In a poker tournament, the top 15 percent of participants usually land “in the money.” House games can be a little more communist, I played in an eight man tournament last weekend where the top three received some portion of the pot (third got less than money back after counting his three rebuys). In fantasy baseball, it’s common for only the top 16 to 25 percent of participants to receive a payout. While that’s more than your average poker tournament, it’s still a top heavy distribution.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m a big fan of keeper leagues. The thing I like most about them isn’t that I get to keep a core of talent from year to year, it’s that I can make fair and reasonable trades at just about any point in the season. In redraft leagues, I’m convinced that the optimal strategy is to never trade unless someone is offering you insane value. Usually, a trade is mutually beneficial such that both owners gain a similar number of points. There are cases where that’s useful, but generally speaking, there aren’t many opportunities available.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve said it before, ottoneu leagues are great because there are so many strategies available to enterprising owners. You can play it straight if you’re the unimaginative sort (or maybe too nice to backstab), or you can deep dive into a rich meta-world of strategy. One of those areas is how to handle prospects.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees have cobbled together a strange team, and the infield most strongly personifies this strangeness. New York is seemingly counting on three players who scarcely played last season due to injury and another who is new to his position (aside from 118 innings last season). Stephen Drew remains on the market and would seemingly solve a lot of problems, but it sounds like the Yankees are uninterested.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the recent past, the Rays have played a lot of mix and match with their outfielders. This year, the starting three might have a firm grasp on everyday starts, so there could be less scope for useful fantasy platoons. In the event of injuries, the Rays possess a number of secondary options that could be useful as spot starters.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Rays tend to field pitchers who have a multitude of fantasy uses. In recent seasons, they’ve featured aces, mid-draft talent, and undervalued prospects. It’s shaping up to be more of the same in 2014, although the specifics have yet to be ironed out. Some spring position battles could substantially affect which players have value, but owners who are drafting soon will need to gamble.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you haven’t been playing fantasy baseball since 2011, it might come as a surprise that the Phillies have an old and injury prone roster. Around the infield, four of the players are in their mid-30’s while the other starter is a relatively unproven, mid-ceiling prospect. A negative perception of the Phillies team might allow several of these players to be a fantasy bargain on draft day. Let’s step through the options player by player.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sleepers are the holy grail of fantasy analysis. Everybody has players they like more than others and sleepers are those special someones who offer tantalizing upside at a piddling price. Sometimes, they’re just overlooked, small market players who have been good all along while other times they are players predicted to have a break out season.

It’s good to have sleepers. It’s good to acquire them on draft day, assuming you have some skill at parsing the mountains of data available on the internet. It can even be good to throw an extra dollar at your favorite targets in the auction. Where owners run into trouble is when they convince themselves that they must acquire their sleepers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today has been a newsful day for the Philadelphia Phillies. They acquired a 37-year-old, front of the rotation starter while announcing that their putative number two would miss the start of the season. Big fantasy news abounds.

Read the rest of this entry »

When drafting hitters for a traditional five category league, my standard strategy is to target players who contribute in many categories – preferably all five. Today, in deference to my jet lag, we’re mostly going to dispense with analysis and break out some lists of players who fall into different buckets of production. All of the values below come from Steamer’s 2014 projections. Steamer and projection systems in general aren’t the best at predicting runs and RBI, so keep that in mind.

Read the rest of this entry »