Fantasy Baseball

knightrunnermat

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Does anyone play fantasy baseball here? I'm working on a project that looks into fantasy baseball strategy and I thought it would be cool if there was a thread here devoted to this subject. Drafts are coming up quickly, I can't wait!
 

Ransom

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2012 will be my fifteenth year playing fantasy baseball. It was a pain playing before I got my first computer. Snail-mail fantasy baseball was very annoying. I hope this thread snowballs. Very interesting subject.

www.roundinghomebook.com
 

Henksbird

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Yep. This will be fifth year. 5x5, head-to-head, 14 teams. Draft in late March!
 

knightrunnermat

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This is only my second year of playing fantasy baseball, but I am totally hooked on it. I have been reading everything I can find on stats and sabermetrics. I joined a dynasty league this year, so I am trying to figure out how best to balance my payroll between the existing players on my roster and trying to find quality free agents to help supplement my team.
 

Ransom

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There's the rub Knight, trying to balance what you have with what you would like. In the end it's all a wonderful crapshoot. However let me tell you it is addicting. I am in a ten year four sport dynasty league. Our draft was all four sports at one time. It was amazing. Pujols was the over all number one pick. I got Rogers at number three. I forget who number two was, King James I think. I am looking forward to this thread throughout the baseball season. Perhaps we can post our teams and give each other some critique. Between the three of us perhaps one of us will win our league. And of course here is hoping others will join in.

www.roundinghomebook.com
 

Henksbird

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Sounds good, Ransom...I'll be around. That draft is insane, I've never heard of anything like that before. How do you even go about preparing???!!!
Knight-Baseball podcasts are also great. I don't listen to the radio anymore thanks to the iphone and all the free content out there. Keep them in mind as well as you get ready for that dynasty draft...
 

Ransom

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Henksbird The draft was insane indeed. It took us forty-five days with a twenty-four hour time limit to make a pick. The crazy bit was you could/can trade within sports!! I concentrated on two sports baseball and hockey after I took Rogers with my first pick. So my football team was weak as well as NBA team. Also late last summer I traded Toluwitzki SS Rockies for Stamkos C Tamba Bay Lightning which has really paid off as Stamkos is the leading goal scorer as of this morning. However now I am weak at SS. I am contemplating trading Rogers for a top tier SS. As this league is going on for ten years I am certain I will offer Rogers for Castro SS Cubs as my back-up QB is Brees. How I got both Brees and Rogers I will never understand.

www.roundinghomebook.com
 

knightrunnermat

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Sounds good, Ransom...I'll be around. That draft is insane, I've never heard of anything like that before. How do you even go about preparing???!!!
Knight-Baseball podcasts are also great. I don't listen to the radio anymore thanks to the iphone and all the free content out there. Keep them in mind as well as you get ready for that dynasty draft...

That's a really good point. I haven't even considered podcasts, even though one of my clients has their own podcast series that they put out.
 

knightrunnermat

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Henksbird The draft was insane indeed. It took us forty-five days with a twenty-four hour time limit to make a pick. The crazy bit was you could/can trade within sports!! I concentrated on two sports baseball and hockey after I took Rogers with my first pick. So my football team was weak as well as NBA team. Also late last summer I traded Toluwitzki SS Rockies for Stamkos C Tamba Bay Lightning which has really paid off as Stamkos is the leading goal scorer as of this morning. However now I am weak at SS. I am contemplating trading Rogers for a top tier SS. As this league is going on for ten years I am certain I will offer Rogers for Castro SS Cubs as my back-up QB is Brees. How I got both Brees and Rogers I will never understand.

www.roundinghomebook.com


So cool!

I don't know enough about hockey to make something like this worthwhile, but I would love to try maybe a three sport dynasty league. I don't think any of my friends would be into it though.
 

Henksbird

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When does this draft occur? It seems like one of these sports is always in season.
I also would hold out for a bit more than Castro if I was dealing Rogers. Dude will be a top 3 pick next year. Starlin is nice at a shallow position...but don't sell for .50 cents on dollar.
 

Ransom

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Henksbird, the draft was a one-off. We drafted late last winter during NBA season. There is only one draft as it is a ten year keeper league. We also got minor/college players from all sports. That was a tough draft, really hit and miss with minor league/college players. The most fun I have ever had was four years ago a league started that was baseball salary cap using the actual contracts of the players. Wow that was time consuming looking up all of the contracts. But it was real fun. The reason I am considering Castro is I can keep him for nine years. If his first two seasons are any indication he should be a real stud very soon. Most of the other good SS are in the twilight of their careers except for Reyes and I am not sure how that new ballpark in Florida will treat hitters.

Knight, anyone can make up any kind of league they like on servers such as ESPN, Yahoo, CBS sports and the like. I would like to find or start another baseball with a cap using actual players contracts. Again that was fun.

www.roundinghomebook.com
 
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Ransom

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Knight, great blog and article in Simply Sports Talk. I am going with the Angels in the AL. 1. Rangers after being denied twice will have a let down. 2. Prince will find Comerica Park not as friendly as Miller Park concerning flight of the ball. It's relatively easy to hit home runs indoors and it seems the roof is hardly open at Miller. He should have gone to the Cubs. So the Angels should take it all if they can overcome the pitching of the Rangers.

www.roundinghome.com
 

PorterStarrByrd

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I used toplay Baseball a lot ..

loved it

When 10X10 seasons were dying out and non-keeper leagues took over as the norm a lot of the straegy and fun went out of it,

I would still enjoy a league where strategy and attention to detail were big factors. I've moved too far away from the old gang in Oregon and the deer and the moose up here don't seem interested ...
 

knightrunnermat

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Knight, great blog and article in Simply Sports Talk. I am going with the Angels in the AL. 1. Rangers after being denied twice will have a let down. 2. Prince will find Comerica Park not as friendly as Miller Park concerning flight of the ball. It's relatively easy to hit home runs indoors and it seems the roof is hardly open at Miller. He should have gone to the Cubs. So the Angels should take it all if they can overcome the pitching of the Rangers.

www.roundinghome.com

Hey, thanks for the kind words. I am a big Red Sox fan, actually, so writing about other AL teams is sometimes tough. I think the Sox have then best AL East team this year, Ellsbury and Gonzalez should both have another great year. It's also time for Crawford to start producing.

But I think the Angels are going to be a tough team to beat this year. Red Sox/Angels ALCS would be cool to see.
 

Henksbird

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Ransom-one day I gotta try a league like that. I'd need a crash course in the NHL though.
Interesting stat on Prince Fielder. 8 of his HR's last year would not have gone out of Comerica (Credit: Joe Sheehan). Still like him as a late 2nd round pick, but something to consider.
I'll take the Rangers in the AL...
 

Henksbird

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Good luck, guys...but I'm going pass on the league. Too much going on.
 

knightrunnermat

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Too bad this didn't materialize--I would have liked to join a second league.

In other news, I'm almost done with my fantasy baseball strategy manual. I was hoping to have it ready and up on Amazon before Opening Day, but I still need to do some editing/reorganizing prior to publishing it.
 

knightrunnermat

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I decided that I want to update my fantasy baseball strategy manual that I wrote for this year. The season still has to play out before I begin the actual work of collecting stats and examples, but I am pretty excited about finding a project that I can work on every year.

Does anyone have a favorite stat guru or publication that they follow? I know for me, it's Bill James. I also highly recommend the book Baseball Between the Numbers. This isn't necessarily a fantasy book, but it has a lot of really interesting ideas in it.