Draft Prep

Baseball season is next and mock drafts and leagues are opening up on most fantasy sports providers. Usually I don't do mock drafts but being that I needed to do more research for this season, I thought mock drafts could help with this. So I've participated in a couple of mock drafts and I've come up with some interesting observations.

My friend Victor has been reluctant to try fantasy baseball because he's somewhat confused on how the lineup works and most importantly, he's confused about the draft strategy, as am I. The thought of a fantasy football draft can seem daunting but it's not as intimidating once you've realized two things. First thing is to remember that just like in any fantasy sport, your primary goal is to put together a fantasy team that has a solid core plus a decent amount of productive role players which combined forms the ultimate team that will dominate throughout the fantasy season and playoffs with minimum maintenance. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against picking up players from free agency throughout the season, but why when you can draft the potential studs for the season? Free agency is a weapon for players who are trying to climb position. Why climb position when you can draft a first place team right? Second thing to remember is unlike in most fantasy sports, the talent is abundant in fantasy baseball. Of course there are studs like Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw, but there are so many talented players in the MLB that you'll find yourself in the later rounds of your draft and you'll still be able to find quality players instead of players you know you're just going to drop later on.

Okay so there's more than two things to remember and the last thing is the unique position that is the pitcher. I think pitching confuses a lot of people because of the way it's set up. In most leagues that I've played in there's one spot for every position except for outfielders and pitching. Naturally there are three positions for outfielders, but there are eight spots for pitchers and all eight of there spots are starting.  So it's important to keep a balance when drafting so you won't end up with strong hitters but weak pitchers, and vice versa. To make things more interesting, you want to make sure you have a good mix of starters and closers because starting pitches rarely gets you saves and closing pitchers rarely gets you wins.

As far as the draft though, it isn't as long as I had figured it would be. On average during these mock drafts I've spent about an hour completing the drafts, which isn't bad considering you're drafting nineteen starters plus five or six bench players. My strategy which I like the most is to alternate each pick between hitter and pitcher so that one pick I'm drafting a hitter and the next pick I'm drafting a pitcher. This is where draft position comes in play because this strategy definitely works better if you have one of the top two picks or the last two picks. In most fantasy sports these four spots are advantageous and the same is true in fantasy baseball. These spots allows you to alternate between hitter and pitcher and being that your picks are close, you have a greater chance to get the best two available players at those two positions. When the pick was closer to the middle the strategy didn't go as planned and some picks I was able to stick with the plan, but for the most part I ended up just picking the best player available. It didn't come out too bad, but if I had my preference like in most drafts, I want either the first two or the last two picks.

Some last little things to remember, every draft is different because I'm sure there's gonna be someone who is not taking the draft serious at all and is screwing it up for everyone. Also, outfielders are the wide receivers of fantasy baseball. There are many of them, so don't get the urge to draft your outfielders too early. #PhantasySteez

40 Days of Phantasy Silence Broken

That barber killed my hairline

The last time I posted in this blog, it was about 40 days ago. Well today is actually the 40th day, but you get the point I'm trying to put out there right? It's been a very interesting 40 days in real life and on that PhantasySteez. Trust me, it isn't that I've lacked content or anything like that. I had plenty of excitement with my fantasy basketball squads, fantasy baseball and NCAA brackets, which I didn't do because I turned my brackets in too late. It's more of I've completed a major transition in a lot of areas. One of my mottos is "I'm trying to make my next move my best move." Most people wouldn't understand as in most cases, your best move may be unconventional to others outside of the situation. I relocated, and I'm not talking about moving like around the corner or anything like that. I moved to the other side of the country, Sweet Home Alabama. Yeah, talk about a major transition. I've been here for a week and I'm still trying to get adjusted to living in Roll Tide/Auburn nation. I'm still trying to find a decent barber who won't massacre my hairline like the guy did in that picture of me. However, deep down inside I feel like in the long run and for many different reasons, this move will be the most beneficial for my personal goals and for that PhantasySteez.

As of today...

Over the last 40 days, the PhantasySteez has seen a lot of interesting action. Let's start with fantasy basketball. Today is the last day of the season in Yahoo Fantasy Basketball and to my surprise, both of my teams are playing for the championship. In my main league, The Syndicate, I'm playing against no other than All the KING'S Men. And just like all season, she is kicking my ass. One thing I must point out in this matchup is Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, both of who are on my team. The Oklahoma City Thunder didn't play much this week. In fact, their first game of the week wasn't until Thursday. They had three days off, and I couldn't get any production from Durant and Westbrook. Meanwhile, All the KING'S Men was just racking up points. If you remember, LeBron James is on All the KING'S Men and while the Thunder were resting up, the Miami Heat played Monday and Wednesday. Also, Dwyane Wade didn't play in any of those games which meant more production the LeBron. The Heat played in 4 games this week while the Thunder only played in 3. I can't forget to mention that the rest of my guys decided to just play average. I think my depth at point guard killed me though as my rotation seems to be stuck because I really couldn't make any interesting lineup changes. I'm just gonna chalk this one up as a lost and settle for second place.

At least it looks like my other random team is going to win the championship, unless something weird happens by the end of today. Honestly, I can't tell you much about this team. Jamal Crawford and Wade have been injured so I didn't really have to change my lineup much. One thing I can say is somewhere within these 40 days I picked up D.J. Augustin and he has been a pleasant surprise. I was about to lose last week when Augustin went off for 33 points. That helped my team come from behind and land a spot in the championship round. Should I win, I'll be content, but winning the Syndicate would've been much more satisfying.

Last, but definitely not least, baseball season started last week. Originally during the last 40 days I wanted to do a preseason write up and talk about draft strategy and all that good stuff. I got caught up with this transition and working and linking up with certain people and plotting and scheming on the low. I got probably 3 different drafts of fantasy baseball content, but they never got done. I did however manage to draft a fantasy baseball team but of course not without some minor discrepancies. I wanted to make sure I drafted my team instead of using the ever non popular auto draft. The problem was I really didn't know anything about how to draft a fantasy baseball team, who should go first, when to draft pitchers, which positions where more important, just to name a few. I tried to get some advice and cooperation from my good friend Vic, but I had to remind myself that Vic likes those sleeper picks and most of the time I don't really agree with his draft style. Also, he wasn't playing fantasy baseball because he says it's to much work as baseball players play just about everyday. I tried to argue with him that it would be just like football because when football season is in, he's constantly managing his team, every day every hour. Only difference is you play everyday instead of just Sundays. He didn't do buy it and suggested that I purchase a fantasy baseball magazine.

After studying this magazine for a couple of days, I felt like I was ready to draft my first team. Not thinking at the moment, I scheduled to draft at 10:30 p.m. If you know me, you know I'm usually in bed at 9, so by the time the draft started I was really tired. I had the number 5 pick and I lasted the first 5 rounds, after that it was a wrap and unfortunately, the remainder of my team was auto drafted.

The next day when I woke up and reviewed my half-drafted team, I really didn't know how I felt about the team. My first pick was the reigning NL MVP Andrew McCutchen. My next two picks were Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander, the first two pitchers I drafted. I didn't know, and I still don't know if this was a good move or a bad move being that they both play for the same team. At fourth and fifth I picked Adrian Gonzalez and Matt Carpenter respectively, then I crashed. The first thing I noticed was that while I was wide asleep, auto draft picked up Aroldis Chapman. Chapman is one of the top closers in the league, but as we all know he took a line drive to the dome during the preseason. He'll be out for a minute, but he is expected to return around late May, possibly in June. Luckily, I didn't have to drop him and I was able to put him on the DL list. As Vic suggested, I picked up Francisco "K-Rod" Rodriguez has gotten a save for me and has an ERA of 0.00 in 2 innings pitched. Trevor Rosenthal has been my main closer though with 2 saves, 3 strikeouts and a 0.00 ERA also. As far as my batters go, I can't really say much right now. Honestly, I don't know who some of these guys are like Leonys Martin, Domonic Brown, Wilson Ramos (who I already had to replace due to injury) and Kendrys Morales, but it looks like my team should be well-rounded as far as getting points in every stat category.

Overall, I think this major transition will result in a very positive way for PhantasySteez. It give me a chance to get PhantasySteez to a different level by having more access to information and having the ability to network with other fantasy players/gurus. I look forward to the opportunities that my current situation presents. I must admit, this fantasy baseball season is very interesting as far as keeping up with players and strategizing, but in the end we'll see how this fantasy baseball season goes.