MSN Fantasy Baseball

I just got done drafting the weirdest draft I've ever been apart of. Its an 8 team MSN (head-to-head, points) league and their was two problems with this league.

1.) MSN's draft rankings are RIDICULOUS! Victor Martinez was the 42nd ranked catcher in the draft room!!!! Josh Hamilton was ranked in the 30s, Chris Davis was available in Round 18 and probably would have been around even later because you had to scroll through half of the third base pool to find him.

2.) I don't think anyone except for me and one other person knew what the crap we were doing so I was able to get a lot of those players that the rankings hid...

*The commissioner changed the draft time the night before to 9:30 AM so i missed the first 11 picks, but here is my draft

1/7: Matt Holliday (Would have picked Pujos, yes he was still there)
2/10: Lance Berkman (would have picked Ryan Braun)
3/13: Josh Hamilton (good with this one)
4/26: Jimmy Rollins (good)
5/29: Ichiro (would have picked Ian Kinsler)
6/42: Magglio Ordonez (would have picked Nick Markakis)
7/45: Derek Lee (would have picked BJ Upton)
8/58: Jermaine Dye (would have picked Brian McCann)
9/71: Chad Billingsly (would have picked Evan Longoria)
10/74: Carlos Delgado (would have picked Felix Hernandez)
11/87: Andy Pettitte (would have picked Geovany Soto)

and now for when I started drafting, and who I would be picking
if I was there for the entire draft

12/90: Brandon Phillips (Brandon Phillips) -ranked 95!?
13/103: Carl Crawford (Carl Crawford) ranked 108!?
14/106: Matt Cain (Fransisco Liriano) I didn't see that Liriano was available because I didn't scroll down enough
15/119: Troy Glaus (Jay Bruce)
16/122: Zack Grienke (Erik Bedard)
17/135: Victor Martinez (same) WOW....
18/138: Chris Davis (same)...
19/151: Pablo Sandoval (same)
20/154: Stephen Drew (same)
21/167: Howie Kendrick (Jonathan Broxton)
22/170: John Danks (Carlos Marmol)
23/183: James Loney (same)
24/186: Heath Bell (same)

I am currently working on trading Jermaine Dye, Carlos Delgado, Andy Pettitte, and Troy Glaus

Fantasy baseball league, team 3

My third team is in a head-to-head, 5X5, 10 team, point per category league. This draft kind of has me a little bit nervous because I don't really like my offensive depth and I'm not sure how I'll do in the saves category but everything should work out alright.

My strategy was to mainly focus on getting the best hitters regardless of position through the tenth round, and then start focusing on filling specific needs and categories after that. (Round/Pick in parentheses)

C-Brian McCann (5/41)
1B-Prince Fielder (3/21)
2B-Dan Uggla (8/80)
3B-Chipper Jones (6/60)
SS-Hanley Ramirez (1/1)
OF-Carlos Beltran (2/20)
Of-Nick Markakis (4/40)
OF-Curtis Granderson (7/61)
U-Nelson Cruz (OF) (14/140)
U-Andre Eithier (OF) (15/141)
B-Stephen Drew (SS) (9/81)
B-Ryan Zimmerman (3B)- (10/100) I didn't want to draft him, but I figured I'd just use him as trade bait and use him strictly as a back up til i get rid of him.
B-Howie Kendrick (2B) (12/120)
B-James Loney (1B) (16/160)
B-Chris Young (OF) (18/180)
B-Kelly Shoppach (C) (20/200)

SP-Rich Harden (11/101)
SP-Matt Cain (13/121)
SP-Adam Wainwright (17/161)
RP-Jason Motte(23/221)
RP-Manuel Corpas (22/220)
P-Scott Baker (SP) (19/181)
P-Kevin Slowey (SP) (21/201)
P-Huston Street (RP) (24/240)

I know that I have both of Colorado's potential closers. Once they decide who will be getting the saves and who won't, I will drop the one who won't for another bullpen arm.
I currently have 2 trade proposals out right now, to teams who have very weak outfield players/depth since my team is rather loaded in the outfield. Those trades are

1. Chris Young

for

Roy Oswalt

2. Chris Young and Kevin Slowey

for

Yovanni Gallardo and Erik Bedard

Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategy

There are millions of ways you can draft a fantasy baseball team; you can draft for young potential, you can draft proven veterans, you can draft your favorite players, focus on pitching, punt categories, focus on hitters, and thousands more. Many of us use a combination of several of these strategies, but the two ways I have found to be the most useful over my youthful three years (10 teams) of fantasy baseball are....

#1: Draft the best available player (preferably for an active manager)
----This idea is pretty simple, but it is a lot harder to really execute successfully than you would think. The idea, as I'm sure you well know, is to simply take the highest rated or best player available with your pick-regardless of position. You could end up with a solid all-around team this way, or you could end up with a logjam of players at a position and little to no depth or talent at another. Don't fret if the latter scenario happens though. Since you have such depth and skill at a certain position, other teams in your league will be hurting for a solid starter to plug into their lineup at that position. What you do next is simple, trade off your excess players at the position for well above what you normally could get for that player. Often times the other manager will feel as if he has to do the trade because he is running low on options, if he doesn't accept right away, keep sending proposals to he (or she) and other owners and you will eventually hit the jack pot.

#2: Fill all of your starting hitter spots first, then draft pitchers with upside
----This is the strategy that I use the most and have the best results with. To me, pitchers are far too hard to predict (they get hurt more and often without warning, they fall off the map quicker, etc) so, with your first 8 to 10 (or more) picks, fill out all of your hitting positions and maybe grab a few high quality or big-time potential players for your bench, and then for the remainder of your draft focus on getting the highest upside pitchers left. Sure, you will probably guess right on about half of the pitchers you pick, but that is why there is a free agent pool. You can add and drop your struggling pitchers for other pitchers who are putting up great numbers.

-The thing you have to remember though is...leagues aren't won with the draft. Sure a good draft will ease the road to victory, but you have to always be on the lookout for possible free agent additions and trades and such to make your team as good as it possibly can be.

If any of you have any thoughts, tips, ideas, or questions that you would like to share, don't hesitate to comment.

Good luck to everyone this year on all of your drafts and leagues.

Fantasy baseball league, team 2

Hey everyone, hope you all are having a great day

My second team is in a 10 team league with an 11X11 head-to-head, point per category win set-up

The team...

C-Russel Martin (3B) (5/41)
1B-Prince Fielder (3/21)
2B-Brandon Phillips (4/40)
3B-Chipper Jones (9/81)
SS-Hanley Ramirez (1/1)
OF-BJ Upton (2/20)
OF-Curtis Granderson (6/60)
OF-Bobby Abreu (10/100)
U-Adrian Gonzalez (1B) (7/61)
B-Hunter Pence (OF) (12/120)
B-Chris Iannetta (C) (15/141)
B-Mike Aviles (2B/SS) (17/161)
B-Brad Hawpe (OF) (18/180)

SP-Chad Billingsly (8/80)
SP-John Danks (20/200)
RP-Joba Chamberlin (11/101)
RP-Max Scherzer (16/160)
P-Matt Cain (13/121)
P-Yovanni Gallardo (14/140)
P-Zack Grienke (19/181)
B-Jonny Cueto (21/201)

My strategy for this draft was to completely ignore saves, knowing full well that I will be able to pick up several cheap saves via free agency and trades. I drafted hitters first to fill out my starting line up, then I focused on picking the best available player (upside factored in), whether it was a starting pitcher or a batter.

I currently have proposed 2 trades:
Hunter Pence (OF) and Max Scherzer (SP/RP)
for
Delmon Young (OF), Justin Verlander (SP), and Huston Street (RP)

and:
Hunter Pence (OF)
for
Cameron Maybin (OF) and Matt Garza (SP).

As you can probably well tell, I am not a fan of Hunter Pence. I think he is extremely overrated and will be a huge bust for the ADP he normally falls at (I picked him up with a pick 12th round, about 50 picks later than his ADP). I picked him up just to use him as trade bait since many people view him as a potential superstar (hopefully not).

Alright everyone, thanks for stopping by. If you all have any questions or comments about anything fantasy related, including but not limited to: baseball, football, basketball, or Scarlett Johansson, feel free to ask away.

Also, if you are a MLB fan or NCAA basketball fan, be sure to check out my other blogs!

Fantasy Baseball Leagues

As i previously stated, I am a fantasy sports nerd-just want to throw that out there before i say anything else...

I am currently in five baseball leagues, four of which have drafted. My "strategy" i guess you would call it was to take the best available hitter (slightly biased towards the shallow positions) early and then load up on potential pitchers late, knowing I will be able to pick up several solid starters (ah, hello alliteration) and many a new closer will poke through the waiver wire dirt throughout the year.


Team 1: This league is an 8 team 5X5 format

C-Brian McCann (7/50)
1B-Albert Pujos (1/2)
2B-Dustin Pedroia (4/31)
3B-Russell Martin (C) (6/47)
SS-Jimmy Rollins (2/15)
OF-Carl Crawford (5/34)
OF-Matt Kemp (8/63)
OF-Curtis Granderson (9/66)
Util-Mark Teixeira (1B) (3/18)
B-Chris Davis (1B/3B) (14/111)
B-Troy Tulowitzki (SS) (15/114)
B-Howie Kendrick (2B) 16/127)
B-Lastings Miledge (OF)(17/130)

SP-Felix Hernandez (10/79)
SP-Rich Harden (11/82)
SP-Edison Volquez (12/95) *All three of these picks were by the computer, I was about to get Aramis Ramirez in the 10th, 11th, and 12th rounds but my computer froze...crushing i know
RP-Heath Bell (18/143)
RP-Joel Hanrahan (21/172)
P-Matt Cain (13/98)
P-Erik Bedard (20/159)
B-Brandon Morrow (19/156)

In this league, I plan on trading Russel Martin or Brian McCann and maybe a bench player or pitcher for a legit 3B and shoring up my pitching throughout the year mainly on the free agent market. I don't trust pitchers at all-they are far too injury prone and inconsistent-so therefore i feel it is okay to go off of potential then find some diamonds that fell threw the cracks and focus on batting categories.

Team 2 will be posted tomorrow. Thanks everyone for visiting. If you have any fantasy questions-baseball, football, basketball-comment me with your question and I will do my best to help you all out. Best of luck everyone and good night.

Fantasy Welcome Note

Hello everyone, my name is Eric Palmer and well...lets just say that I am a little bit of a freak when it comes to fantasy sports. I play the three main sports; football, baseball, and basketball. In the upcoming days I will be posting my preseason rankings for Fantasy Football and Fantasy Baseball and will keep you all up to date on the current state of my teams and fantasy news.