That’s right folks, with Opening Day only 6 weeks away, I have just joined a Yahoo fantasy baseball league for the the 6th year in a row. I don’t care what anyone says, fantasy baseball is a fun, worthwhile hobby. While I have never been the best in the league, managing a fantasy team rewards me with great satisfaction thanks to a great mix of challenge and strategy. Plus, it gives me a game to play when I am online suffering from mass distraction.

The Make-Up of the League

In my baseball league, there are 16 head-to-head categories where I compete against other teams on a week by week basis. These 16 categories are split in half, making up 8 offensive categories and 8 pitching categories.

The Offensive Categories:

  1. Runs
  2. Home Runs
  3. RBI’s
  4. Stolen Bases
  5. BB - (Base 0n Balls)
  6. TB - (Total Bases)
  7. Batting Average
  8. OPS - (On-base Plus Slugging percentage)

The Pitching Categories:

  1. Wins
  2. Losses
  3. Saves
  4. K’s - Strikeouts
  5. Holds
  6. ERA
  7. WHIP - (Walks Hits per Innings Pitched)
  8. Quality Starts - 6IP with 3 ER

The Make-Up of the Team

There are a total of 25 positions to be filled up by the General Manager.

Offensive Positions:

  1. Catcher
  2. 1st Baseman
  3. 2nd Baseman
  4. 3rd Baseman
  5. Shortstop
  6. Left Fielder
  7. Center Fielder
  8. Right Fielder
  9. Outfielder
  10. Utility/Designated Hitter

Pitching Positions:

  1. (3) Starting Pitchers
  2. (2) Relief Pitchers
  3. (3) General Pitchers

The way this works is that at any time, the General Manager can have a total of 8 pitchers going at once. Starting pitchers and relief pitchers are self explanatory, but general pitchers can be used for either purpose.

On top of filling all of these regular positions in, there are 7 bench spots where the General Manager can fill up a surplus of players to substitute for starting pitchers and offensive players when those players have an off day. In addition, there are 2 DL (Disabled List) positions. As the General Manager, you want to make sure that you have your best players playing any given day, but when a starting pitcher is off or your 1st baseman is off, you want to make sure that you have an adequate body playing in their place.

My Strategy

I find that while winning offensive categories are important, having ace caliber starting pitching coupled with strong relief pitching is the best formula for success. Due to the sheer length of a baseball season, a batter will go into a slump maybe once, twice, or even three times. Whereas a great pitcher is great all year long, with the exception of a few games. Since the fantasy league is predicated on winning categories and not accumulating the most amount of points; you must have a specialist to win a particular category, like having Jose Valverde to win the saves category or Jake Peavy to win the wins, strikeouts, and quality starts categories.

With the erratic nature of offensive players having great weeks, good weeks, and bad weeks with respect to their run output and batting average, I like to focus more of my energy on solidifying my pitching staff. However offense cannot be neglected and there are two distinct offensive categories where I must assign a great player to, stolen bases and walks. For me these two are the difference makers on the offensive side. With players like Carl Crawford and Chone Figgins, a General Manager would have the stolen base category locked up on a weekly basis. Or if you have David Ortiz and Todd Helton, you as the General Manager would have the walks category locked up weekly. Did I mention that another added benefit of playing fantasy baseball is learning about a lot of other baseball players, besides the Yankees and the Red Sox?

In baseball, you need to scout good talent and sign players before other people, based on your team needs. Releasing players and trading players is all part of the game. If a player gets injured, you can put him into the DL position and your roster is free to pick up another player without losing any players. A best practice for me is to trade players when they are overachieving for a player that should be exceeding expectations real soon. Thanks to baseball’s marathon season, a ball player will inevitably be able to work out of an offensive slump and have a month where their statistical output is double their previous two months.

Compared to Fantasy Football

I find fantasy baseball much more challenging and ultimately more rewarding than fantasy football. Fantasy football is a much shorter season where luck and good timing matter more than actual strategy. An NFL player’s season can be either surprisingly great or utterly disappointing based on what previous stats would indicate. Whereas in fantasy baseball the season is about 6 weeks longer and relies more on strategy and less on luck. In baseball there are 162 games for players to work out of their slumps and level out their production over a large sample area, while in football the season is so short that one dominating game can skew their seasons statistics (sadly they don’t remove an outlier). As the General Manager, you want to ensure that you have the best team that can win all the tough categories throughout the year, without interruption from injuries or slumps.

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