Fantasy Baseball Newbie

[Chocolate Milk]

I'm playing fantasy baseball for the first time this year. It's a roto league with basic categories. I'm an experienced Fantasy Football player so I understand that there are some nuances involved when trying not to embarrass yourself. Players that are valuable to your team may not be as valuable in fantasy and vise versa. I was wondering if some of you more experienced guys could give me a few hints so that I don't make a fool out of myself.

 

Some questions I have off the top of my head:

 

-Is it more important to get a player who is strong offensively in a traditionally weak offensive position or is it better to just draft the strongest offensive players where ever they are? Thinking about Fantasy football, most people don't draft a lot of QB's highly because the difference between a mediocre QB and an above average one isn't great enough to warrant that pick. I'm thinking the same sort of thing could be the case with a position like first base. Am I wrong here?

 

-Generally speaking, which are the hardest categories to fill? I'm sure some of the categories are easier to get production for than others, so I'd guess there are some players that might rank higher than I would have thought.

 

-What's a good ratio to have of starters and relievers? Do I want a couple of closers in my rotation to rack up the saves or is that stupid thing to do?

 

- Do you go to any good websites that have good cheatsheets. I know cheatsheets are easy to find but I also know from Fantasy Football, that a lot of them stink like hot garbage.

 

If you have any other tips for me, please share!

 

Thanks!

[nilodnayr]

There are different philosophies in drafting. Some players use BPA (best player available). Others use scarcity (either position or category), while others use a hybrid (ie BPA in the first few rounds, scarcity later on).

 

I take more of the scarcity approach as you can see from the mock draft thread. For example, if you have a 5x5, there are only a handful of guys who steal 30+ bases. Also, there is a gigantic drop off in production at 2B after Chase Utley. Its best to rank players by postion eligibility (by whatever your league rules are) and evaluate from there. You may decide that you want to draft Utley in the first round, or that you will let someone else take him and wait on a 2b until the 12th round.

 

If you have a 5x5 scoring then saves is one of your categories. Depending on the size of your league you are going to want to draft 2 or 3 closers. Similar to last year there are a bunch of question marks in terms of who will be closers on some teams, so it might be wise to lockdown a couple sure bets on closer and then wait until the season progresses to see who performs well and wins jobs before picking up your 3rd closer on the waiver wire.

 

Take a look at your limits...you may have an IP limit. If so then you will want to have enough starters to reach that limit. If you dont have a limit, I think about 6 starters is pretty average. Although your cumulative stats will increase with more starters, your average stats may suffer.

[Chocolate Milk]

That helps, thanks a lot.