to them. Deal with it.

 

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Stock Watch: Impulse Buying

The first week of the season is always the worst for me. Someone always gets injured (Ryan Ludwick owner here), an ace always gets pounded in his first start (mine was Adam Wainwright), and some closer is always ready to lose his job (John Axford on several teams). When you write expert analysis, it's even worse: might have publicly counseled against drafting Justin Upton, didn't say a word about Chris Davis.

You see, the first week is the worst for me, not just because my teams never fail to have a bad week, but also because you can't trust anything that happened in just one week. Why is Davis tearing the cover off the ball? I don't know. (But I wish he were on any of my teams.) Is Upton's week a sign that he puts it all together into superstardom this year? Maybe. Is Axford doomed to return from whence he came? (I sure hope not.) I can't say any of these things for sure, or even close, but seasons ride on early moves. Every year it seems like an impact player has a killer first week and never lets up, on the way to joining the elite at his position the next year. Think of the fantasy debuts of Dan Uggla, Ben Zobrist, and Jose Bautista. What if you could have snagged Chase Headley off the waiver wire last year. You have to make an impulse buy or three, even if it's just a wild stab in the dark.

Given this--that we're on the lookout for high-upside players at this point--here are some worthwhile buys going into Week 2. I'm not big on trading players this early in the season, so I'll focus on waiver wire pickups here.

Impulse Buys

Gerardo Parra, OF, ARI
Parra is owned in just 32% of Yahoo! leagues and 34% of ESPN leagues, but I'll wager that's about to change. He's running with his chance to impress in Arizona, hitting .458 while two of the outfielders ahead of him on the depth chart (Cody Ross and Adam Eaton) languish on the DL. If he can keep up the hitting, I don't see how they'll keep him out of the lineup.

Jean Segura, SS, MIL
Segura's batting an even .500 for the week, but is only owned in 30% of Y! leagues and a paltry 15% of ESPN leagues. As a prospect with a job, he started the year as a semi-interesting sleeper. Well, he's done about all he can to justify that interest. Any chance to get a shortstop with a live bat is a good idea.

Jose Fernandez, SP, MIA
RotoAuthority's own Peter Karinen wrote Fernandez up last week, so I won't do much more than echo his sentiments here. Fernandez is young and talented, but far from a sure thing, or even a solid bet. He's the sort of guy who is very likely to be dropped off a lot of teams after just a couple weeks...but he's also got the raw stuff to have a real chance of being an impact pitcher. He's worth a try, but don't drop anyone good to get him.

Franklin Gutierrez, OF, SEA
It's been a long time since we've seen him, but a healthy Gutierrez is a pretty decent player. Hitting nearly .400 with a pair of homers, it looks like the guy that gave the Mariners 18 HR's and 16 SB's in 2009 might have returned. He could be better than plenty of drafted fifth OF's.

Bargain Bin

Bartolo Colon, SP, OAK
Colon has finished his suspension and returned to Oakland. Will he be an impact guy? Obviously not. But he does stand a pretty good chance of being decent. In deep leagues, he's actually a pretty safe choice to add. He beat Houston in his debut (not that that tells us anything), and he walked just 23 batters in 152.2 IP last year.

Travis Wood, SP, CHC
Wood pitched extremely well against the anemic Pirates, and he's got just enough history of success to think that he might be useful if you're looking for a pitcher. Perhaps more to the point, he's slated for two starts next week, so owners in weekly changes leagues may be interested.

Luis Mendoza, SP, KCR
Mendoza whiffed seven Phillies in his debut, and that counts for something. Not terribly much, as his track record is nothing to speak of.

Chris Iannetta, C, LAA
Tyler Flowers, C, CHW
Wilson Ramos, C, WAS

These three catchers are all owned in fewer than 20% of Y! leagues, but all have a pair of homers and lofty batting averages. Making things more interesting is that all of them have shown just enough in previous seasons to register as possibly useful going forward. Flowers probably has the best combination of upside and team trust at this point.

Vernon Wells, OF, NYY
The Yankees already found Wells in the bargain bin (well, sort of) and he's off to a hot start. New York has little reason not to play the hot hand right now, so if Wells keeps hitting, he'll find the playing time. Who knows, maybe the Yanks really did like what they saw in Spring Training.

Sell...No One

Sorry, but it's way too early to start giving up on anyone. I'm not going to put anyone on this week's list to shuffle away from your team. Everyone will be too scared to trade for obvious overperformers like Chris Davis, and a single week's worth of data isn't nearly worth giving up on your top sleepers or shipping off struggling stars. Wait till next week for that.

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How to Win: Last Minute Draft Strategy

On today's Very Special Episode of How to Win, I'm not going to cover a particular stat or position. Instead, I'm going to take a step back and share what I've learned from this year's drafting season and try to pass on this newfound knowledge in time for the final weekend of drafting. If this comes too late to you...I'm sorry. Just remember that it came too late for my first several drafts too.

Maybe I haven't been in the most drafts this year, but I think I've been in more than most: Thursday was my third, and I was assistant to my wife on two more. (Yeah, I'm lucky that my wife is a fantasy baseball junkie too.) Drafts and mocks have basically been my job this month. Well, they are my job, actually. I've done Roto, H2H, standard 5x5, non-standard categories, shallow 23-rounders, deep 27-rounders with 15 teams, Yahoo!, ESPN, and later today I'll cap the season with a monster 30-round, 14-team, CBS H2H points league. So I'm gonna be needing my own advice.

Know Your Format
The first thing to keep in mind is that there are literally several different formats out there: know your format! How many DL slots do you have? Is it points or categories? Five-by-five or something more arcane? Weekly matchups or roto style? One catcher or two? Weekly changes or daily? Is there an innings cap or not? The possibilities could go on and on. For at least another sentence. The point is that these things--even the smaller seeming ones--can make a huge difference in how you draft. Take that DL slots one: I drafted for Blog Wars not too long ago, but at the end of the draft I couldn't remember how many DL slots we had. The clock was running out and my Internet was slow and I couldn't find the league settings fast enough. So I found out the hard way and Colby Lewis is my waiver claim, not on my bench.

Some players are differently valuable in different formats. For instance, Curtis Granderson, Hanley Ramirez, Chase Headley, Matt Garza, and any other injured player is a lot more useful in H2H leagues that utilize DL slots. Discount them if you're playing standard roto, where their April (or more) absences are just as important as their (presumed) presence down the stretch in September. Discount them even more if your league doesn't give you a DL.

A really important one for me is the difference between weekly and daily formats. In a weekly format you typically play two relievers and need to fill the rest of your spots with starters; three relievers is pretty much the max you can afford. So don't get more than that, and don't waste a pick on a non-closer. Daily is totally different. Non-closers who get strikeouts are useful, and you can pile on the closers to win big in saves without sacrificing your wins and K's. Similarly, don't bother with a platoon hitter in all but the deepest weekly formats. In daily though, even Raul Ibanez can come in handy.

Catcher Strategy

With five drafts in my pocket, I have yet to draft (or suggest to draft) a catcher early. With fewer at-bats than other players, they impact your team less in average, help less in counting stats, and generally aren't any good at all. Plus, quality catchers run pretty deep. Three years ago, wouldn't you have been thrilled to have Ryan Doumit's .270 average and 15 HR's at catcher? Yes. Now, he's the 14th catcher in my rankings and even lower in others. Whether it's a single or double catcher league, I've been following pretty much the same strategy: wait for a great deal on a catcher, or be the last one to get one. Is Buster Posey great? Yeah. Should you use a first-round pick to get him? No. Snatch him up if he falls to the third. On Thursday (in a single-catcher league), I waited until the 20th round before I took my catcher, Brian McCann. Two rounds later I took Doumit to fill in while he's injured. I could get nearly equal catching production to people who used much earlier picks for this position.

Starter Strategy

There is no one good strategy for starers, but the most important thing to do will be to stick to yours. I actually don't recommend going into the draft with a set strategy for starters; instead, I let my first couple picks determine my course. Sometimes I've gone with a single ace (usually Strasburg) and waited for a while. I've taken pairs of aces with back-to-back picks (maybe Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia), and I've grabbed three sub-aces-with-strikeouts a little later on (Max Scherzer, Yovani Gallardo, James Shields). Depending on how much risk I've already assumed, I might load up on high upside starters in the middle rounds, snag one or two seemingly dependable starters, or wait all the way until the late rounds to fill out my rotation with a mix of sleepers (Marco Estrada is a favorite) and boring vets (Ryan Dempster and Bronson Arroyo come to mind).

Reliever Strategy

Get three relievers. I just don't see that much downside. I had always been the guy that gets one reliever and then happily ignores them until the 15th round and beyond, snatching up several bottom-dwellers in after the 20th. Well, not only did that strategy torpedo me in saves in last year's Silver League (I can't believe Carlos Marmol, Grant Balfour, and Greg Holland were closers then, are closers now, and still sunk me in saves by losing their jobs) it isn't nearly as viable this year. With several teams in an unsettled limbo at closer, the saves pool is shallower than ever at a very risky position.

In some drafts I've reached for an early top gun (I just had to have Rivera on a team in his last season; there was no way my wife and I could pass on Kimbrel in the 5th round), but I've aimed for three closers in each draft. Nearly every time I've gotten at least two closers from a big tier that I consider to be solid values around the 10th-12th rounds: John Axford, Jason Grilli, Glen Perkins, Rafael Betancourt, Greg Holland and Tom Wilhelmsen. Actually, J.J. Putz, Rafael Soriano, and Sergio Romo are in that group for me too, but everyone else values them a bit higher I guess.

After these guys, most closers have serious question marks or less than a full hold on the job. Let someone else take the risks. As for playing the waiver wire for saves in season: do it! But starting with a solid relief corps means you'll win bigger and have goods to trade down the line. It also means you're safer in case you have a slower free agent trigger finger than other teams in your league.

On every team, I feel like I have a solid group of closers less likely than most to lose their jobs to ineffectiveness and the rest of my team still looks pretty strong. I haven't been able to afford a fourth closer...they're just all gone by the 15th round or so, even the likes of Bobby Parnell and Casey Janssen.

Speaking of Janssen, it looks like he can start moving up draft boards with his sudden return to health and Sergio Santos beginning to struggle.

Get three closers.

Speed Strategy

So you didn't get Mike Trout or Ryan Braun with your first pick, which means that you probably aren't getting 30 steals out of a heavy hitter. (Let's face it, Andrew McCutchen, and Carlos Gonzalez won't be doing that, and I bet Matt Kemp won't either.) Where do you get speed? Fortunately you've got choices, most of which belong in the outfield or at shortstop. You can use an early pick for an elite base-stealer like Jose Reyes, Jacoby Ellsbury, B.J. Upton, or Michael Bourn. You can wait until the end at both positions and take Elvis Andrus (who won't be there, but he should be), Alcides Escobar, or Everth Cabrera at short, or Brett Gardner, Coco Crisp, Ichiro Suzuki, Cameron Maybin, Drew Stubbs, or other "speed bums" in the outfield. I strongly suggest getting at least one of the latter group in any deep format.

Watch out for sneaky players in the early and middle rounds that steal bases on top of their regular value. Remember that speed is priced into their draft cost, but that players like Shin-Soo Choo, Ian Kinsler, Dustin Pedroia, and Yoenis Cespedes can help you a lot as a group, but none of them can crash the category all by himself.

Roll with the Punches, Go with the Flow, Blah, Blah, Blah

You've got to be flexible with your rankings and your draft strategy. If shortstops are flying off the board to the tune of Erick Aybar in the 7th round, then do what it takes to make sure you aren't left starting Alexei Ramirez or Zack Cozart, even if it means drafting Alcides Escobar, J.J. Hardy, or Everth Cabrera ten rounds ahead of where you planned. It won't kill your team: the fair market price for their services got more expensive; for some other position it will have necessarily become cheaper. If you can't adjust, you'll be left in the dust. Similar things can happen to catchers and relievers,and it's important to balance flexing with your league-mates, and striking your own path. Don't take Addison Reed in the third round just because seven closers just went off the board. But take him in the 10th if you need a second closer and he's the only good one left.

Don't Just Make Tiers, Use Them!

It's easy to just go down your player list, even if you've broken everything up into tiers. Don't do that. Your tiers (or ours--you can use them for free) are there for a reason. Do you need speed or power? Hopefully there's some of both in that fifth OF tier. Do you want to take a big risk with your fifth starter, or get someone steady to balance out risks you've already taken? There should be a sprinkling of both in the tier.

Forget Your Tiers and Rankings

You probably didn't get up this morning and make all your tiers and rankings fresh for today's draft. If you did...well, okay. Otherwise, you've had time to gather more information, read more analysis, gauge the relative wisdom of the crowds you've drafted with, and otherwise reevaluate every player in the game. I know I ranked Danny Espinosa near Jimmy Rollins, but I just can't bring myself to draft Espinosa where I've got him ranked: I was just too high on him in my personal tiers. If I want Carlos Gomez, I'll have to bump him way up--he's just too popular to land where I've tiered him, so if I need his power/speed combo, I have to decide whether or not to overpay. Roy Halladay is another example of this: he goes deeper and deeper into my rankings seemingly every time, as the news has yet to be positive about him. He's dropped from my initial expectation of the 5th round, to the 7th, and then the 10th, and lately the 12th. 

Trust yourself and the decisions you made about most players. Unless you have good reason not to.

Position Scarcity

Intimately related to the three sections above, your strategy for dealing with scarce positions (second base, shortstop) relative to deep ones (first base, outfield, pitcher, catcher) will be different in every league.

Take the standard Yahoo! format (of which I am not a fan, by the way): with eligibility down to basically three innings (actually 5 games started), basically everybody is eligible everywhere. (Get extra value in Kyle Seager at 2B, Mark Trumbo at 3B, and Martin Prado at SS and 2B.) On top of that, the standard format doesn't include MI or CI, but does give you two Util slots. What does that mean? You're now expected to have one 2B from an expanded pool, one SS from an expanded pool, and one 3B from an expanded pool...and you might as well take three 1B since you can play them all. In this format, 1B and OF are extra valuable and you can get pretty good production at the "premium positions" without using early picks. My wife took Joey Votto with her first pick, and there was no good reason not to grab Edwin Encarnacion with her third. Her production up the middle is just fine!

Contrast that with the style we use for the RotoAuthority and Silver Leagues, where we run five OF's, a MI, and a CI. It's like every position is scarce! Don't neglect your outfield in these formats (or, like me, you may have a team in which Coco Crisp is your number two OF), but make sure to fill at least one infield position in the first few rounds. Notice also, that the injuries to Ramirez and Headley, plus the questions about Pablo Sandoval have made 3B a noticeably shallower position than it was at the beginning of Spring Training.

Don't Drink and Draft (Unless You're in my Leagues)

I get that it's more fun. Of course it is. But fantasy baseball isn't about fun, it's about winning! Plus, you can have a good time without impairing your strategy to the point where Yahoo!'s autodraft mechanism is a safer bet than your judgement. In a related vein, I don't recommend drafting anywhere with an environment that isn't conducive to clear thinking. Sometimes this means draft in your home...sometimes it means get as far away from your home as possible.

A Few Final Words

I don't have any final words. If you haven't drafted yet, good luck!

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How to Win: Saves

Saves are a curious phenomenon. Invented quite recently--for a stat with the weight of tradition--their presence in baseball's statistical pantheon has actually changed the way games are played and millions of dollars are apportioned. If not for this category, you might still be seeing the game's best relievers pitching the seventh and eighth innings of tied ballgames...not waiting until the ninth, only to sit down if a lead disappears or grows over three. See, saves are illogical, and that's just something we all have to accept before we can win this category.

Saves are subject to several factors, only one of which is a pitcher's performance. Since nearly all saves are doled out to just 30 pitchers at any given time, the manager's choice of pitcher matters too. For some teams (like the Braves) the choice is easy. The Tigers are having a tough time with it. What goes into the manager's closer decision? Who knows for sure, but performance, raw ability, reputation, and appearance all seem to go into it. Recent performance matters too: a quality pitcher can go into a rough patch with a closer gig and high fantasy value and leave with neither. Finally, winning games is part of it too...but, so is winning by a little. I like to target good or mediocre teams with better pitching than hitting.

There are, broadly speaking, two ways to win this one: more closers, or more information. 

To help you do either one, our first list is of the 24 closers who have a firm grip on their jobs. Note that this is not the same as last year's leaders, nor is it a ranking. You can check out our RP Rankings, or our Closer Depth Chart for information on each team's backup closers.

Firm Closers*

AL West

Grant Balfour, OAK
Tom Wilhelmsen, SEA
Jose Veras, HOU
Joe Nathan, TEX

NL West

Sergio Romo, SFG
Rafael Betancourt, COL
J.J. Putz, ARI
Huston Street, SDP

AL Central

Greg Holland, KCR
Glen Perkins, MIN
Chris Perez, CLE
Addison Reed, CHW

NL Central

John Axford, MIL
Jason Grilli, PIT
Jonathan Broxton, CIN**
Jason Motte, STL

AL East

Mariano Rivera, NYY
Joel Hanrahan, BOS
Jim Johnson, BAL
Fernando Rodney, TBR

NL East

Steve Cishek, MIA
Jonathan Papelbon, PHI
Rafael Soriano, WAS
Craig Kimbrel, ATL

*I say firm, but you know I don't mean it. These guys might not be fighting for jobs now, but any could lose it during the season to injury, sudden ineffectiveness, or manager's caprice.

**Brox is solidly a closer as long as the "Aroldis Chapman: Starting Pitcher" plan continues. If Chapman returns to the bullpen, expect him to bump Broxton out of the closer's chair.

With only 24 known closers this late into Spring Training, saves are already a rarer draft commodity than they used to be. It's down to two guys per team in a standard league; you could easily be stuck with just one in a deep league. The volatility inherent to closers makes me usually want to avoid them early in drafts (what I really like is snapping up three or four of the last six taken, but that doesn't look like such a good idea this year). This year, more than in others, I'd strongly consider using early and middle picks to get more than one of the top closers.

Closer Cage Matches

Not every save comes from a closer with a solid job. Each division hosts a team that can't seem to make up its mind about their stopper, and you can (with a little luck) profit from taking a chance with pitchers in those situations. Just don't depend on them. I went into a little more detail about these cases on Friday, so I'll keep it brief here.

Angels: Ernesto Frieri v. Ryan Madson

Frieri should start as closer; the plan is that Madson will return to the job when he's healthy.

Dodgers: Brandon League v. Kenley Jansen

League has been dubbed "closer" by the Dodgers...but they've done this before, and Jansen is really, really good. Especially at striking people out.

Tigers: Bruce Rondon v. Joaquin Benoit v. Al Alburquerque v. Phil Coke v. someone they haven't traded for yet.

This one's a mess. If you can spare your last round pick to have a horse in the race, go for it.

Cubs: Carlos Marmol v. Kyuji Fujikawa

Marmol is the closer. Marmol is very available in trade. Don't expect him to close in his new destination.

Blue Jays: Sergio Santos v. Casey Janssen

Janssen is hurt, but was supposed to have the job. Santos was pitching very well, but he was hurt last year and now he might be a little bit hurt.

Mets: Bobby Parnell v. Frank Francisco

Parnell is a pretty good pitcher who isn't hurt. Francisco is a volatile (but underrated) pitcher who is hurt.

Any of these situations could also end up in job shares or committee approaches. I've listed the current frontrunner first in each case (though others might be less bullish on Santos and Parnell), but all of these teams' plans are way up in the air.

Draft More Closers

Now that we've actually found the closers, we can get back into some real strategy. As I said above (long ago, by now), one of the two main ways to win saves is to have the most closers. In some years, you can do this on the cheap, by getting undervalued closers way at the back end of your draft. This year, not so much. You can also spend heavily on the most elite closers, those unlikely to lose their jobs even after blowing two or three saves in a row. (That can happen to anybody.)

I recently tried this strategy out in a Yahoo! mock draft. A standard Yahoo! league is very shallow, and it doesn't contain MI or CI spots, and only runs three OF's. What does this mean for closers? Well, if I only need one player at each premium position, then I can stand to spend a little more on closers. That's what I did. I drafted four closers, and if this were a real league, I would win saves for sure with this crew. Here's my whole team (for context), with relievers in black:

1. Giancarlo Stanton (Mia - OF) 
2. Edwin Encarnacion (Tor - 1B) 
3. Cliff Lee (Phi - SP) 
4. Craig Kimbrel (Atl - RP) 
5. Aramis Ramirez (Mil - 3B) 
6. Shin-Soo Choo (Cin - OF) 
7. Jonathan Papelbon (Phi - RP) 
8. Jose Altuve (Hou - 2B) 
9. Michael Bourn (Cle - OF) 
10. Ian Kennedy (Ari - SP) 
11. Anibal Sanchez (Det - SP) 
12. Nick Swisher (Cle - 1B,OF) 
13. Brian McCann (Atl - C) 
14. John Axford (Mil - RP) 
15. Jason Grilli (Pit - RP) 
16. Alcides Escobar (KC - SS) 
17. Todd Frazier (Cin - 1B,3B,OF) 
18. Wade Miley (Ari - SP) 
19. Hisashi Iwakuma (Sea - SP,RP) 
20. Josh Rutledge (Col - 2B,SS) 
21. James McDonald (Pit - SP) 
22. Bronson Arroyo (Cin - SP) 
23. Jason Hammel (Bal - SP) 

My starting pitching is a little thin, and I don't have much bench, but I think it's a decent team. (If you don't, let me know in the comments, so I don't do this in a real draft...) The important thing, though, is that I will win saves.

Presumably, you can spend extra on saves without going to this extreme. One way to do this is to grab closers that are better than their draft positions. In case you didn't notice, I did a little of that on the team above.

John Axford is the 5th reliever going on MockDraftCentral, and 8th on RotoAuthority's rankings, so there's no value there...except that he's number 13 on Yahoo!

Similarly, Glen Perkins is our 15th ranked closer, and he goes at a fair 14th on MDC, but you can get him 21st on Yahoo!

Jason Grilli is our 10th closer ranked, but he's going 19th on MDC and 17th on Yahoo! Grilli (and his awesome 13.81 K/9) are very underrated.

Rafael Betanourt is our 14th closer, but he's 18th on MDC and 16th on Yahoo!

Addison Reed is our 17th closer, but he's 22nd on MDC and 20th on Yahoo!

Huston Street is our number 16, but he lasts until number 24 on MDC. On Yahoo!, though, he's ranked 12th, so be careful.

Jose Veras is way down everybody's lists, but saves could be extra-hard for him to come by: even at 250 overall on Yahoo! and 303 on MDC, he's probably still the second Houston Astro taken in many drafts. Yeah, that's a bad team.

Any of these pitchers--or any other--could get very underrated in any draft you might do. Even when intending to fill some other position, remember to consider grabbing a value closer if one slips to you. In an auction, of course, this is even easier to see, though your leaguemates might make you pay a premium if they notice you trying to amass an All-Star bullpen.

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You can succeed in saves without spending more than the competition. In last year's Silver League, the team that won in saves finished at or near the top of the whole league standings. That team didn't break the bank on closers in the draft (though I seem to recall them spending the normal amount). Instead, throughout the year, they consistently snatched up some of the best closers to take over jobs midseason. Helpfully, I believe they started by nabbing Fernando Rodney.

If you think you can succeed this way, I say go for it. All it means is more more work, and it can really pay off. Following our own @CloserNews Twitter feed is a great way to start, but I'd suggest loading up on as many information sources as you can. It helps living on the West Coast, or staying up late to catch the night games and news. Injuries and managerial decisions can happen at any time, and in many leagues, a newly minted closer will have been snatched up by the time you wake up in the morning. 

There's another way to squeeze saves out of your team, and that is to stream setup guys. It takes some seriously careful watching (it was a lot easier for me to do when I was taking night shifts on the @CloserNews feed, I'll tell you that), but when a closer has pitched two or three days in a row, you won't expect him to come in the next day, so you grab his backup and hope for a save opp. For a couple years, I've wanted to try devoting a whole team to this strategy, but I haven't gotten around to it, mostly for time zone related reasons.

A Few Final Words: Different Strategies for Different Leagues

I'm in five different leagues next season, and I'll have at least four different strategies for success in saves. If your league does daily changes and has a lot of open P slots, then either of the strategies above will work well for you. You can leave most of your relievers in on most days (or cycle in your streamers), and sit them when you need to put in extra starters. It's like reliever paradise. I'll probably go for quantity in one, and information in another and see what happens.

But I also play in leagues with weekly lineup changes and waiver wire pickups, and one of them allows only two relievers--but awards them a ton of points. For these, my plan will (probably) be to get at least one high quality reliever, one medium quality guy, and a third or fourth injury backup. Or maybe I'll go for two of the top ten and hope for the best. We'll see how the draft goes.

Some leagues do quite a few categories: 7x7 or even 10x10. The more categories you have, the less you should spend on closers. Similarly, points leagues can have very valuable closers, or make them pretty worthless. On the flip side of things, if you play in a 4x4 league (the original standard), saves just got way more valuable. Ratchet closers up your lists accordingly.

Whether you play in a deep league or a shallow league, with weekly changes or daily, with just two RP slots or more than you can even use, there is a value for saves out there. Whatever it is pay that, and not more. In a head-to-head league, you could even punt the category (but don't, because someone else will and even one closer will beat that team twice next year), but every little bit helps in standard Rotisserie.

There's an old adage floating around in the aether of our cultural consciousness that, "It's better to be lucky than good." Nowhere is this more true than in getting saves for your fantasy baseball team, so: good luck!

By the way, this concludes the standard 5x5 categories, but it doesn't conclude the How to Win series. My plan is to examine OBP next week, since plenty of leagues use the stat and it indirectly affects all leagues. If a bunch of people clamor for something else, though, maybe I'll change the plan....

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How to Win: Strikeouts

Last Week on How to Win, I discussed a category in which I did particularly well last year: Stolen Bases. We'll do the same this week, with Strikeouts, before we go on to the categories in which I need to improve as much as anyone else: all the others.

Quick Overview
I love me some strikeouts. Last year, my fifth place Silver League team ran away with this category (so yeah, my other categories had some rough times). Part of that might have been amassing enough innings to eclipse our 1500 max a little early (and that after dumping every starter but David Price at some point in September), but that wasn't the whole story. Volume is half the story, though, the rest comes in the rate. Below we'll examine both halves of a winning strategy--and how going overboard isn't necessarily great for your ERA and WHIP.

2012's Top 24

1. Justin Verlander               239
2. Max Scherzer                     231
3. R.A. Dickey                         230
4. Clayton Kershaw               229
5. Felix Hernandez                223
5. James Shields                     223 
7. Yu Darvish                           221
8. Cole Hamels                        216
9. Gio Gonzalez                        207 
9. Cliff Lee                                 207
11. David Price                         205
12. Yovani Gallardo                204
13. Zack Greinke                      200
14. CC Sabathia                        197
14. Stephen Strasburg            197
16. Jake Peavy                           194
17. Matt Cain                            193
18. Chris Sale                            192
19. Madison Bumgarner        191
20. Tim Lincecum                    190
21. Ian Kennedy                       187
22. Mat Latos                            185
23. Adam Wainwright            184
24. A.J. Burnett                        180
24. Lance Lynn                        180
24. Jeff Samardzija                 180 

Most of baseball's best pitchers show up on this list and it's easy to say that the best way to help yourself in strikeouts is to get at least two of these guys. That's what I was trying to do when I drafted Price and Dan Haren. The only reason it worked out, of course, is because I soon flipped Haren for Scherzer, among others. So there was a bit of good luck. None of the rest of these guys made it onto my team, though, leaving me with a need fore a little more creativity.

High K/9 Pitchers
Not every pitcher on the list above put up huge K/9 numbers, but all had good ones--in fact, only Peavy, Cain, and Latos were under 8 K/9 and all three sat in the 7.90's. Of course, not every pitcher with a high strikeout rate pitches enough to make it onto this leaderboard. Getting those guys (and hopefully for longer stints in 2013) is a great way to patch up a fantasy rotation with a bunch of strikeouts. The way I figure, is that if I have to have some non-aces on my team, they better be handy with the whiffs. Here are a few pitchers who missed the cut when it came to innings last year but might still pad your K's next year. Everyone below pitched at least 100 innings last year and struck out at least eight batters per nine IP.

Francisco Liriano        9.59
Mike Fiers                      9.52
Felix Doubront             9.34
Marco Estrada              9.30
J.A. Happ                       8.96
Matt Moore                    8.88
Bud Norris                      8.82
Carlos Villanueva         8.76
Jason Hammel             8.62
Edinson Volquez          8.57
Jake Arrieta                   8.56
Johan Santana             8.54
Erik Bedard                    8.45
Matt Garza                     8.33
Tommy Hanson           8.30
Ivan Nova                      8.08 

As you can see, results and potential fantasy value vary wildly on this list, from the misery that was Francisco Liriano, to the health-restricted performences of Santana, Hammel, and Garza, and to the late callups of Fiers and Estrada. There are a lot of ways to get a lot of strikeouts when you're pitching, without making it to the leaderboard. (To be fair, Moore and Volquez literally just missed the cut.) It might be worth noting that my own team featured Estrada, Doubront, and Villanueva from among this group.

Not only are these players interesting draft targets (from a strikeout perspective anyway, your ERA and WHIP stats certainly cringe at some of them), you can utilize 2013's versions of them, whoever they might end up being. Of course, several of these were mid-season surprises, so there's no real knowing which injury replacements might come up and help your fantasy team as much as their real team. Here's a couple fairly drowsy sleepers, though: Chris Narveson and Scott Baker. The Brewers and Cubs are both linked to more than one name on this list, which tells me how they feel about pitchers who can get strikeouts, and both Narveson and Baker have generated their share of whiffs during their oft-interrupted stays in the Majors. Don't forget about stashable pitchers coming back from injury part way through the season, like Brandon Beachy, Cory Luebke, and Danny Duffy.

High IP 
There's another route you can go, though, and this one's group of pitchers is somewhat less volatile than the group above. Finding pitchers who pitch a lot, whether they have high strikeout rates or not, can let you rack up strikeouts in bulk. This option is much better for those in head-to-head leagues, however, since heaping on the innings can hurt you badly when you start facing the IP cap. The nice thing, though, is that pitchers that teams entrust with tall innings counts year after year are usually a bit better than average, and (seemingly) much healthier--though obvious exceptions will apply. Here are the last three years' top innings eaters not found on the previous lists. All have pitched at least 600 innings since 2010.

Dan Haren                    650
Jared Weaver                648.2
Roy Halladay                640.2
C.J. Wilson                   629.2
Ervin Santana               629.1
Tim Hudson                  622.2
Hiroki Kuroda              618
Mark Buehrle                618
Bronson Arroyo            616.2
Ricky Romero               616
Jason Vargas               611
Jon Lester                     605
Trevor Cahill                604.1
Justin Masterson        602.1

Some of these guys fell off the list above--and out of fantasy's most valuable pitchers--last year through injuries, like Halladay, or a mysterious plunge in K/9 rate, like Weaver. Others, though, just don't generate that many strikeouts in a per inning basis. They can all be pencilled in for 200 IP, though, which means that they'll be of some help in those strikeouts.

It also seems worth noting that Edwin Jackson just missed being part of this group, with 598.2 IP, and he just missed the High K/9 group, with a 7.97 mark. To me, that makes him a really useful asset.

 
Relievers
Relief pitchers are a great way to pad your strikeout totals if you're worried about an innings limit. They get a lot more bang for their buck with their high rates than all but the best starters. Though they don't add a huge amount in raw total, using two or three in concert can be a sort of cobbled-together ace, Frankenstein-style. Of course, they eat up more roster spots than starters and tend to make small (or catastrophic) impacts on your rate stats without helping much at all in wins or, unless they're actual closers, saves. Since everybody's going to be snatching up closers, good or not, we'll only look at relievers not projected to close in 2013, regardless of what they used to do.

Antonio Bastardo        14.02
Ernesto Frieri               13.36 
Jim Henderson            13.21
David Hernandez        12.91
Steve Delabar                12.55
David Robertson          12.02
Tim Collins                    12.01
Jake McGee                   11.87
Jake Diekman              11.52
Jeremy Horst                11.49
Louis Coleman             11.47
Alex Hinshaw              11.44
Sean Doolittle               11.41
Andrew Miller              11.48
Joel Peralta                   11.38
Jesse Crain                    11.35
Alberto Cabrera            11.22
Wade Davis                   11.13

I made 11.13 the cutoff point, since that was Stephen Strasburg's mark last year--the best of any starter. The list goes on and on, though. Anyone on this list--or among the next large number of names with even a hint of the occasional save bears watching. Those at the very top of the list might deserve drafting even if they end up with no saves or wins at all.

(I don't know if Frieri or Ryan Madson will be closing for the Halos, so I'll include him here just in case.)

A Few Last Words
There are a lot of ways to go about succeeding in the strikeout category. One nice thing, is that, like steals, whiffs seem often to be available on the waiver wire. There are a number of less-than-excellent pitchers who rack up strikeouts and they can help your team if used right. Plus, real teams are always excited to call up a hard-throwing prospect and they can light up the real and fantasy baseball worlds long enough to help your team, even if they end up fizzling out. I do recommend a staff ace (actually, I try for two) who strikes people out in a big way. Think of Stephen Strasburg as a power/speed threat but for pitchers. If you play in a league with an IP cap, I'd avoid the innings-eaters altogether. If you don't, however--and especially if your league has barriers against streaming--I'd grab several. Strikeouts come from all kinds of places, and mixing several sources is always a good way to go. 

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In-Draft Management

Andrew writes in to ask:

What kind of information do you have in front of you during a draft?  I've tried keeping spreadsheets, crossing guys off, and auto-updating the rest of the population, but it always ends up being not simplistic enough and I can't keep up with the pace of the draft, especially in the mid to late rounds.

I know what you mean, it can be a challenge to keep track of things while also getting ready for your next pick.  Here's what I do for online drafts.

• I create a simple spreadsheet containing basic projected stats that ranks players by dollar value.  Pitcher stats are not shown, just hitters.  Pitchers are included but the only info for them is the dollar value.  It is a sacrifice I am willing to make.  The sheet also contains average draft position from Yahoo or Mock Draft Central or whatever you like.  Another column translates average draft position into draft round by dividing ADP by 12 and rounding up.
• This sheet also has games played data, so that I can quickly filter to see which shortstops are available and whether I need to act soon to get a good one.  If I want to filter to see pitchers only I can go to any stat category (ABs for example) and choose Blanks.
• When a player is drafted, I do a Ctrl-F to find the player and I delete that row of the spreadsheet. Obviously Yahoo does the same, but they don't have my dollar values.  Since Yahoo leaves 1:30 between picks I am usually able to keep up.
• I create a second sheet on the spreadsheet for My Team.  It lists all the positions and I fill in the names as I draft them.  I also list the specific pick numbers I have.  For example, if I draft eighth I have pick #8, 17, 32, 41, and so on.  Before the draft I make a list of several players I am targeting at each pick who I do not think will be available at the following pick.
• If there is downtime between picks (1:30 can seem like an eternity) I drag guys I like into my queue so I don't forget about them.  By the time my pick rolls around I know exactly who I want. 
• For a live draft I would do something similar but just cross guys off instead of deleting rows.  Since you can't filter by position on a piece of paper it may make sense to print out position-by-position sheets ranked by dollar value.

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Approach To The Early Rounds

Derek Carty over at Hardball Times describes his approach to the first few rounds of his drafts.  He goes after safe, consistent players.  I couldn't agree more, and I also ended up with David Wright, Carlos Lee, and Lance Berkman in many drafts last year.

Back in September I wrote a simple post entitled How To Win.  Readers added a bunch of good stuff in the comments.  I think the big picture is that you shouldn't get too cute.  Don't pick the "next big thing" in the first round, don't work off wild projections, don't draft pitchers too early, don't ignore position scarcity.

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How To Win

I would like to get back to basics for this post.  Time to discuss my strategy for winning a fantasy baseball mixed league of normal size and conditions (H2H or roto).  All of my title-winning fantasy teams were built this way.  Feel free to add your methods in the comments.

• Use conservative projections.  Ideally,  you should average preseason projections together from five different sources.  This drastically reduces the risk of overrating or underrating a player.  It also reminds you that last year isn't everything and players like Jermaine Dye and Jason Bay can bounce back.
• Don't consider starting pitching until the eighth round of the draft.  The following starters went within the first seven rounds in March of '07: Erik Bedard, Josh Beckett, Justin Verlander, Aaron Harang, and John Smoltz.  Sure, I cherry-picked the bad ones.  But early-round picks on starters have been and will always be very dangerous, capable of ruining your season.
• Pursue power/speed threats whenever possible.  Corey Hart, Bobby Abreu, Matt Kemp, Ian Kinsler, Nate McLouth...these players give you a balanced attack.  You don't want to be drafting Willy Taveras for speed, Placido Polanco for average, and Adam Dunn for power.
• Don't pay for closers.  Most experts harp on this point, but you still see J.J. Putz drafted in the fifth round ahead of Kinsler.  It's not that this never works; closers routinely provide tons of value.  It just increases your risk unnecessarily.  Wait until after the tenth round to draft a closer.
• Heed position scarcity.  In particular, respect position scarcity for shortstops and catchers.  Note where the dropoff occurs for these positions and don't miss out on all of the top guys.  Sure, you could pluck a Geovany Soto or a Ryan Theriot.  But again, you increase your chances of busting.
• Be a waiver wire maniac.  Some will tell you to leave your team untouched until May, because early stats can be deceiving.  This is bad advice.  Leave your stars alone, but aggressively pick up decent-looking players.  Every roster has a few spots to allow for turnover.  If you're not aggressive, you miss out on Cliff Lee and Ryan Dempster.  Pick up now, ask questions later.  Waiver wire aggression is also how you accumulate closers.
• Trade pitching for hitting.  You'll find pitching easier to find on the waiver wire, so trade pitchers for star hitters whenever possible.
• That's all I can think of for now; maybe I'll add more later.  None of these strategies are radical.

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Cutting Off Your Opponent’s Supply Lines

This is a guest article by Derek Carty of The Hardball Times Fantasy Focus.

There’s been some talk over the past month or so about trading and how you should always look at the bigger picture when contemplating whether or not to make a trade.  Lenny Melnick did an entire podcast about trading, and Patrick DiCaprio at the Fantasy Baseball Generals came up with a set of guidelines to use for trading.

I absolutely agree that when making a trade, the ultimate goal of winning the league should be your #1 priority.  Some of the great strategists of all time have had no problem losing a battle if it helped them improve their prospects of winning the war.

Lenny and Patrick both said that when evaluating a trade, the traditional sense of “value” should be ignored.  For example, trading Adam Dunn for Michael Bourn shouldn’t be immediately discarded as a terrible trade if the player acquiring Bourn has a huge lead in homers and RBI and needs steals.

I’m of the opinion that you should always seek out a better trade, but if the best base stealer you can get for Dunn is Bourn (and you can’t get a better player who fills another need), then I would definitely agree that this is a good trade.  This isn’t exactly what I’d like to talk about today, but the concept is the same: making moves that, in a vacuum, might not be considered good trades but will help you move closer to your ultimate goal of winning the league.

In the context of military operations, this is known as “grand strategy.”  Grand strategy involves looking at more than just the immediate battle and focusing on the best ways to win the entire war.

A great example of this came during the Vietnam War.  A truce was called for the Vietnamese holiday of Tet, but the Vietcong launched a surprise attack on several key strategic locations.  They hit locations that were strongholds for the United States media and strong symbols for the American public, including palaces, airbases, and the United States Embassy.  While the U.S. ultimately pushed the enemy back and suffered far fewer losses than the Vietcong did, the media coverage of the carnage of the Tet Offensive caused the U.S. public to form strong anti-war sentiments.  This, combined with the upcoming presidential election, led to the removal of American forces in Vietnam despite never losing a battle.

Part of grand strategy is knowing your opponent, a topic I’ve talked about in the past at THT.  It is very important to constantly be talking to the owners in your league and gathering information.

By keeping your ear to the ground, you will often hear about trade negotiations going on between teams in your leagues.  If you hear about a trade involving one of your closest competitors, it can be beneficial to begin talking with the other team in the deal about the player involved (assuming you also think highly of this player).

Making a trade for the player your close competitor is trying to get has several benefits.  First and most importantly, it prevents him from making the trade himself and acquiring the player.  This is akin to cutting off an opposing army’s supply lines.  Really, it’s akin to redirecting the opposing army’s supply lines to fuel your own army.

Even if the trade is only a lateral move… really, even if you take a small loss, that small loss could actually benefit you more than your opponent receiving a huge gain.  Allowing his team to improve is the same as hurting your own.

As an example, let’s say that your top competitor is discussing a trade of his Gavin Floyd for another owner’s Johnny Cueto.  Even if you jumped in and offered Tim Lincecum for Cueto, there would still be many benefits to making the move.  By not stepping in, your competitor would be receiving a player with a 3.98 LIPS ERA (and upside) for a player with a 4.47 LIPS ERA, a significant upgrade.  Even though Lincecum’s 3.78 LIPS ERA is better than Cueto’s, this drop-off would still be better than allowing your opponent to receive an even larger upgrade.

Another advantage is that you are receiving a player that your competitor wants.  By acquiring him yourself, the possibility exists that you’ll be able to flip him to your competitor and actually end up receiving an upgrade while downgrading your opponent’s team.  If he’s trading for Cueto to begin with, he obviously knows that he is better than his ERA indicates and might be willing to give quite a bit more for him if necessary.

Of course, you need to consider that you often have more than one close competitor, so weigh your league’s specific situation and decide from there if the original trade is worth it.  Taking too big of a hit to your team might be the wrong move, even if you gain an advantage over one owner.

This won’t always be the appropriate move, but this is the type of thinking we need to get in the habit of using in order to be successful fantasy owners.

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Introduction To Strategy

Today's guest article is by Derek Carty of The Hardball Times Fantasy Focus.

One of the most overlooked concepts in fantasy baseball is that of strategy.  Every fantasy site out there does player analysis; some do it well, some not so well.  If you know where to look, though, you can find good player analysis.  The problem is, in a competitive fantasy league, so can your opponents.  If you are both using the same data to analyze players, there really isn’t going to be a huge variance in your opinions of players, is there?  This means that neither of you really has a large advantage over the other.

There are still some ways to gain an advantage over your opponents in the way of player analysis – the most prominent being the new Pitch f/x system – but aside from this innovation there is little advantage to be gained from looking at the same things as your opponents.

Therefore, the winner of a given competitive fantasy league will be largely determined by luck, judgment, and strategy.  Judgment is difficult to teach (some will even argue that it can’t be taught) and luck can’t be controlled, but strategy is something that most certainly can be taught and controlled.  This is why it is of such great importance that someone serious about winning in fantasy baseball thinks critically about strategy and other, outside-the-box concepts not normally brought into the fantasy arena.  By doing things that your competitors fail to do, you gain a competitive advantage over them.

While not directly related to fantasy baseball, I think the following quote does a good job of illustrating this point.  One of my favorite quotes, actually, this is taken from Keith Woolner’s article first introducing VORP (Value Over Replacement Player):

"Baseball is a zero sum game. One team always wins at the expense of another. It is not possible for one team to win without another losing. In order to win, a team must be able to produce more runs (or prevent runs from scoring) than the opposition. Its success in producing wins is directly tied to its ability to produce more runs than its opponent. Any competitive advantage a team has must, in some way, translate to better on-field performance to be valuable.

A commodity which is easily available to all teams at no or low cost confers no competitive advantage, and therefore is of minimal value. Thus, baseball value comes from scarcity."

Fantasy baseball, too, is a zero sum game, and anything that is “easily available to all teams at no or low cost confers no competitive advantage, and therefore is of minimal value.”  Good player analysis is not scarce (at least not when we’re dealing with intelligent owners), but good talk about strategy is, and is therefore of great value.

Of course, this isn’t to say that everyone studying up on advanced statistics and reading good, intricate analysis will share the same opinion of a player. If two owners, for instance, see that Gavin Floyd has a .199 BABIP and is getting ridiculously lucky, their opinions might differ a little, but the difference in their opinion of Floyd (and other pitchers with low BABIPs) likely won’t be large enough to overcome the luck involved in fantasy leagues each year.

And, of course, this isn’t to say that you should ignore these kinds of stats and this kind of player analysis.  While you might not gain much of an advantage over those who are doing the same thing, it will give you an advantage over those who don’t, and not looking at them will put you at a big disadvantage to those who do make use of them.

The (controllable) difference in leagues with savvy owners, rather, comes down to how each owner uses the information presented to him, manifested in the form of judgment and strategy.

Read up on advanced stats and player analysis to keep up with your opponents, and read up on strategy and the like to sprint ahead of them.

Even if you aren’t in a league where everyone is aware of BABIP and stats of that nature, though, the fact remains that luck is a huge factor in every fantasy league, and the more advantages you gain over your opponents, the less luck will factor in.  The ability to utilize unique, logical strategy is a big way to gain that advantage.

Some sites do attempt to discuss strategy, but leave some aspects out, oversimplify it, spit out unoriginal ideas, or ignore it completely during the season.

More sites discuss strategy before than season than during, but it often is little more than, say, a repetition of the notion that you should avoid closers early in your draft.  This is a good strategy to pursue in many instances but is a notion that is rarely supported with a logical backing.

And sure, some sites will talk about a strategy in-season like “buying low and selling high,” but this has been talked to death and has become so meaningless and trite that even novice fantasy players understand it.  I mean, you would be hard-pressed to sell Mark Reynolds and his .298/6/15/12 line to even the most unknowledgeable owner for David Ortiz and his .070/1/3/6 line two weeks into April.  And no one in a competitive league will be buying Gavin Floyd and his .199 BABIP and 76% LOB% from you for Jake Peavy this week.

There are certainly less obvious examples, and buying low and selling high definitely has its place (there was a great article yesterday on this topic by Mike Podhorzer of the Fantasy Baseball Generals), but there is so much more to strategy than a phrase that has been rehashed over and over again and rarely shows any creativity or foresight by those writing about it.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be talking about different forms of strategy that you likely won’t find discussed elsewhere but will hopefully find incredibly useful.  Today, I just wanted to introduce myself and hopefully give you a sense of why I think strategy is so important for the successful fantasy baseball owner.  If you have any thoughts on this matter, I’d love to hear them.

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