ask me about fantasy baseball v.2007

[josh_x]

hey crockpot,

please check your pm's,

[crockpot]

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Anyone know if there is any way to access past results from Yahoo fantasy baseball seasons?

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if you mean your own:

profiles.sports.yahoo.com

for the results of others, try asking yahoo support maybe?

[crockpot]

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also any tips on closers (i plan on not taking any established closers)
like anyone know someone that might become a closer later into the season?

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broxton, zumaya, julio, capps, gregg, madson, wilson (SF). the list is not as deep as it has been.

generally speaking closers will be worth less in this setup anyway since saves are 1/12 of the points instead of 1/10. the same goes for one-dimensional steal guys.

[crockpot]

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please grade my draft.

picked 1st in a 10 team league.

Roster positions:
C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, OF, OF, Util, SP, SP, RP, RP, P, P, P, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, DL

Stat categories:
R, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI, SB, K, E, AVG, OBP, W, CG, SHO, SV, K, ERA, WHIP

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i think carpenter, webb, and ryan went too early given how heavily this setup tilts toward hitters, but i could be wrong; this is too far removed from a 5x5 for me to have a frame of reference. this is a better question for the BP player forecast manager.

you lose points for not drafting bill hall when you could start him at SS and have 20 fewer errors than everyone else.

[crockpot]

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Comments? 9 team, standard yahoo rules. I know Hamels was bad - I took too long to choose and got him, since he was at the top of my queue.

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i actually have no problem with hamels 81st in a league where your opponents are competent enough to take him in the top 100. i'd certainly rather have him than a guy like haren, young, or weaver.

as for the rest...my stance on tejada has been established, and i view wells and delgado as similar meh picks. but you did grab sheets, fielder, lidge, burrell, and gordon to salvage it. B overall.

[crockpot]

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10 team 5x5 H2H w/ OBP instead of AVG.

Auction draft, $258 to spend (I had a 12 dollar penalty associated with cutting players from last year, I made some draft mistakes last year).

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i'd just like to stop here and say that this is awesome. i need to be in a league with penalties like this.

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The league is together for 2 more years after this season, and we can keep as many newly drafted players as we like for 1, 2 or 3 years with no inflation. To the right in parenthesis are the player's "salary" and if they have been signed to a multi-year contract, their contract's length. The dash indicates a player whose contract length is undecided.

This may be asking too much and/or beyond your comfort level, but assuming you could keep any of the unsigned players below for 1, 2 or 3 years, who would you keep?

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i don't understand how you can keep a guy for 3 years when the league will only be together for 2, but anyway, i see a lot of great keeper values here. i'd keep almost everyone except lowry and robertson. i was going to advise cutting maybin to free up a roster spot, but i assume it can only be used for a prospect and there are unlikely to be any better ones.

out of the keepers, i'd probably avoid long-term commitments to helton and giles for obvious reasons, but there's no one else i'd really object to signing for three years. even clemens.

given your general imbalance i think a trade for pitching is in order, but it's up to you to work out the details.

[crockpot]

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Grade mah draft? 6x5 H2H, picked 3rd obv.

Stats: R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG, OPS, W, SV, K, ERA, WHIP

1. (3) Alfonso Soriano OF
2. (22) Jimmy Rollins SS
3. (27) Matt Holliday OF
4. (46) Aramis Ramírez 3B
5. (51) Brian McCann C
6. (70) Chad Cordero RP
7. (75) Dan Uggla 2B
8. (94) Todd Helton 1B
9. (99) C.C. Sabathia SP
10. (118) Jason Schmidt SP
11. (123) Randy Johnson SP
12. (142) Bob Wickman RP
13. (147) Ken Griffey Jr. OF
14. (166) Frank Thomas Util
15. (171) Bartolo Colón SP
16. (190) Jon Garland SP
17. (195) Greg Maddux SP
18. (214) Lyle Overbay 1B
19. (219) Brad Hawpe OF

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decent overall, until round 12, where the good picks became sporadic. i don't really like the uggla pick, but he's less worthless in an OPS league. C+.

[crockpot]

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Alright crockpot, prepare for a long post. I need a LOT of help. I DESTROY my friends in fantasy football EVERY year. My ability to execute a draft and work the wire blows them out of the water. But I just can't translate this into baseball and I get rocked year after year. Here are my conceptual problems (I'll get to my more specific problems in another post this will be long enough).

1. In fantasy football it all revolves around fantasy points. I basically use dynamic value based drafting to constantly evaluate what positions and players have the most value during each round and end up with great drafts.

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good. baseball is more complicated but this is still the basic idea. you also get lower overall variance because there are no LTs in fantasy baseball who single-handedly ensure a second-place finish. (damn week 16 letdown)

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In baseball there are categories to be balanced in addition to position-related value decisions to make. Basically I feel like you end up trying to analyze a value number for EVERY category for EVERY position in addition to splitting pitchers from hitters. To break that down mathematically seems (is?) virtually impossible and I get overwhelmed by trying to create a balanced value-based team.

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well, yes and no. your draft strategy depends a lot on your league. in the national fantasy baseball championship where trades are not allowed, you need to be extremely aware of your direction. alternatively, i play in a league that resembles a commodities exchange, and there it is safe to draft strictly for value unless the decision is close.

your league will be somewhere between these extremes. it's up to you to estimate where it fits on that scale. the less in-season maneuvering, the more you have to look for a balanced draft. but you will still get value.

you are correct, though, that you should always have a good idea of where your draft is heading during the middle rounds. if you know you'll end up with a base stealing shortstop, don't reach for pierre or roberts.

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2. Football is VERY situation-based. If you get the starting RB job at Denver you will likely be more successful as a player than you've ever been. Baseball is NOT very situation-based. Batting order position and surrounding personnel make a difference but that's all.

In football I gain an advantage by anticipating situation changes before my opponents. In baseball I feel like there are very few of these opportunities. Instead players mostly have to be evaluated by what they've done before and the assumption I go on that they're likely to continue doing roughly the exact same thing. There's no advantage to be gained here.

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not true. less advantage than football, of course, because there's only one 2001 albert pujols per generation as opposed to plenty of guys like shaun alexander, larry johnson, priest holmes, etc. who step up and instantly rise from backup to top-5 player. but i was the guy who profited from role changes for guys like eric gagne, johan santana, and bj ryan, and there's a good chance i'll own the next one like them. like ron shandler says, draft skills and let the roles fall where they may, and things will work in your favor surprisingly often.

guys like tim lincecum, hong-chih kuo, or jonathan broxton--the ones with devastating stuff but no defined fantasy role--are the ones who can give you your edge, if you get in on the ground floor.

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So I guess I'm basically asking two things:
1) How do I get from a set of projections to a successful draft?
2) Where do you get your advantage as far as in-season roster work?

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1. going from projections to value based drafting is the most important step. other than that, it's really mostly little things.

do as much as you can to keep track of the other teams, and you'll have a better idea of how positional depth is going to shake out. try to know the enemy's sleepers so you're a round ahead of him on the guys you really want. keep up with the latest news in injuries and shifting roles. know whether your "30 save" closer will hold down the job after a cold spell (hoffman) or be yanked (coco cordero).

also, replacement value is not static during your draft. if there are seven good but not great second basemen available, you should be hesitant to take one, but when only one is left, you face a sharp immediate dropoff. you need to be both nearsighted and farsighted with regard to fantasy VORP.

but mostly, target value. don't reach for inferior "balance" players unless you must. if you already own sexson and dunn, you still draft glaus over podsednik. the value gap is too big to make up. in this way, good trading later on will intrinsically improve your draft.

2. there's trading, of course. this is largely a psychological thing, but any good poker player should be good at knowing the enemy and exploiting his weakness.

if there's an overwhelming weakness among unsophisticated fantasy players, it's the tendency to go crazy for a big number in one column (scott podsednik's steals) while ignoring the value of a balanced but unspectacular package (corey hart). five-category guys are almost always good values.

other than that, you can either have better information or make superior use of public information. if your opponents are serious players, you won't have much of an edge in the former, but you could have seen pat neshek coming, for example, when no one else did last year. good scouting reports on rookies can pay off big time, but the signal-to-noise ratio for news on veterans makes it nearly pointless.

one thing you can do is know the difference between a hot prospect and a good young fantasy player. brandon wood may be a "better" prospect than chris young, but they are not even close from a roto standpoint. i see people taking matt garza in their drafts on the basis of his ranking in their magazines' prospect sheets, when he will not return the value he needs to. to take an analogy from football, chris young is a young stud running back and garza is a young QB. which one is going to return more fantasy value and has the higher ceiling?

[crockpot]

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10 team 5x5 roto...

I have 10th & 11th pick.

Available will be:
crawford
wright
cabrera
vlad
berkman
manny
hafner
tex
c.lee


Which 2 do you take?

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wright and vlad. cabrera if you're feeling spicy. don't touch manny no matter how long your pole is.

[crockpot]

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Should I drop D. Lowe or Dave Bush???

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find a deeper league.

probably lowe. if nothing else he is unlikely to break out.