Fantasy Baseball Advice

For most of you, been there, read this shizz already, but there’s Razzball newbies (Razzbabies?) that need some coddling occasionally.  If you know PEDS, skip ahead into the comments and discuss my mustache.  So, there’s a BRAN (Balanced Roster After Nine) Drafting Strategy by Rudy “The Fro Knows” Gamble.  He’s also touched upon some fantasy baseball drafting tips.  It’s a year or so old, but it’s timeless so when you read it don’t bother looking at the clock.  There’s also a LIMA Plan (Low Investment Mound Aces) by Ron Shandler.  There’s been a ZIMA Plan by Matthew Berry; it involves a lot of stumbling around and the hiccups.  There’s been a Punt One Category draft strategy.  There’s been a Punt Two Categories draft strategy, which was conceived by a leaguemate of Punt One Category who just couldn’t stand being upstaged.  And there’s the Forget When Your Draft Is So Your Team Is Autodrafted strategy.  I love when my leaguemates use that one.  Then there’s my fantasy baseball draft strategy, Performance Enhancing Draft Strategy or PEDS.

PEDS has five basic steps. If you follow these steps, you will place near the top in all of your leagues.  No plan is foolproof because, unfortunately, they still have to play the games, but PEDS puts you in the best position possible to win coming out of your draft.  Okay, onto the steps:

1. Never draft a pitcher with your first two picks.

No Verlander. No Halladay. No Kershaw.  You abstain!  They’re fantastic.  I love them all.  I’d smoke a stogie with Leyland while massaging Verlander’s scalp with EVOO, but I wouldn’t draft him.  These starters give you the value of a 1st or 2nd rounder.  They do.   I said it.  The problem is the loss of one of your 1st two hitters is really difficult to bounce back from.  You, son, are putting yourself in a hole.  A hole?  Yes, you are.  The absence of Longoria or Votto or whoever is too great.

2. Never take a closer in the first tier.

This is a tough one for some people. I’m going to be you for a brief moment.  Me as you, “Hey, everyone’s starting to take closers in the fifth round. There goes Kimbrel, Storen, Axford… Wait, I have to take a closer with my next pick! And why am I not wearing pants?! For the Lord’s sake, why don’t I have pants on?!”  See what happened there?  You done got swept up.  You did.   You got swept up in a closer run.  Ignore everyone who takes closers.  You don’t need a top tier one. Stick to your own game plan.  Grab some schmohawks later that will get saves because, as we all know, SAGNOF.

3. Have your offense squared away before the final rounds and never take an offensive bench player unless it’s a flyer with massive potential (like Bryce Harper, for instance).

This rule has been slightly adjusted from previous years.  Let’s call it the Bryce Harper Effect Or Is It Affect?  The BHEOIIA is telling you it’s okay to grab a hitter for your bench if he has boat-tons of potential and could end up being worth a lot more than his draft value.  This addendum could’ve also been called the Mike Trout Effect Or Is It Affect or MTEOIIA.  As for grabbing a guy like Ty Wigginton for your bench?  Blech.  I know, you owned Ty Wigginton last year and you guys got along thick as thieves.  Awesome!  Send him a postcard.   You’re not going to hold onto these late round offense guys anyway.  You’re going to get to the first week of the season and you’re going to wonder why you have Ty Wigginton on your bench when there’s a hot hitting Josh Willingham on waivers.   Instead of an offensive bench player, grab a middle reliever who seems like he has a good chance of taking over for the incumbent closer.   Or grab a starter.  (Note: This rule is for 14 team leagues and shallower.   If you’re in a 15 team league or deeper, offensive bench players can come in handy when there’s nothing, but scraps on waivers.)

4. When deep into a position, take a flyer on upside.

Nobody in the history of fantasy baseball has ever won a league by playing it safe in the late rounds. In 1995, I tried drafting Mike Greenwell as my fifth outfielder; just didn’t work.  A darn fine year by Klesko wasted!  You play it safe in the early rounds.  You take solid contributors early.  You take flyers late.  You’re looking at either Carlos Lee or John Mayberry, who do you choose?  Brian Roberts or Jose Altuve?  Valerie Harper or Sandy Duncan?  You get the picture.

5. When in doubt, draft your third, fourth and fifth starters from NL teams.

Self-explanatory.  No DH, pitchers hitting, weaker offenses.  They bunt in the NL!  Does this mean I don’t want Morrow? No, I’m saying when in doubt.  Marcum or Morrow?  I’m taking Marcum.  Chacin or Derek Holland?  I’m going Chacin.  Doug Fister or Ervin Santana?  Ah, trick question.  But I’d go Fister.  And I hardly knew her!

If you follow these five simple steps, I guarantee you will be in the top three in your league battling for your championship. PEDS is so easy, it should be illegal.  You’re welcome.

I’m a pretty harsh critic of Razzball, but occasionally we’ll post things that even I feel are extremely helpful.  Usually these are done by other people for our site.  Yesterday, we brought you the one and only 2012 Fantasy Baseball War Room.  (Honestly, there may be more War Rooms than you can shake a stick at, but who’s intro’ing anything by saying we brought you the “one of a couple zillion War Rooms?”)  Another thing we’re offering is the 2012 fantasy baseball tiers, brought to you by regular commenter and all-around solid F.O.R., VinWins.   This fantasy baseball tier sheet is like the Cliff Notes version of the 2012 fantasy baseball rankings.  The tiers give you where I ranked players and the tier names, which should give you a rough idea of what I’m thinking when you don’t have much time.

If you’re in a tight squeeze in a draft and you don’t have time to look at a dozen different posts or read everything I wrote about a player, you just look at the fantasy baseball tiers and you know quickly know where a guy ranks and a snapshot of what I’m thinking.  For instance, you see Asdrubal Cabrera sitting there in your draft.  You quickly scan the fantasy baseball tiers and see I have him below Rollins and above Jeter.  I also say, “Only four shortstops in and it’s your last chance for a decent one.  Yay.”  So you can quickly infer I’m saying if you don’t get Asdrubal in this tier, you’re no longer on solid ground.  To solidify that, the next tier is called, “Where’s all the freakin’ shortstops?”  So obviously there is risk involved with those guys.  If you fail to get Asdrubal, you can quickly see another tier below is called, “…this is your last chance for exciting.”  So you can quickly surmise, I like those guys too, there’s not much after that and that’s the order.  Anyway, you get the gist.

Also, VinWins went the extra mile and put my top 300 for 2012 fantasy baseball into a spreadsheet.  It warms my cockles when people do things like this for Razzball.  If cockles is what I think it is, warming them means VinWins and I have gotten to 2nd base.  Now you thank VinWins.

Finally, there’s the Fantasy Baseball Team Name Generator.  I got the Butte Sucka MCs, which sounds like a rap group that performs in the Man Hole night club.

Here’s a post that’s gonna make you wanna slap ya mama and call her Frances Fisher.  The other day I told you how to draft your pitchers for 2012 fantasy baseball.  I laid it out to you nice and simple (if you have a degree in “What The Hell Is Grey Talking About?”  Not a PhD, mind you.  Just a BS.)  Today, we forget all that jabberwocky on the who-ha and get down to business old school-style (which means if you don’t comprehend, I will hit you over the head with a baseball bat signed by Joe Clark.)  What I’m hoping to lay out to you is who do you draft 2nd if you’ve drafted so and so first.  I think it might be helpful to go through pairings for your 5 outfielders, all your middle and corner infielders too.  I’m not sure I’ll have the time or patience to do them though.   We’ll see!  Or not.  Your choice.  For easy reference, the royal we will be using the top 10 2012 fantasy baseball rankings and the top 20 2012 fantasy baseball rankings.  I’m going to assume you’re in a 12 team, 5×5, MI, CI, 5 OF, 1 Utility, 1 Catcher league.  Anyway, here’s some pairings for the first two rounds of 2012 fantasy baseball drafts:

Miguel Cabrera – I’d put him with just about anyone, but another 1st baseman.  The reality of the situation is you want to get someone that is going to give you a few steals, say, 10.  A third baseman would work, but it might be unrealistic to think you’re going to get Longoria.  That leaves you with Wright.  That doesn’t sound too shabby.  Think about how for the last five years prior to 2011 and you would’ve loved to have Wright and Miggy on the same team.  I say, live in the past and do it.  But I’d say “Do it” like Ben Stiller in the Starsky & Hutch remake.  Now it’s totally not ideal to grab Wright if you think Miggy will get 3rd base eligibility.  Right now, I put it at about 85% that he will have 3rd base eligibility within a few weeks of Opening Day, so if you wanna grab an outfielder instead, I’m not hating the game or the playa (that’s not Spanish for beach).  I say grab Andrew McCutchen or Jay Bruce.  Wanna go for a 2nd baseman?  Kinsler might be there.  Swiggy with one of those three looks real nice to me.  Your team would be balanced heading off to the third pick.  Someone like Reyes or Hanley would also work, though they might not be there.  Now, the risk with not grabbing a 3rd baseman is if Miggy starts treating grounders at third like they’re empty beer cans and starts booting them.  Then you may have punted 3rd and Miggy is sent back to first before his 3rd base eligibility kicks in.  Kicks being the operative word.  Really, as long as you avoid a 1st baseman, catcher and a starter while getting some combo of power and speed, you should be fine.  For those of you who are thinking you can grab a 1st baseman and then move Miggy to 3rd two weeks in, you’re screwed if Miggy doesn’t get 3rd base eligibility, even if that possibility is only slim.  And, yes, that’s the only time Miggy and slim will ever be used in a sentence.  In summation, don’t put unnecessary risk on the table in the first two rounds.

Albert Pujols – More or less the same deal as Miggy, obviously without the possible 3rd base eligibility caveat.  I wouldn’t worry about anything other than trying to get a 2nd pick with at least 10 steals, and no 1st baseman, catcher or starter.

Joey Votto – You could pair Votto with Yuniesky Betancourt and you’d be fine.  Votto’s that good.  Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a number one pick next year.  Let’s run away together, Joey!  Wait, what am I saying?  Oh, pairings, right.  Yeah, you don’t want Votto with a 1st baseman, obviously.  He’s similar to Miggy and Pujols.  You want a third baseman, but he can work with just about anything.

Jose Bautista – Hey, something other than a 1st baseman.  Yay, Joey Bats!  Anyone but a 3rd baseman would work.  You really want a 1st baseman.  (This is a common theme.  Leave the first two rounds with a 3rd baseman and a 1st baseman and you’re in better shape than the schmohawk who took Hanley and Cano.)  Also, I worry that Bautista’s average might bottom out a little (to the .265 range), so I’d avoid a guy like Kinsler or Stanton.  You don’t want to leave the 2nd round with a potential combined average of .260.  If you take Baustista and a 3rd baseman because you think Bautista can play your outfield, you’re overthinking.  Think of Bautista as a 3rd baseman.  If during the season you need to put him in the outfield because you picked up a 3rd baseman off waivers, then more power to you.  Right now you don’t put him in the outfield because then you’re only going to draft 4 outfielders and scrounge for a 3rd baseman.  Your 3rd baseman is gonna be crap and you’re gonna end up with Bautista there anyway and you’re gonna be short at outfield.  One thing you can do later on is draft a 3rd baseman at your corner infidel slot.  Then if he does well, you can move him into 3rd, Bautista into your outfield and have the flexibility to grab a 1st baseman or 3rd baseman off waivers for your corner slot.

Evan Longoria – Since Longoria’s speed is a little wonky, I’d have no problem pairing him with a guy like Kemp, McCutchen or Reyes.  Kemp might not be realistic though considering he’s been going first in some mocks.  In my fantasy fantasy world, they’d both be there though.  Same goes for Ellsbury.  I’d even pair Longoria with Pedroia since he usually gives hella at-bats and a decent average. Someone like Kinsler or Stanton aren’t terrible, but you’re putting yourself in a potential average hole that you’ll need to dig out of later.  Just keep in mind, Longoria’s average and steals may need help.

Matt Kemp – Position-wise, he doesn’t go with many.  Stats-wise, he goes with everyone, except a pitcher.  This is probably why he’s going number one overall in mocks.  The problem with that is you draft Kemp and you have one outfielder but still need four more of those and have no infielders.  That guarantees you will leave the 2nd round missing at least two of 2nd base, 1st base or 3rd base.  In the best case scenario, you draft Kemp and Longoria or Wright, so you don’t have to worry about 3rd base.  If you get Kemp and Longoria or Wright, you’ll need to pray your Hosmer, Konerko or other 1st base pick works out.  Otherwise, it might be a long season.  Remember, Hosmer looks great right now, but if he was a sure thing, he’d be going in the first round.  If you can get Kemp and Prince Fielder, then more power to you, though that seems like a pipe dream in the mocks I’ve seen.  Kemp and Kinsler is okay, but then you have no 1st baseman or 3rd baseman and you’ll be up against teams with Miggy, Pujols, Longoria, Prince etc.  I.e., you’ll be doomed.  Kemp plus another outfielder is you throwing in the towel after the first two rounds.

Troy Tulowitzki – This isn’t about pairing, but I don’t see how I’m going to draft Tulo in any league this year.  Just going too early for my taste.  Any the hoo!  If I do, I’d give a lookie-loo to a 1st baseman or 3rd baseman, Sam I am, ma’am.  Since Tulo is a power threat at a normally weaker position, I’d also take a speed/power outfielder (McCutchen, CarGo).  You are dealing with more risk though if you go the speed route with your second pick because if Tulo craps out with another injury and you have, say, McCutchen, you may only get around 35 homers combined from your first two picks while Fielder can produce that by himself.  I’d also be wary of going with CarGo.  Not because of the team thing, but more because of the injury-prone thing. I don’t love the idea of Cano and Tulo.  You’re all middle infield.  Why don’t you just go and marry Adam Everett?  Realistically, if you have to draft Tulo in the top 5 to get him, you’re gonna be looking at Wright, Beltre or Bruce at the end of the 2nd round.  I’d take any of them, but now with Bruce, you will have no corner infidels.  It’s precarious.  (Do you see why I always try to go 1st base or 3rd base in the 1st round?)

Justin Upton – Upton is similar to Kemp.  No outfielders with him.  You really should take a corner man.  Longoria’s great if he’s still there, Fielder will work wonders and clean up after himself!

Prince Fielder – I’d take Longoria with Fielder, I’d also take Fielder with Longoria.  See how that works?  Since Fielder is power first, I’d pair him with Reyes, Hanley or McCutchen too.  He’s a similar pairing to Pujols and Miggy.  Kinsler?  Fine!  Wright?  Great!  Instead of gum, chew bacon!  It all works!

Adrian Gonzalez – He could have a bit more risk than Fielder on the average side, but for our purposes he’s nearly identical to Fielder in projections and pairing.

Robinson Cano – No Kinsler or Pedroia.  Similarly to Tulo, since Cano is a power threat at a normally weaker position, I’d take a speed/power outfielder (McCutchen, CarGo), a 1st baseman or a 3rd baseman.  I’d try to avoid Reyes or Hanley.  You don’t want to have to scrounge together an outfield and two corners leaving the 2nd round.

Jacoby Ellsbury – You don’t want an outfielder.  You can take Reyes, Hanley, Pedroia or Kinsler, but then you might only have 35-40 homers after two picks and some people are getting that with one pick.  If a 1st baseman (Votto, Fielder) is there, then you just scored.  If no one is there without reaching down to David Wright, you might have yourself a Javid Wrightsbury combo player that goes 60/60.  Or you might get a player that hurts his hamstring and complains the fences are still too far, leaving you wanting Justdrian Gonzaton.  (<–And that’s how you make an already confusing post, more confusing!)

This was author and innovator Lou Poulas’ introduction, “While Grey and Rudy do a great job of breaking down everything you need to know for 2012 fantasy baseball, drafts still trip me up.  I’ve been lamenting my inadequacies from the past 3+ years which resulted in an inordinate amount of time number crunching in Excel.  My quest – a draft day “war room” that allowed me to keep my finger on the pulse of the league while minimizing my effort.  I don’t know about you, but I prefer to keep track of more things as opposed to fewer.”

Presenting the free 2012 Fantasy Baseball War Room.   It’s an auto-updating Excel workbook that keeps track of all the necessaries:

• Color Coded Dashboard that “crosses off” selected players.
• Team by Team analysis of players taken, players left.
• Real time projected totals, along with real time projected league standings.
• Goal Tracking Dashboard

Unfortunately, Lou and Simply Fred (who took the reins last year) were inundated with the real world but were kind enough to allow me to make updates for 2012.  My quick two cents:  I added notes 4+5 on the Notes Tab under user steps. It just explains how to add a player and a note about when the pitching and hitting totals update.  The pitching and hitting totals look like they are broken until each team has at least one hitter and one pitcher.  I have been a fantasy baseballer for a long time. The first team I drafted my ace pitcher was suppose to be Steve Stone. He had won the Cy Young the year before. He sucked the year I had him. When I ran out of money I bought two cheap young pitchers, Fernando Valenzuela and Mike Norris. I have been hooked ever since. The only reason I tell you how long I have been doing this is to support the following compliment. Razzball is the best source for fantasy baseball information that I have ever used. The combination of humor and analysis is unmatched. I read it daily but do not comment often. I thought I would update the War Room as I hope it helps the site in some small way.  I did not spend a lot of time debugging the sheet. I figured the daily posters will do that for us, the Razzball community. I will look for your comments to see if there’s anything I can help with.

This year’s version has been slightly customized to Razzball:

1. The Players page lists players in order of Grey’s top 300 for 2012 fantasy baseball with Grey’s projections (and his auction values on the auction draft worksheet). FanGraphs stepped up to the plate and graciously provided projections for players unranked by Grey.
2. AB (At-Bats, i.e. playing time) provided by FanGraphs.
3. Goal Tracking has been pre-loaded with temp targets for “What it takes to win a 12 team fantasy baseball league.”
4. The “Dashboard” displays players by position in order of Grey’s rankings.
5. The ‘Team Rank’ box (League Standings) is limited to no more than 12 teams. Projected ‘Batting Totals’ and ‘Pitching Totals’ extend up to 25 teams.
6. Up to 25 players may be drafted per team (allocations set by the user via the ‘User Input’ page).
7. I have left the spreadsheet ‘unprotected’ so you may overlay with your own projections if you like.

The value of the War Room, for me, is to load the picks of a draft to determine which categories I am falling short in.  In this manner, I can keep adding/deleting targeted players until I consistently get a strong team.

Click on the ‘Notes’ tab for instructions for how to load league team names, etc.  Put questions and comments in this post and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Download the 2012 Fantasy Baseball War Room <–Snake Draft

Download the 2012 Fantasy Baseball War Room <–Auction Draft

(UPDATE 2/21:  1. – You can add more than 12 teams – Just had to change a setting. If you want to rank more than 12 teams you need to insert rows to the bottom of the projected Batting and Pitching Ranks. Then go to the cells for the categories and change the range of cells that it is ranking. IE.  The formula for ranking runs in cell B27 is currently RANK(C71,C$71:C$82,1) – Just change it to RANK(C71,C$71:C$86,1) if you have added 4 rows to make it a 16 team league. Do the same for HRs RBI SB +avg. + the pitching categories.  2. Corrected the misspellings  3. I color coded the tiers in the catchers. It does not look that good but it may be helpful. You can color code your tiers by changing the color of the letters. Do not change the color of the cells it breaks  the cross off feature.  Just change the color of the lettering.  4. Fixed the formatting in a few bad cells.)

Download the 2012 Fantasy Baseball War Room <–Point Shares and Point Shares Auction Values included (NOTE FROM GREY: This will be provided once Rudy finishes Point Shares in the next few days.  Go to his latest post and bug him to finish faster.  Oh, and thanks to JD for doing this!)

With the Razzball Commenter Leagues sign ups in full swing, we look at what last year’s RCLs showed us.  I.e., this is what it took to win these fantasy baseball leagues last year.  Across thirty-six 12 team leagues, you would think you’d have some wide variations, but it’s amazingly close what you need in each category to do average vs. win.  Some quick points upfront.  There were 5 outfielders and one utility, so if you play in a Yahoo league with three outfielders and two utility, I’d expect more offense across the board.  Not much, but some.  There was a 180 games started max for pitchers.  6.5 is average in a 12 team league, not 6 because the last place team has 1 point, not zero.  Finally, the RCLs are made up of guys that are probably more competitive than your casual fantasy baseball leaguemates, so if you can hit these benchmarks, you should be in good shape.  Anyway, here’s what it takes to win a 12 team fantasy baseball league:

Runs – 997

The average team last year scored 973 runs, that would get them 6.5 points in the standings in runs.  To win your league, it took 1,108 runs with the average hitter contributing 85 runs.  To move up a point from average, you needed an extra 24 runs.  So 24 runs on top of 973 runs took you from 6.5 points to 7.5 in the standings.  I like to aim for a 7.5 in runs.  So I would aim for 997 runs or 77 runs/player.

Home Runs — 257

The average team hit 237 homers.  To win, you needed 294 homers or 23 homers/player.  To move up a point from average (6.5 points in the standings), you needed an extra 10 homers.  I like to aim for an 8.5 in homers.  So I would aim for 20 extra homers from 237 or 257 homers or 20 homers/player.

RBIs — 970

The average team needed 936 RBIs.  To win, you had to get 1,071 or 82 RBIs/player.  To move up a point from average (6.5 points), you needed an extra 24 RBIs.  I aim for a 7.5 points in RBIs.  So I would aim for 970 RBIs or 75 RBIs/player.

Steals — 176

The average team needed 162 steals.  To win, you had to get 214 or 17 steals/player.  To move up a point from average (6.5 points), you needed an extra 9 steals.  I aim for 8 points in steals.  So I would aim for 176 steals or 14 steals/player.

Average — .267

The average team’s, uh, average is .2674.  To win, you had to get a .2806.  To move up a point from average (6.5 points), you needed an increase of .002.  I aim for average in, well, ya know.  So I would want a .267 average.  Let the rest figure itself out.

Strikeouts — 1,305

The average team’s Ks are 1,168.  To win, you needed to rack up 1,384 Ks.  To move up a point from average (6.5 points), you needed an extra 39 Ks.  I aim for a 10 in Ks.  Actually, I don’t aim for it, but that’s where I end up.  So I would want 1,305 Ks from my pitching staff.

Wins — 82

The average team’s pitchers won 82 games.  To win, you needed to win 99.  To move up a point from average (6.5 points), you needed to win an extra 3 games.  (Any Astro starter is good for at least three wins.)  I go for average here, which is 82 games.  Otherwise known as letting the cards fall where they may.

Saves — 126

The average team’s relievers closed out 91 games.  To win, you needed 146  saves.  To move up a point from average (6.5 points), you needed an extra 10 saves.  I aim for a 10 in saves.  My thought is if you have extra, you can always trade those suckers.  To get 10 points in saves, you needed 126 saves.

ERA — 3.51

The average team’s pitchers had a 3.59 ERA.  To win, you needed a 3.17 ERA.  To move up a point from average (6.5 points), you needed an increase of .08.  I aim for a 7.5 in ERA.  So I would want a 3.51 ERA.  In reality, ERA’s so fickle that aiming for ERA is like throwing darts at a unicorn.

WHIP — 1.19

The average team’s pitchers had a 1.23 WHIP.  To win, you needed a 1.15 WHIP.  To move up a point from average (6.5 points), you needed an increase of .01.  I aim for a 9 in WHIP.  So I would want a 1.19 WHIP.