Fantasy Baseball Dominance
Success in fantasy baseball comes down to one simple thing: Hitting. It's a simple formula that a lot of people don't quite understand yet. As back-to-back champion in a pair of 12-team leagues with a head-to-head weekly format, it has worked quite well for me.
The reason it has been successful in the highly competitive Yahoo! leagues, is simply because there's less hitting than pitching. Every major league team has five starting pitchers but only one player at each position - meaning there's only one starting third basemen on each team or one starting catcher and so on. Accordingly, there's only so many quality hitters in comparison to pitchers.
With that in mind, I draft appropriately.
ULTIMATE BASEBALL LEAGUE
Two years ago in this league where a new team is drafted each year, I took a hitter with six of the seven opening picks with a team aptly named "You lose, I win." From there, I ended the draft by picking pitchers with 10 of my last 16 picks. The results during the course of the season were four players that I drafted with 100+ RBIs, five with 25+ home runs, and three with 100+ runs. All of these players (Chipper Jones, Carlos Beltran, Mark Teixeira, Hanley Ramirez, and Hideki Matsui) were all taken in the opening seven rounds.
On the mound, C.C. Sabathia (9th round), John Maine (22nd round), Kelvim Escobar (20th round), Jake Peavy (4th round) and Javier Vazquez (14th round) combined for 86 wins and 1,002 strikeouts.
The following is a list of my 2007 draft.
93 runs
33 homers
112 RBIs
23 stolen bases
2. Pat Burrell: 77 runs, 30 homers and 97 RBIs
3. Edwin Encarnacion: 66 runs, 16 homers, 76 RBIs and 8 stolen bases
4. Chipper Jones:108 runs
29 homers
102 RBIs
5 stolen bases
5. Russell Martin: 87 runs, 29 homers, 102 RBIs and 21 stolen bases
6. Nate Mclouth: 62 runs, 13 homers, 38 RBIs and 22 stolen bases
7. Hideki Matsui:100 runs
25 homers
103 RBIs
4 stolen bases
8. Dustin Pedroia: 86 runs, 8 homers, 50 RBIs and 7 stolen bases
9. Carlos Pena: 99 runs, 46 homers and 121 RBIs
10. Hanley Ramirez:125 runs
29 homers
81 RBIs
51 stolen bases
11. Jeremy Accardo: 30 saves and 2.14 ERA
12. Scott Baker: 9 wins, 102 strikeouts, 4.26 ERA and 1.33 WHIP
13. Mark Teixeira:86 runs
30 homers
105 RBIs
14. Manuel Corpas: 19 saves and 2.09 ERA
15. Kelvim Escobar: 18 wins, 160 strikeouts, 3.40 ERA and 1.27 WHIP
16. Jake Peavy:19 wins
240 strikeouts
2.54 ERA
1.06 WHIP
17. Zack Greinke: 7 wins, 106 strikeouts, 3.69 ERA and 1.30 WHIP
18. John Maine: 15 wins, 180 strikeouts, 3.91 ERA and 1.27 WHIP
19. C.C. Sabathia:19 wins
209 strikeouts
3.21 ERA
1.14 WHIP
20. J.J. Putz: 40 saves and 1.38 ERA
21. Chris Ray: 16 saves and 4.43 ERA
22. Rafael Soriano: 9 saves and 3.00 ERA
23. Javier Vazquez: 15 wins, 213 strikeouts, 3.74 ERA and 1.14 WHIP
As you can tell, 10 of my draftees weren't around for the end of the season. The reason is with a lot of the guys, they're not franchise-type players. Therefore, making moves on the waiver wire and not being hard-headed by sticking with your original thought is the last step toward a successful fantasy-baseball season. In my case, it brought 24.5 games between my team and the nearest "competitor."
In 2008, the same strategy was used under the name "Clemens Small Balls." The first seven picks were used on hitters. Eleven of the final 16 picks were pitchers.
STEINBRENNER'S BITCHES
In this keeper league where we keep six players from the previous year, I kept Ryan Howard, David Wright, Jason Bay, Matt Holliday, Victor Martinez and Mariano Rivera in 2007. Howard, Wright and Holliday went on to have monster seasons and set the foundation to another gold medal.
The following year, I again kept Howard, Wright and Holliday and added Roy Halladay, Chipper Jones and Bobby Abreu.
In short, hitting should always be a priority over pitching - especially early in the draft. Then during the course of the season adjust your pitching staff through the waiver wire and fantasy dominance will be yours.
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