By now, many fantasy players are familiar with park effects. It’s easier to hit a home run in Colorado than in San Diego. Seattle is tough on right handed hitters, but Texas is great for lefties. Etc.

Even though park effects are widely known and considered, they can still be exploited in many fantasy leagues. For example, I can count on one hand (okay, maybe two) the pitchers I’d be willing to start in Colorado. Meanwhile, I’d probably be willing to start half of the guys available on the waiver wire if they had a two-start week in San Diego and San Francisco.

Know your matchups, and know when to bench players – especially pitchers. Fly ball pitchers are going to have good starts in big ballparks. Even decent pitchers are going to have good starts against the hapless Nationals. Pitchers with control problems won’t necessarily have a problem with the Angels, but will really struggle against the Red Sox (then again, most pitchers will struggle against the Red Sox). The general rule of thumb is that several awful starts are difficult to overcome (especially in head-to-head leagues), so unless you have one of the best pitchers in the game, you want to avoid most matchups against the Yankees and Red Sox (especially in Fenway), as well as games played in Colorado, Chicago (mainly the southsiders), Arizona, Texas, Cincinnati and Philadelphia. Again, use your judgment, but many times the best decision is avoiding a potentially dangerous start.

And if you have the time/desire, you can often exploit matchups as well. Perhaps that last spot on your rotation is best served by rotating between pitchers on the waiver wire, depending on who is starting against whom. Perhaps one pitcher is slightly better than another but has a far worse matchup – bad offenses and certain ballparks can make some pitchers look a lot better than they actually are.

While it is easier to rotate pitchers than hitters, you can exploit hitters’ matchups too. In daily leagues it is sometimes worthwhile picking up a decent hitter if he has a roadtrip that sends him to Colorado and Arizona for six games, for example. Or it might be worth benching or dropping someone who has a road trip against the top two pitching staffs in baseball. Possibilities for exploitation abound.

Yes, most people know about park effects, but not many of them attempt to take full advantage of these effects. If you do take advantage of park effects, you will have a rather significant competitive advantage.

Every league is a little different. Some have 8 teams, some have 12. Some are NL Only. Some have daily lineup updates, some weekly. Some have three day waiver periods, others have one day periods. Some have two catchers; others have four utility spots. Knowing the intricacies of your league is extremely important for success.

For example, let’s say you play in a league with daily updates. Assuming you have the time and energy, it may be possible to take advantage of this in a number of ways. First of all, you can draft players who may struggle against left-handed pitchers, because you are generally able to bench them when they face lefties and play someone else instead, thereby extracting maximum value. Or you may be able to stock up on relief pitchers, knowing that you can simply rotate the several starting pitchers on your team only when they take the hill.

Or let’s say that you play in a league with two catchers. That means that there are going to be some seriously bad catchers on peoples’ rosters – therefore, you may want to use some of your earlier round picks on two of the better catchers. Not only does this assure you of solid production from your catching position, but it somewhat corners the market on catchers, causing other teams to have to settle for very minimal production from their catching spot.

Or let’s say that your league has an unusually high amount of utility or DH slots. If this is the case, you may want to stock up on as many outstanding offensive players early in the draft, since you don’t have to worry about their position. A team with Albert Pujols, , Mark Teixeira, Prince Fielder and Adrian Gonzalez as their first four picks normally wouldn’t seem very smart, but if you have the utility spots to cover those players, it may be worthwhile.

In a 10 team league without a middle infielder position, you may want to wait to draft a second baseman or shortstop (or both), because you can get a decent player at those positions very late in the draft. But in a 12-team league with a “middle infield” position as well as SS and 2B, you may not want to wait as long, because the remaining players who qualify at those positions will be terrible.

Every league is different. Before you draft, take the time to understand the intricacies of your league, and think about what they mean for you. There is almost always a way to take advantage of small things in a league – and the best players figure them out before everyone else.

This may be the single most important piece of fantasy advice I could give anyone: everything about your draft depends on the other owners – how they value players. Therefore, you should try to enter your draft with as much knowledge of how everyone else is thinking as possible.

How do you do that? Well, it depends on the league. Some of you are probably playing in leagues with people you’ve known for a long time. You know that your friend is huge Red Sox fan, and is probably going to overvalue Kevin Youkilis. You know that another friend absolutely hates the Red Sox, and would rather lose the league than have Josh Beckett on his team. Another person has a thing for no-name starters, and someone else always likes to punt saves.

The more information you have on your leaguemates’ tendencies, the better you will be able to draft. You’ll know that you’re probably not going to get Kevin Youkilis; you’ll know that one person is unlikely to steal any closers from you; you’ll know that the no-name starter you’ve had your eye on may get taken sooner than you think. All of this knowledge will help you get the most value from your draft.

But for most of you, you’ll be playing in a league with people you barely know or have never met. In these leagues, the best way to gauge what other people are thinking is to read up on fantasy baseball as much as you can. Imagine that everyone else is reading similar things as you – and forming their opinions based off of what they read. Everyone else is seeing the same list of “sleepers” and “busts,” and forming their opinions accordingly. Everyone else is reading mock drafts to see what players tend to be taken where, and they are making judgments about whom to take in what round.

Okay, now you know what everyone else is thinking. The key is then to find out how to exploit it. How does your own opinion differ from “conventional wisdom?” Do you agree about all of the potential sleepers or potential busts? Do you have a source for information – like, say, RotoGraphs – that you particularly trust? Do you have a source that you think many of your less statistically inclined leaguemates avoid? If so, use this information to find out how to extract maximum value from the “conventional wisdom.”

As with everything else in fantasy baseball, this is not a fool-proof plan. There is inevitably going to be an owner who doesn’t think along the same lines as conventional wisdom – perhaps there’s even a player or two who has read this article and is taking the same tact. However, the best way to gauge how other people value players is to see how they are being valued in general, and then adjust your own strategy accordingly.

Before your draft, you should understand what players you think are going to be undervalued by others. These are the guys you want to target. For example, if you think Jonathan Sanchez is going to be valued as approximately an 11th round pick*, and you think his talent is worthy of a 7th round pick, it’d be a mistake to draft him in the 7th round. Most likely, no one else is going to be thinking about taking him for another three or four rounds. Therefore, to get the most value out of Sanchez, you should take him in the 10th round (or 9th, if you’re worried). By doing this, you are in essence getting two 7th round picks – the one you actually choose in the 7th round, and Sanchez, who you believe was worthy of a 7th-rounder but you didn’t take until the 10th round.

This strategy also works particularly well for position players, although it’s a little more complicated. Let’s say that you think Rickie Weeks is going to be undervalued, and you’d be perfectly fine with having him as your starting second baseman. Let’s also say that for your first round pick, you are debating between Chase Utley and Jose Reyes. Who should you take? There’s not a huge difference between Utley and Reyes in overall value. But you think that Weeks is going to be undervalued, and that you can “steal” him very late in the draft. If that’s the case, it makes sense to draft Reyes in the first round, rather than Utley. If you drafted Utley, you’d be getting a fantastic player, but you’d also be negating a competitive advantage – namely, your belief in Rickie Weeks being undervalued. By drafting Reyes and saving second base for Weeks later in the draft, you have extracted maximum value.

This strategy is not without risks – it only takes one other person to value Weeks as highly as you for him to be snatched from under your fingertips. Thus, you need a backup plan, a “worst case scenario” plan. If you lose Weeks in the 12th round, are there any other second baseman who are going to be available that late that you think are somewhat undervalued? If so, then they are your backup plan. Or perhaps you’re willing to “punt” second base, and essentially hope to trade for someone or find someone on the waiver wire.

If you can’t possibly think of a backup plan, then you need to be wary of putting all of your eggs in Weeks’s basket. Yes, he may be undervalued, but if you miss out on him your team may be in deep trouble. This is something to keep in mind when thinking about sleepers. However, it’s very rare that your team won’t be able to overcome something like missing out on Rickie Weeks. The advantage of getting a player who is much better than where he is drafted almost always outweighs the risk of missing out on that player and ending up with a scrub instead.

*Note: I am not necessarily endorsing Sanchez as an 11th round pick, or a 7th round pick. I am merely using Sanchez and these numbers as an example, to demonstrate a point.

Many fantasy players like to avoid starting pitchers with low strikeout rates, and rightly so. Often times, strikeout rate goes hand in hand with success as a starting pitcher. Many high strikeout pitchers also accumulate many wins and have low ERA and WHIPs. However, you don’t have to strike lots of batters out in order to be a successful pitcher at the major league level.

Baseball abounds with relatively low-risk players who are very solid pitchers but don’t get many strikeouts. Names like Chien-Ming Wang, Andy Sonnanstine, Derek Lowe, Aaron Cook, Kevin Slowey, and others don’t inspire visions of leading a fantasy team to the promised land, but they are often the best values in drafts. While they may not get that many strikeouts, these pitchers are likely to have a lot of wins, as well as low ERAs and WHIPs. Furthermore, because they are relatively low risk, they are still going to get their share of strikeouts. Over 180 innings, a pitcher who strikes out only 5.5 batters per nine innings will rack up 110 strikeouts. Sure, Joba Chamberlain might average a strikeout per inning, but if Joba only pitches 100 innings…well, you can do the math.

That’s not to say that Andy Sonnanstine is better than Joba Chamberlain; rather, it’s to say that Sonnanstine has more value than Joba, because of their respective draft positions. By drafting Sonnanstine you are sacrificing somewhat on strikeouts, but you’re enhancing your team because you are able to get Sonnanstine relatively late in the draft, allowing your team to stock up in something else (Power? Saves? Steals?) earlier.

Of course, it would be no good to come in last in your league in strikeouts, but this is unlikely even if you have several Andy Sonnanstines on your team. Remember, guy like Sonnanstine will still get a fair share of strikeouts simply because they are likely to pitch a lot of innings; furthermore, other teams are likely to experience injury and performance issues that will keep their pitchers’ strikeout totals down.

Also, there is nothing wrong with drafting some high strikeout pitchers as well. The best fantasy teams are a mix of risk and reward. Just keep in mind that while they may not be particularly sexy, there are some very valuable low strikeout pitchers who can fill out your staff for a relatively low price.

I don’t know about you, but stolen bases are incredibly annoying for me. There are very few players who can steal bases and help in other ways as well, and these players naturally tend to be highly valued. As such, I’ve developed a strategy for steals: try to get ‘em early, and then wait until late. Here’s why:

There aren’t many guys who can steal 30+ bases and hit for power. There are a fair amount of guys who can steal a bunch of bases and not really do much else, however. The five dimensional players like Grady Sizemore and Hanley Ramirez are among the best in the game, and are probably first round picks. Then there are the few players who can be counted on for a ton of steals, even if they won’t add too much power, like Carl Crawford and Jose Reyes. If you can get any of these guys, go for it, as they provide a tremendous amount of value. However, these types of players are almost always drafted before the third round, and it’s difficult to get one of them, let alone two.

After these types of players, there is a huge drop off among speedsters. A guy who will steal 20-30 bases with a decent batting average and nothing else just isn’t very valuable in a fantasy league, since he really only provides value in one category, and often times not even that much value. Avoid these types of players, as they are almost always overvalued. People are (rightly) concerned with the scarcity of speed, but they don’t understand that you can often find speedy players at the end of the draft.

Yes, usually these speedsters have more flaws than their fellow base stealers who are drafted earlier, but the difference in value is minimal. If you miss out on someone like Reyes or Sizemore, you still need to address steals, but you don’t particularly care if the guy also hits 2 homers or 11 homers. The difference in the amount of homers he hits is negligible – it’s all about the steals. The same goes for other categories. You don’t really care how many runs he drives in, you just want thefts. Don’t pay extra for minimal upgrades in other categories.

Be sure to add enough steals to your team, but don’t worry if you have to get the bulk of your steals late in the draft with such no-name players as Eugenio Velez, Michael Bourn, Carlos Gomez or Rajai Davis. Their thefts are just as valuable as someone like Chone Figgins’s, and the difference in other categories is not usually big enough to warrant the higher draft position of someone like Figgins.

Make sure you have enough steals on your team, but don’t worry if you have to wait until late in the draft to add that category to your team.

The very nature of pitching is unpredictable. The human arm isn’t meant to throw a baseball 90+ MPH repeatedly every fifth day. Furthermore, stats such as wins, WHIP and ERA – which are commonly used in most fantasy leagues – are often derivatives of a pitcher’s home park, teammates, and luck, rather than his individual skill. As such, pitching is extremely volatile and hard to predict.

In contrast, while nothing in baseball is easy to predict, predicting power output is a lot less difficult than predicting pitching results. Year in and year out, the same guys are on the home run leaderboard. Of course, there are many variables here too – some guys get injured, others seemingly come out of nowhere, and every now and then some team gets Pronked when Travis Hafner declines for no apparent reason. But in a general sense, you know what players are likely to hit lots of home runs each year.

Furthermore, every time a player hits a home run, he also gets a hit, drives in a run (often more) and scores a run. Therefore, each long ball helps a player in four distinct categories. A home run is the most efficient way of improving your team, and is perhaps the easiest thing to predict (of all of the fantasy baseball categories, that is). Thus, many times it will make sense for you to load up on sluggers in your draft. Don’t necessarily worry that many of them play first base – there’s nothing wrong with using your DH or utility position on a second hulking first baseman who is likely to hit 30-40 homers.

Of course, sluggers are very valuable in fantasy leagues, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t have several on your team. I see nothing wrong with taking sluggers with three or four of your first five picks. Having that many sluggers on your team gives you a huge advantage in the home run category, and these players are less likely to drastically underperform than someone like an ace starting pitcher. And remember, every homer hit helps you in four of the five fantasy categories.

This is not a fool-proof strategy – there is no such thing in fantasy baseball (that’s what makes it so much fun, right?). But one of the most important aspects of fantasy baseball is minimizing risk, and often time sluggers represent among the lowest risks out there. If you build your team around homers, everything else falls into place nicely.

By definition, saves are incredibly scarce. There are only 30 teams in baseball, and there are only going to be so many save opportunities for each team. Furthermore, in order to be credited with a save, a pitcher must be used in a save situation. “Closers” are more a product of their usage and environment than any other player in baseball.

As such, it may be tempting to draft sure-thing closers like Jonathan Papelbon or Mariano Rivera with a high pick. These guys are almost certainly going to get their share of saves, and they should help in other categories too. Therefore, they have tremendous value.

Don’t fall victim for this line of thinking. While everything I wrote above is true, it also is misleading. Yes, closers are volatile from year to year and save totals fluctuate; however, if you know where (and how) to look, you should be able to take advantage of undervalued closers.

The key to accumulating saves is a) pitching in save situations and b) pitching decently. This may seem obvious, but remember that (a) is far more important than (b). Yes, some pitchers will lose their job as closer, but this happens more rarely than you may think. To get saves, a pitcher must be used in save situations. To maximize the value of closers in your league, you first need to identify which pitchers are most likely going to be used in save situations.

Then you should attempt to assess how likely they are to be removed from their closer’s role if they perform poorly. For example, Kerry Wood is probably not going to be demoted to mop-up duties if he blows two saves in a row. Neither is Bobby Jenks. However, someone like George Sherrill could lose his closer’s role if he struggles, simply because he doesn’t have the same established track record as the other pitchers. If a pitcher is likely to get the majority of save opportunities and is unlikely to be demoted if he struggles a little bit, then he has a lot of value in a fantasy league. Any pitcher who meets those criteria is valuable; how good a pitcher he is is FAR less important. In other words, the difference between Jonathan Papelbon and someone like Bobby Jenks – who meets the two criteria but is much worse than Papelbon – is far less than the difference in their draft position.

Therefore, it makes the most sense to draft guys who meet those two criteria but aren’t necessarily the best of the bunch. Closers exist to get you one thing and one thing only: saves. Yes, sometimes they can help in ERA, WHIP, or even strikeouts, but their help in these categories is usually minimal, due to the fact that most closers don’t pitch more than 60-70 innings per season. Simply put, an ERA of 2.00 over 60 innings doesn’t influence your team’s overall ERA that much. Sure, it helps, but it’s not worth drafting (for example) Papelbon in the 4th round when Jenks can be had in the 13th.

Bottom line: the difference between the best “closer” and the worst “closer” is far less than the difference in their value on draft day. Therefore, you should identify all players who fall onto the list of “closer” – remember, that means guys who are likely going to be used in save situations and probably aren’t going to be removed if they blow back to back outings – and aim to acquire a few of the lesser pitchers on the list. Your team will be better off for it.

Over the next week or so, I will be running a series of strategy articles to help prepare for your fantasy drafts. Please feel free to post any questions or ideas in the comments section.

Have a plan – and don’t stick to it.

To be successful in a fantasy draft, you need to have a plan. You need to have some idea of the players that you want to take, and know the approximate values of everyone, so you can spot value wherever it may be. You may even want to have a more specific strategy, such as punting a category or concentrating on stocking your team in several categories. However, as important as any plan may be, it’s just as important to know when to abandon your plan.

Let’s say that your strategy is to load up on starting pitching, because you feel that there are very few really high quality starters available, and if you can corner the market everyone else is going to have to dig through the scrap heap to fill out their roster. As such, you plan on taking three or four ace level starters in a row, starting in the second round. Well, let’s say that right after you select your first ace, the next three teams all select aces as well. Suddenly, there are very few other aces available, and if you want to stick to your strategy it would require you to draft non-ace level pitchers in the next several rounds. In other words, you’d have to overdraft pitchers to be able to carry out your plan.

In this situation (or any other similar situation), even though you had a plan, you must switch courses immediately. The best fantasy players are people with plans and the ability to adapt instantly should their plans be thwarted. If you understand the dynamic of any draft, you will be able to exploit it. In this particular example, starting pitchers are being overvalued, and there are bound to be some players who are not being valued appropriately. Rather than playing along with everyone else and drafting pitchers too soon, you should adapt your strategy to exploit whatever is now undervalued – perhaps it’s steals, power, or saves. Whatever it is, if you identify the market in your draft, you can work it to your advantage.

While it’s vitally important to know as many players as possible, it’s just as important to be flexible and adapt to whatever surprising things may happen during your draft. Drafts can be won or lost on this skill alone.

Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander Brandon Webb generates ground balls. A lot of them. In fact, the University of Kentucky product lapped the competition in terms of burning worms in 2008, with a 3.15 GB/FB ratio (second place went to free agent Derek Lowe, at a distant 2.63 to one).

With so many of Webb’s offerings being pounded into the infield dirt, the D-Backs’ co-ace will often require the services of his infielders to convert those grounders into outs. Let’s take a look at Arizona’s projected starting infield for the 2009 season, with their 2008 and career UZR/150 ratings at their respective positions:

1B Conor Jackson: 4.4 UZR/150 in ’08, -1.6 UZR/150 career
2B Felipe Lopez: -7.9 UZR/150 in ’08, -4.4 UZR/150 career
SS Stephen Drew: -14.5 UZR/150 in ’08, -13.5 UZR/150 career
3B Mark Reynolds: -2.2 UZR/150 in ’08, -4.6 UZR/150 career

Yuck. Arizona’s projected infield rated as 20.2 runs below average per 150 games last season, and the career totals are even worse: -24.1 runs below per 150 contests. If these guys continue to flash leaden leather, Webb might not be on speaking terms with his infielders by May. Granted, the 29 year-old posted a .297 BABIP with Drew and Reynolds on the left side of the infield and Jackson occasionally at first in 2008, but it’s still disconcerting that such a groundball-centric pitcher will reside in front of four below-average defenders.

Over the past few weeks, I have discussed the importance of context when evaluating pitchers. Whether it be Texas’ similarly lagging fielding prowess or Seattle’s new incredibly rangy outfield, the quality of the defenders behind a pitcher can make a noticeable impact on his performance. When a batter puts the ball in play, the pitcher is fairly dependent upon his fielders to convert that ball into an out. When those defenders struggle to do so, that pitcher is going to surrender some hits and runs that he really shouldn’t have.

Luckily with Webb, the pitcher in question here also possesses excellent controllable skills that aren’t subject to the caprices of his defense. With a 2.82 K/BB ratio and few home runs surrendered, Webb posted a 3.28 FIP this past season. Webb is undoubtedly an excellent starter deserving of a high draft pick. But, it is worth noting that the fielders behind him aren’t especially adept and might cause his stat line to look a little worse than it should.