Fantasy Baseball Draft Strategies

[duncan_idaho]

As a new fantasy baseball player, I'd advise you NOT to be a streamer. It's a b.s. tactic, and most of the leagues I play in now take measures to prevent teams from doing it.

If you do plan to stream, however, check to make sure your league doesn't have a limit of the maximum number of moves you can make. There was a guy new to our league last year who burned through 30 of his 75 moves in the first month before he realized there was a limit... it was quite hilarious.

Anyway, I think it's a dubious tactic, at best. And you can counteract it by loading up on RPs. If you have enough saves coming in to dominate that category and do a nice job of adding stud setup men (Scott Linebrink in the past is a good example) who generally have low ERAs and WHIPS, you can dominate Saves, ERA and WHIP just as much as a streamer will dominate Ws and Ks.

The nice thing is that good setup men are almost always available following the draft, and they pop up during the season, too.

In H2H, i usually go heavy on hitters early and make sure I come out of the draft with at least 4 closers (and maybe a guy or two who could take over as a closer). For starting pitchers, if SP isn't a required position, I will completely ignore them. It basically means you sacrifice Ks and Ws every week, but if you do a good job with your relief corps, you are going to win pitching 3-2 most weeks, and you should have a strong lineup because you're drafting hitters throughout the early rounds (when other teams are starting to add top-notch starters).