Home MLBFantasy baseball Handy hints for fantasy players

Handy hints for fantasy players

by Mark George
OK, so you’ve joined a fantasy league and have a few weeks left before draft day. Well done, you’ve made the right decision.
 
What do you do now?
 
For the newer fantasy baseball players among us, I’ve come up with a list of ideas to help make sure you don’t make a mess of draft day.
 
DO keep an eye on MLB news
This is fairly basic. Scour baseball websites as often as you can to track the latest news. Certain teams will have several players battling for positions, so try to follow who’s in line for the most playing time and which players are learning new positions, increasing their versatility.
 
DO keep track of injuries
Injuries are hard to avoid as players try to get back in shape ahead of the new season. I wouldn’t be too worried about minor injuries which may result in players missing a few games, but I would be worried if pitchers you are targeting are being sent for scans.
 
DON’T pay too much attention to spring stats
This is an easy one to forget. Some players may be red hot in spring, but you have to consider who they are playing against. One batter might be knocking the cover off the ball, but if he’s doing this late in the game against non-roster pitching, it’s not as impressive. The same applies for pitchers, as they may not give up an earned run all spring, but they may not have faced particularly strong line-ups.
 
DO think about players who have changed teams and/or leagues
You might be able to improve your team by thinking about which players have moved teams since last season. Which hitters are moving to favourable hitters’ stadiums? Are there any pitchers you are keen on who will be pitching in spacious stadiums? How will an NL pitcher cope when moving to the AL and facing a DH?
 
DO join a mock draft
This is a great idea if you are new to fantasy baseball, or if you are playing a type of league which you are new to. Here you can see how the drafting system works, get used to the selection process and see which players other fantasy managers are picking at what time to use as a rough guide for the real draft. No matter what sort of league you play, it’s fairly easy to find a mock draft which is relevant.
 

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3 comments

Joe Gray March 4, 2009 - 5:32 pm

Thanks for these Mark.

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Matt Smith March 4, 2009 - 6:17 pm

I can certainly endorse the advice of joining a mock draft or two. I found it very useful to experience how the Yahoo system works and what layout/options I’ll be faced with when the real draft for the BaseballGB League comes along.

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Joe Gray March 4, 2009 - 6:59 pm

I had some fun in my mock draft. First of all, I selected Mike Aviles of the Royals in a very early round, purely because I was interested what would happend if I picked a player with two positions (he is a SS and 2B). Caused a bit of a stir in the draft (stir = a lot of Americans posting remarks about how condused they were by my approach).

After the first 15 rounds or so I needed to flip it onto auto-draft as nature was calling and I didn’t want to wait to give it an answer. I came back and found Jeter on my bench, so I won’t be doing that again.

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