Fantasy baseball

[Danger Mouse]

So, with the new love for all things US sport wise, I appear to have signed up for a bunch of fantasy baseball leagues.

I'm planning on cramming the yahoo guide whilst on holiday, but if anyone wants to give me a ludicrously brief/decent guide to what I'm doing that'd be grand.

[jefe]

Fantasy baseball

We had a league here last year through Yahoo that Inca ran, fyi.

[Danger Mouse]

Fantasy baseball

No offence, but i suspect I'll be struggling to cope with the ones I'm in as it is without joining more. Cheers anyway though

[ursus arctos]

Fantasy baseball

It's hard to give advice on strategy without knowing what kind of league it is (what pool of players one draws from, what categories one records points for, how often one can change one's roster, what kind of people you are playing with, etc). There are, perhaps unfortunately, now tens of thousands of people over here who take this stuff much too seriously and support a number of commercial websites, tip sheets, and publishers who purport to "give them an edge".

The Yahoo guide is probably as good an introduction as you are likely to find in one place. Two suggestions: a) make sure the guys you draft aren't injured; and b) in leagues with less sophisticated participants, "name players" and guys from "big" teams tend to be over-valued (so, for instance, someone like Hanley Ramierez or Evan Longoria will be much better value than someone like Derek Jeter or A-Rod, even though each of the latter pair will record a significant number of points.

[Danger Mouse]

Fantasy baseball

I appear to have signed up to three leagues (it's all the fault of the stag do bloke mentioned in the NHL thread) and can't remember off the top of my head which they are, though I do know one's a head to head league.

I suspect I may opt for doing 1 or 2 of the drafts properly and setting the other as auto draft which should show me up alarmingly..

I'm aiming for bottom. Anything else is a bonus. Given how quickly I lose interest with fantasy leagues in the UK heaven knows how long I'll cope with a baseball league.

[ursus arctos]

Fantasy baseball

I've never been able to get the hang of head to head leagues.

They do my head in.

The stag do in Pittsburgh idea has promise, especially if you could get cheap flights (the rest should be quite reasonable). It would be difficult to under-estimate how exotic you would appear to the locals.

[Danger Mouse]

Fantasy baseball

It'd be a great idea if it wasn't for thoughtless mates, 3 of whom have decided to get married in the same year, and within about 3 months of each other, which means the finances could be somewhat stretched.

[Incandenza]

Fantasy baseball

jefe wrote:

We had a league here last year through Yahoo that Inca ran, fyi.

Yeah, and I've been meaning to start it up again. Will get to it this weekend.

[Incandenza]

Fantasy baseball

After several years of fantasy sports, I think H2H only really works in football; the baseball season is just so long, I think only counting the stats, and not some record against other players, is best.

DM: as ursus says, don't draft anyone who is injured. Also, beware Yahoo's auto rankings: they could highly rank someone that's been sent down to the minor leagues can be ranked higher than someone who's going to be playing for the whole season.

A lot of fantasy people go by a strategy of trying to be really strong in only certain categories...having really good pitchers, for example, and a few good, but mostly average, hitters: the philosophy being that it's better to excel in a few categories where you are likely to beat mostly everyone else, and make peace with being average in the rest.

If you're looking for a good intro to fantasy baseball, and also an entertaining read, I liked the book Fantasyland by Sam Walker.

[Danger Mouse]

Fantasy baseball

Cool, cheers incadenza. I may dash off and try to pick it up before hols though I suspect it may not be in waterstones...

[Incandenza]

Fantasy baseball

Another tip: be sure to find out how often you need to set your roster. Some leagues have one roster for the week, others (like mine) allow for daily changes.

[Gerontophile]

Fantasy baseball

and on the same topic... when is the yahoo thing up and happening?

[Nishlord]

Fantasy baseball

Shall I set one up if you're not up for it, Inca?

[Incandenza]

Fantasy baseball

Sorry, finally got off my ass and set it up. I would have done it earlier, but for some reason I couldn't get the draft scheduling squared away when I was at my computer at work. The details:

Draft: March 27, 10am PST
League ID: 442272
Password: trevmeath

Invites should be mailed out to everyone in the league from last year.

I made some scoring changes--I dropped runs as a scoring category in hitting, and holds in pitching, so we are a 5x5 rotisserie league (hitting: AVG, RBI, TB, SB, OPS; pitching: W, SV, ERA, WHIP, K/9). I'm also trying a new thing this year: limiting the maximum games scored in each hitting position at 162, and capping innings scored at 1250. These are default settings in Yahoo's public rotisserie leagues. I'm keeping the daily lineup changes, but I thought limiting the scoring opportunities on our rosters would call for more strategy on our parts and put a value on quality players, and not just "well, this guy's playing today--let me put him in the lineup".

Let me know if you object to these changes.

[jefe]

Fantasy baseball

Brief PM for Inca

[jefe]

Fantasy baseball

And brief PM again for Inca.

[Incandenza]

Fantasy baseball

Bump.

Draft is Saturday, and we're at 9 teams right now. I want at least 10, so please invite any of your friends who might be interested.

[Gerontophile]

Fantasy baseball

I am going to be out for (some of) the draft.

Does the random draft just pick the top ranked available selection per position, or am I likely to end up with the Kansas A ball team?

[Incandenza]

Fantasy baseball

Yahoo will go by their auto rankings, which can be a crapshoot. Sometimes you can get a good run of picks, but sometimes it will just work out that the best player on the board when your turn comes up is in a position you wouldn't pick at that point. Yahoo won't draft 5 catchers for you, but say you have 1 empty outfield spots, and haven't picked a shortstop yet--if the "best" player in their rankings is a outfielder, it will draft you an outfielder and not a shortstop. Also, their rankings outside of the top 150 or so can be very unreliable, I think.

If you're going to be able to make the beginning of the draft, you can put players in your queue, so if they are remaining when you are gone they'll be picked for you. If you're going to miss the beginning of the draft, you can fill out your pre-draft rankings now, and Yahoo will use those to pick for you before they go to their autopicks.

[Gerontophile]

Fantasy baseball

Thanks Inca, but it was shorter than I expected.

Well happy with my choices.

[Incandenza]

Fantasy baseball

Yeah, that's how it goes with a smaller league and mostly autodrafters. I feel like the people in 2nd-4th were avoiding picking A-Rod so he would be left hanging there for me in 5th, and I'd be an idiot not to take him, but of course that means willingly taking A-Rod.

[Gerontophile]

Fantasy baseball

can you rephrase that?

[Danger Mouse]

Fantasy baseball

well, 2 out of the 3 drafts have gone ok so far. Points league seems particularly promising in the "try not to finish bottom" stakes.

Only 1 more to go. Sadly it's at 1am on Wednesday night/Thursday morning.