Tagged: ryan howard

April 8, 2009

Mailbag – Tips for Beginners

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Hello everyone

Each Wednesday, I’m going to answer a question from the
comments or my email, so if you have a question (about fantasy baseball or
anything else), let it fly in the comment section below. Here is this week’s question.

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Toby–starting at square
1, what information that you learned last year did you find to be most
important or most helpful in attempting to analyze/predict a player’s fantasy
worth? I used to be a baseball fan, then lived under a rock for 10 years, and
am trying to rekindle the interest.

Jonas Foxx

Hey Jonas

Welcome back to civilization! I haven’t lived in the same home for more
than 18 months since I left for college, must have been nice to have that kind
of stability. Do you miss your
rock?

Glad to see you’ve chosen to get back into baseball. The players look a little……..different now
than when you went into seclusion don’t be alarmed. You’ll be surprised at how fast you get back
into it, especially if you were a big baseball fan as a kid. Something about the game seems to nest itself
in your soul when you are young and never really goes away. It just lays dormant until activated, and as I
can attest, fantasy baseball is a heckuva catalyst. And if you think this sounds like what
happened to Reggie Jackson in “The Naked Gun,” you’re not far off.

Before we get to analyzing a fantasy player’s worth, I
recommend you make a determination about your goals in playing fantasy. Namely, are you playing to win or are you
playing to have fun? Granted, winning is
fun, but it may come at a price. In
order to really excel at the game, you have to avoid all emotional attachments
to individual players. Your feelings
will color your decisions and may prevent you from making a move to optimize
your team. Any one such move can cost
you a title.

On the other hand, playing the fantasy version causes you to
watch a lot more real baseball and it’s no fun always watching dudes you don’t
like. So another way to approach the
game is to draft some players from your favorite team and other guys you like
to see play. You probably won’t win this
way, but you’ll enjoy the season a lot more.
It should be noted that it is possible to still win doing this, but only
if you draft each player at or near his ADP (average draft position – it explains all the fantasy terminology you’ll need to
know).

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Basically, you have to decide if you are going to be
original Robocop or end of the movie “Robocop.”
Original Robocop had zero emotions, he just scanned a situation and made
the optimal move at all times. But once
he rediscovered who he was, emotions started to cloud his judgment, causing him
to go a bit haywire, but ultimately allowed him to find satisfaction. So which Robocop will you be?

Either way, you’ll need to be able to make some decisions
regarding your players’ fantasy values.
Here are a few hints for beginners below.

Continue reading →