Welcome To The Hot 8
I can't put into words how happy I am to have the opportunity to bring all of the readers of Fantasy Baseball Search The Hot 8 every week. First of all, who the hell am I and why anybody take advice from me? Fair question.
My name is Jeff Mans and I have been playing fantasy sports for 19 years. Back in 1992, I created one of the very first fantasy football bulletin boards on the web using the Prodigy Internet service. It was as a moderator of this bulletin board that I developed many lifelong contacts and friendships with others who share my passion for fantasy sports. As the Internet and fantasy sports evolved I became a regular on message boards, built spreadsheet type programs to sort and keep track of stats and was always coming up with ways to get others involved with these games. In 2005, I began http://www.scoutfantasyfootball.com/ in order to bring my experience, knowledge and passion for fantasy football to whoever would listen. In just four years the site has grown far beyond my expectations thanks mainly to resourceful, loyal, passionate and astute fantasy players just like you who read this blog today. Thanks to all of you I have been fortunate enough to appear on several radio programs as a fantasy expert including stints on KGME-910 AM in Phoenix, Arizona and WMVP-1000 AM in my hometown of Chicago, Illinois.
While fantasy football has been how Sammy Sosa would say "berry berry gootu me" baseball has always been my true love. From the early days of putting "fantasy" teams together in my Topps Sticker Books (remember those?) and playing out seasons by throwing a rubber ball against a painted square on the wall. To the countless hours I've spent playing games like Baseball Mogul, reading books like 3 Nights In August, studying sabermetrics or crying my wussy eyes out watching Field Of Dreams. Baseball is in my blood like green on the outfield grass.
I drafted my first Rotisserie Baseball team back in 1988. Back then we kept track of stats by reading the following day's newspaper. We had to learn to calculate ERA and OBP ourselves and kept track of our stats in notebooks and trapper keepers. It was around this same time I began playing a baseball simulation game called Strat-O-Matic (SOM). My buddies and I couldn't wait to get ahold of those precious cards every year and draft out own teams and play out season after season while keeping all the scores and stats by hand. If you have never heard of or played SOM and are a baseball enthusiast I recommend you try it out as it is quite addicting and perfect for the January-March months before the fantasy baseball season starts. Eventually, rotisserie baseball became fantasy baseball and found it's way to the internet and I followed right alongside. I no longer had time for all of the manual stat keeping of SOM and decided to give that up in favor of more fantasy baseball leagues. In 2006, I found out that SOM had come out with a computer netplay feature that allowed for automatic stat keeping and for online gameplay. With my long time fantasy baseball league disbanding that same year I decided to not join another one and instead startup a Strat league instead. By playing SOM I have been able to not only keep up with the players, teams and stats but learn how each player obtains these stats. For instance, how they hit VS. RHP/LHP, day/night breakdown and pretty much every single sabermetric Bill James breakdown you can think of. Most importantly, because the game comes out in January for the PREVIOUS season it is absolutely critical to learn how to scout and evaluate prospects. I have spent the past 3 seasons pouring over minor league stats, paying close attention to how certain climates affect a young guys curveball and which guys have the makeup to be pro ballplayers. I've had a great run of calling out future stars such as Chase Utley, Troy Tulowitzki, Dustin Pedroia, Geovany Soto, Jair Jurrjens, Matt Cain and Joakim Soria to name a few.
Being able to identify young and unheard of talent is what The Hot 8 is all about. I will be posting 8 players every week who have a great chance of helping you in your fantasy conquests during the course of the season. These are not going to be star players nor highly touted prospects. They will be under the radar guys who the rest of your league probably won't blink an eyelash at when you pick them up as free agents. I will post the list as well as a detailed description of what each player offers and how their skills could help your team. The key is to acquire these players who others think come "out of nowhere" before they start producing. Likewise, if you have any questions about prospects, minor leaguers or any player at all feel free to email me your questions at jeff@fantasybaseballsearch.com. The Hot 8 will officially start in February so until then I will be posting some random thoughts that I have on players young and old around the league who I will be watching intently come spring training and the early part of the season.
Lastly, I am very happy to be joining the team at Fantasy Baseball Search. Enough cannot be said about Todd Farino and the team he has assembled here. Evan Dickens, Ryan Hallam, RC Rizza and A.J. Pelletier are all savvy well experienced experts who can and will help anybody who wants to raise their game. I look forward to hosting The Fantasy Baseball Scouting Report with Ryan Hallam come March. This is going to be a very fun show I can promise you that! I look forward to working with all of these great fantasy baseball experts and hearing from all you loyal readers in the days and months ahead.
My name is Jeff Mans and I have been playing fantasy sports for 19 years. Back in 1992, I created one of the very first fantasy football bulletin boards on the web using the Prodigy Internet service. It was as a moderator of this bulletin board that I developed many lifelong contacts and friendships with others who share my passion for fantasy sports. As the Internet and fantasy sports evolved I became a regular on message boards, built spreadsheet type programs to sort and keep track of stats and was always coming up with ways to get others involved with these games. In 2005, I began http://www.scoutfantasyfootball.com/ in order to bring my experience, knowledge and passion for fantasy football to whoever would listen. In just four years the site has grown far beyond my expectations thanks mainly to resourceful, loyal, passionate and astute fantasy players just like you who read this blog today. Thanks to all of you I have been fortunate enough to appear on several radio programs as a fantasy expert including stints on KGME-910 AM in Phoenix, Arizona and WMVP-1000 AM in my hometown of Chicago, Illinois.
While fantasy football has been how Sammy Sosa would say "berry berry gootu me" baseball has always been my true love. From the early days of putting "fantasy" teams together in my Topps Sticker Books (remember those?) and playing out seasons by throwing a rubber ball against a painted square on the wall. To the countless hours I've spent playing games like Baseball Mogul, reading books like 3 Nights In August, studying sabermetrics or crying my wussy eyes out watching Field Of Dreams. Baseball is in my blood like green on the outfield grass.
I drafted my first Rotisserie Baseball team back in 1988. Back then we kept track of stats by reading the following day's newspaper. We had to learn to calculate ERA and OBP ourselves and kept track of our stats in notebooks and trapper keepers. It was around this same time I began playing a baseball simulation game called Strat-O-Matic (SOM). My buddies and I couldn't wait to get ahold of those precious cards every year and draft out own teams and play out season after season while keeping all the scores and stats by hand. If you have never heard of or played SOM and are a baseball enthusiast I recommend you try it out as it is quite addicting and perfect for the January-March months before the fantasy baseball season starts. Eventually, rotisserie baseball became fantasy baseball and found it's way to the internet and I followed right alongside. I no longer had time for all of the manual stat keeping of SOM and decided to give that up in favor of more fantasy baseball leagues. In 2006, I found out that SOM had come out with a computer netplay feature that allowed for automatic stat keeping and for online gameplay. With my long time fantasy baseball league disbanding that same year I decided to not join another one and instead startup a Strat league instead. By playing SOM I have been able to not only keep up with the players, teams and stats but learn how each player obtains these stats. For instance, how they hit VS. RHP/LHP, day/night breakdown and pretty much every single sabermetric Bill James breakdown you can think of. Most importantly, because the game comes out in January for the PREVIOUS season it is absolutely critical to learn how to scout and evaluate prospects. I have spent the past 3 seasons pouring over minor league stats, paying close attention to how certain climates affect a young guys curveball and which guys have the makeup to be pro ballplayers. I've had a great run of calling out future stars such as Chase Utley, Troy Tulowitzki, Dustin Pedroia, Geovany Soto, Jair Jurrjens, Matt Cain and Joakim Soria to name a few.
Being able to identify young and unheard of talent is what The Hot 8 is all about. I will be posting 8 players every week who have a great chance of helping you in your fantasy conquests during the course of the season. These are not going to be star players nor highly touted prospects. They will be under the radar guys who the rest of your league probably won't blink an eyelash at when you pick them up as free agents. I will post the list as well as a detailed description of what each player offers and how their skills could help your team. The key is to acquire these players who others think come "out of nowhere" before they start producing. Likewise, if you have any questions about prospects, minor leaguers or any player at all feel free to email me your questions at jeff@fantasybaseballsearch.com. The Hot 8 will officially start in February so until then I will be posting some random thoughts that I have on players young and old around the league who I will be watching intently come spring training and the early part of the season.
Lastly, I am very happy to be joining the team at Fantasy Baseball Search. Enough cannot be said about Todd Farino and the team he has assembled here. Evan Dickens, Ryan Hallam, RC Rizza and A.J. Pelletier are all savvy well experienced experts who can and will help anybody who wants to raise their game. I look forward to hosting The Fantasy Baseball Scouting Report with Ryan Hallam come March. This is going to be a very fun show I can promise you that! I look forward to working with all of these great fantasy baseball experts and hearing from all you loyal readers in the days and months ahead.
Labels: Jeff Mans
posted by Jeff Mans at
9:29 PM
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