Relatively new to baseball....

[sjmay]

Hey guys,

I just joined a fantasy league, you pick a team, I picked K.C. and you kept 5 players from that team, 1 P, 1 C, 1 INF, 1 OF, and 1 any other position etc,

It his H2H with a weekly lineup.

Scoring categories are this

Pitchers
Saves - 10, Wins - 10, Holds - 12, CG - 5, No Hitter -5, Perfect Game - 5, Innings 2, Shut out - 5, Strikeouts 1, Pickoffs 1, Blown Saves -2, Earned Runs -1, Hits Allowed -.5, Walks - .5, Hit Batter -.5, Wild Pitch -.2, Balk -.2

Batters

Hitting for Cylce 5, Home Runs 4, Triples 3, Doubles 2, Stolen Bases 2, Singles 1, Runs 1, RBI 1, Walks 1, Hit by Pitch 1, Caught Stealing -.5, Error -.5, Passed Ball -.5, Ground into double play -.2, Strikeouts -.2


I have an ok knowledge of baseball, I entered the league, get this, to get away from sports gambling lol, long story there,

I am wondering if anyone had any draft strategy they could depart, my first thought was good starting pitching is better in this league, but after looking at it, I am thinking solid hitting and decent pitching will win,

Meaning I don't need a team of Pujols hitting 48 home runs, but if I can grab 3-4 hitters hitting 30-35 home runs, and 2 pitchers with 15+ wins, besides Grienke who I can use as a keeper, then surround them with batters that consistently hit, and pitchers that might not win games, but chew innings and strikeouts, I have a solid shot at winning,

I was also wondering the best way, to rank or evaluate players, 3 year average, regular projections, etc? I have a ton of downtime to do the legwork, just not sure where to start to be honest.

Just wondering if anyone can help at all, I do have about a month and a half before the draft.

Thanks in advance for any help,

Sam

[fang]

If I'm you, my keepers are Zack Greinke, Jason Kendall, Billy Butler, David DeJesus, and Alberto Callaspo.

[sjmay]

If I'm you, my keepers are Zack Greinke, Jason Kendall, Billy Butler, David DeJesus, and Alberto Callaspo.

I was thinking Soria over Callaspo, but I had Greinke, Kendall, Butler and DeJesus for sure,

Why Callaspo?

Like I said, I am relatively new so I will be asking all sorts of dumb questions lol

[fang]

I'm one of the people who will take a hitter over a pitcher any day. There are plenty of closers to go around, to name a few, Papelbon, Mo, Nathan, Fuentes, Broxton. And on all those teams, I'm definitely not keeping the closer.

[MaudDib]

First off, Welcome. This is a great place to learn. A little slow right now because of the holidays and off season but give it another month and this place really starts to hop.

Secondly, and chance you can get a different baseball team? If not, I am sorry about the Royals thing. Couldn't have gotten much worse of a team.

I would defiantly take Grienke, Butler and Dejesus. After that you have a lot of bad options. Quick question - How many teams in this league? More than likely I think I would keep Soria and Gordon.

Soria is a boderline top tier closer. More often than not I would pass on keeping a closer as these are usually easy to find but a very volatile position. But there is no other good options, so I don't see why it would be a good idea to take a bottom of the draft type guy like Kendall or Callaspo when Soria is a middle rounds type player.

Gordon would be a high risk high reward type player. He has all the talent in the world and if you look at what he has done in the minors. he should be stud in the majors. But for whatever reason he has never been able to put it all together. I think this is a year that he takes a pretty good step forward. I am talking like 20 HR, .280 AVG and 70-80 RBI's. Not bad but not great. But I think this is a lot better than what you are going to get from Kendall (in which there are a ton of Catchers that should be better than him) or Callaspo (in which there is a good chance he gets traded at some point and if he does there is no guarantee that he will have starting gig).

As for what kind of analysis. I think the best is doing a little of everything and then creating your own spread sheets. I use a book called "Baseball Forecaster" by Ron Shandler. Might be a good place to start. Also Fangraphs.com is a good site with a ton of information. From there keep an eye in the baseball leftover section on this site and pretty soon there will be a lot of good info including rankings and possibly a spreadsheet or two.

[sjmay]

Thank you very much, no chance of changing and I have to keep a C, so Kendall is probably the choice and then probably draft a better one a bit later on. Also, this is a 12 team league, which has the Pirates, Giants, Padres, Rays, Reds, Braves, Orioles, Marlins, Nationals, Dbacks, and Rockies in it.

Gordon is a 3B, so a choice would be Butler or Gordon or Gordon or Soria, so I am definitely taking Butler, so it's Gordon or Soria...

League rules state you have to have 5 "keepers" on the team, from the original team, 1 C, 1 P, 1 INF, 1 OF, and 1 any position, so I am pretty much stuck taking Kendall.

I think I am gonna create my own spreadsheet, base it the 3 year average, last year's production, and this year's projections vs spot in lineup, depth chart, etc....

I am still thinking that getting 2-3 power hitters, surround them with solid hitting players, get 2-3 starters that can win 10-12 games, with a good closer and good setup guys, gives me a great shot to win, but that is probably stating the obvious.

First off, Welcome. This is a great place to learn. A little slow right now because of the holidays and off season but give it another month and this place really starts to hop.

Secondly, and chance you can get a different baseball team? If not, I am sorry about the Royals thing. Couldn't have gotten much worse of a team.

I would defiantly take Grienke, Butler and Dejesus. After that you have a lot of bad options. Quick question - How many teams in this league? More than likely I think I would keep Soria and Gordon.

Soria is a boderline top tier closer. More often than not I would pass on keeping a closer as these are usually easy to find but a very volatile position. But there is no other good options, so I don't see why it would be a good idea to take a bottom of the draft type guy like Kendall or Callaspo when Soria is a middle rounds type player.

Gordon would be a high risk high reward type player. He has all the talent in the world and if you look at what he has done in the minors. he should be stud in the majors. But for whatever reason he has never been able to put it all together. I think this is a year that he takes a pretty good step forward. I am talking like 20 HR, .280 AVG and 70-80 RBI's. Not bad but not great. But I think this is a lot better than what you are going to get from Kendall (in which there are a ton of Catchers that should be better than him) or Callaspo (in which there is a good chance he gets traded at some point and if he does there is no guarantee that he will have starting gig).

As for what kind of analysis. I think the best is doing a little of everything and then creating your own spread sheets. I use a book called "Baseball Forecaster" by Ron Shandler. Might be a good place to start. Also Fangraphs.com is a good site with a ton of information. From there keep an eye in the baseball leftover section on this site and pretty soon there will be a lot of good info including rankings and possibly a spreadsheet or two.

[MaudDib]

Sorry about that. I missed the have to keep a catcher thing. That sucks. Maybe start a rumor that Alex Gordon is going to be a catcher this year. Or Soria. Heck maybe Grienke (he did want to be a hitter just a couple years ago).

Well if it was down to Soria or Gordon, I would take Soria. He is more of a sure thing. Gordon has some promise but nothing to build a team around yet.