Jay’s post about the Irish Trojan Fantasy Baseball League is steadily scrolling down the page, so I figured I’d post another plug for it here. Sign up now! Deadline is 12:01 AM Friday morning. Autodraft is Saturday night. E-mail irishtrojanbaseball AT yahoo DOT com for the league password, and also leave a comment on Jay’s post saying you’re in.
[UPDATE: Bumped to top. Lots of room still. Sign up now! -ed.]
In other news, can anyone suggest a “Fantasy Baseball For Dummies” resource on the Internet for me to read? So I can figure out, like, how the hell the draft works, and stuff? And strategies for, uh, drafting well, or whatever? I seriously have no idea what I’m doing.
It’s an auto draft…you can basically go in and sort what players you “want” and that way when its your time to draft in the auto…if that player is available it will pick them…rather then someone else…you can e-mail me and i can send you some links about drafting if you want…but since its auto its pretty simple
Yeah, it’s incredibly simple, really. As far as strategies for picking players (in this case ranking for an autopick), there’s so many sources of information out there to choose from, it’s ridiculous. Unfortunately, most of the good ones charge a decent little premium.
If you don’t know anything about it at all, I’d say trust the Yahoo rankings, and then concern yourself with making sure your lineups are set as you like them, etc. We’ll only be a couple of weeks into the season when you get to Knoxville, so I’ll give you some in person instruction, if you’d like.
BTW, 5 signups so far. Plenty of room for anyone to come on over and sign up.
Hmmm maybe I don’t understand this fantasy baseball thing at all well, but i can imagine the autodraft setting up some pretty terrible teams. I mean if i were drafting people, i might have a list of top prospects i want, but if instead of getting Babe Ruth for my first pick I get Nolan Ryan, i’d pretty much like my next pick not to be a highly ranked pitcher while all the best hitters get pulled away by other peoples auto drafts. Suddenly i’m left with a team of some great pitchers, and only Jose Canseco to field for me. In other words, is the system intelligent enough that you can set not only your preffered order, but also to skip a pitcher if you just got a pitcher? To balance out your roster a little?
David, I’d say probably no, but there may be something with Yahoo that could accomplish something to that effect. I’d suspect, though, that Yahoo will simply dump in the “best player available” on your list as soon as your turn in the rotation hits. Of course, you have to have position availability, so that would factor in too.
Could you wind up with a team full of great pitchers and scrub hitters? Possibly, but I’d also suspect that Yahoo has set up the rankings to show a relatively even distribution of pitchers and hitters.
Next season, if everyone wants, we can set the league up early enough to do a live online draft, and that would simply let everyone pick whoever they wanted anyway. We’re too late into the season for Yahoo to allow us to do that, though.
Davie,
In my experience with autodraft leagues (not Yahoo, though), yes, you’re exactly right. I’d prefer a livedraft with an option to let the computer pick your team for you if you were unable/unwilling to do so yourself.
There’s always the possibility of a second league. We could even let the leaders of two leagues join a third mid-season league when Yahoo starts them on June 18 to compete for an overall winner. But then, we may only have the 12 players signed up so far too.
Jay, Keep in mind I’ve only been doing this for two weeks so I don’t have much with which to compare. The Yahoo public leagues have 12 teams with a 21-man roster and points coming from 9 batters and 7 pitchers. How does going to a 30-man roster and points from 14 batters and 9 pitchers affect the league? It seems like the talent will be watered down but then all of the teams are in the same boat. I guess it’s mostly a matter of adjusting expectations.
And what about some of these positions? Catcher(C), 1st Base(1B), 2nd Base(2B), 3rd Base(3B), Shortstop(SS), Outfield(OF) and Utility(UTIL)[Catchall-Any batter including the only place to use a DH] seem obvious. Is ‘CI’ Corner Infielder(1B or 3B) and ‘MI’ Middle Infielder(2B or SS)? The public leagues distinguish between Starting Pitchers(SP) and Relief Pitchers(RP) but I see we’ll be able to have any mix of 9 pitchers(P) that we want.
A few things I found useful to learn for benefit of other newbies:
The Bench(BN) positions on your roster can be any mix of pitchers or batters. They are listed in two seperate places on your roster. If you have 6 bench batters and 1 bench pitcher after the draft you can trade batter for pitcher from the Free Agent(FA) pool or other player and the bench spot will be moved automatically.
Keep in mind that there are days (mostly Monday and Thursday) when several teams are off at the same time. If you have a lot of players from the same teams you may not have enough active bench players to fill your scoring roster positions.
Generally, relief pitchers earn the saves and starting pitchers earn most of the wins.
With AVG and SLG gone for batters and ERA gone for pitchers the only ‘average’ stat left is WHIP [(BB+H)/IP or Walks plus Hits per Inning Pitched].
You want high numbers in all stats except the pitching stats of Hits(H), Earned Runs(ER), Base on Balls(BB) and WHIP.
A few of those were some of the things that made me go “D’oh”. I made a few wrong assumptions that took reading the rules to correct. There is a link to the rules on the Fantasy Baseball homepage and on the league page.
And finally some commentary on the draft: There is a ‘Draft Central’ tab on the league page that has a wealth of information. (You can sort all of the players by rating and position.) It is also where you go to set your personal draft rankings. There is some type of ‘intelligent drafting’ by Yahoo’s software but I couldn’t quite pin it down. Our draft results will be available when the draft is completed. I studied one of my other draft results and knew that a player was available at the top of my remaining list on one of my selection slots but I didn’t get the player. I think the software makes sure you can fill every point-scoring spot with a qualified player [you can’t put an OF at 2B unless he’s qualified for both (2B,OF)]. If it’s getting to the later rounds and you still have holes in your roster then your selections may be passed over to fill a hole with a player you didn’t even rank. But there are no guarantees of quality. I’ve seen some managers with four players on the DL because of this. The more participants we get in the league the better a chance of this happening.
There’s an area on the league page for messages (I just saw a note from Jay for everyone.) If you have any questions there or here I’ll be happy to give you the benefit of my two whole weeks of experience. :-)
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:15:09 am
Jay/Brendan
What is the league ID so I can find it on yahoo?
I got the password from Jays e-mail but no league ID
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:16:44 am
Jay posted this URL in his previous post - does that give you what you need?
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:18:26 am
Good to see that you’re working hard at school, Brendan! GRRRR.
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:18:28 am
the league id # is 331892
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:19:02 am
In other news, can anyone suggest a “Fantasy Baseball For Dummies” resource on the Internet for me to read? So I can figure out, like, how the hell the draft works, and stuff? And strategies for, uh, drafting well, or whatever? I seriously have no idea what I’m doing.
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:19:25 am
Harumph.
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:19:42 am
P.S. Good to see that you’re busy packing!
Oh, SNAP!
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:23:29 am
Brendan…
It’s an auto draft…you can basically go in and sort what players you “want” and that way when its your time to draft in the auto…if that player is available it will pick them…rather then someone else…you can e-mail me and i can send you some links about drafting if you want…but since its auto its pretty simple
April 23rd, 2007 at 12:27:51 pm
Yeah, it’s incredibly simple, really. As far as strategies for picking players (in this case ranking for an autopick), there’s so many sources of information out there to choose from, it’s ridiculous. Unfortunately, most of the good ones charge a decent little premium.
If you don’t know anything about it at all, I’d say trust the Yahoo rankings, and then concern yourself with making sure your lineups are set as you like them, etc. We’ll only be a couple of weeks into the season when you get to Knoxville, so I’ll give you some in person instruction, if you’d like.
BTW, 5 signups so far. Plenty of room for anyone to come on over and sign up.
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:01:28 pm
That “OH SNAP” was hilarious… but, since I don’t want Becky to be pissed at me, I’m taking her side. (Always side with the wife, right?)
Bad Brendan, bad!
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:08:32 pm
“Red Headed Hos”… very well played Mister Loy, very well played indeed. :)
April 23rd, 2007 at 4:29:24 pm
8 players in so far, room for plenty more. C’mon, sign up, it’ll be fun.
April 23rd, 2007 at 5:24:31 pm
Hmmm maybe I don’t understand this fantasy baseball thing at all well, but i can imagine the autodraft setting up some pretty terrible teams. I mean if i were drafting people, i might have a list of top prospects i want, but if instead of getting Babe Ruth for my first pick I get Nolan Ryan, i’d pretty much like my next pick not to be a highly ranked pitcher while all the best hitters get pulled away by other peoples auto drafts. Suddenly i’m left with a team of some great pitchers, and only Jose Canseco to field for me. In other words, is the system intelligent enough that you can set not only your preffered order, but also to skip a pitcher if you just got a pitcher? To balance out your roster a little?
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:34:41 pm
David, I’d say probably no, but there may be something with Yahoo that could accomplish something to that effect. I’d suspect, though, that Yahoo will simply dump in the “best player available” on your list as soon as your turn in the rotation hits. Of course, you have to have position availability, so that would factor in too.
Could you wind up with a team full of great pitchers and scrub hitters? Possibly, but I’d also suspect that Yahoo has set up the rankings to show a relatively even distribution of pitchers and hitters.
Next season, if everyone wants, we can set the league up early enough to do a live online draft, and that would simply let everyone pick whoever they wanted anyway. We’re too late into the season for Yahoo to allow us to do that, though.
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:34:41 pm
Davie,
In my experience with autodraft leagues (not Yahoo, though), yes, you’re exactly right. I’d prefer a livedraft with an option to let the computer pick your team for you if you were unable/unwilling to do so yourself.
Have you entered the league yet, pendejo?
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:25:13 pm
Already 12 teams in the league, and room for up to 8 more. C’mon and sign up folks!
April 23rd, 2007 at 8:36:13 pm
20 teams is wayyyyyyy too many. people will lose interest so fast. I would cut it off now.
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:00:27 pm
Not a bad idea, Marty. Although this way you might actually want to pick Jimmy Rollins in the first round
April 24th, 2007 at 12:49:22 am
There’s always the possibility of a second league. We could even let the leaders of two leagues join a third mid-season league when Yahoo starts them on June 18 to compete for an overall winner. But then, we may only have the 12 players signed up so far too.
Jay, Keep in mind I’ve only been doing this for two weeks so I don’t have much with which to compare. The Yahoo public leagues have 12 teams with a 21-man roster and points coming from 9 batters and 7 pitchers. How does going to a 30-man roster and points from 14 batters and 9 pitchers affect the league? It seems like the talent will be watered down but then all of the teams are in the same boat. I guess it’s mostly a matter of adjusting expectations.
And what about some of these positions? Catcher(C), 1st Base(1B), 2nd Base(2B), 3rd Base(3B), Shortstop(SS), Outfield(OF) and Utility(UTIL)[Catchall-Any batter including the only place to use a DH] seem obvious. Is ‘CI’ Corner Infielder(1B or 3B) and ‘MI’ Middle Infielder(2B or SS)? The public leagues distinguish between Starting Pitchers(SP) and Relief Pitchers(RP) but I see we’ll be able to have any mix of 9 pitchers(P) that we want.
A few things I found useful to learn for benefit of other newbies:
The Bench(BN) positions on your roster can be any mix of pitchers or batters. They are listed in two seperate places on your roster. If you have 6 bench batters and 1 bench pitcher after the draft you can trade batter for pitcher from the Free Agent(FA) pool or other player and the bench spot will be moved automatically.
Keep in mind that there are days (mostly Monday and Thursday) when several teams are off at the same time. If you have a lot of players from the same teams you may not have enough active bench players to fill your scoring roster positions.
Generally, relief pitchers earn the saves and starting pitchers earn most of the wins.
With AVG and SLG gone for batters and ERA gone for pitchers the only ‘average’ stat left is WHIP [(BB+H)/IP or Walks plus Hits per Inning Pitched].
You want high numbers in all stats except the pitching stats of Hits(H), Earned Runs(ER), Base on Balls(BB) and WHIP.
A few of those were some of the things that made me go “D’oh”. I made a few wrong assumptions that took reading the rules to correct. There is a link to the rules on the Fantasy Baseball homepage and on the league page.
And finally some commentary on the draft: There is a ‘Draft Central’ tab on the league page that has a wealth of information. (You can sort all of the players by rating and position.) It is also where you go to set your personal draft rankings. There is some type of ‘intelligent drafting’ by Yahoo’s software but I couldn’t quite pin it down. Our draft results will be available when the draft is completed. I studied one of my other draft results and knew that a player was available at the top of my remaining list on one of my selection slots but I didn’t get the player. I think the software makes sure you can fill every point-scoring spot with a qualified player [you can’t put an OF at 2B unless he’s qualified for both (2B,OF)]. If it’s getting to the later rounds and you still have holes in your roster then your selections may be passed over to fill a hole with a player you didn’t even rank. But there are no guarantees of quality. I’ve seen some managers with four players on the DL because of this. The more participants we get in the league the better a chance of this happening.
There’s an area on the league page for messages (I just saw a note from Jay for everyone.) If you have any questions there or here I’ll be happy to give you the benefit of my two whole weeks of experience. :-)
April 24th, 2007 at 1:48:25 am
Hell..after tonight I may draft Rollins iin the first round…..