Full Season Fantasy Baseball Strategy

Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep Strategy
by Ray of RotoPicks.com

In a daily league, every day is a fresh start. Each day you get to pick a fresh team and start with a clean slate. However in yearly leagues you only have one draft. Important decisions will need to be made and that single day will set the tone for the rest of your season. If that sounds a little scary, then good, as it should sound scary. The entire course of your season is determined by one day. But in reality it is not so much what happens that day, but really what happens leading up to that day. It is all about preparation. So what should you be doing to make sure that are prepared heading into your draft? Nobody wants to be that person that stops on the way to the draft to buy a preview magazine. That is just simply not going to cut it. Here are some thoughts to keep in mind leading up to your draft:

• What is the format of the league you're playing in? Whether or not you are playing in a Rotisserie, Points, or Head to Head league will make a difference in your draft rankings and your draft strategy. Not all fantasy baseball leagues are created equal and this is something you need to know.
• Once you know the format of the league and how you will compete with your opponents, you then need to be aware of the scoring categories. If innings pitched is a category, you do not want to load your team up with relievers. In a Points league, starting pitchers become more valuable and fielding a well balanced team across all categories is no longer as important. In a Head to Head league, you need to field a team that can beat all opponents. Earned run average and batting average might not be as important as loading up on strikeouts, wins, and power. A lot of leagues have quirks that can be exploited, and this is what you want to take advantage of. Playing in a Rotisserie league means that the season then becomes a marathon and you must sustain that performance over the course of the season. Also punting categories becomes a little more problematic.
• Are there innings limits in place? How do waivers work? Do lineups get set daily or weekly? These are important things to know as they will influence your draft strategy. If innings limits are in place, quality should rank over quantity when it comes to pitching. It also means that you must be more careful when allocating your innings. If you can pick free agents up daily, and rosters are also set daily, you can stream pitchers more easily and depth is not as important. Also in a weekly league, you might not necessarily need to have a backup for every position since you just set your lineup once a week. If you need to replace a player you can just go to the waiver wire to do so. This allows you to better utilize your bench for high upside players. Now that you are familiar with your league, it is time to prepare for the big day. All of this information applies whether or not your league holds an auction draft or a snake draft. Obviously there is strategy specific to an auction league as far as budgeting purposes, but this article is applicable to all fantasy baseball players.
• Get yourself familiar with the playoff pool. Take some time to re-acclimate yourself to baseball. Make sure you remember what happened last season and also during the offseason. Who changed teams? What roles are up for grabs?
• Do your own evaluation of the players. Who do you like and who do you not? Jot down your preliminary rankings. Try to do this with as little bias and outside influence as possible. Then start to read up on what the experts are saying. Use this information and their projections to then revise your projections and rankings. But make sure they are your own. Ultimately you are the one drafting and managing your team. You have to be on board with your team.
• Take a look back to last year's draft. How did each team draft? Did it work? What do you wish you had done differently? Having this knowledge will help you as you compile your rankings for the next season. There is a lot to be learned about the past.
• Do some mock drafts. You need to practice and fine-tune your strategy. Will it work? This process will also identify players that are either rising or falling within the market. You can potentially find some hidden gems and you will get an idea of where players are being drafted.
• Look at the final standings from last year. What statistical targets will you have to hit to win your league? This should guide your rankings and draft strategy. You can see where your team is lacking and will put you at a disadvantage during the season.
• Organize yourself prior to the draft. Try to minimize the materials you are taking into the draft room with you. At this point you have done the research and you have your rankings and your plan. Maybe take one magazine as reference material into the draft, but that should be about it. All you should have is your charts and cheat sheets with your projections, targets, and ranks. Clutter will create stress and stress creates poor decisions.
• Rank players by position, overall, and by statistical category. Also break these rankings into tiers. This will help you to target your drafting by round and by category. For example, you can see when you need to take a first baseman or a stolen base threat. The overall rankings will help you see in context of the draft where each player should be taken within a range.
• Paying attention to ADP (average draft position) is helpful and that should be included on your rankings, but do not use that as an absolute. Depending on how your team and your draft shakes out, this might need to be adjusted so you are not left lacking a position or a category. This is where the category and positional cheat sheets come in handy.
• Based on all the information that you now have, try to script out a rough outline of your draft. Do not stick with this as an absolute as many factors during the draft will cause the script to go out the window.

The main things to remember when doing a draft, are to be prepared and to be adaptable. You can do all the preparation in the world, but unless you do it the right way, it is meaningless. But also remember, that your season and the hard work does not end after the draft, it is only just beginning.

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