{GAME ON} - Fantasy Baseball ALL UP INS

Wise_a

Because I love you guys so much (and I'm a damn fine commissioner), I've decided to set up a fantasy baseball league for this year. There are only 20 slots for teams, so make sure you register if you are interested. It's a little more time intensive than Fantasy Football, so only register if you'll check your team at least 2-3 times per week. The league information is below:


You have been invited to join wise_a's Custom League in Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball.

In order to join the league, follow the link above or go to game front page, click the "Sign Up Now" or "Get Another Team" button and follow the links to "Join a Custom League". When prompted, enter the League ID# and password below.
League ID#: 238149
Password: wang

In addition, the draft information is:

Your live online draft is set for Fri Mar 30 2:15pm EDT [ Add to My Calendar ], which is 10 days, 3 hours, and 19 minutes from now (test your system). Please arrive at least 10 minutes early since your draft will start promptly at the assigned time. You can rank your players up until 45 minutes before your draft.\

I have a great time with Fantasy Baseball every year, so I decided to open it up to you degenerates as well. Come draft Lenny Dykstra! See if you can grab Hideki Irabu in the 5th round!

Batter up!

Silmaril

hint: dark blue text is not a good idea.

Jimbo the Impressive

Yeah, you kinda have to highlight that to read it.

Wise_a

Dark Blue text? You mean on the links?

Edit: nvm fix'd

Jimbo the Impressive

Yeah.

Wise_a

Nobody does Fantasy baseball? Thats really surprising.

I mean, we're all nerds who love things like D&D and tabletop games and what not. Those games are all about stats. So is fantasy baseball. Plus, its really in-depth and alot of fun.

Sign up!

naporeon

Team Anger Rape is on-board.

Wise_a

Nice!

naporeon

Wise_a, you really ought to change the title of this thread to "[GAME ON] Fantasy Baseball," or something along those lines. I mean, you can spice it up a bit, but it ought to have "game on" in the title.

DJ Eebs

I'll join this in the morning

naporeon

Please do. It's just me and Wise_a, at this point.

Garthor

Do they even sell Crackerjacks at baseball stadiums?

DJ Eebs

oh wait by morning I mean tomorrow afternoon

Dogbone33

Man I don't know. I tend to get bored halfway through the season, and i'd miss the draft seeing as thats 1 in the afternoon here. I gots to be at work. Oh well I have time to think about it I guess.

Wise_a

It'll be a good season, and alot of fun even if you have to autodraft. Just rank the players that you want, and be sure you exclude the ones you absolutely don't want. The computer won't fuck you over too badly. Plus, most fantasy baseball leagues are made on the trades and free agent signings that are executed during the year.

Dogbone33

I shall give it serious consideration.

lostwords

Hmm, I want to join, but I have been doing so crappy in all the fantasy sports games we have here. Plus, I'll probably end up a homer and picking my team from mostly the Orioles and the Nationals, which virtually guarantees me last place. Plus plus, the ranking system in fantasy football is wonky, so I expect more of the same with the baseball autopicker. Still, it gives me an excuse to follow baseball more.

Wise_a

Exactly. If you have a fantasy baseball team (even just for fun, like this league) it gives you a reason to watch games like the Diamondbacks vs. the Phillies. You don't care who wins, and you probably aren't gonna watch when most of the batters are up, but you'll watch if you have Ryan Howard or Conor Jackson on your team.

FortyTwo

I'll be at work for the draft

I want to but cant


can the draft be later?

naporeon

Dudes, just suck it up. Fantasy baseball isn't the same as fantasy football; being there for the draft is way, way less important, and the autopicks are WAY less stupid.

Although I won't be there for the draft either, so I wouldn't be averse to doing an entirely autopick draft.

candanavian

hey dude I'm in, my dude that I would do it with falked out and gave up my position

I've actually never really had a team before, but I think I can figure it out

candanavian

that is right, he falked

GOJIRA!

I Voted for Kodos.


Wouldn't want to throw my vote away on a third party candidate.

candanavian

aight doggies

Home Platelets is live

FortyTwo

All up ins..

All HAIL the WELL HUNGARIANS

Rage

Iron Giants. Up in all available ins and ups...

Wise_a

We still have 8 days until our draft, so theres still plenty of time to sign up.

Right now, we have 7 teams, and I would like to get this to 14 minimum.

lostwords

I am cautiously excited, though i have no clue about scoring and stuff. Be the first fantasy baseball thingie I do. Can someone with experience explain some basic stuff, like scoring and a general drafting strategy and if defense and fielding is a factor and all? Please to be using small words.

Wise_a

Our league is set up as a rotisserie style league. This means that every day, the players that you have on your team get stats for your team. Every day, you start a team that consists of these batters:

C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, OF, OF, Util, Util

This means you have to have one of each of these positions currently on your team. The UTIL positions can be anybody, they are like wildcards. In addition, you get 7 bench slots (BN). These are guys that are on your team, but for whatever reason they are not in your lineup and not counting towards your stats.

In addition, each day you start these pitchers:

SP, SP, RP, RP, P, P, P

This means that you will have 2 starting pitchers, 2 relievers, and 3 of any type of pitcher. Your 7 bench slots count towards this as well. Since starters only pitch 1-2 times per week, you rotate guys in and out alot at this position.

After lunch, I'll leave a post about the stat categories that are counted.

And the third part of our little series will be some hints for your draft.

Wise_a

The stat categories that count in our league for batters are:

R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG, OPS

As you can see, the best batter to have would be one that performs well in all of these categories. Some people will draft different guys who are VERY good at one category but bad in others (ie Podsednik in steals, Adam Dunn in HRs). I usually try to draft guys who are the most versatile if I can (ie Albert Pujols).

The stat categories that count in our league for pitchers are:

W, L, SV, K, ERA, WHIP
This stands for Wins, Losses, Saves, Strikeouts, Earned run avg, and (Walks + Hits) / Innings Pitched. This last category, WHIP, is better if it is a lower number. These are standard stat categories, and you can see that a guy like Johan Santana is rated so high because he performs in all categories, like Pujols. Also, the category of Losses helps to balance out guys who have 16 wins and 16 losses against a guy who has 16 wins and 4 losses.

This is how you score points in fantasy baseball. Next, I'll give you some tips on how to draft your team.

lostwords

Thanks for the info dude, keep it coming. Much appreciated.

Rage

ProTip: Make it a habit to at least log in and check your roster to adjust for travel\off days for your players every day. If your A-list workhorses just get done with a 3-game series on a Sunday, safe bet that they're traveling on Monday, etc...rotate in your bench players to keep scoring points.

And as Wise mentioned already, pay extra close attention to your pitching rotation - starters never throw 2 days in a row unless it's a dire 'omg we have no one in the bullpen' relief situation, and even that is pretty rare.


Otherwise, Wise has covered things quite nicely :^:

Wise_a

So now the most important, and fun part of fantasy baseball 101 - draft strategy. Since we are in a pretty standard league format where there are 7 batting categories and 7 pitching categories, there is no clear advantage to either type of player. While I was at lunch I tried to think of a good way to illustrate all of the nuances of drafting players. What I came up with is to show you a list of the players that Yahoo ranks #10 - #21, with all of the things that come to my mind if I was going to draft them.

10. Miguel Cabrera - Young player, great power, steals a few bases every year, eligible at 3B right now but could also become eligible in the outfield.
11. David Wright - Same as above, only without the potential OF eligibility.
12. Vladimir Guerrero - Huge injury risk, no steals, getting old.
13. Lance Berkman - Put up great numbers last year, moderate injury risk, eligible at 1B and OF.
14. Manny Ramírez - Consistent player, always puts up numbers, instability due to the fact that the Sox are always trying to trade him.
15. Carl Crawford - Great player, young, solid steals man.
16. Mark Teixeira - Terrible year last year, signs he might not be the amazing player he was when he came into the league due to holes in his swing.
17. Carlos Lee - Great power, middle aged, no steals.
18. Travis Hafner - Great hitter but only eligible at UTIL, plus hes getting old.
19. Chris Carpenter - Good pitcher, pretty consistent, plays for a good team (which means more chances for wins), too high to draft him though.
20. Derek Jeter - Good production in all categories, gets alot of runs hitting at the start of the Yankees order, one of the best at a shallow position (SS).
21. Ichiro Suzuki - Incredible production in all categories but HRs.


If I had to rank them myself, my rankings would look like this:

10. Cabrera
11. Wright
12. Crawford
13. Ichiro
14. Berkman
15. Jeter
16. Ramirez
17. Lee
18. Guerrero
19. Hafner
|
|
34. Carpenter
35. Texiera


Hope this helps. If you have any specific questions, I'll do my best to answer them. Plus, keep in mind that this is just my opinion on all of this - what makes fantasy baseball fun is that everyone has differing opinions on players. Like I probably said before - the consistently good fantasy baseball managers all do one thing well - they minimize their risk by not drafting rookies high, and avoiding injury risks and one year wonders.

Critical

Wooo. I'm up in this shit. Although I won't be able to make the draft, due to work.

And the Sox don't keep trying to trade Manny. He's a headcase and is constantly demanding trades. They deal him around every offseason because he asks for it. Too bad his contract is astronomical.

DJ Eebs

oh shit I forgot to sign up for this

Wise_a

You still got time.

Also, where the hell is Bogey in this piece. I thought he'd be all over this!

Wise_a

Update - we got 10 teams. We have room for 10 more.

Wise_a

The draft is this coming friday, so we still need a few teams to register. Even if you've never done it before, it'll be fun. Plus, I'm thinking about making a ridiculous SE++ fantasy trophy that will get passed to the winner of each sport: starting with baseball, then football, then NCAA, then back again! Any trophy suggestions are welcome.

Wise_a

Ok, so this should be the last time we need to bring this up, but:

The fantasy draft is tomorrow. Its a fun way to spend some time if you are at work (like me), or if you are gonna be here posting on the boards anyway.

The league info is in the original post. For the guys who are already in the league, let me know if you want me to change any settings or anything before the draft.

zeeny

I joined in guys. Hope you don't mind a D&D guy joining up on the SE fantasy fun?
I like all the league settings except the roster size. IMO, you should cut the 2nd Util and 1 bench player, but it's not a big deal. See you all for the draft.

PlasticLack

Ghetto Diarrhea is ready to rock. I might not be able to make the live draft, but I'm going to fucking try. Now eat shit, faggots.