Sorry it's been a while, but it was a crazy week at school. Finally catching a breather.
First of all I want to say congratulations to Dan and Jason for winning our league’s championships in its first two years of existence. They had fantastic teams and fantastic seasons. I wanted to get that out of the way because, like any good friends, they will be the first to point out that I do not have the credentials to write an article about how to build a championship caliber team, since I have yet to win one.
But, I feel like I am a very solid fantasy baseball player, and I consistently build teams that take me deep into the playoffs. So here we go, here are my rules to live by for draft day. By the way, I’m sure most of these apply to Rotisserie style leagues also, but I always play head-to-head, and that is where these lessons have come from.
1. Know your league’s scoring system. While most leagues are generally consistent with their scoring, there are plenty of customizable leagues to play in. You are going to be mad as hell once you draft an all-star SP rotation only to realize that pitching categories count for only a third of the scoring system you are in. Take a look at which categories you are going to need to win, and draft accordingly.
2. Put some time into your draft day material. For those of you who don’t know, I am a numbers guy. And the numbers don’t lie. So I put together a “weighted” rankings list. There are many different ways of doing this, but here is my general formula. This may take a little time on your part, but it is not difficult at all to work out.
Now, you are probably used to just making a list for each position with each player listed down the line, and probably a comprehensive ranking list of every player in the league. That is definitely a good thing, but my weighted system will give you a much better draft day list and is very easy to follow.
Rating = (Player Grade) * (D) / (D – 0.5) where D = Position Deepness Rating
a) You are going to give each position a “deepness” rating. To determine this rating, first look at all available players at that position, and count how many “quality” players are available. By “quality”, I mean any player that you wouldn’t even think twice about taking. For each position, take that number and divide it by the number of slots available you have on your team. For example, say that I like 21 quality OF’s. I would then divide that by 3 because I start 3 OF’s to get a deepness rating of 7. Say I like 6 quality 1B. I would divide by 1 to get a deepness rating of 6. From here on out, I will refer to this rating as “D”.
b) Now comes the fun part. For each player, you are going to grade on a scale of 1 to 100, with 1 being horrible (e.g. Jeff Weaver) and A-Rod being a 100. This is where your personal preferences come in. You can take into account whatever you want when grading each player. Even if he’s a stud but you know you’d absolutely never want him on your team and wouldn’t mind taking someone else, feel free to give him a 0 so he falls off your radar. And be sure to take into account rule #1 I gave you – take into consideration your scoring categories. If the only real help a closer is going to be to is just in the Saves category, do NOT rate him nearly as high as position players.
c) Then for each player, you take their grade and multiply it by D for their respective position, then divide that answer by (D – 0.5). We do this last part just to even out the final ratings (no real scientific reason for the exact number, but that is the formula I use that has given me the most useful final Rating). This gives you their final Rating. And now, you can make your position by position list like you had before, but now you can use the same final Rating to make your comprehensive list of all players. Your final results may surprise you, but this will give you the best list that not only supports your league set-up type, but also your personal views on each player and their positions.
Like I said, very simple, but very effective.
Rating = (Player Grade) * (D) / (D – 0.5) where D = Position Deepness Rating
If you need a visual example, here are a few players at the top of most fantasy lists with example scores I gave them.
3B A-Rod 100
SS Jose Reyes 95
SP Johan Santana 90
1B Prince Fielder 90
2B Chase Utley 92
Say I like four quality 3B, three quality SS, twelve quality SP (remember – 2 slots on roster), five quality 1B, and two quality 2B.
Final Ratings
A-Rod = (100)*(4)/(3.5) = 114.2857
Reyes = (96)*(3)/(2.5) = 114
Santana = (90)*(6)/(5.5) = 98.1818
Prince = (90)*(5)/ (4.5) = 100
Chase = (92)*(2)/(1.5) = 122.6667
So if I had the number 1 pick, believe it or not this ranking system has me taking Chase Utley over A-Rod because of how scarce good fantasy second basemen there are. And you can see that even though Johan and Prince were given an equal original score, Prince gets the boost because his Deepness factor was a lower D.
3. Do not fill a bench spot with any pick before round 10. STARTERS FIRST!! This is so idiotic but people still will be filling backup roles before they even have a catcher and a second baseman.
4. Your bench should look like this. Offense – 1 or 2 bench players who can fill multiple positions. Pitching – this is where the majority of your bench should be. Load up your bench with starting pitchers (for most standard head to head leagues). If you have a lot of guys to start every single week, you’ll have a much better chance to take the categories like Wins, K’s, and IP.
I will keep you updated with any more as I think of them. And tomorrow I will be posting my brief Player Rating list that I will actually be using in my own drafts.
Peace I’m outta here!
