EhBeth and other new folks -- this is gonna be long.
This is
Yahoo Fantasy Baseball 101 -- if you already know these things, my apologies. I hope this is helpful information to someone.
The live online draft is set for
Sat Mar 15 4:15pm EDT. But you don't have to be there. Instead, you can rank your desired players, here:
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/161608/draft
That page defaults to only showing the top 25 or so players overall. But you need to have men in all positions and there are a lot more than 25 players out there. You can select for position and number of players you want to see and choose from there.
Yahoo ranks players, and most of their rankings are good. But you might want to look at a few other sites for
a mix of information. E. g.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/?cnn=yes,
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/index and/or
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/homepage/narrowband.jsp
Here are some of Yahoo's main rankings to get you started:
Top 5 batters overall:
Álex Rodríguez (NYY - 3B) He's been #1 for a few years now
Hanley Ramírez (Fla - SS)
José Reyes (NYM - SS)
Albert Pujols (StL - 1B)
David Wright (NYM - 3B)
Top 5 pitchers:
Johan Santana (NYM - SP) Cy Young Winner
Jake Peavy (SD - SP)
Erik Bedard (Sea - SP)
Josh Beckett (Bos - SP) Was robbed of a Cy Young last year
Brandon Webb (Ari - SP)
Top 5 relief pitchers:
J.J. Putz (Sea - RP)
Jonathan Papelbon (Bos - RP)
Joe Nathan (Min - RP)
Francisco Rodríguez (LAA - RP)
Takashi Saito (LAD - RP)
Top 5 catchers:
Víctor Martínez (Cle - C,1B)
Russell Martin (LAD - C)
Joe Mauer (Min - C)
Brian McCann (Atl - C)
Jorge Posada (NYY - C)
Top 5 first basemen:
Albert Pujols (StL - 1B)
Prince Fielder (Mil - 1B)
Ryan Howard (Phi - 1B)
David Ortiz (Bos - 1B)
Mark Teixeira (Atl - 1B)
Top 5 second basemen:
Chase Utley (Phi - 2B)
Brandon Phillips (Cin - 2B)
B.J. Upton (TB - 2B,OF)
Brian Roberts (Bal - 2B)
Chone Figgins (LAA - 2B,3B,OF)
See all of the letters after his name? He can actually be plugged in to play any of these positions. Very useful at times ...
Top 5 third basemen:
Álex Rodríguez (NYY - 3B)
David Wright (NYM - 3B)
Miguel Cabrera (Det - 3B) Not to be confused with Melky Cabrera, a different guy
Ryan Braun (Mil - 3B)
Aramis Ramírez (ChC - 3B)
Top 5 shortstops:
Hanley Ramírez (Fla - SS)
José Reyes (NYM - SS)
Jimmy Rollins (Phi - SS)
Derek Jeter (NYY - SS)
Troy Tulowitzki (Col - SS) He was a rookie last year
Top 5 outfielders:
Matt Holliday (Col - OF)
Alfonso Soriano (ChC - OF)
Carl Crawford (TB - OF)
Grady Sizemore (Cle - OF)
Carlos Beltrán (NYM - OF)
You should also look at these pages to get information on players:
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/161608/injuries
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/161608/players
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/161608/research
The
roster positions you have to fill are: 2 catchers, 1 first baseman, 1 second baseman, 1 third baseman, 1 shortstop, 3 outfielders, 1 utilityman (this can be a batter in any position), 2 starting pitchers, 2 relief pitchers, 3 pitchers (these can be either starters or relievers and 5 bench positions (any position).
Plus there are 2 DL slots but they are only available if you have someone officially listed by Yahoo as being on the
Disabled List. Yahoo sometimes takes a day or two after Major League Baseball announces an injury, so sometimes there's a delay. Check the news. If an injury is only going to keep someone out for a week or two, or the player is otherwise truly exceptional (someone like A-Rod) and they aren't going to be out for the rest of the year, keep 'em. If not, drop them and pick up someone else on the waiver wire.
The
areas where you are scored (it's a head to head league and we round-robin it, so one week you play me, another week you play RJB, etc. Once you've played everyone, it cycles through again. I think we get 3 or 4 cycles by the time the season ends):
Batting: Runs (R), Doubles (2B), Home Runs (HR), Runs Batted In (RBI), Stolen Bases (SB), Caught Stealing (CS -- this is a negative stat; you want it to be low), Bases on Balls (BB -- also called walks), Strikeouts (K -- another negative stat), Average (AVG)
Pitching: Innings Pitched (IP), Wins (W), Complete Games (CG), Shutouts (SHO), Saves (SV), Strikeouts (K -- here, it's a positive stat), Holds (HLD -- or, did the middle reliever hold the lead?), Earned Run Average (ERA -- a negative stat), Walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP -- another negative stat. If Ks are low and ERA is high, WHIP is also going to be higher), Blown Saves (BSV -- if there is no hold, a blown save usually goes with that. Of course this is a negative stat).
For batting, of course you want hitters. Real-life teams also like their fielders to be able to catch and throw balls, and tag out runners, plus they may want locker room leaders. You don't care one whit about that. You just want them to be hitting the ball or drawing a walk and then moving around the bases, preferably via steals. A grand slam home run is a festival of good stats: it's 1 R (it may be more if your hitter is batting in other hitters that you have), 1 HR, 4 RBIs, 0 CS, 0 K and it helps the hitter's average.
For pitching, you need a mix. Every real life team has five or so starters, and they are easily divided into #1, #2 etc. You'll know who's #1 because he'll usually start their first game, then #2 starts the second game, etc. but there can be exceptions such as for the Red Sox and the Dodgers this year because they're starting their season in Japan. But look at the team's own page and you'll figure out who's the ace and who just barely made it to the fifth spot in the rotation.
Keep in mind that an ace on a bad team can be hampered by his teammates. If he gets a lot of Ks, great, but any time he lets the ball go into play, or a man gets to first (on a BB, or perhaps for some other reason like a balk), the ace is at the mercy of fielders who might not catch balls well or be quick to tag runners. So yeah, you care about fielder defense -- but only in the context of whether it can help your pitcher. For pitchers, the best is the perfect game, but those are rare. More common (although still only once or so a year) is a no-hitter. That one has 9 IP, 1 W, 1 CG, usually 1 SHO, up to 27 Ks (technically if there are 27 Ks, it would be a perfect game), a 0.00 ERA, and a close to 0.00 WHIP. There are no holds and no saves because the starter would stay in for the entire game (usually). There is such a thing as a combined no-hitter (a team recently had something like 4 or 5 pitchers combine for a no-hitter), but that's pretty rare. Unless a pitcher is really tired or somehow got hurt, a manager is going to leave in any pitcher who's got a no-hitter going, particularly if the no-hitter has gone deep, e. g. into the 6th inning or beyond.
Ranking your dream players is helpful if you can't make it to the draft. While Yahoo has a good system in place, if you just let the computer pick, you might not be happy with its choices. Plus, the top 25 or so players list is dominated by 3rd basemen and shortstops. You may or may not want two of each but if there's a pitcher or a catcher you really want, you should do some manual ranking in order to jigger the odds. Note that if you end up with 8 catchers, you're going to have a big problem, because there are only 2 playing catcher positions and 5 bench positions. What happens to the 8th catcher? Essentially, he can never be played -- you'd have to drop him.
I wouldn't recommend dominating your bench with one position or another. You probably want to spread that around. Keep in mind that there are days when teams don't play, so you might need a second shortstop. But you probably don't need five of them.
Speaking of days off, try not to have one real-life team dominate your squad. We joke about me picking a lot of Red Sox, and I usually do, but I don't select
only them, because if I did, I can't get any points when they have a day off. You might want to mix it up. As for which teams, or whether to just stay in one league, those are your decisions.
Starting Pitchers, of course, do not pitch every day. They go in five-man rotations and so you can usually get an idea of when someone will be starting, even before they're announced to be starting a particular game. But an injury on the real-life squad, even when it's not to your guy, can throw a wrench in that. So look at the news and confirm.
Once play begins, you can't bench someone who's playing.
Trades -- you can trade with anyone in the group. If you have six catchers, you might want to jettison a few. There may or may not be a taker among your fellow managers.
Trades don't have to be even, e. g. you can trade two players for one, for example,
but your roster will have to be adjusted accordingly.
You can also quietly grab people from the waiver wire. We have a small league so, by definition, there are a lot of rather good players who, at any time, won't be playing for any of us.
Here are some other Yahoo links that might be of interest:
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/161608/favorablematchups
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/161608/tools
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/161608/matchup?week=1&mid1=5&mid2=8 (this is just the first week matchup link; the second week's matchup link will be different)
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/161608/5/playerswatch
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/161608/5 (roster)
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/161608/5/editteaminfo
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/161608/tradingblock
http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/161608/settings
Questions?
