Advice wanted for a small 5x5 HTH league.

[Tukka]

Hi everyone. I'm completely new to fantasy baseball (and fantasy sports in general) and have been browsing these forums, and various other sites for stuff to point me in the right direction. So first off, let me thank everyone who's already contributed, you might have already helped me a bit.

I'm going to be playing in a small (probably eight teams) head-to-head, non-keeper league this year, and I'm looking for some advice on strategies to go into the draft with, as well as draft prep advice.

As I understand the rules, there will be standard 5x5 scoring, 24 or 25 man rosters (undecided). Teams can start 1 man at every position and 3 outfielders, 1 DH and must start 7 pitchers (any combo of starting/relief). We're going to be using a snake draft.

The draft isn't for a while, but since I'm a complete greenhorn to fantasy (also, I lack broad knowledge of the players in the league, as I mostly have been just keeping track of a couple favorite teams for the past couple years), a little bit of direction from you veterens might help, before I completely drown myself in stats and articles.

One slight concern I have is that most of the advice I've seen on the web seems to assume a league size of at least 12 teams and as well, I'm unsure how well some of the roto stuff will translate into a head to head league.

So I guess my first question would be, how would you adjust your draft strategy, if at all, to best capitalize on the oppurtunities and challenges of a small H2H league?

Are there any players, or positions that you would value more highly in such a league, due to position depth, or player streakiness/steadiness?

I've checked out a few cheat sheets and projections online (and also have a couple magazines) but I'm not yet decided on which one to use as my primary basis from which to draft on ... I'd like to get an answer from an experienced fantasy player as to the previous questions before I do make that decision, I think.

My thanks in advance to anybody who might be able to assist.

[Bobblehead]

Welcome Tukka,

My advice to you to start with would be to buy one of the Fantasy Baseball mags and start ranking players by position. Since you only have 8 teams in your league I would rank the top 12-15 per position as well as the top 35-40 OFs and 55-60 SP. Don't go by the magazine's rankings totally. You can start with this but then, after looking at each player's stats over the past couple of years, make your own decisions of how to rank them.

Once you sort of have your own rankings you can look through some of the posts here at the Cafe and see what other people think about certain people. There is good advice given here at the Cafe and this may help you adjust your rankings a little more here and there.

Once you have your final rankings (are they ever "final" before draft day?) take a look at them again and determine what positions are deep with players that produce great results (3B) and what other positions only have a few decent players offensively (2B). This can be a factor of when to draft which players. For example if there are 8 good 3B then you may not want to pick a 3B in the early rounds since you know that you are going to get a good one anyway. The production output may be more drastic at other positions.

Don't go totally by this as you won't want to pick a 2B in the first round unless his name is Soriano. Take a look at some other categories that only a few people really excel at (SB, K's for pitchers, etc). Players that excel in these categories (that don't hurt you too bad in other categories) will be taken early.

Generally you want your first few picks to be players that are monsters in multiple categories (Vlad, Beltran, Pujols, etc.) Once all of the great hitters are gone you can look for position scarcity and category specialists.

I hope this helps you get started a little bit and good luck with your season!

[Tukka]

Thanks, Bobblehead. That's more or less what I've been trying to do, it's good to hear someone else say it though.

[AcidRock23]

I'd also recommend spending quite a bit of time on the guys farther down, particularly SP and RP, as a lot of times, it's the guys picked in THOSE rounds that are going to win the league for people, rather than choosing Tejada over Manny or whatever sort of early round quandries appear likely.

Look for guys whose jobs are in jeopardy and, perhaps towards the end of the draft, if you've got all of your positions filled, you can stick a couple of their backups who seem likely to break into starting roles. Or other guys who are off the radar but might do well. Looking at top 25 type of lists is good but, sometimes they don't include rookies, guys who move to Coors or other things that can result in suprising jumps in performance, even WITHOUT steroids!!

I'd second the magazine idea though, that's a lot more concentrated than trolling through 10,000 pages of stuff. You will probably see things that are 'off' in whichever one you read through but that's part of the fun...

[orange12]

Anyone new to fantasy sports should try to find mock drafts. There's truly nothing more effective than learning by example. I started getting into live draft fantasy basketball this year and mock drafts help a ton. They not only teach you who is good in the middle rounds but also where they should go in a draft. If you compare a few different mock drafts, you'll get a very good idea of who should generally go where. Here's a good one to get you started:

http://www.sportfanatics.net/Baseball/F ... Draft2.htm

[Nat Uralice]

All those strategies are exactly what I would say. Also, I would make sure to set aside some sleepers for the year to target late or watch on the waiver wire.

[Tukka]

Thanks again, guys. I think I'm off to a pretty good start now. Though of course if anybody else has anything brilliant to share, I'd welcome the advice.