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1.
Book 4 -
Let The Games Begin
1)
The team
is now drafted and teams are set. All the pieces are in
place for the beginning of your journey towards a
championship. I can only promise you two things on this
journey. It will be long, and it won’t be easy.
2)
Playing
fantasy baseball is much like the real sport in the sense
that you must grind it out going through highs and lows.
Knowing when to make moves, and not just making a move
because you are desperate. So many decisions will have
to be made once the season starts that the work and
thinking done during the draft will pale in comparison.
3)
Let’s
focus on the first month of the season. There are many
beliefs about fantasy baseball and how you should start.
Some say it’s like a marathon, pace yourself. Some say
April doesn’t really matter its September that matters.
Others and myself agree you need to come out with guns
blazin’.
4)
Taking
the top score for the first month is so fundamentally
important that it’s often overlooked as a strategy to
winning. This book will cover the post-draft stage of
the game and then the first 2 months of the season. We
will highlight how to play your team and what moves you
should make.
2.
Post-Draft Decisions
5)
Most of us won’t make a pickup after the draft has ended
and before the season has started. It’s a reasonable
move to make if you need too. In most cases there isn’t a
reason to make a move at this time, but sometimes you can
and they are goldmines.
6)
First, consider the timing of your draft. Most decisions
made by a major league teams are made late in March, so
if your draft was early players that weren’t drafted can
become valuable. For instance, over the past seasons
closers have been named late in spring training or on
opening day. Even starting pitchers and position players
get decided on as the season is getting under way. For
example Jonathan Papelbon in 2006. He was only drafted
in 11% of the leagues, so he was a free agent after most
drafts. Nobody knew his value till his first save
opportunity, but with a little research you could have
snatched him and taken a small risk by adding him to your
roster.
7)
Allot of managers do find a player they would like to
have on their roster post-draft, but they cannot decide
who to cut to get the player. Most managers feel they
drafted their team and that should be that.
8)
As a manager these moves are very tough to make, so you
must decide on 1-2 players that you deem are expendable.
Expendable players you can cut on a moments notice. It’s
hard because most of us value are entire roster, but you
must have at least one revolving roster spot. This
player can be your deepest sleeper, a third string
starting pitcher, or a middle reliever. Whoever he is
they must be consdiered expendable.
9)
Your deepest sleepers can be cut and reaquired easily.
In most cases other people aren’t thinking like you and
they certainly don’t want to cut their deepest sleeper
for yours. Last season after I picked up Ryan Braun I
cut him within 2 weeks. He was slumping and I needed a
pitcher. He went on a boom, and because I already knew
and liked him, I got him back just in time. Jackpot.
So, your sleepers are expendable to a point. Of course I
have to mention like in all team moves another manager
can sneak in and grab the player you cut. We will give
you more tips on taking advantage of free agency in the
next book.
10)
Starting pitchers are a dime a dozen in free agency. We
are all going to have plenty of starting pitching and 1
or 2 will not be as good as we would like. If another
player comes along, cut the pitcher. Even if, and I say
even if someone grabs your pitcher, there are probably 10
more that were as good, or nearly as good in free agency,
so the risk in minimal.
11)
Middle relievers in a league where closers are high point
scorers are nearly complete wastes. In most cases the
reason you’d have one is because you didn’t get enough
closers in the draft or he’s a back up to your closers.
If he is a starter, cut one of the other types we’ve
mentioned, but if he is a backup he can be cut. Every
season several middle releivers pop up as roster quality
players, so replacing your ace middle reliever is fairly
easy. Besides needing him at the start of the season
isn’t as important as having him at the end when pitchers
get hurt or tired.
12)
Now we have established three types of players that can
occupy the revolving roster spot incase you need to pick
up a free agent. We will discuss more about picking up
free agents and what to look for, but for this book just
remember who you should cut if you do have a need to pick
up a player in free agency before the season has started.
13)
Finally, for your santity and for strategy, break the
baseball season down into smaller windows by the month.
First April, May, June etc… By breaking the season up
into months its much easier for you to focus on a certain
strategy. This should be easy in a head-to-head league
where you are already focusing on week-by-week.
3.
April:
Come Out Fighting
14)
This
sounds easy enough, and most of you think you do, but its
harder then you assume. More often than not, most of us
don’t come out fighting like we should. For fantasy
baseball you need a certain mindset for different times
of the season. I firmly believe that you need to unload
all your guns in the first and last months.
15)
Start by
front loading your pitchers. Make sure you don’t try to
hold back using innings or limit your starters in
anyway. Even allow good prospects to start. Allot of
pitcher come out of the gate strong, slow down, and then
pick up their mid-season form. So if they start strong
you have to maximize your benefit from that. If you have
a revolving spot and you see a great pitching match up in
free agency, make the move and score the points. If you
have SP-RP closers or middle relievers on your roster
make sure they are in an active slot when you don’t have
enough starting pitchers going on a given day.
16)
A
fundamental must in fantasy baseball is keeping up with
your roster daily. It’s what separates men from the boys
or fantasy baseball from fantasy football. Allot of
managers truly aren’t ready for the season. Like a
ballplayer their timing is off, and they are slow to
react with their roster. Seize that opportunity to grab
a lead. Stay on your roster day and night in April and
beyond.
17)
Offense
is a bit trickier, but there are still ways to maximize
scoring. For offensive players, watch their performance
coming out of spring training. Notice if they are hot. I
know it’s hard to gauge a player’s hot/cold status coming
out of spring training because of playing time and
competition, but it’s a reliable gauge for whether a
player is ready to score or needs more time. Players as
good as Alex Rodriguez even start out of the gate slow
and in a slump.
18)
You have
to bench slumping players at the beginning of the
season. Opening day slumps are different then mid-season
slumps, or even end of the season slumps. Opening day
slumps simply exist because of lack of time playing
competitive ball. Its natural for hitters to start slow
and heat up. You have to quickly recognize when a player
is starting slow and have the guts to bench him. This is
one of the rare and I mean very rare times we would
recommend benching a star player. Think about it, if
your star outfielder opens the first week of the season
going 5 for 43. Then your solid and trusty backup goes
16 for 44. You’ll be upset at yourself for not making
the change sooner. As soon as the star player heats up,
put him back in. You may lose a few hits as he heats up,
but the hits you can gain can be the difference between a
slow start and a fast one.
19)
No
matter which type of league you are in rotisserie,
head-to-head, or points, coming out strong should give
you the points you need to be at the top of your league.
That is fairly self-evident.
20)
Also, do
not consider trading a star player who is starting slow.
Never. We will cover trading in detail in a future book,
but trading should not be on your mind in the first month
or two. Now if other managers want to “crazy trade”,
then consider the deal. Again, more on that in a later
in the FB bible.
21)
Just
remember, play all your cards in April. Not only does it
give you a chance to take a big lead, but it allows you
to see how your team will perform across all spectrums of
scoring. Also, it messes with the psyche of the opposing
managers. Getting into their heads is half the battle
just like GI Joe would say. It’s critical from a
psychological point-of-view to win April, and it’s the
same if you come out at the bottom of your league. We
will cover the psychology of it all later in this
gospel.
4.
May,
Play It Cool
22)
April is
over, and now you are in a swing month. Swing months
tend to be downer months that can allow a team to take a
lead, grow a lead, or lose a lead. The other swing month
is August. If you made they right decisions and had some
good luck you should be leading going into May and that
puts all the advantages in your corner. All the
bottom-rung managers are scrambling to get to the top,
while you are hopefully already there and relaxing a bit
more then them. May is played much differently then
April, so be prepared to shift your strategy.
23)
In May
you want to chill on your pitching. After using as many
innings as you could in April, you need to cut back in
May. One of the side-effects of using allot of innings
is your PPI (points per inning) amongst your starters
will suffer. In most cases your PPI will be lower than
you want it to be because you had to absorb some bad
starts. If you remember from book one, an average PPI
would be the amount of points your pitcher can score in
one inning for getting outs, and nothing else. In most
leagues you will get 1 point per out recorded, so 3
points per inning would be the average. . Obviously
you’d like to be in the 5-6 PPI range. If your PPI is
low, we can rebuild it in May without blowing too many
innings.
24)
May is
also the month where you want to open yourself up to
trades if necessary. You’ve had a month to evaluate
players both on your team and on other teams. Trading is
definitely not a skill for the weak at heart. It’s
always a tough decision, but in many cases they will be
the decisions that change the complexion of your team and
ultimately win you a championship. Again, we will cover
trades strategies in more detail the trading gospel, but
for this gospel its important to know that this is one of
the times where you find deals that fill the holes you
have discovered without creating new holes. It’s a
delicate art to say the least.
25)
There is
also free agency to consider. At this time major league
teams are evaluating their first month and making moves
of there own. If you remember in 2007, Ryan Braun was
brought in May to help the struggling Brewers. Seasons
will start for many players in May, and this is your
chance to pick up some steals.
26)
Let’s
assume you are losing going into May (bottom five), what
would be the best strategy for you at this point? After
a month you know the positions that are hurting you.
Notice we don’t say players. This is where positions
come into focus. You are matching up against the other
teams in the league, not other players. The reason the
other teams are beating you is because they are
outscoring your team at certain positions. At this point
you have to examine the teams that are beating you and
find out how they are doing it.
27)
Now
there are few if no quick solutions, but I recommend
matching up position by position with each team and note
which position each team is beating you at. Say five
teams are ahead of you, and four of them have outscored
you at the second base position. Now you know that you
have to improve scoring from second base. You have
several options to choose from to improve that position.
In some cases you might have the best second basemen
available and there is nothing you can do about it except
be patient. You can always check free agency for hotter
second basemen, or do the most dangerous move of trading
for second basemen. The bottom-line is you have to
improve your scoring in order to over take the other
teams. Continue examining all positions and try to
improve your team position by position.
28)
By May
you should have all your big-time players swinging a
decent bat. If by the end of May they still aren’t
producing you will have some big decisions to make, but
for now you have to go with what you got, or what you can
get in free agency using your revolving roster spots.
29)
If you
are winning its much different, more relaxed, and the
actions you should take are summed up above. Try to
improve your team where you feel you can. Look for new
hot free agents. Do this not only to help your team, but
keep those players away from your opponents. Consider
trades, but only trades where you get the far better
deal. No reason to take risks when ahead, right? Play
it safe, but stay aggressive.
30)
In
either case, slow down the innings use, so you can get
your innings per day average back to a normal level.
Innings per day is the average of total innings divided
by the number of days in the season. Check what your
average is by dividing the amount of innings you have
left into the remaining days in the season. Try to get
your average close to the actual league average. If you
are already there, throw some more pitching, but again
you are in the lead so watch for bad pitching match ups.
5.
The
Psychology of an Early Lead or Losing
31)
Psychology is powerful in all walks life and is no
different in fantasy baseball. Managers look at their
teams much different whether they are winning or losing.
Lets give you some examples of winning and losing
psychologies and see how the different managers treat
their team. We are telling you this because if you are
the winning team then you will understand how your
opponent is thinking at that time, and you will also know
what you shouldn’t do when the chips are down for your
team.
32)
If you are the winning team, say in second place in a
tight race with the leader. Your opponents beneath you
in the standing will be scrambling for points. Security
is no longer on the side of a losing team. They tend to
over-analyze situations and make rash decisions like
cutting a player that they should never have cut.
Furthermore, they will also consider and in many cases
accept “crazy trades” that in allot of cases will hurt
their team further.
33)
We’ve discussed panicking already in this bible, and we
will cover it again now. In the heat of competition we
can all panic. What’s most important is we recognize
when its about to happen and avoid it. A losing manager
will panic and you can see that when he’s cutting 2 or 3
players at a time, and/or putting up posts in the league
offering trades. Those are obvious forms of panicking.
34)
If you are on the losing end, never panic. Take a deep
breath and realize it’s only May. The season is still a
long ways from over. Your great players will eventually
hit, and if you are patient new great players always
emerge or trade offers become more frequent. You should
always act like you are a winning team and always focus
your attention on the team directly above you, not the
league leader unless you are in second place. In time
you can catch them all, but for now one fish at a time.
35)
Seasons are lost at these moments. The moments where you
feel helpless like you’ll never catch the leader. If you
react to the moment you will only compound your
problems. Let the moment react to you. Look to the
teams below you and find a panicking team and pounce on
him. Make trade offers you will get the better end of.
Remember you are thinking clearly he may not be. I know
this sounds bad to do, but when you smell blood, go for
the kill. If you don’t do it, another manager will and
he will benefit from whatever transaction he makes with
the panicking manager.
36)
Understanding how to start the season strong is a
critical factor in winning a championship. If you have
any questions about your draft, email us at
thetrueguru@fantasybaseballsearch.com. |
