Good afternoon everyone. If you are one of my regular readers who have stopped by specifically to read my Monday ramble, I have already made that entry for today and you can find it under the title 'Do You Work Here?' (I know that some of you could not care less about sports...) :) For those of you who are baseball junkies, who may be curious as to what I was doing at 11:00 in the morning yesterday, or who just want to learn about an "innovative" fantasy baseball strategy (we'll see), here we go.
This is my second season competing in this particular fantasy baseball format, which is a rotisserie league composed of 10 people who each a drafted a roster of 28 players yesterday (our draft took just under 2 hours). Under this format, our teams will compete against each other in 10 different categories (5 offensive and 5 defensive) as follows: Home Runs; Runs Batted In; Runs Scored; Stolen Bases; Batting Average; Wins; Saves; Strikeouts; Earned Run Average; and Walks/Hits Allowed Per Inning Pitched.
Under this format last season I took 3rd place in my league of 10 teams. The strategy that I will be using this season was implemented last season, although last year I came up with the strategy DURING THE DRAFT... :) If you still have not drafted your team for this season, you are more than welcome to try this strategy, and at the very least, your other nine opponents will wonder what in the hell you are doing during your draft, as I'm sure mine were... :) Home runs are the "sexy" category if you are a baseball fan, so when I drafted seventh in my draft last year, of course people were taking all of the power hitters before me. That's when I formulated this strategy, which is almost guaranteed to be the complete opposite of all of my opponents in any fantasy baseball league that I choose to compete in during the future (that is until my blog EXPLODES and has millions of readers, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there)... :) My strategy in the draft and during the season is to win all of the DEFENSIVE categories that I can, so while my opponents are spreading their picks around, I almost totally focus on taking the best pitchers in the early rounds of the draft. After that, I try to win the stolen bases category (also "unattractive"), and then place as high as I can in batting average and runs scored, knowing that I don't have much of a chance at all to win the home runs or runs-batted-in category.
During the first 14 rounds of the draft I selected players from the following positions, which is why my team won't be hitting many home runs this season: First Baseman; Pitcher; Pitcher; Outfielder; Pitcher; Pitcher; Pitcher; Pitcher; Pitcher; Pitcher; Pitcher; Pitcher; Pitcher; AND (you guessed it) Pitcher... :P Yes, I selected 12 pitches in the first 14 rounds of the draft. During the season our starting lineups will be made up of 13 offensive players and 9 pitchers, with a bench of 6 players. I will periodically update the progress of my team throughout the course of the baseball season, which now bridges the gap until the next football season for me. For those of you who are in my fantasy league, welcome to the blog and I'll enjoy competing against you this year. For those of you who are not in my fantasy league, don't worry that I just gave my strategy away, because all of the best players were drafted yesterday... :) Below is a list of the players that I drafted, round by round...
3rd A. Gonzalez (Red Sox)
18th R. Halladay (Phillies)
23rd C. Lee (Phillies)
38th M. Holliday (Cardinals)
43rd D. Haren (Angels)
58th J. Lester (Red Sox)
63rd H. Bell (Marlins)
78th I. Kennedy (Diamondbacks)
83rd J. Valverde (Tigers)
98th J. Putz (Diamondbacks)
103rd A. Bailey (Red Sox)
118th D. Hudson (Diamondbacks)
123rd M. Garza (Cubs)
138th J. Zimmerman (Nationals)
143rd C. Maybin (Padres)
158th A. Pagan (Giants)
163rd B. Boesch (Tigers)
178th J. Weeks (Athletics)
183rd B. Revere (Twins)
198th A. Jackson (Tigers)
203rd A. Escobar (Royals)
218th I. Davis (Mets)
223rd I. Desmond (Nationals)
238th B. Harper (Nationals)
243rd Y. Escobar (Blue Jays)
258th T. Helton (Rockies)
263rd C. Jones (Braves)
278th C. Ruiz (Phillies)
My 'Bikini Hill Giants' will be competing this season against Red October, the Confused Red Flour Beetles, Expos Forever, the Shooting Stars, Crime Dog, the Wascally Wabbits, Time To Beat, the Royals, and the Dirt Dogs... :) Enjoy your day, good luck in your draft if you have one coming up, and I'll see you again on Wednesday.
And drafting that way, your pitching will be insane, but you're not only going to hurt in HRs, but RBIs, runs, and average too. The only thing that could save you is Bryce Harper coming up and performing like he should and Ike Davis living up to his potential. Then you will have two 25-30+ HR hitters right there. (This is the guy from yahoo answers by the way. Thanks for rating my team.)
ReplyDeleteOh, I WILL finish DEAD LAST in HR's (there's no doubt), and probably last or next to last in RBI's. But if I can win the 5 pitching categories (or come close), win steals, and am competitive in batting average and runs scored, I'll be in it all season like I was last year. You're welcome for the rating and good luck with your team!
ReplyDeleteNot one Yankee! LOL
ReplyDeleteI like Cano, Granderson, and Teixeira, but they weren't available where I would have taken them... ;)
ReplyDeleteI've been giving some thought to this strategy. Some leagues have a 1200 inning maximum. In those, you wouldn't need 12 of your first 14 picks to be pitchers, would you?
ReplyDeleteI tried a variation of this today on a practice draft at Yahoo! I used my 3, 4 and 5 picks to get front-line SPs (C.Hamels, D.Haren, etc.). Then I used later picks to get pitchers I wanted that most people had under-valued (CJ Wilson, J. Cueto, D. Fister and C. Luebke) and picked up six closers, yes I said SIX of them.
Using this, I was still able to get some stud hitters, but I did as you said and focused on ones who had good batting avgs. and who had SBs (J. Votto, C. Gonzalez, S. Victorino, M. Cudyear, etc.)
It was a fun draft. We'll see how it works out.
My league doesn't have a maximum number of innings or that would have obviously been a consideration. In my league, you have to start nine pitchers each week, and you decide how many will be starters and relievers. Changes are allowed in my league on a weekly basis. I would have taken more relievers, but that 28-round draft was for 13 offensive starters, the 9 pitchers, and only 6 bench players to back up both... I enjoy your blog and I hope that the strategy works out for you. Like I said, I was in the thick of things all season long last year...
ReplyDelete