Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy

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2011 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep, Pitchers Pairings

| 2011 Fantasy Baseball Draft, Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy | 69 Comments

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For these pairings, I’m going to be using our 2011 fantasy baseball rankings.  Notably, the top 20 starters for 2011 fantasy baseball, top 40 starters for 2011, top 60 starters for 2011 and the top 80 starters for 2011.  Okay, now that we have our links and shizz done.  What is a pitcher pairing?  It’s how you plan on putting together a fantasy staff.  It’s a plan of action.  If you have A pitcher, which B, C and D pitcher goes with him?  You should have six starters.  The sixth starter is Mike Minor or take whoever you want.  I suggest an upside pick.  Mike Minor comes to mind.  Or Jordan Zimmermann.  Jordan Zimmermann also comes to mind.  I’m going to assume you’re in a 12 team, 5×5 and some variation of 9 Pitchers league.  (NOTE:  What you are about to read is massively confusing.  If it were found scribbled in a notebook, the FBI would be watching me.)  Anyway, here’s some pairings for pitching staffs for 2011 fantasy baseball drafts:

TIERS

“The best, Jerry.  The best!” and “Top starters that I’m wary of.” – These tiers are from Halladay to Sabathia.  There’s very little chance I have anyone in either of these tiers.  If I do have one, I wouldn’t take another pitcher until the Haren tier of the top 40 starters.  Then I’d grab one guy from the tier of Marcum/Daniel Hudson and one guy from the flyer tier of Chacin.  Finally, I’d finish my staff off with — that just sounded like a phone sex operator — an out there flyer from the top 80 starter post (a pitcher in the top 80 post that I like, preferably), then I’d grab Minor or Zimmermann.  So F-Her, Scherzer, Marcum, Chacin, Vazquez and Zimmermann.  That staff will probably have 13′s in every pitching category in a 12 team league.

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Grey

Winning Your Fantasy Baseball League

| 2011 Fantasy Baseball Draft, Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy | 87 Comments

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With the Razzball Commenter Leagues sign ups starting on Monday, we decided to take a 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 twenty-one 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.

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Grey

Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy, Head-to-Head

| 2010 Fantasy Baseball Draft, Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy | 88 Comments

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H2H, Head-to-Head, whatever you want to call it doesn’t change a lot from our 2010 fantasy baseball rankings.  There are 300 billion suns in the Milky Way galaxy.  There are 100s of billions of galaxies in the universe.  There are at least 256,000 planets exactly like Earth.  Yet, there’s one Albert Pujols.  He’s still number one.  And so on and so forth.  The strategy to play H2H changes.  You aren’t hoping Dunn hits 40 homers by October, but whether or not he’ll hit two homers on Sunday or if you should sit him to try and win steals.  It’s all about the match-ups, ya’ll!  So you want to build a team that can match-up well with any other team.  Anyway, let’s look at some Head-to-Head fantasy baseball draft strategy:

1.

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Grey

Fantasy Baseball Auction Draft Strategy

| 2010 Fantasy Baseball Draft, Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy | 117 Comments

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The other day I went over my fantasy baseball strategy for snake drafts.  Lots of the strategy there also applies here.  If you ask me — and you kinda did ask me by reading this shizz — auction drafts are where it’s at, yo!  You get in a room with your best fantasy baseball buddies.  The guys you haven’t seen since last year’s draft.  The guys you don’t want to see until next year’s draft.  A few guys you actively despise.  One guy, and there’s always one, has his phone on vibrate just in case the missus calls about Petey, their sick Schnauzer.  Then you have the guy who will go the extra dollar for (fill-in favorite player from his favorite team).  You know he’s his favorite player because he’s wearing his jersey.  You have the guy who brings only Cheetos and turns everything he touches orange, and, if he touches something that was already orange, he makes it oranger.  Finally, you have the guy who made plans at 5PM and begins to yell at everyone at 4PM that they’re taking too long.  And, it always turns out, this day is the best day of the year.  Auction draft day is better than your wedding day.  As for online auction drafts, they’re just a’ight.  Anyway, here’s some tried and true tips to help you through your auction fantasy baseball draft:

1.

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Grey

Performance Enhancing Draft Strategy, PEDS

| 2010 Fantasy Baseball Draft, Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy | 77 Comments

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There’s a BRAN (Balanced Roster After Nine) Drafting Strategy by Rudy Gamble.  Yesterday, he went over some fantasy baseball drafting hints from Heloise.  You go read it.  It will make you smart.  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 draft strategy, Performance Enhancing Draft Strategy or PEDS.

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Rudy Gamble

Bag o’ Fantasy Baseball Draft Advice

| 2010 Fantasy Baseball Draft, Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy | 64 Comments

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While Grey and I are usually around (more Grey than me) to answer pre-draft and post-draft questions, we don’t have a solution just yet for inter-draft questions.

As we wait for the first prototype of our Razzball helmet that allows us to help call the plays for our readers, here are some tips that will allow you to call audibles like Peyton Manning.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Grey

2010 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep, Pitcher Pairings

| 2010 Fantasy Baseball Draft, Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy | 81 Comments

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For these pairings, I’m going to be using our 2010 fantasy baseball rankings.  Notably, the top 20 starters for 2010 fantasy baseball, top 40 starters for 2010, top 60 starters for 2010 and the top 80 starters for 2010.  Okay, now that we have our links and shizz done.  What is a pitcher pairing?  It’s how you plan on putting together a fantasy staff.  It’s a plan of action.  If you have A pitcher, which B, C and D pitcher goes with him?  You should have six starters.  The sixth starter is Jonathan Sanchez or take whoever you want.  I suggest an upside pick.  Jonathan Sanchez comes to mind.  Sanchez, Sanchez, Sanchez… The fifth starter will be covered below.  I’m going to assume you’re in a 12 team, 5×5 and some variation of 9 Pitchers league.  (NOTE:  What you are about to read is massively confusing.  If it were found scribbled in a notebook, the FBI would be watching me.  But to add more confusion, every time I say Wandy/Bills tier, you can also include Matt Cain’s tier in there.)  Anyway, here’s some pairings for pitching staffs for 2010 fantasy baseball drafts:

TIERS

Tim Lincecum – There’s very little chance I have Lincecum on any of my teams, but if I do have him, I wouldn’t take another pitcher until around Wandy tier of the top 40 starters.  Then I’d grab two guys from the flier tier of Cueto/Buchholz.  Finally, I’d finish my staff off with — that just sounded like a phone sex operator — a total flier in the Homer Bailey tier.  So Lincecum, Billingsley, Cueto, Anderson, Bailey and Sanchez.  This is a pretty wonky staff, but Lincecum gives you that flexibility.

Please, blog, may I have some more?
Grey

2010 Fantasy Baseball Draft Prep, Pairings

| 2010 Fantasy Baseball Draft, Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy | 90 Comments

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The other day in the comments someone asked that I give some pairings for my first two rounds of the 2010 fantasy baseball drafts.  I was going to do this anyway (you’re not the boss of me!), but sometimes I need a gentle nudge in the right direction.  Not a noodge, thank you.  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 and pitchers too.  We’ll go through those on another post.  For easy reference, the Royal We will be using the top 10 2010 fantasy baseball rankings and the top 20 2010 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 2010 fantasy baseball drafts:

Albert Pujols – Could really team him up with anyone, except another 1st baseman.  Preferably, I’d like to have Pujols and a 3rd baseman (Zimmerman).  Then on the turn you can grab an outfielder.  So Pujols, Zimmerman and Upton.  Yeah, that would be nice.

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Grey

Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy, Punt Catcher

| 2010 Fantasy Baseball Draft, Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy | 57 Comments

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No one carries two catchers in one catcher leagues.  If you do, you probably suffer from mushy brain.  So in 12 team leagues, you have 10 to 15 catchers at any time to choose from.  Hey, Miguel Olivo’s dressed like Johnny Weir and he’s hitting!  What do you know, Rod Barajas looks less Barajas-y!  Skinny Pudge is seeing fat pitches!

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