Draft strat help for first timer pls

[Cavspider]

First time fantasy baseball guy here.

My brother and some other friends and family, including my middle son have joined up with me in a 10 team single season roto league. Its all fun, nothing on the line but bragging rights...but I cant let my brother or my kid beat me, you know the deal LOL

Anyway, none of us know what we are doing. Its a free espn thing and they have the pre-rankings for our auto-draft. I am drafting 9th I think cause they are doing it in reverse age order.

So, what are some good draft strats for a newbie. Is it ok just to go with the random pre-draft rankings or do you have any suggestions on how to improve my team thru the draft before it starts. We have until the 17th to draft, so I have a little time.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Cavspider]

Nobody has any ideas as to draft strats for a newbie? Or is it some holy grail of secrets? Lots of looks, no suggestions. Come on guys, help the uninitiated beat up his peers.

[Dracula]

Depends on your league I guess. But some people like to try and grab players that are productive from mostly non productive positions, SS/2B/C for instance, so that they have a good leg-up on the other teams.

You can get good numbers from a lot 1B/3B/OF but slugging middle infielders and Catchers are scarce. So maybe at 9, you could take a Jimmy Rollins or Chase Utley. That guarentees you that you will have one of the best at that position.

Then at 11 you could just take Best available or take 1 of the 2 stud pitchers, Santana or Peavy. So right there you have the best at 2 positions with your first 2 picks.

Some people choose to punt 1 category, Saves for example, cuz you can't win em all. Just take some vet closers or young soon to be closers late and stock up on everything else.

[Dr. FLK]

I like to go after guys who can fill up multiple categories. Hanley Ramirez would be studly, but he should be gone by 9. Carl Crawford is always nice, but he should go maybe round 3-5ish, depending on the depth. Those kind of guys can help you a lot more than 1-dimensional players.

[mdevito]

The other line of thinking on closers is to look to guys who's job isn't a sure thing to last all year. Guys like Borowski, rather than taking Borowski who will likely go in earlier rounds you can wait a few rounds stockpile some more hitters, and then take Rafael Betancourt. Same thing goes for guys like Pat Neshek and Jeremy Accardo who have a good chance to step up if their teams closers fail. You'll pick up some holds in the meantime (assuming your league uses them) and you'll also have late draft pick closers. Other than the big front line closers it's a very unreliable position to waste early draft picks on in my opinion.

A lot of people are also of the mind that unless you score a front line catcher, you're better off waiting, because the difference in production after the top 2 or 3 closers is nominal in mosts cases and you will offset that weaker production from other offensive players who will still be in play in early rounds. I ended up with Napoli and later managed to pick up Towles this year. Napoli is sort of my insurance policy in case Towles blows up in Houston this year, though he is a rookie and could come up big for me. Napoli was still available in the later rounds of our 12 team draft, and while the BA might not be the greatest, he is a good bet for 20 HRs and a decent amount of RBIs etc if he can stay healthy.

[DuffMan]

I'd say the biggest thing would be to change the league from an auto draft to a live draft.

[Lt Melmo]

Depends on your league I guess. But some people like to try and grab players that are productive from mostly non productive positions, SS/2B/C for instance, so that they have a good leg-up on the other teams.

You can get good numbers from a lot 1B/3B/OF but slugging middle infielders and Catchers are scarce. So maybe at 9, you could take a Jimmy Rollins or Chase Utley. That guarentees you that you will have one of the best at that position.

Then at 11 you could just take Best available or take 1 of the 2 stud pitchers, Santana or Peavy. So right there you have the best at 2 positions with your first 2 picks.

Some people choose to punt 1 category, Saves for example, cuz you can't win em all. Just take some vet closers or young soon to be closers late and stock up on everything else.
The only truly scarce position this year is catcher. 2B and SS are both incredibly strong compared to what we're used to; that might not mean there's a lot of sluggers but it's not all about getting sluggers. 1B and 3B on the other hand, are a lot scarcer than people think.

[Pedro Cerrano]

The only truly scarce position this year is catcher. 2B and SS are both incredibly strong compared to what we're used to; that might not mean there's a lot of sluggers but it's not all about getting sluggers. 1B and 3B on the other hand, are a lot scarcer than people think.

I agree -- which is why with the 2nd overall pick in my draft I'll be taking David Wright over Jose Reyes or Hanley Ramirez. I can get a guy like Tejada or Edgar Renteria or whoever much later, but 3B really dries up after the top 3-4.

[reisig08]

I keep it real simple. While you need to keep an eye on all catagories, and adjust as the season goes on, I focus on three when I draft and let the chips fall where they may:

Pitching - Strikeouts
Batting - Runs, Homeruns

This method has rarely let me down. Usually guys who are high in those catagories are pretty solid in others. Obviously there is some specialization with regards to steals and saves, but that is obvious. You will need to find those guys too, but don't draft one catagory guys if you don't have too.

Finally, there are always exceptions to the rule...for example, Daniel Cabrera...great K guy, awful ERA, WHIP, Wins...use some common sense.

My last peice of advice is that if you want to win, log in and spend at least 20 minutes a day on your team. You will be sure to finish at least in the top 5 if you do that because half your league will lose interest by July 20th.

Happy Hunting!

[Dr. FLK]

I agree -- which is why with the 2nd overall pick in my draft I'll be taking David Wright over Jose Reyes or Hanley Ramirez. I can get a guy like Tejada or Edgar Renteria or whoever much later, but 3B really dries up after the top 3-4.

3B goes a little deeper than that, doesn't it? Arod, Wright, Mcab, Figgins (he's nice in roto), Aram, Braun, Atkins, Zimmerman...even guys like Alex Gordon, Adrian Beltre, Chipper, and Lowell are pretty solid.

Not to say taking Wright early is a mistake, but I don't agree that 2B/SS are deeper than 3B.

[mdevito]

if anything I'd say that 2b is more shallow than 3b when it comes down to overall fantasy quality.

[Dracula]

Yea 2b is stronger than normal this year, but overall is usually more shallow than the corners.

[Cavspider]

Thanks for the suggestions on drafting!

Now more questions...

How much, and what kind of daily maintenance is useful to keep ahead of the Jones'? I must confess I am not exactly sure how it works. There are 25 spots, with each starting position represented and a bench and quite a few pitching spots. Do you rotate guys in and out daily? Do you only drop someone if they are hurt during the season? Are all the players on your team accruing points or only the ones in the starting positions for that day or week?

I looked on ESPN for some guidance but I think they assume folks know how it works. And that assumption fails with me unfortunately.

Anyway, thanks for helping the newbie.

[Dracula]

I play on Yahoo so I'm not sure if its exactly the same but its probably close.

Only your starters performance counts. On Yahoo, each one of your positions can have a max of 162 games started. So you can sub people if you want to if you see they are being given a rest in the lineup. Your pitching staff has a total innings pitched limit of something like 1250 IP. So you pick what SP's and RP's you want playing on certain days but after they pitch the limit, their stats stop counting.

[Lt Melmo]

if anything I'd say that 2b is more shallow than 3b when it comes down to overall fantasy quality.
Of course, that's always gonna be the case. But it's about tiers, and it's about the talent you can get in which rounds. In rounds 13-18 in a 12-team league, according to ADP you can draft Kent, Polanco, Kelly Johnson, Pedroia, and Orlando Hudson. Kent and Johnson can get you 20 homers out of 2B in the 13th round. That's awesome. Neither of them will kill your average and Johnson'll steal some bags too. Polanco can give you some mad BA and Pedroia can probably help in all categories. Even towards the end of that tier you can get O-Hud, who can hit double digits in homers and steals and not bleed any categories. And even after that you can get Aaron Hill and Freddy Sanchez; Hill can hit 15 homers and Sanchez freaking won a batting title a couple years ago. That's in the last rounds of a draft and that's great production from 2B. Or, you can draft Robinson Cano in the 5th round, get 20 homers and a good BA. Kelly Johnson'll get you 90% of that production 5-7 rounds later. It's like nearly every 2B in the league is a fantasy sleeper.

Then you have 3B, which was probably the deepest position last year (this is extremely helpful on draft day when most of your opponents think to draft 3B late; it took me until I really looked into the stats to see how weak 3B is). In rounds 13-18 you'll see boring guys like Encarnacion and Blalock who have only a wee little bit more fantasy production than Kent and Johnson. You have two great sleepers in these rounds (in my eyes anyway)-- Fields and Glaus-- who can both give you good HR numbers while draining your BA. After that you get guys like Longoria (unproven), Kouz, Wigginton, Reynolds, Iwamura-- none of which give you inspiring late-round numbers. Even worse is that the 2nd tier really that much more inspiring than the late-rounders... ARam is good but an injury risk, Atkins is Fields plus a good BA, Figgins is a power drain in a power position, and Chipper is getting old and fragile. The dropoff from the first tier is quite big.

At SS in rounds 13-18 you have Hardy, Greene, Peralta, Drew-- all of whom can realistically hit 20 homers and steal some bags. Only Greene hurts your BA. At 1B, in rounds 13-18 you have Delgado, Youk, Garko and Laroche-- all of whom will probably hit around 20 homers and steal no bags. They won't do wonders for your BA. You're getting practically the same production from first and short in these rounds... etc etc, catch my drift, etc.