Leagues with daily lineup changes can be a blessing or a curse. If you play in a league like a couple of mine — ones filled with old friends from college who cling to fantasy baseball as a tie to their more carefree days — you probably hear a lot of “Daily lineups? Ain’t nobody got time for that!” But to the right group of guys, daily leagues can be bliss, spurring constant motion within a team’s roster and keeping every engaged on an almost an hourly level. Total immersion. Leagues allowing daily moves also have another side benefit that many fantasy owners ignore. While it may take another five minutes of research per day, there are gains to be had by platooning certain hitters, just like their major league teams do. “Gluing” a few $4 players together and alternating them when they are against their dominant split could return as much as a “set it and forget it!” guy who went for $25. Here are a few options sitting around on benches or wires that could prove useful in the next few days.

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The Yasiel Puig movement is starting in Los Angeles. Carlos Beltran is hurt in St. Louis and the temptation is to turn to Oscar Taveras. And Wil Myers was the biggest prospect traded this offseason, and he’s on a team that could use a corner outfielder. What to do with these young outfielders in redraft leagues?

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Millions of people play fantasy baseball each year. It follows that hundreds of thousands of these folk win their fantasy league championships. And while this is an impressive feat, to be sure, it is hardly a unique one. We congratulate the winner, give him or her a trophy to put in his living room, and next year the slate is wiped clean. We each want something more: we want our foes to look upon our works and despair.

What follows is a strategy guide, but it is not a strategy guide. It does not pretend to maximize your chances of winning; in fact, it does quite the opposite. But what Plan Z sacrifices in terms of probability it more than repays in terms of potential payoff. Because when you play fantasy baseball the normal way, you win for a year. When you play by Plan Z, you win for a lifetime. Stories will become legends, which will in turn fade into myth. You’ll be a baseball Beowulf.

The rules of Plan Z are deceptively simple. They are, in order:

1. Only draft players whose names contain a Z.

That’s it.

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Back in the seventeenth century, French philosopher-mathematician Blaise Pascal contributed to the foundations of calculus, probability theory, physics, the scientific method, and the mullet. He also left a lot of stray papers an stray ideas around after he died, one of which has become known as Pascal’s Wager. His idea, which is the first recorded modern example of game theory, can be paraphrased as follows:

Suppose there are two states, there being a god and there not being one. Also suppose that you have two choices: believe in Him or don’t. You have to choose. There are four possible results.

You believe in God, and he exists: eternity in heaven, worth infinite points.

You believe in God, and he doesn’t exist: you waste time praying. Worth a small, finite number of negative points.

You don’t believe in God, and he doesn’t exist: you get a few extra hours each week to watch football. Worth a small, finite number of positive points.

You don’t believe in God, and he does exist: brimstone.

Having laid all these out, Pascal’s premise is pretty simple: negative infinity is pretty lame, and positive infinity is pretty good, so you may as well choose the side that leans toward the positive side, whether it turns out right or not. Thus, God.

Pascal’s Wager has had its critics over the years, but it still stands as a solid theory for pragmatism – given the choices beyond your control, do what works best – as well as a rousing endorsement for drafting Brandon Beachy in your head-to-head fantasy league this year.

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Rebirth. A new beginning. Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes. Life anew. A fresh start. Read the rest of this entry »

I finished last in 2012 in the FanGraphs Experts League on the ottoneu platform. There’s a lot of shame in that for me — I played hard all the way to the end and rarely have teams that finish at the bottom of the table, this team was fourth in the inaugural season, and finishing last changed the meaning of the team name in a bad way (Eno’s Slaughter). I may argue with Dave Cameron that more major league teams should do full rebuilds, but when it comes to my own dynasty teams, I usually try to remain competitive every year. Especially if there are prizes at stake. Cause, hey, you never know.

The process I went through with this team might represent, for me, a new understanding of how best to treat a bad team. I think I’d recommend it for real-life teams, even. While I maintain that the Mets should have traded Jose Reyes, maybe there’s room for them to sign David Wright in order to keep building for the future. Prospects aren’t the only way out of the basement, in other words.

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Before you go thinking this is just another mock draft column, read the next sentence — your mouse will practically click “more” by itself.

At a time when every fantasy owner and their sister is prepping for the upcoming season by doing mock draft after mock auction…what if we threw a curveball at that concept by selecting only prospects for a mock dynasty league?

That, friends, is what the fine folks over at Fake Teams came up with, and they so graciously asked FanGraphers Mike Newman, J.D. Sussman and me to participate as part of a panel of a baker’s dozen’s worth of prospect pundits. What comes next are the results.

But that’s not all! To help keeper and dynasty league owners everywhere who get to partake in the always-exhilarating, often-painstaking process of drafting prospects, I’ll present my approach and strategy to this enlightening exercise — which when you think about it, was really just a make-believe draft of non-major leaguers for this made-up fantasy game we all love to play.

Yeah, like you’re not gonna click.

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Not to long ago Jason Catania, Mike Newman and I took part in Fake Teams’ Expert Mock Prospect Draft. The rules contemplated a thirteen team league using the traditional 5×5 statistics. I followed my strategy, detailed below, and wouldn’t change a single pick. Read the rest of this entry »

There are a few incontrovertible truths in life. The vast majority of people consider themselves good people. They believe that they’re good drivers, and good listeners. And they all believe they can pick saves up off the waiver wire.

The commandment “Thou shalt not pay for saves” is omnipresent, and there’s plenty of truth to it. Of the relievers ESPN ranked in its top 25 in 2012, less than half finished the year in the top 25 in saves. And not even the handcuffs were always predictable: the Athletics went through their entire bullpen twice before settling on the guy they’d tabbed in the first place. It’s easy to throw up your hands at the crapshoot that is the closer position, and let others take the risk on saves.

But before you blindly follow a universal law, you should make sure it applies to your particular situation. Closers are risky, but that level of that risk changes from person to person. Before you fix yourself on the opportunity/talent spectrum of relief choices, ask yourself: will you have the time and opportunity to keep on top of your roster?

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Phew. After a nearly four and a half hour snake draft online, I have officially completed the earliest draft in my fantasy baseball career. LABR stands for League of Alternative Baseball Reality, and along with Tout Wars, is one of the two most publicized “expert” leagues. In the past, LABR has had only two leagues, an AL-Only and NL-Only, with both formats using a live auction in Arizona to select players. Last year, a mixed league with an online draft was formed and I participated in the inaugural season as well. With that background out of the way, let’s get into more league specifics.

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