Fantasy Baseball – Not Just for Nerds or Fantasy Baseball – An Attempt for Nerds to be Cool

We have finally weathered the sports hibernation that hits after the Super Bowl every year. For a month after the Patriots either win or lose the game, there’s nearly nothing on. Sure there is Basketball and Hockey, but those sports have their championship favorites set. Those leagues are cruise control in February, awaiting for the playoffs to begin. In March, things change. College basketball matters for its one month of the year, as the conference championships and NCAA tournaments take place – assuming the FBI doesn’t end the NCAA. I mean, would it be that big of loss? After the excitement of the tournament begins to die out at the final four*¹, we get to America’s pastime.

No, the Bachelor doesn’t start at the end of March. I’m talking about baseball.

I can hear you know. “Baseball?” you scoff. “Nobody likes baseball anymore.” This opinion is echoed by many people my age. Baseball is just too slow for them. I understand the sentiment. There’s too much entertainment available for my generation to appreciate one thing at a time. Watching a baseball game isn’t as interesting as football since baseball is so slow. I mean, football is so rapid fire with 40 seconds wasted in between plays, commercial breaks at every time stoppage, and lengthy reviews and timeout. Most football “fans” spend more time posting selfies on Instagram than watching the game, but no, baseball is boring.

Seriously, I get the complaints. In a typical baseball game, full minutes may pass without contact being made. Some of these “athletes” look more like the before picture in weight lose commercials than the after. Consider Miguel Sano, who came to training camp out of shape, having a self-proclaimed “undercarriage”. That’s not a phrase you want to hear about anyone, especially an athlete. Remember, he’s paid to be in shape. Baseball features portly players, much bland, boring coverage, and an out of touch executives who think using technology like Youtube is bad for ratings. I can’t imagine how this sport is dying. Hell, most of the excitement in watching baseball comes down to drinking beer from the bleachers. Or, if your on the Red Sox, in the clubhouse.

I get the hesitation to start watching the sport. It’s always been a regional thing – if you have a local team, you’re likely into baseball. If the closest team is two states over, you’ll definitely not into it. That’s fine. I’m not here to push a “Baseball isn’t for basic bitches” agenda. What I’m here for is to hype of fantasy baseball. Remember, just because you’re playing fantasy, it doesn’t mean you have to watch a single pitch. Plus there’s gambling. That would entice everybody.

Fantasy actually started with baseball. Some of the biggest nerds in history got together and had a draft and manually kept track of the stats. I’m not here to rehash the sports version of Dungeons and Dragons. The point is, this fantasy craze didn’t start with football, but obviously, just like the real sports, fantasy baseball has nowhere near the popularly. Honestly, I don’t get it.

What people enjoy about fantasy football is that it’s simple and everyone can play. And that’s what you, an intelligent fantasy player should hate**². Anyone with a mouse and the internet can make a competitive fantasy team these days. In fact, pretty much everyone does. It’s all you see when watching football. I think the league forgot that the product should come first. Then again, they certainly forget the players should come first, but when the sport gets sued out of existing by all the CTE victims, that wrong will be righted.

Fantasy baseball is a much more complicated monster. Not to use the biggest cliché of them all, but fantasy football is checkers and baseball is chess. Sometimes, checkers is great and all you want. There’s something to be said about a sport where teams only play once a week. Fantasy Football is not a huge commitment. You can check your teams twice a week, and easily win a league. Sure, the more time and research you do, the more likely you’re succeed, but the time commitment isn’t as great.

Baseball doesn’t give you this luxury. If you want to win, you either have to have the greatest draft in the world, or be on top of everything going on in the sport. Players should be rewarded for knowing who’s due to improved and who’s due to regress immediately. Baseball is a balancing act, and it takes more skill than starting several running backs, wide receivers and a defense that plays the Browns.

I don’t have a single reason to play fantasy baseball. I have 10 of them. Here’s why you should try playing fantasy baseball this year:

It’s not in your face – As previously discussed, fantasy football is plastered all over the internet. Even in March, I see articles about early football rankings, mock drafts, and the effect the rookies will have on fantasy next season. It’ll be worse during the summer, where you can stumble into fantasy rankings while watching a Hallmark movie. The market is saturated. I remember when “The Real Slim Shady” was played on radios everywhere. It was overplayed so much, I started feeling nauseous when I heard it about two months after it’s release. That’s how fantasy football’s overexposure makes me feel sometimes.

You don’t have to worry about it with baseball. Unless you’re actively looking for information, it’s often buried on pages, or reserved to the fantasy section. That’s the way it should be. You don’t need it overshadowing the game. It’s meant to enhance it.

There’s less luck – How many times have you lost a fantasy football game due to a 90 yard touchdown, or an injury in the first play? No matter how much you prepare, you can lose to a team that isn’t as good as yours. If a scrubby running back scores three times at the goal line, and you’re playing against him, there’s a good chance you’ll lose that week. It’s especially fun in the playoffs.

I’m not going to pretend that fantasy baseball doesn’t have luck, but it’s reduced. Since there are more games, a good team can counter against the huge flukey games that do happen. Some leagues aren’t even head to head, and the flukes are a small portion of the final numbers. Bad luck can always play a factor, but the larger amount of games helps to even things out.

Different ways to play – In football, it’s a head to head matchup where the winner has the most points. There’s not really any other way to play. Baseball has a plethora of options.

The popular expert way to play is Roto. In this variant, each team is ranked via a list of categories. In a ten team league, if your team performs the best in a category, you get ten points, the second place team gets nine points, all the one to last getting one point. This is done for all categories and the league lasts for the whole season. There is no head to head component, but this is the best way to judge who had the best team

A category league is similar, but brings in the head to head match up that football provides. Two teams face off for a full week, and wins are given out based on who performed better in each stat category. Leagues can award a victory to the entire game (1 win per week) or declare winners for each individual stat category. This is the preferred method for playing in a home league.

Finally, points leagues are rising in popularity. In this format, the categories don’t matter. Instead, actions such as walks, base hits and homers are rewarding points. This can be played season long like roto, or head to head. Instead of worrying where to earn certain statistics, you’ll need to concern on where to get the most points.

Even just in the different modes there’s a lot of strategy, but there’s so much more than that.

Position scarcity is a thing – In football, you’re really only concerned about taking running backs and wide receivers. Quarterbacks and tight ends matter, but other than the elites, most guys are about the same. Some, mostly dumber players, will take kickers and defenses early in drafts. Typically they will make the playoffs over you due to sheer bad luck.

In baseball, positions matter a lot more. You have six hitter positions you must fill, at a minimum, and then you’ll have additional spots. Some leagues require three outfielders, while others may need five. In addition to having a Utility or DH, you may have to fill in corner and middle infield spots. There’s a lot of hitters to consider.

At the same time, you can forget pitching which makes up half of the game. When is it too early to draft a pitcher? What about a reliever? You do need saves but it could be too high to consider one. All of these positions make decisions that much tougher. It becomes essential to use tiers and know average draft positions before diving into your draft.

Statistics matter – I mean, sure, stats in football matter, but at the end of the day, it’s all points. In baseball, you aren’t so lucky.

In a standard league, you’ll have to worry about batting average, home runs, RBIs, runs scored and steals. Players don’t usually do all five of these things well. You have to balance your picks to cover all of these, while staying balanced in all categories. If you play in a custom league, these stats can get much more complicated, making decisions even harder.

Similarly, pitching has wins, strikeouts, WHIP, ERA and saves. It’s not enough to have strikeout pitchers, since they often struggle with walks. Pitchers with good ERAs might not provide enough strikeouts. Wins are nearly impossible to predict, and saves creates the same question of when is it too early to draft closers.

Even in point leagues you have to worry about stats. Strikeouts usually are a negative for hitters. You’d have to balance between picking power hitters that potentially can score the most with slumps that’ll might lead to negative totals. It’s not enough just to tally points – you need to know where they come from.

Usually, the best players are the best fantasy players – Doesn’t it drive you crazy when you lose a fantasy football game because the opponent’s quarterback threw for two touchdowns in overtime. This phenomena, called Pulling a Bortles, happens consistently. It’s one thing to use players on a bad team. It’s another to lose because the opponent throws up 35 points in the fourth quarter against a prevent defense.

Baseball is a different type of game. The match ups are really 1 on 1, pitcher versus hitter. Fortunately, the fantasy game is designed where the best players in real life tend to be the best players in the fantasy game. There’s a few players who specialize in one category that aren’t nearly as good in real life. We call him Billy Hamilton. In addition, fantasy can’t factor in defense, but who cares? The people aren’t paying for covering a lot of ground. They want dingers. Fantasy is all about dingers.

Dingers is a funny word. It’s ok if you giggle when reading it.

Following trends – Prior to the 2016 season, baseball was dominated by pitching. Power was reaching dead ball era levels, and flawed players like Cris Carter mattered in fantasy. Cris Carter was always good for 35-40 homeruns, but he also hit .200. Fantasy players had to jump on players like this to try to win the category. We were getting to Bortles territory in baseball.

Then something happened. I’m not saying the baseballs were juiced to improve offense but… Yes they were. Offense went up and it hasn’t looked back. In addition, steals have evaporated from the game. Let’s look at some numbers

Last season 42 players hit at least 30 homeruns. A whopping 117 players hit at least 20.

Only six players topped 30 steals. 29 Players were able to reach 20.

With a minimum of 100 innings, only 13 pitchers had an ERA of 3.00 or under, including NBC’s favorite player Brad Peacock, who hit 3.00 on the nose. Only 50 pitchers had an ERA under four.

So what does this mean? Should you draft a speed demon or two early to ensure you have a standout at the position? Should you go pitching early to ensure you have the advantage in a league with filled with mediocre junk hurlers? Or, do you play to the league’s strength and draft a bunch of power bats?

This is the beauty of the game. There’s no blueprint.

No one way to win – In fantasy football, you cannot win without good running backs and receivers. It’s just too hard to be competitive with having elite players at that position. In baseball, elites sure help, but they aren’t as essential as you think.

In roto leagues, the well-balanced approach is best. You want to have specialists for every category, but also all around contributors. You can’t afford to be weak at any category… Unless you decide to punt one and try to dominant all the remaining ones.

In head to head and points leagues, you might want to focus on one of the three building strategies mentioned in the last bullet. If you dominant in enough categories or score enough points in some way, you’ll win. You don’t need a perfect team. Then again, you might want to focus on an all-around team, having a chance to win any of the categories, or to score points in a variety of ways.

What makes fantasy baseball so unique is depending on how your draft goes, certain players will more or less be removed from your board that might be an essential piece for some teams. Let’s take Billy Hamilton for example. If you draft Dee Gordon or Trea Turner, Billy Hamilton is a wasted pick for your team. But if your draft starts off with Nolan Arenado, Joey Votto, and two pitchers, Hamilton could be the perfect fit to solve your speed woes. In football, you’re just taking the best player available, regardless of position. In baseball, team construction isn’t just considered, it’s essential for winning.

Knowing the prospects – In football knowing the team’s handcuffs at Running back is important, but typically they will be on the waiver wire. Even if you don’t know who the backup is, you’ll have a chance to pick him up like everyone else on Tuesday.

In baseball, call ups can happen at any time. You need to not only pay attention to the news, but know which prospect is worth the pick up for your team. You won’t get every player. In fact, you shouldn’t get every player. But if you know your top prospects, you can land a game changing player late in the season to catapult you to a title. If you’re in a keeper or dynasty league, you’d be a fool not to know this stuff.

Or those of you that don’t know prospects, want to join a very expensive keeper league? C’mon, don’t be a wuss.

Advanced metrics help you turn a profit – Baseball was made for advanced stats because everybody involved in front offices are now nerds. Personally, I blame Brad Pitt.

While seeing three-year projections, pretty much available on every site, magazine or baseball card, are pretty good indicators, advanced stats help determine breakout and busts easily. Most of the best stats are readily available online now, so if you want to know more about some players, it’s a good idea to look it up. At the end of this article, I will include a list of the best advanced stats to look up for pitchers and hitters. I think it helps out.

 

You may be wondering why I spent about 2600 words describing fantasy baseball. Well, surprise, you’ve been sucked into the 2018 Bloggin Hood fantasy Baseball preview. Sucks for you. Now you have no choice but to follow this through until the end. You can admit it, that was crafty.

Now, I’m not very good at fantasy sports anymore. I mean, I used to be. I used to always finish in the top three of every league I was in, but that hasn’t been the cast for the past three years. I’d like to blame bad luck, but nobody wants to read about people’s fantasy teams. They want to read about how they can win their leagues.

Fortunately, I’ve helped with that. Last year, my baseball rankings helped someone I know win a 12 team league complete with former industry professionals and a guy who had a fantasy baseball radio show. That’s not bad. Another person used my football rankings and also won his league. How did I do? Well, I tried very hard and that’s the important thing.

I believe I rank pretty well, and have reasoning behind it, but remember, don’t take my opinions as gospel. If you used my guide, make sure you research yourself. There’s a reason people get paid to write about fantasy, and why I’m writing for free… as far as you know. Just remember if you’re going to read expert advice, take caution with ESPN’s Eric Karabell. He once recommended Jim Thome, three years after he retired. He hates anyone with upside and hasn’t followed a player outside of Philadelphia since he got tenured. Remember, the information you read will shape your opinion. Try not to make your opinion shaped like a pinhead.

Here’s the article schedule for the baseball season. I will try to have everything posted prior to the 3/24 the weekend where most drafts occur. My draft is on 3/22, so I might beat that projection, but we’ll see. Posts will probably go up on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday may also be a possibility. I don’t intend to change the normal blog releases, so good luck to my fingers, and my work productivity.

Intro – Today, surprise!

Catcher – 3/6

First Base 3/8

Second Base – 3/10 or 3/11

Third Base – 3/11 or 3/13

Short Stop – 3/13 or 3/15

Outfielder – 3/15, 17, or 3/18

Starting Pitcher – 3/17, 3/18 or 3/20

Relief Pitcher – 3/18, 3/20 or 3/22 – I may not do relief pitcher based on time. It’s pretty straight forward.

Mock Draft – I’ll try to sprinkle in one or two to give you an idea.

Mets 2018 Season Preview – Last Blog Post before the start of the MLB season. This will be 3/28. Expect this to be the angriest post of the year.

I do not know if I’ll be doing a full rank of players. Honestly, it’s difficult to rank players since so many specialize in different things where the rankings wont matter after a few rounds of the draft. I may give it a shot, but it could be pretty difficult. If there’s demand, I’ll do what a kind.

For now, sit back, relax, and enjoy some advanced stat definitions. Let Bloggin Hood handle the heavy lifting while you focus on your team name. Make sure it’s offensive. It lowers your pitching rations by .1. That’s a good discount.

Advanced Stats – Hitters

BABIP (Especially with HR/Fly Ball%) – Batting Average of Balls in Play. This removes walks, strikeouts and homeruns to determine what the remaining at bat average is (Yes, HRs are technically never in play). The league average is right around .300, so anything much lower means the player is getting unlucky, and anything higher means regression is coming. Be careful though, .300 is the average player. A star likely has a higher BABIP. Look at historical BABIP data to see what a particular player’s average is. A guy like Mike Trout will be higher than a backup middle infielder. Unless that middle infielder is somehow also Mike Trout (unlikely).

HR/FlyBall% – This should be pretty obvious, but it determines what percentage of a player’s fly balls were Homeruns. An oddly high number is usually a sign for regression, but just like with BABIP, review the player’s history as the baseline can vary from hitter to hitter. Fly Ball% on its own can tell you a lot of player’s power potential. A player who hits too many grounders will never be an elite power source. Likewise, the player with a high fly ball rate may hit more homeruns, but doesn’t project to be a great source of average. Really, a player’s batted ball’s profile helps a lot in determining a player’s potential stats. Batted Balls is a pretty funny phrase too.

K%, BB%, – These stats show how disciplined a hitter is. A high strikeout rate usually means there’s no change for a sustainable high average. A low BB% means players are likely chasing pitches and making weak contact. If the k% is above 25%, it’s certainly alarming, but you’ll often see that with power hitters. If a high K% is coupled with a high walk rate (around 8-10%), that’s a good sign. It’s good to view both of these metrics together, though I feel BB% is a more telling sign of a disciplined hitter. Players today don’t care about strikeouts. Chicks dig the long ball anyway.

ISO – The best stat for pure power. This is calculated by subtracting batting average to slugging percentage (SLG – Avg, in case I wrote it wrong. I’m bad at putting math into words). This really illustrates how often a player is getting extra base hits, and gives double and triples their due. An iso of .185 or more is a sign of a power hitter, or a slap hitter who gets lucky a lot.

OPS – Combining On Base Percentage and Slugging, this is the best stat for the true worth of a hitter. Anyone over .900 is a superstar, and anyone in the mid .800s is pretty darn good. This is a mainstream stat now, so I don’t see any reason to detail it. Also, I’m getting tired of this column and see the light at the end of the typing tunnel.

Advanced Stats – Pitchers

FIP – The stat that probably makes the least amount of sense, FIP calculates a pitcher’s ERA devoid of defensive influence (Fielding independent pitching). It really doesn’t work logically, but the idea is that this calculates how good a pitcher is removing all the factors he cannot control. It adjusts for park, and assumes average defense, which is probably the most frustrating part of the stat. FIP needs to be used with ERA for a fantasy advantage, as a big difference should determine what the pitcher will do going forward. If a pitcher’s FIP is significantly lower than his ERA (half a run or more), you can expect the luck to turn around. If the FIP is higher than the ERA, it might be a good time to sell high. Now, FIP can’t predict when the luck will change around, but it’s a good tool to gauge the future.

There’s also X-FIP but I don’t have a calculus degree. Heck, most people question my English degree on a day-to-day basis.

K% BB % – Pretty much the inverse for hitters, but these stats are much more important for pitchers. Strikeouts are the best out a pitcher can record. It limits any change of fluke hits (bloopers, seeing eye singles, every Royals hit for the past 3 seasons) that can lead to damage, or even productive outs, like sacrifice flies moving runners over. It also encourages the pitcher can put away hitters. While strikeouts can sometimes lead to elevated pitch counts, it also limits damage. When it doubt, you want strikeout artists over everything. Complimenting K% with swinging strike rate is the best way to tell who has the nastiest stuff. Well, outside of Queens of course.

Walks are a trouble sign for pitcher. A few walks aren’t an issue, and a lot of time can be strategic. But a pitcher who gives free passes, even if he strikes out a ton of batters, is risky business. The more free passes a pitcher allows, the greater change it comes back to haunt him. You want pitchers who at least make the hitters earn it. Ideally, you want guys with 2.5 more Ks than walks, but the higher the strikeout rates, the more walks you can accept. But if you see guys with a high walk rate, you should look the other way.

HR/9 – The worst thing a pitcher can do is give up a homerun. Oh, it’s just the worst. So why not use a stat that can let you know just how many long balls a starter gives up. In many ways, this can tell if a bad year was a fluke, or if a good year was a mirage. Just like with BABIP and HR/Fly Ball Rate, use a pitchers historical data to determine this. But generally speaking if its over 1 HR per 9 innings, that’s not good.

Number of Tommy John and/or thoracic outlet syndrome surgeries – I mean, it doesn’t hurt to know.

1. *The NCAA Tournament is the only tournament in history where the last games are significantly less exciting as the opening rounds. The first two rounds of the tournament are the best. There’s 12 hours of basketball, and all sorts of buzzer beaters, upsets and gambling opportunities. The final four is just a few college basketball games, which is honestly not that good. I only watch the final four if there’s a huge NBA prospect, Kansas or Gonzaga involved. Otherwise, I’ll pass.
2. **I know, I’m making a huge reach here, but just go with it.